Is anyone else Roswell-ed out?

[PararealitySaint]

All I've said is that the Roswell saucer wreckage was picked up by the US military and examined.

And what proof is there of this? That A. There was a "saucer" and that B. there was any "wreckage" whatsoever?

From what the U.S. Military eventually went with, this was nothing more than a "weather Balloon" eventually considered Mogul, etc. They emphatically denied any "wreckage" of any "saucer" and that was my point in asking you.

As for what came out of that effort, you would have to ask the guys who examined the materials. I personally suspect that if we humans are as smart as the skeptics say we are, that it would only be a matter of time before we figured out how to replicate some of it.

Once again, who is it I should ask? The "guys" who examined what? As far as any "guys" examining anything, they have pictures of a military officer holding up what looks like the ruined end of a weather balloon....So I would probably have a great deal of trouble finding anyone to discuss this with because it never happened.

As for "evidence" you need to remember that in our daily existence there is very little "evidence" for most of what we take for granted. For example, show me the "evidence" that anything material actually exists. Sure it seems "real", but the closer you look the less "real" it gets, until it's nothing more than strange energy "fields" separated mostly by emptiness. In the end you can't really "prove" anything actually "exists". We can only surmise that it does by virtue of perception and consciousness, which are something else we don't fully understand.

What? Sorry, the eastern philosophical "Grasshopper" lesson isn't warranted here. There is ABSOLUTELY nothing to examine, ask about, or in fact find.

What is for certain is that whatever crashed there that day, if, and this is a big "if", if anything actually crashed there at all, has never come to the light of day....There is no metal, there is no E.T. bodies, there is no saucer or craft or anything at all except some old shriveled up foil from a weather balloon.

 

[Ron Collins]

The reality is that Roswell remains a valid and enigmatic case. It can't be proved or disproved. The MOGUL balloon story is asinine. RAAF was a base that launched weather balloons, Fort Worth was not. So, to swallow the balloon story we have to believe that an entire base of guys couldn't look a this wreckage and see it as a balloon. BUT, the guys at Fort Worth immediately recognized it.

One the other hand, the Roswell "witnesses" haven't exactly been a squeaky clean or consistent bunch either. Contradictory, inconsistent, and flat wrong testimony has plague the investigation for years.

Roswell is like Jason Voorhees, it will never really die. No matter how many stakes you drive in it, it just has a will to live. AND, if you are honest, you have to listen every time a new witness comes forward or some new thread is attached. Why? Because the case is a metaphor for all of Ufology. If interest in it ever really dies it would be a devastating blow to the field. Of course, that is just my opinion.

 

[boomerang]

I think Roswell continues to fascinate for the same reason the subject of UFOs continues to fascinate. We have on record, both written and film/video, testimony of incredible things on the part of credible people. First hand statements by The elder and junior Marcels and General Exon alone should be enough to raise serious interest. Not to mention the monumental press release, and testimony by at least a handful of credible residents regarding a very heavy handed cover up.

Is there much left to learn from Roswell? Barring the release of some long buried official documents, it doesn't seem so.

Personally, I think the event currently the most deserving of attention is Rendlesham. It's history is relatively recent, the witnesses are still alive and many seem willing to talk.

 

[Trajanus]

All I've said is that the Roswell saucer wreckage was picked up by the US military and examined. As for what came out of that effort, you would have to ask the guys who examined the materials. I personally suspect that if we humans are as smart as the skeptics say we are, that it would only be a matter of time before we figured out how to replicate some of it.

Right, I assume we'd reach their level eventually even without such a windfall.

 

[PararealitySaint]

We have on record, both written and film/video, testimony of incredible things on the part of credible people.

Boomerang, that's all fine and good, but here is the problem I have and why I mentioned this before. In 67 years since the supposed crash at Roswell, and even with every "credible" eyewitness to such an incredible happening, not one single solitary shred of physical evidence has ever seen the light of day. Not one of these "credible" people have so much as presented one iota, that's including Lazar and his element 115, the Marcel's and their "rubber metal", the crash wreckage with not one bit of debris being presented by anyone in all these years, the E.T. bodies without one "genuine" (as in real) photograph for even a substitute to physical proof of bodies being found there.....nothing.

Rendlesham is turning out to be the same situation....a lot of eyewitnesses as to what happened, some credible and some so truly out there that even the investigators are having problems believing them.

And once again.....no physical data....nothing but eyewitnesses to a happening which in many of our standards was admittedly quite strange. I for one believe that this world is a very strange place, filled with happenings we human beings have no idea why they happen. But to immediately tag a "oh it has to be extraterrestrial in origin" and listen to fanatics like Linda Molten Howe swear up and down this proves E.T. must exist is just plain ludicrous. Her and her ilk have just as much proof that these happenings originated from outer-space as I have that they didn't. The difference is I am willing to call my "opinions" and "theories" just that, opinions and theories and not allow for a person's "eye" witness report to be immediately justified as credence and factual, or evidence of anything but simple observation of something strange occurring.

Anything less would be dishonest.

---------- Post added at 12:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:43 PM ----------

Right, I assume we'd reach their level eventually even without such a windfall.

Someone begin to sing, "Fantasies will come true, they will happen to you, if your young at heart...."

 

[Ron Collins]

Boomerang, that's all fine and good, but here is the problem I have and why I mentioned this before. In 67 years since the supposed crash at Roswell, and even with every "credible" eyewitness to such an incredible happening, not one single solitary shred of physical evidence has ever seen the light of day. Not one of these "credible" people have so much as presented one iota, that's including Lazar and his element 115, the Marcel's and their "rubber metal", the crash wreckage with not one bit of debris being presented by anyone in all these years, the E.T. bodies without one "genuine" (as in real) photograph for even a substitute to physical proof of bodies being found there.....nothing.

Rendlesham is turning out to be the same situation....a lot of eyewitnesses as to what happened, some credible and some so truly out there that even the investigators are having problems believing them.

And once again.....no physical data....nothing but eyewitnesses to a happening which in many of our standards was admittedly quite strange. I for one believe that this world is a very strange place, filled with happenings we human beings have no idea why they happen. But to immediately tag a "oh it has to be extraterrestrial in origin" and listen to fanatics like Linda Molten Howe swear up and down this proves E.T. must exist is just plain ludicrous. Her and her ilk have just as much proof that these happenings originated from outer-space as I have that they didn't. The difference is I am willing to call my "opinions" and "theories" just that, opinions and theories and not allow for a person's "eye" witness report to be immediately justified as credence and factual, or evidence of anything but simple observation of something strange occurring.

I hear what you are saying and I agree, not one piece of physical evidence exists. However, there are tons of circumstantial evidence. If the FBI could not find one shred of physical evidence to suggest a murder but had thousands witnesses to various aspects of the murder, they could arrest, charge, convict, and levy capital punishment given that amount of circumstantial evidence. There is no chance all the witnesses would have their sanity questioned, be mocked, or have their testimony thrown back in their face sighting the human minds need to invent things. This is not an inconsequential comparison. It is an absolutely valid one.

Absence of physical evidence is not evidence of absence. You have heard it before, but that doesn't mean it is less valid. Sometimes circumstantial evidence is good enough to show validity of an occurrence. Can the nature of the occurrence be absolutely and unquestionably ascertained by circumstantial evidence alone? No. It can not. But it should serve as a wake up call and at very least a spawn concerted effort to investigate every aspect of the occurrence until it is all conclusively verified to be mundane.

I think that is what frustrates me about how people always demand 100% conclusive evidence for UFO's and associated phenomenon. If you don't have this elusive "evidence" then it is simply untrue. That sort of binary thinking has always been a stumbling block in technological and intellectual pursuits. It has NEVER been show to aid in anything other than prolonging our collective ignorance.

 

[boomerang]

Boomerang, that's all fine and good, but here is the problem I have and why I mentioned this before. In 67 years since the supposed crash at Roswell, and even with every "credible" eyewitness to such an incredible happening, not one single solitary shred of physical evidence has ever seen the light of day. Not one of these "credible" people have so much as presented one iota, that's including Lazar and his element 115, the Marcel's and their "rubber metal", the crash wreckage with not one bit of debris being presented by anyone in all these years, the E.T. bodies without one "genuine" (as in real) photograph for even a substitute to physical proof of bodies being found there.....nothing.

To clarify my point about the foundation of the UFO mystery: One high strangeness anecdote by one or even a small group of highly credible people we may ascribe to "noise in the system". Hundreds if not thousands of such reports constitute evidence of something. Are highly credible people hallucinating ( singly and in groups), confabulating, lying for personal gain, lying on behalf of a third party, or experiencing something they perceive as real? Is the human animal's faculty for perception and recall, or it's mental and social stability, so poor as to simply shrug this off as so much sociological 'noise'?

 

[PararealitySaint]

If you don't have this elusive "evidence" then it is simply untrue. That sort of binary thinking has always been a stumbling block in technological and intellectual pursuits. It has NEVER been show to aid in anything other than prolonging our collective ignorance.

Frank tells me that he really believes that martians landed on his lawn last night, and unfortunately, due to the fact that they didn't hang around to take pictures, he only can present an eyewitness statement, which read that the craft glowed a mystical white and hovered over his lawn for about 10 minutes before zooming out into the night sky.

Two kids next door were practicing an ancient form of Druidism, conjuring with a blessed oak staff, and watched as a strange looking orb of light formed in front of their eyes.....they used to be called willow-o-the-wisps back in old Ireland. The kids watched as the strange thing grew in size and proportion, rose out of their room, turned left, and floated down in front of Frank's lawn.

The next day Frank chattered away to the press that it definitely was an extraterrestrial craft he beheld, because the object flew up and then off into the dark "space" of night after it touched down.

None of them had pictures, film, rubber metal, element 115, little gray alien bodies....just their word, but you know what....The two kids didn't chatter about what they were doing because their dad was a strict disciplinarian and they were up way past their bed time.

Was it an extraterrestrial vehicle that Frank witnessed?
Was it the willow-o-the-wisp the kids conjured, or was it an extraterrestrial craft which just happened to drop down inside their bedroom while they were summoning....kind of like the Pleadeans do when they possess Barbara M?
I know, maybe it was Dr. Boylan finally showing us the evidence of a star seed's latest physic friend's power.

Well Ron, the moral of the story is, without that physical evidence to actually maintain a "what" for the happening, neither the boys or Frank, or even the media can state for the record worth any weight, that what transpired that evening was anything more than a, "light anomaly" and MOVE ON.

The point here is that well wishing isn't going to make the answer to the "what" behind the happening anymore real, and by the way, true ignorance is sugar coating a story which happened 67 years ago without any of the supposed evidence actually there to show for it. Whatever happened in Roswell could have just as easily been military, ex-nazi, demonic, extraterrestrial, or even dare I say it......NOTHING at all but someone's really bad practical joke.

Without the evidence in actuality taking away the ongoing and overtly sad at times "collective" ignorance of the many eyewitness stories, anyone....or any "thing" fits.

.

 

[Ron Collins]

Frank tells me that he really believes that martians landed on his lawn last night, and unfortunately, due to the fact that they didn't hang around to take pictures, he only can present an eyewitness statement, which read that the craft glowed a mystical white and hovered over his lawn for about 10 minutes before zooming out into the night sky.

Two kids next door were practicing an ancient form of Druidism, conjuring with a blessed oak staff, and watched as a strange looking orb of light formed in front of their eyes.....they used to be called willow-o-the-wisps back in old Ireland. The kids watched as the strange thing grew in size and proportion, rose out of their room, turned left, and floated down in front of Frank's lawn.

The next day Frank chattered away to the press that it definitely was an extraterrestrial craft he beheld, because the object flew up and then off into the dark "space" of night after it touched down.

None of them had pictures, film, rubber metal, element 115, little gray alien bodies....just their word, but you know what....The two kids didn't chatter about what they were doing because their dad was a strict disciplinarian and they were up way past their bed time.

Was it an extraterrestrial vehicle that Frank witnessed?
Was it the willow-o-the-wisp the kids conjured, or was it an extraterrestrial craft which just happened to drop down inside their bedroom while they were summoning....kind of like the Pleadeans do when they possess Barbara M?
I know, maybe it was Dr. Boylan finally showing us the evidence of a star seed's latest physic friend's power.

Well Ron, the moral of the story is, without that physical evidence to actually maintain a "what" for the happening, neither the boys or Frank, or even the media can state for the record worth any weight, that what transpired that evening was anything more than a, "light anomaly" and MOVE ON.

The point here is that well wishing isn't going to make the answer to the "what" behind the happening anymore real, and by the way, true ignorance is sugar coating a story which happened 67 years ago without any of the supposed evidence actually there to show for it. Whatever happened in Roswell could have just as easily been military, ex-nazi, demonic, extraterrestrial, or even dare I say it......NOTHING at all but someone's really bad practical joke.

Without the evidence in actuality taking away the ongoing and overtly sad at times "collective" ignorance of the many eyewitness stories, anyone....or any "thing" fits.

.

And without investigation we would never really know. So what is your point? That we should ignore all claims until the claimant produces irrefutable evidence? I am not saying that evidence isn't needed. Quite the contrary actually. But waving your intellectual hand dismisively spouting the endless rephrasology of the classic "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" dribble without intent or interest in serious and deliberate investigation is at best disingenuous and lazy. To be interested and engaged in researching a subject matter that is supported by the shear volume of circumstantial evidence as this phenomenon should not be scoffed. The effort should be joined by acedamia and then perhaps we could finally find that elusive evidence.

Or, we perhaps your sentiment is right and we should merely bury our heads in the sand and prettend that the world makes absolute sense and nothing of significant relevance is even remotely plausible

 

[Trajanus]

I hear what you are saying and I agree, not one piece of physical evidence exists. However, there are tons of circumstantial evidence. If the FBI could not find one shred of physical evidence to suggest a murder but had thousands witnesses to various aspects of the murder, they could arrest, charge, convict, and levy capital punishment given that amount of circumstantial evidence. There is no chance all the witnesses would have their sanity questioned, be mocked, or have their testimony thrown back in their face sighting the human minds need to invent things. This is not an inconsequential comparison. It is an absolutely valid one.

Absence of physical evidence is not evidence of absence. You have heard it before, but that doesn't mean it is less valid. Sometimes circumstantial evidence is good enough to show validity of an occurrence. Can the nature of the occurrence be absolutely and unquestionably ascertained by circumstantial evidence alone? No. It can not. But it should serve as a wake up call and at very least a spawn concerted effort to investigate every aspect of the occurrence until it is all conclusively verified to be mundane.

I think that is what frustrates me about how people always demand 100% conclusive evidence for UFO's and associated phenomenon. If you don't have this elusive "evidence" then it is simply untrue. That sort of binary thinking has always been a stumbling block in technological and intellectual pursuits. It has NEVER been show to aid in anything other than prolonging our collective ignorance.

Right, and in the case of Roswell, we have a very good explanation for "lack of physical evidence" or rather lack of access to it for us laymen: a number of witnesses saw it confiscated by the military. Even after the main cleanup at the ranch, they came to take away a few scraps found later by Bill Brazel. If there is a "lack" of evidence, it says more about the government than it does about UFOlogy or roswell.

 

[PararealitySaint]

Or, we perhaps your sentiment is right and we should merely bury our heads in the sand and prettend that the world makes absolute sense and nothing of significant relevance is even remotely plausible

No, perhaps my sentiment is right and we should give it the credence it deserves....file it as an extraordinary circumstance, one which should be understood as thus alone and shouldn't be sugar coated with the Dr. Dan's and Boylan's of the world.

I do not believe we should suppress the truth about what the people experienced, but I do believe that the main reason why "academia" tends to ignore thus is because there isn't anything other than words to utilize in order to formulate a justified hypothesis based on a lack of scientifically fecundated material. To state that just because a diverse amount of people had seen something, doesn't make it extraterrestrial any more than it makes it terrestrial.

My original point was that in the context of "Roswell-ed out", and because of a lack of any material evidence, you cannot beat a dead horse no matter how much you'd like to believe your endeavor will make the carcass ride-able again.

 

[Ron Collins]

No, perhaps my sentiment is right and we should give it the credence it deserves....file it as an extraordinary circumstance, one which should be understood as thus alone and shouldn't be sugar coated with the Dr. Dan's and Boylan's of the world.

I do not believe we should suppress the truth about what the people experienced, but I do believe that the main reason why "academia" tends to ignore thus is because there isn't anything other than words to utilize in order to formulate a justified hypothesis based on a lack of scientifically fecundated material. To state that just because a diverse amount of people had seen something, doesn't make it extraterrestrial any more than it makes it terrestrial.

My original point was that in the context of "Roswell-ed out", and because of a lack of any material evidence, you cannot beat a dead horse no matter how much you'd like to believe your endeavor will make the carcass ride-able again.

I have never and I will never advocate assigning origin to the phenomenon with conclusive evidence. So you will hear no argument from me on that front. But, I do contend that denying the issue has relevance on the basis that many choose to assign their own origin hypothesis to the phenomenon is merely different sides of the same shortsided and scientifically dishonest coin.

It is easy to talk about a lack of evidence and all the other oft recited rederick when one remains ignorant of case details and is too fast to ignore eyewitness testimony. I still have never been shown this peer reviewed study about the validity of eyewitness testimony. Surely there has to be one right? I mean the same folks tat demand evidence sure like to declare that eyewitnesses are unreliable. I can only assume that such a profound study exists and is particularly damning. Though the courts of the world seem to not be aware of it. Perhaps you know were we can locate a copy of it?

As for Roswell, most likey we will never know the true nature of the material nor the events of those days. But, that doesn't mean we should give up. Do physicist just stop looking fir a unifying theory because previous attempts have failed? No, they keep plugging away. Persistence can pay off. So, honestly, I sway back and forth on my Roswell tolerance. At times I hate it. At others I find myself hopelessly intrigued. Without question it is still compelling. But, I think other cases and it's own lack of movement have caused a loss in research relevance. But, perhaps it is just one rusty old coffee can away from being the Holy Grail of Ufology. Who knows.

 

[PararealitySaint]

It is easy to talk about a lack of evidence and all the other oft recited rederick when one remains ignorant of case details and is too fast to ignore eyewitness testimony.

Rederick? Sorry, I couldn't find that word in the English Dictionary. I am assuming you meant "rhetoric" and I will answer using this word instead.

Are you accusing me as in "one", or are you utilizing the example in a third person here? I pray the latter because if you are inferring the former, it proves beyond doubt a bias too committed toward one side and thus truly ignorant of a viable argumentative discussion. In this case anyone providing any point of interest to the contrary would be wasting their time in this precondition.

On another note, I had begun study of the Roswell case, paranormal phenomena, Occultism and many other aspects of the unknown during a time when you were a toddler, and I can assure you of one very important point here, eyewitness testimony was all I and many others I grew up with ever had to go on, and unfortunately to this day, all there is to go on.

Once again, good vibes alone make for a very limited and very poor evidential read no matter how many eye witnesses exaggerate or even tell the truth in the process....without the meat all you are left with is the bone.

Case closed.

 

[Trajanus]

As for Roswell, most likey we will never know the true nature of the material nor the events of those days. But, that doesn't mean we should give up. Do physicist just stop looking fir a unifying theory because previous attempts have failed? No, they keep plugging away. Persistence can pay off.

IMO the full truth will eventually be known but only when the government is ready--maybe 2050--2100. UFOlogists will never find out by themselves.

 

[Randall]

And what proof is there of this? That A. There was a "saucer" and that B. there was any "wreckage" whatsoever? From what the U.S. Military eventually went with, this was nothing more than a "weather Balloon" eventually considered Mogul, etc. They emphatically denied any "wreckage" of any "saucer" and that was my point in asking you.

PS

You ask for proof and you are presented with the numerous eywitness accounts and the official USAF press release stating the USAF had recovered a crashed disk, but you simply dismiss it. In any a court of law, the initial statements made by witnesses carry significant evidentiary weight because they are deemed to have had less exposure to contamination, and you have it right in front of you in print, yet you choose to ignore it and divert to cherry picking only the "evidence" you would consider to be "proof", knowing full well that isn't available for civilian exeamination.


If you are genuinely interested in finding the so-called "proof" for your impossible standards, then perhaps you should cut the armchair quarterbacking and go do some field work. If you're still young enough, you can join the military and work your way up to the clearance level you need to see the evidence for yourself. Expecting other people to go do the work for you while dissmissing their efforts only demonstrates the extent you will go to to remain uninformed enough to justify your position.

 

[Ron Collins]

Rederick? Sorry, I couldn't find that word in the English Dictionary. I am assuming you meant "rhetoric" and I will answer using this word instead.

Yeah... my spelling sucks. It was the first casualty of a lifetime of programming. Unfortunately I now depend largely on spell check. Sadly the iPad version sucks. So I will accept the admonishment. Please dont let that alone condemn me as a rube... there are much better examples of that yet to be discovered.

Are you accusing me as in "one", or are you utilizing the example in a third person here? I pray the latter because if you are inferring the former, it proves beyond doubt a bias too committed toward one side and thus truly ignorant of a viable argumentative discussion. In this case anyone providing any point of interest to the contrary would be wasting their time in this precondition.

This was a general statement. I should, in fairness, state that my major gripe with the true believer crowd is that they remain ignorant of case detail and reasoning surrounding possible mundane or terrestrial explanations. If you talk to many of those that like to label themselves as skeptics you discover very quickly that the majority are decidedly ignorant to case detail. If you wish, I can give chapter and verse.

On another note, I had begun study of the Roswell case, paranormal phenomena, Occultism and many other aspects of the unknown during a time when you were a toddler, and I can assure you of one very important point here, eyewitness testimony was all I and many others I grew up with ever had to go on, and unfortunately to this day, all there is to go on.

For the Roswell case, I certainly agree. There is no more to go on and baring a half rusted coffee can full of memory metal finding its way to the media, there never will be.

Now as the rest of the phenomenon goes, this is simply not true. We have video, photographic, radar, sonar, and physical trace evidence. Perhaps that is what makes the Roswell story so damned compelling. It has survived on the merits of the story and the small bits of real data that scream cover and concealment. The GAO finding the correspondence conveniently destroyed with no order to do so, the multiple explanations offered by the Air Force, the deathbed confessions, and all the accumulated anecdotal evidence that has been amassed. Yet, no real physical proof. Is it any wonder the story has survived?

Once again, good vibes alone make for a very limited and very poor evidential read no matter how many eye witnesses exaggerate or even tell the truth in the process....without the meat all you are left with is the bone.

Case closed.

Case closed? perhaps that should read "I Give Up". Perhaps that is a more honest statement.

 

[PararealitySaint]

Case closed? perhaps that should read "I Give Up". Perhaps that is a more honest statement.

Honestly I wish I had something to "give" up on. When you take a chicken, compare it to a game cock, throw it on the presentation table and explain it's in the same family so why not consider it so, it just doesn't make it.

After all the "cases", after all the phenomenon, after everything there is to purport how it must be "extra-terrestrial", nothing whatsoever "physically driven" is there to back the claim. I am in the area of belief that acknowledges something is happening....I am just not ready to dawn on my Captain Video helmet and take the pledge.

 

[Randall]

Honestly I wish I had something to "give" up on. When you take a chicken, compare it to a game cock, throw it on the presentation table and explain it's in the same family so why not consider it so, it just doesn't make it.

After all the "cases", after all the phenomenon, after everything there is to purport how it must be "extra-terrestrial", nothing whatsoever "physically driven" is there to back the claim. I am in the area of belief that acknowledges something is happening....I am just not ready to dawn on my Captain Video helmet and take the pledge.

If you had said that the admission by the USAF that they had recovered a flying disk and the testimony of the people who handled the physical material isn't good enough for you, I could accept that.


I can also accept that the "Captain Video Helmets" among us are too easily swayed. I would even advocate your stance further, going so far as to say that ultimately, videos, stories, documentaries and newspapers aren't really "proof" of anything. However one still can not fairly conclude that "nothing whatsoever 'physically driven' " exists simply because one has never been given personal physical access to it. When it comes to UFOs, unless you have seen one yourself, and I mean something you would personally consider definitive, you are left only with anecdotal evidence, a lot of it, too much for it all to be simply written off and ignored; too much for any reasonable skeptic who takes the time to wade through it not to admit that the probability that Earth has been host to alien visitors is too small to safely bet against.

 

[PararealitySaint]

If you had said that the admission by the USAF that they had recovered a flying disk and the testimony of the people who handled the physical material isn't good enough for you, I could accept that.


I can also accept that the "Captain Video Helmets" among us are too easily swayed. I would even advocate your stance further, going so far as to say that ultimately, videos, stories, documentaries and newspapers aren't really "proof" of anything. However one still can not fairly conclude that "nothing whatsoever 'physically driven' " exists simply because one has never been given personal physical access to it. When it comes to UFOs, unless you have seen one yourself, and I mean something you would personally consider definitive, you are left only with anecdotal evidence, a lot of it, too much for it all to be simply written off and ignored; too much for any reasonable skeptic who takes the time to wade through it not to admit that the probability that Earth has been host to alien visitors is too small to safely bet against.

FINALLY! My hat is off to you honorable sir. I agree with what you have to say in this post, 100% and am happy to see that you understand that:

1. I never said there wasn't the possibility of extraterrestrial life. My personal opinion is that they haven't visited with us as of yet, and might just be something different that "E.T." if they have anyway. No one knows either way and that is how it should be left until something more scientifically evidential comes along.
2. That it is true....just because we don't have physical evidence of its existence that we should give up. Quite the contrary my friend, I believe we should endeavor to increase investigations, just leave out the Dr. Boylan and Linda Howes of the world if and when that road is traveled. My original point is that there are too many Captain Videos in the world with preconceived notions, and not enough die hard skeptics willing to balance any and all information presented.
3. If I was the Director of MUFON, the first official clarification I would enforce to the public would be to state that we have absolutely no contact or scientific evidence whatsoever proving that E.T.s exist. I would then go on to claim that it is the function of MUFON to report and archive actual incidents of Unidentified Flying Objects to a degree in which no "opinionated" support as to pro or con of the clarification of existence is a must.
4. Lastly, why I find you so refreshing here "UFOLOGY" is because you are willing to admit we have a long way to go and that anyone, either pro or con in this arena is kidding himself if they think they have the answer.

I agree that something is happening out there which we cannot explain away as natural weather anomalies, or weather balloons persay. I do not agree that it's advantageous or good for the cause to jump to conclusions and state that just because a lot of people witnessed something happening, that it is immediately Mork from Ork and we should all drop our pants and be willing to take the "I told you so" fitting....

Roswell was a perfect example of people jumping the gun. It took thirty years of dusting off the shelf before they were ready to once again spew forth how it had to be E.T. You know why? Not because of some devilish cover up by the U.S. like people today would have you believe....But honestly because everyone living then at the time knew it wasn't little creatures from outer space which crashed in the desert. They heard from the farmer himself that it was a crash, but the debris found wasn't anything remotely pointing to a special extraterrestrial event. It wasn't until Friedman and his ilk persuaded an old man who changed his story more times than hair was leaving his head, to come out with his alien sighting that things began to fester to the point of the crappy ridiculousness we have on the subject today.

It's the main reason why as a skeptic I hold out for justifiable evidence and cannot stand the "eye witness" stories changing over and over again....In the case of Roswell it was an out and out lie.

 

[Randall]

FINALLY! My hat is off to you honorable sir. I agree with what you have to say ...

It's nice to finally reach some common ground; and I completely agree that we need skeptics. What we don't need are unconstructive skeptics, ones who resort to denegration and/or cherry-picking bad data to use in their campaigns to write off the whole phenomenon. Thankfully you have not become one of those, but you are somewhere right of center with respect to your present view, meaning that from our limited exchanges, it seems that you have been exposed to some heavy doses of garbage that have clogged your filtering to the point of rejecting some of the good data too. However your passion for the topic is something found in very few, even among the "believers" and I think it would be a loss to the ufology community to lose you to the rabid debunkers. So I offer you the opportunity here to restore the balance.


In my mind there is no doubt that Earth has been, and probably still is being visited by aliens and alien technology. I believe this, not simply because I have seen a UFO myself, but because even if I hadn't, I have talked with, read about, or seen interviews with so many others who have, that it is simply unreasonable to believe they are all mistaken or lying.


Regarding Roswell in particular, I didn't hear about it from Friedman. I first read about it in a book by Berlitz, who was among the first to write about it, prior to it becoming sensationalized. Since then it has been investigated by debunkers and ufologists and neither has any "proof" that a UFO didn't crash. There seems however to be enough evidence in the form of multiple witnesses testimony, and backed by the initial USAF press release, to substantially support the view that something out of the ordinary and beyond earthly technology was recovered. What exactly it was, I don't claim to know; but even having said this much, the Roswell incident alone would still not be sufficient for me to form my present view.

For me, the Roswell incident is only one of many interesting accounts. There are countless others, many of which are better in terms of adding weight, among them the radar/visual sightings and the many sightings by sane reputable individuals who can tell the difference between something manmade and something out of this world.


I consider myself to be a fair and balanced skeptic, and I do not hesitate for a moment to say that I stand in unison with all those people who honestly know by the evidence of their own unimpaired senses that they have seen an alien transport. There are simply too many of us to fairly label as wrong or liars. Perhaps someday you will be able to join us. In the mean time, If you would like to discuss the better cases and research, I'd be happy to do that with you. You don't have to see one yourself to eventually come to understand the truth.