DarronS - 13 April 2012 04:49 AM

macgyver - 13 April 2012 04:39 AM

Someone here has watched one too many scifi shows

Someone here does not know the meaning of “evidence.” Anecdotes from youtube videos and conspiracy theory websites do not qualify as evidence. What you have done, Voyager, is make up your mind then search for evidence to support your conclusion. If you were truly open-minded you would see that the stories you accept as evidence are nothing more than yarns.

I understand your position, there is no hard evidence for UFOs.

However, I don’t think all these people are lying or misidentifying things. Many UFO reports sound like stars, planets, comets, etc., and I can identify them as such. I’m not going to rule out the reports that don’t sound like those simply because we can’t identify them.

We can’t consider people good, reliable observers when we are able to identify something and bad observers simply because we can’t.

You can say I don’t know the meaning of evidence and you can say my brain is clouded with science fiction, but what it seems you can’t do is explain the report I just presented?

voyager, the point is not to explain every wild story presented to us. I am certain you could not explain every story I could present to you about ghosts, miracles, past life regression, ESP, telekinesis or perpetual motion machines. That is, you could not explain them except as we do, by assuming that the tellers were either lying or deluded in one fashion or another.

If one’s only alternative when presented with a wild story were to explain every detail of it or be forced to accept it as true, one would literally be forced to believe the contents of every religion and wacky belief system in existence.

Again, this is a broken epistemic system.

If someone comes to you and reports a UFO that you can identify, you say, “That is a meteor/airplane/whatever.”

If someone comes to you and reports a UFO that you cannot identify, you say, “You are either lying or deluded!”, Because the report doesn’t fit into your preconceived, concrete belief system. To dismiss a sighting just because it doesn’t fit your explanation is not science.

voyager - 13 April 2012 09:13 AM

1) This is made to look like an official military report with all the dramatic “classified” stamps and scratched out writings but it reads like a bad fake. There are a number of places in the report where the writer makes conclusions which real military reports don’t do. Military reports like this are usually very careful to give just the facts in precise detached detail. This report makes comments like “all systems returned to normal as if the strange craft no longer regarded the aircraft as a threat”

Are you a military expert? I don’t think you are anywhere near qualified to make this determination. The DIA Form was released by FOIA request and there is absolutely no evidence it is a fake.

2) There are inconsistencies. They claim that the radar on the ground is unable to pick up the presumed object yet the radar in the F-4 sees it. That makes no sense. Is it invisible to radar or isn’t it?

The radar on the ground was out of order due to maintenance. Try reading about a case before throwing your uneducated opinion into the debate.

Even if you could interfere with the weapons from a distance you couldnt do it without interfering with al the systems.

Sorry, I forgot that you know everything in the universe.

You are using YOUR logic to determine that aliens would just land on the white house lawn.
You are using YOUR physics to say that it is nearly impossible for aliens to come here.
You are using YOUR completely ignorant reasoning to claim that they couldn’t only knock out the weapons systems.

Have you ever considered that aliens are a completely different race, and could have completely different physics, logic, science, etc…?

So now, can you explain the sighting?

It doesn’t matter if they’re a different race; the known laws of physics and chemistry are the same everywhere in the visible universe.  The hypothetical aliens may have different materials to build and work from, and they may have discovered advanced techniques, but their physics would be the same as ours.

voyager - 13 April 2012 09:52 AM

If someone comes to you and reports a UFO that you can identify, you say, “That is a meteor/airplane/whatever.”

Yes, that is by far the most likely explanation.

voyager - 13 April 2012 09:52 AM

If someone comes to you and reports a UFO that you cannot identify, you say, “You are either lying or deluded!”, Because the report doesn’t fit into your preconceived, concrete belief system. To dismiss a sighting just because it doesn’t fit your explanation is not science.

Tall tales aren’t science, either.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. What I say to someone like you is, “Quit gabbing and produce verifiable, physical evidence.”

So, do you believe in ghosts, past lives, miracles and perpetual motion machines then? Or are you still content with avoiding that question?

voyager - 13 April 2012 09:52 AM

If someone comes to you and reports a UFO that you can identify, you say, “That is a meteor/airplane/whatever.”

If someone comes to you and reports a UFO that you cannot identify, you say, “You are either lying or deluded!”, Because the report doesn’t fit into your preconceived, concrete belief system. To dismiss a sighting just because it doesn’t fit your explanation is not science.

Total bullcrap;  if the report is as wonky as the evidence your giving, then it’s not really worthwhile for sophisticated investigators to pursue.

voyager - 13 April 2012 09:13 AM

1) This is made to look like an official military report with all the dramatic “classified” stamps and scratched out writings but it reads like a bad fake. There are a number of places in the report where the writer makes conclusions which real military reports don’t do. Military reports like this are usually very careful to give just the facts in precise detached detail. This report makes comments like “all systems returned to normal as if the strange craft no longer regarded the aircraft as a threat”

Are you a military expert? I don’t think you are anywhere near qualified to make this determination. The DIA Form was released by FOIA request and there is absolutely no evidence it is a fake.

Its not necessary to be a military expert to make reasonable observations about this report. I’ve observed a few military briefings and read a couple of reports and while that in no way makes me an expert, it becomes glaringly apparent upon observation that they go to great lengths to avoid any conjecture in their reports. They are nearly always a completely dispassionate retelling of the facts and nothing more.

You also have no way of verifying that this is an official form released through FOIA since you obtained 3rd ( maybe 4th, 5th who knows how many) hand through sources of unknown reliability. There are an awful lot of quacks who publish stuff on UFO’s so excuse me for not taking it on faith as you have that this is an authentic document.

Did it even occur to you as a bit suspicious that the person who redacted this document took the effort to heavily scratch out the words “confidential” but not so heavily that you couldn’t read it? Have you ever seen a redacted document? The redacted parts are blacked out so that the print underneath can not be seen at all. It seems to me they only wanted it to look like there was an attempt to black that out but wanted to be sure the reader could still see it had been once labeled confidential.

voyager - 13 April 2012 09:13 AM

  2) There are inconsistencies. They claim that the radar on the ground is unable to pick up the presumed object yet the radar in the F-4 sees it. That makes no sense. Is it invisible to radar or isn’t it?

The radar on the ground was out of order due to maintenance. Try reading about a case before throwing your uneducated opinion into the debate.

This is an exact quote from the report..  “In answer to the pilots query, the control tower reported no other air traffic in the area. although they subsequently obtained a visual sighting of the object when specifically directed where to look”. If the tower reported no other traffic in the area that means they looked at their radar and saw no other craft in the air. The craft was invisible to their radar even thought the pilots picked it up on the jets radar.  It says nothing about the ground radar being broken. If that fact was then added later in some other report its validity would be suspect.

voyager - 13 April 2012 09:13 AM

Even if you could interfere with the weapons from a distance you couldnt do it without interfering with al the systems.

Sorry, I forgot that you know everything in the universe.

I never said I knew everything in the universe but if you are going to propose that something happened which violates everything we do know about the universe you need to have exceptional evidence for it as we have said over and over. Your best evidence is a questionable document of an unverifiable 3rd person eyewitness report. I don’t need to know everything in the universe to know that is just rubbish.

voyager - 13 April 2012 09:13 AM

You are using YOUR logic to determine that aliens would just land on the white house lawn.

You are the one who needs to read more carefully. I never said that. Someone else did.

voyager - 13 April 2012 09:13 AM

You are using YOUR physics to say that it is nearly impossible for aliens to come here.

As long as they are flying around in our universe even aliens have to use our physics. What I said is it would be very unlikely they could come here and do these things so if you are going to convince us that something very unlikely has happened you need to have very good evidence. You have not provided anything even close to good evidence.

voyager - 13 April 2012 09:13 AM

You are using YOUR completely ignorant reasoning to claim that they couldn’t only knock out the weapons systems.

I know enough about electronics to know that this would be an extremely difficult if not impossible thing to do and it is just more than a bit odd that it draws on scenes from several well known science fiction movies and TV shows. You claim that these aliens use different physics and different logic than us but they seem to watch the same TV shows. How different can they be?

voyager - 13 April 2012 09:52 AM

If someone comes to you and reports a UFO that you can identify, you say, “That is a meteor/airplane/whatever.”

If someone comes to you and reports a UFO that you cannot identify, you say, “You are either lying or deluded!”, Because the report doesn’t fit into your preconceived, concrete belief system. To dismiss a sighting just because it doesn’t fit your explanation is not science.

To accept something on anecdote alone is not science either. The default position in science is skepticism.

I can see that I’m not going to convince you guys….

Thank you for talking with me about this subject, but I don’t think this discussion is leading anywhere.

When I present evidence it is called names, scoffed at, and basically ignored, all without it being explained.

I wish you all a safe and happy travel through whatever stage of life you may be in. I am done here.

Goodbye and good luck

Nano Nano

dougsmith - 13 April 2012 10:03 AM

So, do you believe in ghosts, past lives, miracles and perpetual motion machines then? Or are you still content with avoiding that question?

voyager - 13 April 2012 10:15 AM

I am done here.

Goodbye and good luck

So I guess the answer is “Yes”?

If you really are leaving, then goodbye voyager. But I hope you will try to learn more about skepticism and how useful it is. I’ve cut a lot of pointless pursuits out of my life thanks to it.

voyager - 13 April 2012 10:15 AM

When I present evidence it is called names, scoffed at, and basically ignored, all without it being explained.

We explained why the evidence you presented should be considered weak. That should be enough.

voyager - 13 April 2012 09:13 AM

Have you ever considered that aliens are a completely different race, and could have completely different physics, logic, science, etc…?

Before you call out someone’s else ignorance of physics you may want to learn a thing or two yourself. Aliens would undoubtedly use different symbols for physics and math, but the results would be the same as ours. The laws of physics are the same throughout the observable universe. No matter how advanced their technology aliens will need to expend the same amount of energy for interstellar travel that we would expend, and they will not be able to exceed the speed of light. Your wishful thinking does not change how the universe operates.

So now, can you explain the sighting?

The point is you have no evidence other than some anecdotes about unidentified objects. Lack of explanation is not proof of interstellar visitors.

Often times there will be a sensationalized report of a UFO in the news(along with all the reasons this as to why the witness is credible), but the usually mundane explanation doesn’t get nearly as much as the original report.

As for your ‘they can’t all be lying’ comment, I say no one called them ALL liars, although surely there are SOME. If you break down the population of the world, and the number of people who ‘saw’ something, and number of people who ‘reported’ something. The numbers involved do not make it likely that most are not 1)mistaken, 2)hallucinating 3)just plain making it up.