Robert Sheaffer — August 24, 2014

[Elendil]

Sheaffer is a complete waste of time, a true disciple of Klass. His website just screams pure ego all over the place. "Resentment Against Achievment"? Give me a fucking break. His arguments are poor, he didn't do his homework, but hey - he's in Mensa, so I guess that all of us less intelligent untermensch should just cower and be grateful when Sheaffer takes the stand and starts talking. After all, he's a skeptic, and such skeptibunkers have a monopoly on science - they're the only ones in the world who understand and value science, everybody else should just shut up. Why bother to investigate UFO/UAPs and try to understand what is really up with that, everybody knows UFO's are rubbish - it's all bad radar and people flying immensley expensive interceptors and fighters having visual hallucinations. After all, they're just fighter pilots, sorted out from the lot after rigorous testing and training and riding in state-of-the-art toys that only Uncle Sam himself can afford - they don't know jack shit, why bother to even give a slightest chance to their testimony?

Sheaffer's a part of the problem, same as Greer, just coming from the other side...

 

[Heidi Lemmer]

Sheaffer is a complete waste of time, a true disciple of Klass. His website just screams pure ego all over the place. "Resentment Against Achievment"? Give me a fucking break. His arguments are poor, he didn't do his homework, but hey - he's in Mensa, so I guess that all of us less intelligent untermensch should just cower and be grateful when Sheaffer takes the stand and starts talking. After all, he's a skeptic, and such skeptibunkers have a monopoly on science - they're the only ones in the world who understand and value science, everybody else should just shut up. Why bother to investigate UFO/UAPs and try to understand what is really up with that, everybody knows UFO's are rubbish - it's all bad radar and people flying immensley expensive interceptors and fighters having visual hallucinations. After all, they're just fighter pilots, sorted out from the lot after rigorous testing and training and riding in state-of-the-art toys that only Uncle Sam himself can afford - they don't know jack shit, why bother to even give a slightest chance to their testimony?

Sheaffer's a part of the problem, same as Greer, just coming from the other side...

Well said!!!

 

[Tanith14]

Mr Sheaffer simply came across as dismissive and misinformed on an array of cases. His interpretation of the Rendelsham Forest incidents amply exposed his bigotry. But worse of all was his terrible reasoning as regards eye-witnesses. So Gene and Chris - well done indeed, mission accomplished!

 

[fastwalker]

"Everything around us, everything we see without looking, everything we touch without knowing all that we handle without feeling it, all we meet without clearly distinguishing, has on us, on our bodies and through them on our ideas, our heart itself, rapid effects, surprising and inexplicable?"― Guy de Maupassant, Le Horla et autres contes fantastiques Tanith 14

“Words dazzle and deceive because they are mimed by the face. But black words on a white page are the soul laid bare.”
― Guy de Maupassant

Sheaffer's a part of the problem, same as Greer, just coming from the other side...
Elendil

I have not read much of Guy de Maupassat, but love some of his quotes, wish I spoke French... Tanith I could not but agree with you and Elendil, But I don't want to throw out the baby with bath water so to speak...
I agree with what you both have written and many of the things he said are problematic but a (very) few things he said were food for thought for me, as they caused me to revisit a few things and take a second look. (But it did not cause any change in my previous thinking) I do want to seem to defend him as my previous posts are not of that ilk. I see value in skeptics even though I disagree with them and feel like I stated earlier that there are many problematic statements brought forth by them and I can not stand pompous pronouncements by them but they cause us to sharpen our pencils and dot our I's and cross our T's. Greer however; I see no value in any of the 'POP STAR' UFO celebrities like Greer, they are cannon fodder for Skeptics and land mines for this field... This post is not meant to offend. Just my thoughts...

 

[Chris Talbert]

"Take nobody's word for it..."
Well it seems Mr. Sheaffer continues to generate comments and I was thinking about his medical record comment that upon discharge from the military you get a copy of your medical records and for some reason that kept bugging me. I was pretty sure all I got was a copy of my shot record. I still have my discharge packet and orders from 1981 and so I dug it out and there were no medical records, just a shot record, discharge orders, DD214, etc. Take nobody's word for it indeed...

Same here just a shot record

 

[marduk]

I love you guys, but I simply lost interest and couldn't listen past about 45 minutes in when I had counted more than a dozen logical fallacies in his arguments...

I understand it got better, but I just couldn't go on listening to him.

I'm a skeptical guy, but if you're going to use rationality as an argument, you can't begin with "it didn't happen, therefore there has to be a reason that it didn't."

The only thing worse than a person trying to use logic to back their reason and failing, is one that fails and ignores their own fallacies and biases yet sounds ok attacking others...

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/pdf/LogicalFallaciesInfographic_A3.pdf

 

[Gene Steinberg]

Just as bad as saying it did happen because it has to, and ET is here to help us rather than to harm us.

 

[marduk]

Just as bad as saying it did happen because it has to, and ET is here to help us rather than to harm us.

Agreed.

What is wrong with helping to separate the wheat from the chaff, and focusing on the good cases?

And at least feigning interest in the cases with multiple witnesses, radar tracks, triangulation, etc... which do exist? Instead of "you can't trust anyone, and I have problems with these handful of cases, therefore there are zero cases of high strangeness?"

Let's see... in the first half of the show, he claimed:

• can't trust single human observers, regardless of training or authority
• can't trust multiple human observers, regardless of size of the group
• can't trust radar
• can't trust photos
• can't trust videos
• can't even trust when you have all of the above

The only thing you can trust, it seems, is physical hardware in possession where it can be analyzed.

Admittedly, I started to get frustrated with the "there is no such thing as a trained observer" nonsense.

I mean, come on.

Here's a manual from 1942: FM 1-20 Army Air Force Field Manual, Tactics and Technique of Air Reconnaissance and Observation : United States. War Department : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive

I'm sure in 10 minutes in google I could find more.

 

[marduk]

Intellectual integrity.

That's what it boil's down to, a sheer lack of it.

Let me give you an example from his own website regarding the JAL 'mothership' sighting:

While I tend to agree that moonlight reflecting off clouds would probably not make a very good "UFO" display, there are so many sources for 'lights in the sky' (including 'lights on the ground,' which Terauchi agreed with the FAA was an explanation for his January 11 UFO sighting) that once the main "UFO" has been demoted from a giant "mothership" to 'unexplained lights,' it no longer impresses us as much of a mystery. Even J. Allen Hynek was dismissive of 'lights in the sky' UFO reports. The bottom line is, Terauchi's own flight crew saw only 'lights,' and other aircraft checking out the situation saw nothing unusual.

So multiple people saw the lights, he saw an object big enough to request a course change because he was afraid he'd hit it, a big enough deal was made about it to send other aircraft to check it out, there was garbled VHF radio traffic, they pinged it with the JAL's radar, and the confirmation and subsequent retraction of ground-based radar targets by the FAA...

But nothing was there, nothing to see, OK Klass was out of line with his explanation but since no more than one person saw anything but lights, who cares...

And the "no longer impresses us" is a clear appeal to authority fallacy, which is pretty ironic given that he refuses to take the flight captain's authority as part of the equation.

I won't even speak of the straw man and other fallacies happening here. I'm not saying this event wasn't misidentification or something, but this argument is just...

Weak thinking.