boomerang
Paranormal Adept
Great thread.
I think all hats are still in the ring, a reflection of how little we actually know. I do see a kind of seminal bifurcation in our imaginary flow chart of 'All Possible Hypotheses' in which we either assume certain parties in society are more informed and deeply involved, or that all humans are equally clueless. That's a tough one. But asking whether the phenomenon is ETH, from another universe or another dimension, could merely turn out to be posing the same question from different angles.
While it is true that multiple eyewitness accounts from credible witnesses don't rise to the level of hard scientific evidence, I think they do, by virtue of sheer numbers and well established history, constitute a genuine mystery. And scientific inquiries traditionally begin with mysteries. Consider this particular mystery's seeming affinity for our defense establishment, and things begin to feel a bit creepy.
Argument by analogy:
Let's say that since WWII large numbers of otherwise healthy people, sometimes even in small groups, had been exhibiting odd epileptic type seizures accompanied by hallucinations of brightly colored frogs (or whatever) that were extremely infrequent and seemingly harmless, but well documented. Let us also imagine also that our government was known to take a special but unacknowledged interest in these disorders. It's safe to say medical science would be beside itself in busily poking, prodding and testing this subset of the population. People would want answers.
There exist known neurological disorders that approach this scenario (read Oliver Sacks' "Hallucinations") but not in anything like the kinds of numbers exhibited by the UFO and not in multiple participants. So why is the phenomenon laughed off by the media and tucked under the rug by officialdom ? Even if we pare things to the bone and assume this is "all in people's heads"--which I don't personally believe--we should still want a "diagnosis".
I think all hats are still in the ring, a reflection of how little we actually know. I do see a kind of seminal bifurcation in our imaginary flow chart of 'All Possible Hypotheses' in which we either assume certain parties in society are more informed and deeply involved, or that all humans are equally clueless. That's a tough one. But asking whether the phenomenon is ETH, from another universe or another dimension, could merely turn out to be posing the same question from different angles.
While it is true that multiple eyewitness accounts from credible witnesses don't rise to the level of hard scientific evidence, I think they do, by virtue of sheer numbers and well established history, constitute a genuine mystery. And scientific inquiries traditionally begin with mysteries. Consider this particular mystery's seeming affinity for our defense establishment, and things begin to feel a bit creepy.
Argument by analogy:
Let's say that since WWII large numbers of otherwise healthy people, sometimes even in small groups, had been exhibiting odd epileptic type seizures accompanied by hallucinations of brightly colored frogs (or whatever) that were extremely infrequent and seemingly harmless, but well documented. Let us also imagine also that our government was known to take a special but unacknowledged interest in these disorders. It's safe to say medical science would be beside itself in busily poking, prodding and testing this subset of the population. People would want answers.
There exist known neurological disorders that approach this scenario (read Oliver Sacks' "Hallucinations") but not in anything like the kinds of numbers exhibited by the UFO and not in multiple participants. So why is the phenomenon laughed off by the media and tucked under the rug by officialdom ? Even if we pare things to the bone and assume this is "all in people's heads"--which I don't personally believe--we should still want a "diagnosis".
