"It's faked!" Something that burns my tail - a discussion about skepticism.

[Ron Collins]

Here's a great explanation from the present day Carl Sagan, and my favourite science proponent:

Except for the assassination of Pluto, I like Tyson.

To be clear, the question was setup for that exact response from him. I REALLY REALLY REEEEEEEALLY F'n hate the word "believe" in context to UFO's. It makes we wanna light shit on fire man! I need a woosa moment......... Ok, I'm better.

I do not think it is a bad thing to stop the discussion at "unidentified" and if all that was seen was "blinking lights in the sky" that is exactly what should occur. However, this phenomenon is far far far far beyond that simple write off. Why should we stop the Stephenville sightings conversation at "unidentified"? Multiple witnesses, multiple radar station verification, several military intercepts attempted, and no transponder squawk from the object does not equal ambiguous blinky lights in the night sky. To stop that conversation at "unidentified" is ridiculous. Hell, it's reckless from an air safety standpoint.

Now that we have more than nocturnal blinky lights to talk about we have to start collecting facts and evidence and try to fit those to things we can quantify. Things like flight characteristics, physical traces, witness reports, close encounter details, and radar data. This is where the validity of the ETH is anchored. If you have witnesses see an object shoot off in the blink of an eye and then have radar data confirming that it was a solid object that just went from 0 to X thousand mph you cant easily dismiss it. This is why the dismissive tone Tyson takes in his narrative is annoying. The insinuation that all people that entertain the possibility tht UFO's might have their origins outside this planet are morons is frankly, insulting. Just as he intended it to be. Lets be honest, he is a bit of an elitist. Not the best guy to bridge any gaps or search for common ground. Juxtapose Tyson with Kaku and note the difference of approach to the same question. Note the different conclusions. I'm pretty sure that Kaku could hold his own with Tyson if we started comparing grey matter. Anyway.....

My real point is that tyson dismisses the entire notion because he holds to one overarching "belief". That the distances between stars is too vast. Thats it. His world.... err... Universe view does not allow him to bridge the gap.

But, and here is where I get you Angelo.... Aren't you, by trotting out Tyson, also a little guilty of the "appeal to authority" fallacy? Tyson is an astrophysicist. He is not a physiologist, psychologist, sociologist, geologist, aeronautical engineer, aerospace engineer, theoretical physicist, optical physicist, radar expert, or a thousand other things. He is really good at orbital mechanics, gravity, star formation, and stuff like that. To put it flatly, discerning the intergalactic travel capabilities of space aliens is a bit out of his pay grade.

Lastly, I just want to point out that though I think the ETH is a good origin theory, it certainly has not been proven.

 

[Ron Collins]

In DeGrasse's video clip we hear him start off with the common misinformation propagated by the skeptics who exploit the weaknesses of those who are less informed. Specifically we hear him start off with his erroneous explanation of the word UFO

Its not erroneous. It is the definition of the acronym. Personally, I think the definition the Air Force gave it was pretty darn explanatory.

"any airborne object which by performance, aerodynamic characteristics, or unusual features, does not conform to any presently known aircraft or missile type, or which cannot be positively identified as a familiar object."


Here is a link to the AFR-200-2 where I pulled the above quote.

I honestly don't want to get into a debate with you over the myriad of possible interpretations of the term. But, I think that we can all agree that the Air Force did not say "UFO = Alien Spaceship" when writing the official definition of the acronym. I know that because the words "alien" and "spacecraft" do not appear in the definition. The questions failure and what directed his answer is when it equated UFO's with extraterrestrials. The question he was asked was itself is a logical fallacy, in my opinion.

 

[Randall]

I'd like to point out that on one side we have celebrity skeptics marginalizing ufology and other we have UFO celebrities doing the same thing, both using exactly the same misinformation to make themselves seem more credible at the expense of responsible ufology. Add to this landscape all the players and opportunists and it's getting harder and harder for responsible ufology to keep its head above water. Is the answer to continue shoring up the walls on all three fronts? Or might it be wiser to simply evacuate and let all three opposing sides collapse in on each other and self destruct? Is there another answer?

I only know how to dig through the available supporting evidence and provide a rationale based on that and the principles of critical thinking. But is that enough? At least the skeptics have DeGrasse's showmanship. And he's just one of several front men for their movement. Who do we have? The heydays enjoyed by Stan Friedman and Art Bell appear to be over and I see no enterprising apprentice willing to fall in the footsteps of either. Although I should mention that Micah Hanks over on the Graylien Report has potential. But for now, ufology has no front man ( or woman ). Do we really want Greer as our cultural icon?

 

[Randall]

Its not erroneous. It is the definition of the acronym.

You need to be more specific. What is not the erroneous definition of what acronym?

Personally, I think the definition the Air Force gave it was pretty darn explanatory.
"any airborne object which by performance, aerodynamic characteristics, or unusual features, does not conform to any presently known aircraft or missile type, or which cannot be positively identified as a familiar object."
Here is a link to the AFR-200-2 where I pulled the above quote.

Your quote above is only a segment of a more complete definition for the word UFO which is in turn only one of several that the USAF came up with. As ufology continued to evolve separately from the USAF, other definitions, such as the one by J. Allen Hynek also came into play. Then there have been all the various definitions based on popular usage. Only by taking all these factors into consideration can one fully substantiate any particular all encompassing and accurate definition, and this has been done here. If you have valid counterpoint that would change the conclusions of that article, then by all means post it for discussion. Until then arguing cherry picked bits and pieces out of context is not sufficient.

I honestly don't want to get into a debate with you over the myriad of possible interpretations of the term. But, I think that we can all agree that the Air Force did not say "UFO = Alien Spaceship" when writing the official definition of the acronym. I know that because the words "alien" and "spacecraft" do not appear in the definition. The questions failure and what directed his answer is when it equated UFO's with extraterrestrials. The question he was asked was itself is a logical fallacy, in my opinion.

Ruppelt tells us that not only were a number of USAF officers of the opinion that UFOs are alien spacecraft, he personally saw a copy of the original Estimate of the Situation prepared by Project Sign which concluded that UFOs are probably extraterrestrial. But even if it weren't for those two significant factors, the history of the USAF investigations makes it increasingly clear that what they were targeting in their investigations were not manmade or natural objects or phenomenon. A simple process of deduction reveals that the only alternative is that they were investigating something alien. There are also reasons for not simply coming out and telling the public what they were really doing, and those reasons were part of the Robertson Panel.

 

[Angel of Ioren]

Oh boy, here we go with the UFO definition again. Ufology, you have to understand that not everyone here is going to use your very specific definition of UFO - move on.
Ron, we both know that we agree on this topic way more than we disagree. The posting of the video was not an appeal to authority, it was just an easy way to show what I feel is a good, scientific, and skeptical way of approaching the UFO topic, however I do see how it can be taken as such. There is nothing firm that proves the ETH is anything more than a hypothesis. That's all I want to make clear. An appeal to authority is something that Kean uses in her book, and it's the main thing that annoys me about what is otherwise a decent UFO book. All of the generals and pilots are concluding that these objects are alien - almost every conclusion to each entry is, I have never seen an object act that way; it must have been intelligently controlled by an alien. I can't come to that conclusion yet. Maybe on day I will, for now I need something more solid than eyewitnesses, no matter their rank.
And let me make this clear - I do not think that the vast majority of them are lying (I do think SOME of the Rendlsham people are lying though and have inflated the story to become UFO celebrities), they saw what they saw, they just don't know what they saw.

 

[Jeff Crowell]

And let me make this clear - I do not think that the vast majority of them are lying (I do think SOME of the Rendlsham people are lying though and have inflated the story to become UFO celebrities), they saw what they saw, they just don't know what they saw.

Please, don't tell me you think it was a light house seen through the trees.

Sent from my BNTV600 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

[Angel of Ioren]

Please, don't tell me you think it was a light house seen through the trees.

Sent from my BNTV600 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

I don't know what it was, I wasn't there. People seem really sure it wasn't the light house. Brian Dunning has one of the best breakdowns of the incident on his website and I would suggest giving it a read, despite the fact that he is approaching it from the idea that nothing extraordinary happened.

The Rendlesham Forest UFO

I think over the years, this incident has changed and morphed into something completely different from what probably actually happened. Was it a lighthouse? That may have been part of it, but I don't think it explains everything, which is why I like Dunning's breakdown of it.

It always comes down to this: We were not there and all we have to go by is the varying reports of several men, one of which seems to have changed his story quite a bit.

 

[Goggs Mackay]

I agree with Angelo somewhat, in that in the absence of pictures or remaining physical evidence, we only have the accounts to go on. I'm pretty sure it wasn't the lighthouse, nor was it a meteor.

It's important I think, to remember that the majority of accounts have remained relatively consistent. Any accounts that have changed could be down to fallible memories or in one instance, possible blatant invention?

I tend to think that Charles Halt is telling the truth as he saw it, and that includes something weird on the ground and multiple fast moving objects in the sky above. Bearing in mind that this was a multiple day case too. Halt has also mentioned that there are other witnesses, such as from the tower/radar but for individual reasons, these witnesses prefer not to come forward.

In summary then: Not a lighthouse, not a meteor, definitely strange and likely UFO.

 

[Angel of Ioren]

I agree with Angelo somewhat, in that in the absence of pictures or remaining physical evidence, we only have the accounts to go on. I'm pretty sure it wasn't the lighthouse, nor was it a meteor.

It's important I think, to remember that the majority of accounts have remained relatively consistent. Any accounts that have changed could be down to fallible memories or in one instance, possible blatant invention?

I tend to think that Charles Halt is telling the truth as he saw it, and that includes something weird on the ground and multiple fast moving objects in the sky above. Bearing in mind that this was a multiple day case too. Halt has also mentioned that there are other witnesses, such as from the tower/radar but for individual reasons, these witnesses prefer not to come forward.

In summary then: Not a lighthouse, not a meteor, definitely strange and likely UFO.

Actually, the first three men to see it had differing accounts when they first reported it. From Dunning's article:

Although the three men stayed together, their reports are dramatically different. Penniston and Burroughs reported moving lights of different colors, that they felt came from a mechanical object with a red light on top and blue lights below surrounded by a yellow haze. They even drew pictures of it in their reports, but Penniston's illustration of their best view of it shows it partially obscured by trees and well off in the distance to the east. Burroughs' drawing of the object is based on Penniston's description, as Burroughs himself only reported seeing lights. Cabansag, however, reported that the only light they saw after actually leaving the base was the one that all three men eventually identified as a lighthouse or beacon beyond the farmhouse. Cabansag reported that the yellow haze had simply been the glow from the farmhouse lights. Once they reached the field, they turned around and returned to base without further incident.

 

[Goggs Mackay]

I meant that individual accounts have remained consistent from back then til now, those individual accounts need not be the same though. I'm talking about how much each man's story has changed or not over the years.
I always think it ok if accounts of any event differ, even from people standing next to eachother because human memory is not only fallible, it just works differently in different people. Ten people all telling the truth about witnessing a crime can all have slightly different stories, but hopefully they don't embellish those stories over time for gain, that is the point I'm trying to make.

I think like most people who believe Rendlesham was a UFO event, that Penniston's binary code story is a lot to swallow, especially long after the fact. Anything of that magnitude that appears years later, is immediately suspect, although you never really know, something ultra-weird (what weirder than little aliens in a dinky-toy triangle ship that looks like a blinking eye weird?) may have happened to Jim, and like accounts of abductions that only surface through hypnosis, could something like that have been suppressed, by Jim himself, or an outside agency/force?

 

[Goggs Mackay]

Here's a good example of what I mean.

Back in 2005 I was away in a large military exercise area in South-West England (Wiltshire, real crop-circle 'hotspot') and was taking part in a leadership course and part of it was to go away camping for a few days, gettting literally no sleep, forced to arrange 'missions' at a moment's notice at 3am, being run ragged like you just didn't know was legal etc.

Anyway, this experience is so tough, so draining, that it would be impossible for you not to remember a lot of it, a lot of images and feelings, right?

But if someone had asked me just a few days after it, well who did this and who did what? Where exactly did they do that? And if someone asked the guy who was standing next to me during a briefing, all the same questions, would they get the same answers? I think there would be huge discrepancies, even when no-one is consciously lying. When there is a lot going on, and quite a few people involved, it's way too much information for everyone to store it all correctly, so that it matches up with everyone else's accounts.

Ask me the same questions 10 years later and again, accounts may change quite a bit, even though I am trying to honestly recall what happened.

Law enforcement investigators are aware of these normal discrepancies and they are aware that they are to be expected, in fact, their absence would be a cause for concern.

 

[Angel of Ioren]

That's exactly what I'm saying Goggs - we really can't be sure what they saw, especially since they had differing accounts of it. One said he saw farm lights through fog, the other guy said he saw a solid object which later changed to the story that he downloaded binary code through an alien craft...

 

[Randall]

Oh boy, here we go with the UFO definition again. Ufology, you have to understand that not everyone here is going to use your very specific definition of UFO - move on.

Hey, I wasn't the one who posted the video with the celebrity skeptic, so I have every right to respond to it. And of course, I understand not everyone is going to use the specific definition posted on the USI website, especially anti-ufology skeptics, because if they did, their classic misinformation campaign wouldn't work. They need it to be vague enough to support their little rant. In contrast I based my response to the video on facts and critical thinking. We've done the same with the USI definition of UFO. So although not everyone is going to agree with it, it is well supported and it will serve those who do agree with it very well, unless of course, your audience is one that values theatrics more than accuracy.

 

[Randall]

... But if someone had asked me just a few days after it, well who did this and who did what? Where exactly did they do that? And if someone asked the guy who was standing next to me during a briefing, all the same questions, would they get the same answers? I think there would be huge discrepancies, even when no-one is consciously lying ...

Excellent point Goggs ( interesting bit there too about your leadership course ). I was discussing something similar the other day in regard to an experience I had many years ago. I mentioned that pinpointing the date wasn't something I did out of memory. This is irresistible bait for skeptics who might say something to the effect, "Well if you can't even remember the date, how can you be sure of anything else?". However that kind of rationale is entirely faulty. The reason is that before one can remember something about a particular incident, it first has to be in one's memory at the time of the incident. I don't think I'm alone when I say that I don't always know what the date is. I was working out in a National Park and all I knew at the time is that it was a Friday night near the end of July. The point is that if I didn't know the exact date at the time, it's not reasonable to expect I should have remembered it, therefore requiring a calendar at a later time to establish the exact date of the event is a minor detail that has no relevance on how accurate my memory of the event itself was.

 

[Randall]

That's exactly what I'm saying Goggs - we really can't be sure what they saw, especially since they had differing accounts of it. One said he saw farm lights through fog, the other guy said he saw a solid object which later changed to the story that he downloaded binary code through an alien craft...

I share your ambivalence. The case has gone from being one of the most promising examples of alien visitation to ... I dunno ... what exactly ... ?

 

[boomerang]

Ufo incidents have a way of becoming all about the people who experience them. Rendlesham is prime example.

-Col. Charles Halt: High ranking career officer leaving on record an official memo and a high strangeness audio tape (both of which he finds embarrassing), memories of incredible things experienced, and a stated belief in dark earthly forces warping peoples' minds and memories after the fact. Despite lack of previous life interest, he remains moderately active in matters regarding Rendlesham over 30 years after the fact.

-Larry Warren: Security Policeman claimed by Halt to be a player in the incident only by virtue of his being given false memories as part of being "meddled with" for reasons of disinformation.

-Jim Penniston: Security policman on scene whose memories seem to have become increasingly
confabulated since the incident. Recalls some kind of hostile interrogation using psychotropics post incident. Halt believes he was likewise "meddled with".

-John Burroughs: On-scene participant whose memory seems more consistent but whose role remains somewhat hazy. Possibly "meddled with" as well.

It's another "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" hall of mirrors. Both strange and compelling.

 

[Ron Collins]

That's exactly what I'm saying Goggs - we really can't be sure what they saw, especially since they had differing accounts of it. One said he saw farm lights through fog, the other guy said he saw a solid object which later changed to the story that he downloaded binary code through an alien craft...

The only thing I am absolutely sure of is that you need to be, at the absolute furthest, 20 yards from the clearing before you can possibly see the lighthouse light. The farm field slopes down to the farmhouse. This almost fully obscures it from the same distance into the woods. I find it extremely unlikely that either was the source light that could have drawn these men out into the woods in the first place. To me that explanation is a serious stretch

 

[Han]

In my limited experience, I can not recall a case of pilot reporting being abducted from his cockpit, I have seen many that have reported seeing "craft" or "unidentified" objects, if I am wrong please tell me. I would also like to know who the most "senior ranked" or "important" person who claims to have been abducted is?

My feeling is that seeing a "UFO" is one thing, but rightly or wrongly "claiming" to have been aboard a space ship is like saying you are mad. (this is not meant to offend anyone)

I personally "believe" that people genuinely "believe" they have been abducted, but I do not think that they have been "physically taken", the human mind is so massively powerful and little understood that questions like "what is real" are a very, very long way from being answered.

 

[Ron Collins]

In my limited experience, I can not recall a case of pilot reporting being abducted from his cockpit, I have seen many that have reported seeing "craft" or "unidentified" objects, if I am wrong please tell me. I would also like to know who the most "senior ranked" or "important" person who claims to have been abducted is?

Frederick Valentich case. October 1978 out of Melbourne going towards King Island. I'm sure you can find a copy if the transcript on the interwebs. Seriously terrifying case.

 

[Han]

Frederick Valentich case. October 1978 out of Melbourne going towards King Island. I'm sure you can find a copy if the transcript on the interwebs. Seriously terrifying case.

thanks Ron that is an interesting and sad case, with a definite "UFO" connection, but what I meant was a "case" where a pilot was "abducted" and "returned" to his cockpit. I have heard of this occurring to people driving cars, but never an aeroplane.