• NEW! LOWEST RATES EVER -- SUPPORT THE SHOW AND ENJOY THE VERY BEST PREMIUM PARACAST EXPERIENCE! Welcome to The Paracast+, eight years young! For a low subscription fee, you can download the ad-free version of The Paracast and the exclusive, member-only, After The Paracast bonus podcast, featuring color commentary, exclusive interviews, the continuation of interviews that began on the main episode of The Paracast. We also offer lifetime memberships! Flash! Take advantage of our lowest rates ever! Act now! It's easier than ever to susbcribe! You can sign up right here!

    Subscribe to The Paracast Newsletter!

Robert Sheaffer — August 24, 2014


An okay episode. But IMO Sheaffer was too dismissive of eyewitness testimony. UFOs appear randomly as they may be under intelligent control. There's no hope of gaining physical evidence in many cases.

I am also less willing to call witnesses liars than he is. (Yes, I know he doesn't consider most to be. But he did call a few liars.)
 
A low point . Where were the hosts ? This is what you get when listeners can't call in. Take the Hill case , this idiot really believes that 2 educated grown ups saw the moon for a ufo. And Chris and Gene said nothing . Don't let me start about Rendlesham. But again , nothing from the hosts. I stopped listening after the second segment , but i'll be back...
 
At the expense of stopping him at every turn of phrase, we let him hang himself. Listen to the rest and you'll see the ultimate contradiction in what he says. Remember that his entire meme here is that people were all fooled by what they saw, radar in the old days wasn't very good, etc. We could say no they weren't, and you have to accept that people aren't that easily fooled. But he also doesn't believe in trained or experienced observers. It's no, no, no so what sense would it have made to just say you're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong?

I asked him about John Burroughs and Rendlesham, and corrected him when he claimed that Burroughs didn't report his adverse symptoms until many years later. We had Burroughs on The Paracast twice, and his story has been quoted in books and is well known. Sheaffer was also corrected when he tried to imply that nobody came close to that UFO.
 
It wasn't until about an hour in that Robert Sheaffer really seemed to get comfortable. He should probablly just pass on discussing cases he doesn't know well and stick to those he's really studied like the Phoenix Lights. I think it was during that discussion he made one of his best points, one about UFO cases becoming Gospel, something like: “Once a UFO story reaches critical mass, will never die.” Amen to that!

Also, it was interesting to hear what he seemed the most optimistic about ET life, even if he doesn't believe it is here yet and regularlly doing peekaboo airshows.

I think he was rightfully critical of the current state of popular UFO fandom. The crappy side-show conferneces and infotainment TV shows are not productive, unless they are secretly chanelling $ to research. I hope that's the case- it's about the only face-saving excuse. On the brighter side, it sounds like Sheaffer is not opposed to trying to scientificlly investigate UFOs. He just focuses on the "don'ts" like night vision.
 
I'm more than half way through and he's commenting on cases by misstating the facts. Phil Klass did the same. Why? These are huge facts, done is such a way that if true would completely discredit the cases. Aren't they then equal to the flip side of Steven Greer and Doty?
 
I like to think of myself as a person who believes nothing of what he hears, and half of what he sees. I like Mr Sheaffer's motto of which is similar.

As much as I believe that most of the very normal phenomena are mistaken by people as UFO's this can not possibly be the explanation for EVERY single account.

Sheaffer's sounded very similar to the tone and comments one hears from UFO zealots. The tone often tends to be completely dismissive of anything that can alter their way of thinking.

Some of his explanations had me laughing. Sheaffer tells us that no UFO account should ever be taken seriously, without multiple sources, data etc. However we should swallow his explanations hook, line and sinker without any evidence solely because his hypothesis consists of supposedly logical earthly explanations.? Despite the fact he has never been on any physical investigation in any part of the county? The problem for him, is perhaps he should take his own advice and not conjure up ridiculous "hypotheses" for events he doesn't have cold hard facts for.

Skeptics and UFO zealots belong in the same basket...

I think Micah Hanks and Chris have a balanced view on the subject.
 
This was a meandering and unfocused episode for me where he got to be dismissive about a lot of things he didn't even know much about. The best thing to do with descendants of Klass is to pick cases they are experts on and let them debate it with experts from the other side of the fence to let them hash it all out vigorously. These casual, uninformed & sometimes purely speculative comments on core cases doesn't do much in terms of furthering the discussion.
 
I'm all for giving the skeptics, (and even debunkers) their two hours of air time but this episode did seem like he managed to get off ez.

Although Gene did call him on it, Robert seemed only too pleased with himself and try to derail a subject with semantics. What is "trained observer"? My brother, despite the fact there may be no schools or class or doctorates on being trained observers there are a number of jobs where taking in the big picture is crucial and In time one would be better practiced at it.

Mr. Hynek' s observation on a SINGULAR police ride-along is not sufficient enough to dismiss an entire element. Yes, in the excitement of "the chase" one could lose their perspective and jump at anything that shines but in an otherwise initial sighting, made before the old adrenaline gets to running, one should not be so easily dismissed because they haven't graduated from an accredited observation class.
 
Last edited:
Mr. Hynek' s observation on a SINGULAR police ride-along is not sufficient enough to dismiss an entire element. Yes, in the excitement of "the chase" one could loose their perspective and jump at anything that shines but in an otherwise initial sighting, made before the old adrenaline gets to running, should not be so easily dismissed because they haven't been to an observation class.

Unless, of course it fits/suits a particular agenda.
 
I have been listening till the end : after so many great weeks and months this was horrible.Chris , what happened ?Please tell me that you were sick ...
 
I have been listening till the end : after so many great weeks and months this was horrible.Chris , what happened ?Please tell me that you were sick ...
Naw, bored w/ the tired rhetoric. I sometimes play possum and chum the waters. We're working on other legit skeptical catches w/ such innocuous bait—It's when they feel comfortable & fuzzy, that you can hang them w/ their illogical thinking. Sheaffer showed his true colors, glad you tuned in! Next time, post some questions that bite, if you want...
 
Next time, post some questions that bite, if you want...
I felt like the turn around time for questions was pretty quick but maybe I checked in late. The lack of focus for the discussion and the list of the varied interests of the guest made it seem like it a sweepingly wide open territory of skepticism was to be covered. That didn't play out well in this show.

If other skeptical guests are scheduled then maybe going over some pre-identified cases would be a way for them to express their key skeptical precepts used to approach the phenomenon. At the same time forum questions could then target what posters feel is strong proof & evidence, or you could always have ufologists engage in debate as suggested recently with Carrion. This does not necessarily mean revisiting Roswell, Kecksberg or other recent episode focus cases, but other hard core cases, as J. Clark calls them, such as RB-47, Trans-en-Provence or cases that may lend themselves to a skeptical critique to see what shakes loose: Fox Lake, Travis Walton, Michalak. Rutkowski, Clark, O'Brien & Freidman are all great counterweights to skeptics who might share overlap with a skeptic's case knowledge.

Towards the end of this episode you started to touch on other issues around multiple modes of UFO confirmation. That was getting interesting. Perhaps providing a skeptical explanation of what would clearly constitute proof of intelligently controlled craft operating in our airspace would be good to hear, as would cases who meet such a threshold.
 
@ Burnt: The idea of ground rules and pre-programmed cases-as-subjects is ok, but problematic. Especially when you have an effective spokesperson for the high-strange nature of a given case (or to champion the high-strange nature of the particular phenomenon). Post Phil Klass, (and w/ the popularity of paranormal TV shows), debunkers have become almost reticent and some of your higher-profile skeptics have been low-key as of late. Perhaps they have become a bit leery of direct confrontation against the skillful representation of "The Facts," etc…

The Paracast wants to include all perspectives; from our true-blue, jello slurp'in believer to hard-boiled-egged debunker... Regardless: you need a good bedside manner and a bit of subterfuge to maximize this potential on a popular radio show. If it were easy, there would be many "Paracasts" out there debating Jim Oberg or whomever… :rolleyes:
 
Funny an issue that keeps coming up lately, at least for me, is in how people choose to spend their time in this field. I don't have the years that some folks here and elsewhere have studying this subject, and that may be the whole crux of the problem that I'm seeing now. I'm seeing knowledgeable people spend their time being dismissive , posting really bad cases elsewhere, like on FB, insert themselves to argue with other people that get a wave of intensity slammed at them for posting innocently something that's been debunked. In other words, it's hostile. There's a ton of one size fits all statements that basically state, since no ship or green men have landed it's all bunk. Others are more deceptive and don't quite say this but essentially all their posts are strictly to debunk. Shaeffer is one of those. He may have been around for years like Gene's stated but from the show he sounded more like me, someone whose still learning the cases. It's not that I need someone definitive because that's always suspicious in and of itself, but if your setting out to disprove everything, you have an agenda. Albeit it could be just for the attention, the psychology side of me suspects it's because the very thought of alien ships and green men scares the shit out of them. I'm glad the interview took place. There's a smug group of these folks posting daily elsewhere that would like you to believe that there's nothing to this phenomena and it's nice to hear actual words, not bad cases, come from their mouths so that we can see their real personality.
 
Totally understandable @Christopher O'Brien that you can't always choose your own path or have people agree to taking on a specific debate. I'm impressed that you get a show out once a week as it is. But if not that then at least having that skeptic identify the key cases in their pantry would be a better lead for forum questions and that could then become the audience vs. the skeptic in some form of debate using the two hosts to perhaps synthesize the discussion.

Regardless, I do think that some cases remain curious and not entirely verifiable or clear. Even a mixed roundtable of doubt and belief with differing viewpoints on cases with mixed evidence of its own like Walton or Fox Lake could make for a very interesting collaboration between hosts, guests and the forum members.
 
@ Burnt: great idea. When we dance while booking our guests we should get a short list of cases/subjects, etc to post on the Question Bank thread. I'll try and remember that.... good suggestion. :)
 
Naw, bored w/ the tired rhetoric. I sometimes play possum and chum the waters. We're working on other legit skeptical catches w/ such innocuous bait—It's when they feel comfortable & fuzzy, that you can hang them w/ their illogical thinking. Sheaffer showed his true colors, glad you tuned in! Next time, post some questions that bite, if you want...
You are right , i should check earlier to post questions.(almost finished your book...)
 
Back
Top