Wow. Someday they’re going have a name for Seth’s peculiar form of psychopathology in the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, because the mental gymnastics required to be convinced that technologically advanced alien civilizations exist...but they could not conceivably be sending craft or autonomous drones to the Earth, appears to represent a truly unique neurotic condition.
I sometimes wonder if Seth’s stance on anomalous aerial vehicles (or simply AAVs - a term which I’ve seen in the press lately, and prefer to the broadly stigmatized and nonspecific term “UFO”), is just public relations - because it’s harder to justify searching the sky for radio signals if devices of extraterrestrial origin are entering our own airspace from time to time.
But when he writes articles like this one, he seems to be a devout disbeliever, and makes all kinds of glaring factual and logical errors to defend his irrational position. For example, as
Ezechiel noticed, Seth doesn’t seem to understand that the recent Advanced Targeting Forward-Looking Infrared (ATFLIR) footage that we’ve seen recently, involves target-lock tracking that’s
designed to keep the object in the center of the frame as the camera system pans and the aircraft moves.
He also fails to describe the footage accurately when he says:
“Yes, there was an intriguing military video purportedly showing a cluster of alien craft.”
But in both clips, we only see
one object being tracked, not “a cluster.” Somehow he confused the audio portion of the GIMBAL footage, where the pilots discuss seeing other targets on their radar systems, with the video footage. So how reliable can his clearly prejudiced evaluations of other photographic evidence be?
I have no problem with that, btw – I wouldn’t expect a radio astronomer to be any better at photo analysis than, say, my mechanic. But I find it presumptuous of him to assert any level of expertise in that area when he can’t even accurately describe a simple video clip.
He goes on to ridicule a widely recognized feature of the AAV phenomenon – that they tend to be seen around military installations, nuclear facilities, and missile bases:
“I’m also wary of anthropomorphic touches — for example, when someone says, ‘They seemed friendly and just want to establish contact’ or ‘They’re buzzing our missile silos.’ The latter is particularly goofy. Any aliens who come from the stars are way ahead of us. If you could visit America 150 years ago, would you spend time inspecting the Union Army’s cannon-making factory at Pittsburgh’s Allegheny Arsenal?”
He literally just ridiculed the allegedly “anthropomorphic touches” that he says he’s wary of, with an anthropomorphic touch, when he says “would you spend time inspecting.” Does it make sense that extraterrestrial beings gathering intelligence about our civilization would be interested in our defensive and nuclear capabilities? Of course.
Here’s a particularly amusing logical paradox that I find symptomatic of this form of neurosis:
“More than anything, I ask myself if the extraterrestrial explanation is compelling — or merely possible. Is the evidence proof-positive or only puzzling? The latter isn’t good enough.”
How absolutely ironic that a scientist who’s devoted his life to finding a radio signal from an alien civilization – and never actually found one, should be so eager to dismiss evidence that’s merely “puzzling.” “Puzzling evidence” is more compelling than “no evidence,” sir.
Then he makes a bizarre analogy, comparing the extraterrestrial explanation to a David Copperfield trick where the stage magician appears to walk through a whirling fan blade. The assumption here is that both are impossible – that it’s just as impossible for a more technologically advanced civilization to develop practical interstellar spaceflight capability, as it is for a man to walk through a spinning turbine.
And that’s really the heart of problem with Seth Shostak’s position – the boundless conceit of our men of letters to declare that whatever we humans haven’t yet achieved, must be impossible for all forms of intelligent life in the universe no matter how many thousands or even millions of years ahead of us they may be technologically.
I think Stanton Friedman has been sarcastically chiming this for decades.
