Redfern Out, Kimball In - 8 October 2017

[ChrisJohnsen]

I save my unfriendly fire for Fox and Dolan in After The Paracast, along with Fox's film "I Know What I Saw," particularly the idiotic title. I believe there may also have been some discussion of Chasing UFOs, Fox's anger management issues, and Dolan's role in the Roswell Slides fiasco.

The unexpurgated Paul Kimball on ATP. Now THIS is what I’m paying good money for! Gloves off, keepin’ it real, no holds barred REAL talk. Sunday morning podcast download cannot come soon enough.


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[Creepy Green Light]

I wish Karl was still around too. He was a good friend, and one of the most sensible people I have met within "ufology".

Ufology needs more folk like Karl (and yourself). Smart people that believe in the possibility - but also don't bite on every single case there is. And also not afraid to call BS on ufology's "landmark" cases.

Piece of worthless information about me; I was born at Paul Kimball Hospital in Lakewood, NJ - true story (Nowadays it's called Kimball Medical Center I believe)

 

[Paul Kimball]

Ufology needs more folk like Karl (and yourself). Smart people that believe in the possibility - but also don't bite on every single case there is. And also not afraid to call BS on ufology's "landmark" cases.

Piece of worthless information about me; I was born at Paul Kimball Hospital in Lakewood, NJ - true story (Nowadays it's called Kimball Medical Center I believe)

If you're going to believe in space aliens visiting Earth, then Karl had the most sensible take - they came here in the 1950s and 1960s, took a look around, ran a few studies, and then left. It mirrors the pattern of exploration the Europeans often undertook. As Karl said to me once, "maybe they'll be back someday, looking for the space alien equivalent of bread fruit."

 

[Paul Kimball]

The unexpurgated Paul Kimball on ATP. Now THIS is what I’m paying good money for! Gloves off, keepin’ it real, no holds barred REAL talk. Sunday morning podcast download cannot come soon enough.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I don't rely on the business of ufology to earn a living, nor do I crave the invites to travel to conferences etc., so I have no problem saying publicly what a lot of folks will only say privately.

 

[Creepy Green Light]

If you're going to believe in space aliens visiting Earth, then Karl had the most sensible take - they came here in the 1950s and 1960s, took a look around, ran a few studies, and then left. It mirrors the pattern of exploration the Europeans often undertook. As Karl said to me once, "maybe they'll be back someday, looking for the space alien equivalent of bread fruit."

If you take minute to think about it - that makes total sense. Didn't Karl have a book with him dismantling Roswell? Thanks.

 

[Paul Kimball]

If you take minute to think about it - that makes total sense. Didn't Karl have a book with him dismantling Roswell? Thanks.

Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe - in my opinion, the definitive study of the Roswell case.

 

[Creepy Green Light]

Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe - in my opinion, the definitive study of the Roswell case.

Excellent - thank you. I just ordered it off Amazon

 

[marduk]

If you're going to believe in space aliens visiting Earth, then Karl had the most sensible take - they came here in the 1950s and 1960s, took a look around, ran a few studies, and then left. It mirrors the pattern of exploration the Europeans often undertook. As Karl said to me once, "maybe they'll be back someday, looking for the space alien equivalent of bread fruit."

Not really. If anything, reports are going up, not down.

You just see less of the contactee nonsense and abduction stuff which was probably overblown.

Besides, having weird experiences is part of the human condition, always has been and probably always will be.

 

[Thomas R Morrison]

If you're going to believe in space aliens visiting Earth, then Karl had the most sensible take - they came here in the 1950s and 1960s, took a look around, ran a few studies, and then left. It mirrors the pattern of exploration the Europeans often undertook. As Karl said to me once, "maybe they'll be back someday, looking for the space alien equivalent of bread fruit."

I’m trying hard to overlook the demeaning phrasing here…”if you’re going to believe in”…”space aliens.” But the hypocrisy of hearing it from someone who has taken a very serious interest in this subject, as well as ghosts etc., makes that impossible. How much did you enjoy being mocked for producing your “Ten Best Cases” video? “Do unto others…” as they say.

Karl sounds like a fine gent, but I find that argument to be deeply unconvincing – the presumption seems to be that “they” are one species, coming from one place, which is logically indefensible.

If indeed we readily accept that Earth has been visited by some kind of extraterrestrial technology in recent history, then we’ve already overcome the enormous hurdle of human ego which stubbornly insists that we humans are a miraculously rare and unique occurrence of supreme intelligence in the universe, and the most technologically advanced species in the cosmos. I find that presumption laughable, frankly.

Because all of the data and scientific deduction indicates that life is probably very common throughout the galaxy and cosmos, and we know that the adaptive mechanism of intelligence is the most successful evolutionary advantage in a thriving biosphere. So the rise of intelligent species will likely be a fairly common outcome upon living worlds.

Karl’s argument tries to ride the fence and say “it happened here, and just one other place nearby…but that’s all.” There’s no rational justification for that position: if it happened twice in this galactic vicinity, then why only twice? And what’s worse, is his position ignores an abundance of compelling incidents to the contrary. If you, personally, had seen a pair of craft executing a series of hairpin maneuvers at thousands of miles per hour in the 70s or 80s, as I and others have witnessed, then you would also find Karl’s argument unconvincing, trust me on that.

I have to confess: I’m also probably a hypocrite. I’m a very skeptical, mercilessly analytical thinker with more than my share of conceit, so I probably wouldn’t have believed that there’s anything to the innumerable unexplained sightings out there, if it hadn’t happened to me.

This debate always reminds me of the ball lightning debate. As a kid I remember having to go into the “paranormal/ufo/crackpot” section of my local library to read about ball lightning cases, because at that time scientists thought it was BS. But as a prepubescent kid with an anomalous sighting of my own under my belt, I empathized with the seemingly earnest people who described these bizarre crackling and floating knots of electrical energy that appeared near lightning storms once in a great while. And now that at least one very clear photograph of this exotic phenomenon has gone public, and a viable explanation has arisen, the scientific community has generally come to accept the phenomenon as real.

The same thing is going to happen with the ufo phenomenon, eventually. In fact it probably would have already, if we humans weren’t so profoundly arrogant. Because the evidence is sparse, but it exists. We just can’t seem to accept that some of our galactic neighbors have figured out something that we haven’t figured out yet: how to get from one star to the next in an efficient and timely manner. Once we do, Vegas money says that the scientific opinion about extraterrestrial technology entering our airspace from time to time will shift soon after.

I don't rely on the business of ufology to make my earn a living, nor do I crave the invites to travel to conferences etc., so I have no problem saying publicly what a lot of folks will only say privately.

Wait - you make it sound like expressing ETH skepticism is courageous. It's not (not even here at The Paracast forums, strangely). That's the most mainstream position, and nobody is afraid to say it publicly. It's takes courage to be an advocate of the ETH like your uncle Stanton, not the other way around.

 

[Randall]

If you're going to believe in space aliens visiting Earth, then Karl had the most sensible take - they came here in the 1950s and 1960s, took a look around, ran a few studies, and then left. It mirrors the pattern of exploration the Europeans often undertook. As Karl said to me once, "maybe they'll be back someday, looking for the space alien equivalent of bread fruit."

Except the one I saw was in the 1970s. But it also seemed a lot more like a probe than a passenger ship. So there's the possibility we're dealing with more than one visitor, automated probes left behind to monitor and send back info, or that they were still around in the 1970s. Add to that all the other sightings since then and I'm not so sure we can say they just came and went. But if they did, all the more reason to preserve the cases from the Golden Era in ufology.

 

[Randall]

I don't rely on the business of ufology to make my earn a living, nor do I crave the invites to travel to conferences etc., so I have no problem saying publicly what a lot of folks will only say privately.

It's certainly advantageous not to be influenced by biases such as ratings and popularity contests, but that's not in keeping with what you were saying earlier about the popularity of ghosts and such compared to UFOs. It's hard not to draw an inference there. After all, it's only natural to try to promote and defend what it is you're doing. Personally I don't have a hard time with someone doing that depending on the tactics used. It is possible to remain fair minded and filter out one's own bias if an effort is made to do so.

 

[Han]

Because all of the data and scientific deduction indicates that life is probably very common throughout the galaxy and cosmos, and we know that the adaptive mechanism of intelligence is the most successful evolutionary advantage in a thriving biosphere. So the rise of intelligent species will likely be a fairly common outcome upon living worlds.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but also at the same time absence of evidence is not evidence of presence either.
We haven't even found one microbe in space we didn't take there (yet). (according to mainstream science anyway)

So however likely it is doesn't mean it is definitely going to happen.


Also it is a bit early to speculate about what role intelligence will play in different 'biospheres' because at the moment we only have one example to go by.
My understanding is that intelligence is notoriously hard to measure and define and many animals are capable of doing things we would assume outside of their capabilities according to brain size etc.


I am not somebody who doesn't think UFO's are a reality, I just have a different take on them. And don't mind if they come from Mars or Earth, just as long as they are not up to no good, which some of them allegedly are.
One of the reasons I prefer Bigfoot to be honest. And some people even accuse them of being bad

 

[Walter Bosley]

Meanwhile, for all the soliloquizing, we still have not the answer.

 

[Han]

Meanwhile, for all the soliloquizing, we still have not the answer.

Had to consult the dictionary:

Soliloquize: Speak one's thoughts aloud when by oneself or regardless of any hearers; utter a soliloquy.




I would probably rather if no one was listening and definitely that they don't answer tbh

my paradigms and all that.

 

[Thomas R Morrison]

I would probably rather if no one was listening and definitely that they don't answer tbh

my paradigms and all that.

Well that’s just too bad, Han, because I've already written the typically verbose rebuttal below

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but also at the same time absence of evidence is not evidence of presence either.
We haven't even found one microbe in space we didn't take there (yet). (according to mainstream science anyway)

So however likely it is doesn't mean it is definitely going to happen.

I try not be definite about anything either, until I see a preponderance of direct evidence – and even then it’s wise to remember that everything is provisional to some extent. But when we’re speculating about a concept like this, we have to weigh the availability of direct evidence and the evidence at hand, and then apply reason to what we have.

And so far we’ve only had the opportunity to look for life on the two nearest planets, and of course the Moon – which were by all outward appearances barren of life to begin with. But with an estimated 40-80 billion Earth-like planets in the habitable zones of their stars in our galaxy alone, that’s a whole other ballgame. And we’ve had no opportunity whatsoever to collect biological data about those planets, so there’s no positive or dispositive evidence within our grasp at present. On the other hand, with each passing decade, we’ve accumulated a skyrocketing abundance of evidence that terrestrial conditions are ubiquitous within our galaxy and all the others. We’ve learned that Earth-like planets are commonplace, and water is everywhere, and the building blocks of life (amino acids etc) permeate space. By all scientifically detectable measures, life should be essentially all over the place. And since it appears that there’s nothing special about Earth or Earth’s history, we have every reason to expect to find intelligent life throughout the cosmos.

So I do. And the ufo phenomenon conforms very well with that prediction. Which is why I’d be very surprised to learn, in decades hence, that intelligent life is extremely rare in our galaxy and beyond. It could be. I’m perfectly prepared to accept that. But if it is extremely rare, then it must be for reasons that we have no indication of yet. And I find that powerfully suggestive.

Also it is a bit early to speculate about what role intelligence will play in different 'biospheres' because at the moment we only have one example to go by.
My understanding is that intelligence is notoriously hard to measure and define and many animals are capable of doing things we would assume outside of their capabilities according to brain size etc.

Indeed - we do have only our one example to go by. So we should do that. We have no evidence that intelligence arose from some miraculously rare condition – and as you’ve pointed out, we find intelligence in many other species on this planet: crows, octopi, dolphins and whales (in fact if you think about it, all forms of life possess *some* degree of intelligence). So it strikes me that Earth-like conditions + sufficient time = a dominant intellectual species. But even if this only plays out elsewhere like it did here, on one in a million favorable planets, then we can expect a minimum of 40,000 technological species in our galaxy alone. And since we’re just barely out of the Dark Ages, technologically speaking, then odds are extremely high that we’re among the least advanced technological species in the galaxy.

I am not somebody who doesn't think UFO's are a reality, I just have a different take on them. And don't mind if they come from Mars or Earth, just as long as they are not up to no good, which some of them allegedly are.
One of the reasons I prefer Bigfoot to be honest. And some people even accuse them of being bad

Well, I tend to look at it this way: any sentient being is going to look out for itself and its kin, first and foremost. And at this rudimentary point in our technological development, we have nothing to offer a species that’s already mastered interstellar spaceflight, so mutually beneficial trade is off the table. That leaves only our natural and biological resources to plunder, as a potential attraction to this planet. Which may well be happening.

 

[Paul Kimball]

Meanwhile, for all the soliloquizing, we still have not the answer.

Or answers...

 

[Paul Kimball]

Wait - you make it sound like expressing ETH skepticism is courageous. It's not (not even here at The Paracast forums, strangely). That's the most mainstream position, and nobody is afraid to say it publicly. It's takes courage to be an advocate of the ETH like your uncle Stanton, not the other way around.

You have mistakenly assumed I was talking about the ETH. I was not (it's a perfectly valid theory, although one I personally don't find very convincing). Rather, I was referring to ufology and the people in it, and the unwillingness of many to say in public about others what they will happily say in private, for fear of offending or costing themselves economic opportunities. I have no such problem.

 

[marduk]

Absence of evidence is certainly evidence of absence. I always cringe when Uncle Stan says that.

I mean, black swans happen. But not so often that they’re not black swans.

 

[Thomas R Morrison]

You have mistakenly assumed I was talking about the ETH. I was not (it's a perfectly valid theory, although one I personally don't find very convincing). Rather, I was referring to ufology and the people in it, and the unwillingness of many to say in public about others what they will happily say in private, for fear of offending or costing themselves economic opportunities. I have no such problem.

Oh okay, I can see that. Yeah I find that The Paracast doesn't subscribe to the typical pandering culture within ufology, so you're in good company. How anyone can stomach the dreck from people like David Wilcock absolutely bewilders me. And humoring the likes of people like him and the ludicrously fraudulent "Dr. Jonathan Reed" only serves to further erode the wisp of credibility that this area of inquiry has struggled to maintain.

Thank god for candid commentators, and those rare serious resources like the UFO watchdog.

 

[Paul Kimball]

Oh okay, I can see that. Yeah I find that The Paracast doesn't subscribe to the typical pandering culture within ufology, so you're in good company. How anyone can stomach the dreck from people like David Wilcock absolutely bewilders me. And humoring the likes of people like him and the ludicrously fraudulent "Dr. Jonathan Reed" only serves to further erode the wisp of credibility that this area of inquiry has struggled to maintain.

Thank god for candid commentators, and those rare serious resources like the UFO watchdog.

Agreed. But obvious con-men like Reed are easy targets. The intellectual rot runs a lot deeper.