Is the ETH just folklore?

[Angel of Ioren]

I've seen some interesting things in the sky; stuff that made me do a double take. Once I reached for my iPhone, every single time, the object turned into something I understood - either a plane, a helicopter, or a bird. These experiences has made me realize that in many cases, people have misunderstood what they saw. I really doubt that there are many people lying about their sightings. I just think that many times, they just didn't figure out what they actually saw, which is completely understandable.

 

[ALPHA ROMEO UNIFORM]

Yes there is miss understanding by some eyewitness and one day you might encounter or see something which will blow your mind of understanding Angelo. However, those who have experience/eyewitness a "X File encounter " changes them for life it seems. Many seem to keep looking for answers and wonder of the centuries how many folks have been manipulated or changed by these encounters? Furthermore, reminds me of Roman Legion's wonder what they thought when encountering Druids for first time in Wales and Celtics of Brittany.

 

[boomerang]

There is, from a practical point of view, little difference between interstellar space travellers and interdimensionals (not manyhave any idea what they're talking about there), visitors from a parallel universe, or time travellers. None of them originate local to us, and come from places we no nothing of (well, at least we know a little about outer space) by means we know nothing of, for purposes we know nothing of. The only difference is that we do know that outer space exists, is vast, and is full of habitable planets. We do not know that other dimensions (especially habitable ones) exist, or that time travel is possible.

This is near the crux of the matter. When speculating about intelligences capable of behaviors involving manipulation of time, space, matter and mind exhibited by this phenomenon, we don't even have the right questions, much less answers. This is not an invocation of unfathomable "magic" beyond the pale of logic. It's another way of quoting Greg Bishop's observation that we are attempting to unravel a mystery using rules of evidence caused by a phenomenon that does not adhere to traditional rules of evidence.

 

[Heidi Lemmer]

Funny Burnt, the only answer in that poll that was stated seriously was the one you abide by. The rest of the poll is a mish mash of "goofy" options. What was the point of the poll? Mere amusement?

 

[Cosmos007]

This has to be the biggest debate in ufology and is worthy of a revisit for anyone who wants to stake their claim. Since the beginning of the phenomena in the modern era the earliest suspicions were that these were little green men from mars. In fact the more science investigated it the more it seemed that an advanced species was in fact visiting us, monitoring us, perhaps even taking samples from not just the soil but from us as well.

But many believe that this is a tired refrain and an highly inaccurate one. For one who can't access the video above which not only provides a condenstation of UFO investigation but it outlines five main arguments against the ETH courtesy of Vallée who first provided Ufology with a comprehensive pro-ETH argument. But the more Vallée investigated, the more he realized that the evidence just did not add up.

His main contentions were:

1. How many millions of visits are needed to get the exploratory science right? Is it reasonable to believe that all the junior Ph.D.'s in the local galactic cluster are getting their papers through probing us earthlings? How much data do they need?
2. The craft do not act like nuts and bolts at all, though they provide that appearance. But frequently they are reported as having just appeared and just as suddenly disappeared. They move through objects and appear to be moving in and out of dimensions. Some just plain dissolve and defy what we know about physics. They are both material and immaterial.
3. The aliens appear to look relatively like us, breathe our air and behave like we do in our gravity. How the hell does that work? Aren't we the only super smart species that evolved on this planet?
4. What's up with all the primitive, sadistic and psychologically scaring abductions? Much like the soil samples, just how many humans do you need do violate using such arcane, and as Chris O'Brien recently described, medieval methods?
5. There is evidence to support that 'they' have always been with us: they have been faeries, demons, goblins and elves. Now they're alien creatures: greys, reptilians, Nordics etc. in fact stories of their presence appear to stretch backwards into time and they are still here with us - could they be even closer to home than we think, or just in another kind of space altogether?

Vallée continues to extrapolate on these points based on untampered witness statements. From here he considered the notion of a social control system, that Joan of Arc, Our Lady in the sky and other religious prompts may be part of their ongoing manipulation of the species, creating our religions and creating a social theromstat in society. In this way the idea of aliens visiting us is just another disguise they have invented for the benefit of the story they are trying to weave into our social fabric.

But, perhaps papa Jaques is full of it, though I'm hard pressed to find another thinker, scientist with as much knowledge, time and investigation given over to the subject. Who has done more work in the field and has the kind of credentials he has? Still if you've got a nuts and bolts theory or feel the Interdimensional Hypothesis is not meritorious then please let's show the cards.

Just what arguments are there for the ETH as it seems to be mostly folklore and nothing more?

Great posts, but one of the problems with witnesses to UFO sightings and UFO researchers is that they assume that if something is seen in the sky that's not known/unidentifiable then it must have come from "out there", that it must be extraterrestrial in nature. Such assumptions are like trying to determine which airport an airplane has originated from that is seen flying above you, as well as, trying to determine it's destination.

More importantly, I think the question of motives/why they are so prevalent in our culture/society deserves more scrutiny in the field of UFO research. Perhaps where they come from is the wrong approach to solving their identities.

ET's have been lost in the muck of false assumptions, and if just a few sightings represent true extraterrestrial beings how could they even prove to the inhabitants of earth they are from elsewhere?




Everything is connected...

 

[Jeff Davis]

Great posts, but one of the problems with witnesses to UFO sightings and UFO researchers is that they assume that if something is seen in the sky that's not known/unidentifiable then it must have come from "out there", that it must be extraterrestrial in nature. Such assumptions are like trying to determine which airport an airplane has originated from that is seen flying above you, as well as, trying to determine it's destination.

More importantly, I think the question of motives/why they are so prevalent in our culture/society deserves more scrutiny in the field of UFO research. Perhaps where they come from is the wrong approach to solving their identities.

ET's have been lost in the muck of false assumptions, and if just a few sightings represent true extraterrestrial beings how could they even prove to the inhabitants of earth they are from elsewhere?




Everything is connected...

I agree wholeheartedly. Especially the "Everything is connected..." part. At work yesterday, I looked out the front door up in the sky a short distance away and observed what were large vultures soaring and gliding about in crisscrossing circles. In nature we observe species of animals and immediately start making an attempt to identify them due to our instinctual needs to size up and understand possible predators in our environment. As a being with rational intelligence guiding our survival instincts we seize such opportunities once the species is visually detected and begin making associations in an effort to understand what it is we are witness to. Zoology and other natural sciences have afforded the somewhat learned among us the ability to store information and then visually identify most types of birds of prey within our immediate environments via their cries, actions, coloration, etc. Many hawks in this area are very much relative in size and coloration to the vultures, however you can always tell the hawks from the buzzards (vultures) due to their high tolerance for scavenging in numbers.

Think about how many associations went into making such a simple determination. When people make the choice to identify UFOs as spacecraft they are rationally aligning what they witness with one criteria. The animal species homo sapiens sapiens. Yet at the same time they are logically predetermining that what they are witnessing is not the product of humanity. They are making the rational choice to project their human memory bound associations concerning our own technology. They are imagining as much as an application that ET would use to get here from outer space despite what they witness not aligning itself with any known technology that we are familiar with, or technological performance behaviors that do not align themselves with known physical laws that we are familiar with.

Is it not logical to use science as a hypothetical mirror of nature and natural process with respect to our basic, owed to unknowing, curiosities? If clear records indicate that UFOs have been here for thousands, if not millions of years, is it not logical to contend that this environment is theirs as much as it is ours? What do we know about the varied and immensely differing species within our environment, the aforementioned birds of prey for instance? What types of associations do we use to identify environmentally relative foreign species of animals to ourselves? Why and how do we identify their behaviors? One might start with the abstraction that the birds of prey have a distinct draw that motivates them to act as they do. What about UFOs and what are termed "hot spots"? Why wouldn't those area hot spots be environmentally relative?

Cannot insects fall from distances relative to their size that would surely kill us? Cannot they maneuver in flight beyond any physical laws that we ourselves would be bound by? Yet, are many not already studied and identified as being existent members of our own environmental community, with us knowing full well what naturally enables them to do these things? How many species do we know of in our own environment that use predaceous camouflage to enable themselves to effectively appear to be what they are not? Could not all these things be just as applicable to UFOs as would be our human imagination's projected derivations?

My point is not that I can clearly contend that those beings, or whatever intelligent volition or force responsible for UFOs can be assumed to be members of our immediate environment's animal kingdom, because I cannot. It is unknown at this time. However, what amount of weight can logically be placed on the natural scale of possibilities with respect for what we already do know?

Folklore is always relative to a given time period's popular fictionalizations. Such is the pack animal's comfort food for it's imagination's pleasure.

 

[Wade]

Righteous Post.

 

[Burnt State]

Funny Burnt, the only answer in that poll that was stated seriously was the one you abide by. The rest of the poll is a mish mash of "goofy" options. What was the point of the poll? Mere amusement?

I would argue that yes, I like to introduce a sardonic nature to the discussion, but I make sure to have an option for the true believer (option 1) as that is in fact a position, and then I included two positions that are both serious and that includes advanced methodologies and camouflage as if we are to consider ETH reality then we must deal with the space time issue, advanced physics and the fact that if 1000's of different kinds of humanoids are being witnessed that concepts such as camouflage must be a legitimately serious statement as it gives an option for how the ETH could possibly work. We know that it is affecting people psychologically and that it is an image that distorts as frequently witnesses identify seeing entirely different things that each other or in some cases some people see nothing at all whereas the witness besides them sees something. So, that option is there for people who take ETH seriously but want to integrate it into the history of evidence. In this way I was not trying to cook the books. I can make a strong case for the ETH as well using select cases but it's very hard to integrate across all the evidence. I was attempting to provide a realistic option for that way of thinking. Option four looks at the exact same set of evidentiary issues but spins it around because some people do believe that the entire concept of an alien race visiting this planet is incredibly ridiculous and scientifically impossible.

I do try provide to have a range for the various feelings related to the issue. I think the voting demonstrates that option three is entirely legit. I even started off the thread with a response identifying that I also feel that it's an option for myself but did not want to colour the post as a trickster event. The title says it all for me and it asks people to provide proof of ETH reality as I'm still not entirely clear how it became not only a dominate belief system in Ufology but why it is that arguments that challenge the ETH with those legitimate positions as stated in the OP are often met with a disdain that does not acknowledge the history of evidence.