Skeptics rejoice.

[tyder001]

The skeptics of the paranormal in general, but ufo's in particular must be giddy these past couple of months. I've said time and time again that I don't beleive we are being visited by space folks. I've seen one or two people come on here and their evidence is "metal" and "ground indentions." Yep! And yet they sling inuendos at other people who simply admit that the only reason they beleive in anything is faith. Even though I would love to see James Randi swallow his dentures and Michael Schermer have a sputtering fit with some "real" honest ufo evidence. I just don't see it EVER happening. I've gone from "skeptic" about ufo's to "atheist" about ufo's. I'm sorry to say they are just not there. Well, ufo's are there but they are not spacemen/women. To be honest the only "honest" paranormal research is touched on and done by people like Pin Van Lomel and Rupert Sheldrake and the past work of Rhine. The work of Grosso and others. But, it's not flashy and it's not wham,bam lights in the sky. You have to read through boring statistics and control groups stats and rebuttals and arguments and come away knowing NOTHING is proven beyond doubt. Maybe, thats why there are so many charlatans in ufo "cough,cough" research. It's a lot easier to say "Hey, look there's a light in the sky and I have a PHD from Granola State" than to do the actual grunt work. I really respect Chris O'brien and Stanton Friedman and even (if I can say it here) Paul Kimbal for looking and trying to find the truth. Even though all of them and others come at it from different angles and worldviews. Anyway, I finally,finally understand Don walking away from this shit. It's easier to just find your "inner" radar and be a casual dabbler than to get some of this crap all over you. Total honesty here:
If I had not had the expereinces in life that I've had. If I didn't have a very real (though conflicted) inner life and seen the things I've seen. Well, I would not on the basis of any so called "research" that I've seen here or read about believe in any of this stuff. I'll keep watching the skies but I am very, very skeptical these days.

 

[Christopher O'Brien]

I agree ty... I sometimes look back at that pivotal night at the New Year's eve party 1992 when I heard a bunch of my friends talking about two UFOs they saw fly down from the mountains at treetop level and I now cringe. I originally set out to debunk (or explain away) their experiences for my local newspaper, but ended up getting sucked into acknowledging the apparent reality of so-called paranormal phenomena. The yellow helicopter case made my interest terminal and the tar-baby is stuck to my face. Having said this, the longer I'm involved in this field of inquiry the more jaded and skeptical I become. Sure, there's weird events happening all the time, but (IMO) it surely ain't aliens piloting craft lit up like christmas trees, coming here and mutilating cows or giving bad-tasting pancakes to farmers or bad equations to Stan Romanek...

 

[Ron Collins]

Tyder, the UFO phenomenon is real. You cant imagine radar. Mass hallucination is not a viable solution. Witness testimony is not always faked. Despite what some would have you believe a pilot is better at identifying weather and arial phenomenon than Bob from accounting. What you are hung up on is the sourcing of the phenomenon. They are two wholly separate things. You can understand that the phenomenon exists and not "believe" in any specific sourcing theory. In fact, I encourage it.

 

[TClaeys]

yep, have to agree. I had a renewed interest in the subject about 6 years ago or so. The gullibility and desire factor for wanting to find some real evidence was pretty high. I mean why not right?? Maybe we have been visited, ... maybe this paranormal stuff does exist. But as I kept my eye out for evidence the whole badge of "wannabelieve" whittled away to the now "it's pretty much all crap" badge.

I keep an open mind, sure. But I've seen stories, research, etc emerge that was supposed to turn the skeptics on their head. Samples were just a lab test away from groundbreaking paradigm shift. Alien implants surgically removed, molten UFO slag, angel hair, undoubtedly real UFO videos, inside whistleblowers, military witnesses, government officials, hidden underground bases, ..... confiscated pictures, UFO pieces, and death threats. The list is quite huge. But what has happened to all this stuff?? I'll tell you what, ... nothing!

We always seem to be at the last stage before "disclosure" happens. It might happen today or tomorrow. But I've seen these things come and go. Especially being a part of this PC group over the last few years we see a lot of new information. And the one thing that seems to be persistent is that they ALL go away. Nothing materializes. There is no definitive lab test. The pictures are gone conveniently. The aliens don't show themselves. Life goes on.

I'm not saying we know everything. I'm not saying there isn't something larger than the miniscule life we experience right now. I'm not saying aliens do not exist. I'm just agreeing that I am way more skeptical by being a part of this community. When you see so many things build and collapse the reality creeps in. The phenomenon seems to be something we created, not the other way around. Anyway, ....still waiting to be proved wrong. It still interests me, but I've stopped holding my breath long ago.

 

[Simone_m]

I am convinced of something about ufos, but I can't prove it. Which is, that the ufo phenomenon has changed over the years. Back in the late '70s-to-'80, I saw things in the sky of which I never saw anything quite like that again. A friend and I were obsessed night-skywatchers, and when we did not see ufos, then we saw all kinds of things that looked like satellites, but you can't be sure. And strange bright deep blue lights, which would originate from high up and descend strait down. One time, a large low intensely white ball of light with a green zigzag sinewave tail, travel slowly over my friend's house, while we were right across the street outside. All kinds of stuff like that, but, NO MORE.
As I get further away in time from those sightings, I have to strain and ask myself, did I see what I tell about, here. I -did- meticulously document them with drawings too, in a notebook I kept, but one night back in 1986 or '7, on my way home from a MUFON friend's house, with said book, a guy came running up in the darkness and grabbed my purse and dragged me, until I let go and he ran off. The purse contained that book. (I'm sure all he wanted was my cash [if any] though.)

But I look out my window at night, sorta high up in this building I'm in, and I can spend as long as I want, on the starriest of nights, and see ---nothing--- .

 

[stonehart]

Personally I started out with enthusiasm where UFO’s are concerned listening to what radio shows I could and reading as much as I could on the subject.
The sad thing is now after a number of years I am in the same place I started which is nowhere and the only change is I now have a sack full of disappointments.
I have to admit that I have become way to over suspicious and very sceptical of any new information or discoveries that come along.
Is there alien life? Well yes statistically it is out there but is it coming here?
Your guess is as good as mine to be honest, but the more BS I get feed by the fakers and the frauds the less I think it is.
For sure we have pilot testimony and such but in the long run no matter how many water tight testimonies you can get it cannot undo the immense damage done by just one fraud and faker and of those we have had far too many.

 

[exo_doc]

SO the JAL 123 flight was just mistaken....what?
The RB 47 case was what?....confusion on the radar operators coupled with pilots seeing internal windscreen reflections?
The Trents faked the photo after all?
Rex Heflin won a bet from his buddies he could fool the world?
Lonnie Zamora was overcome by dessert heat?
Even the late great master of UFOdom, J. Allen Hynek was fooled?

I think you guys are missing the forest for the tree.
99.9% of all sightings, events, and reports are mistaken identities, secret aircraft, hoaxes and self delusions. That's been said countless times on this site and everywhere else. As Angelo says, "...a vast majority.."

What keeps my interest are the cases that DEFY normal explanations---no matter how much information is gathered about it/them, they still defy explanation.

It only takes one case people, and there are many more of them than one.
So what if these craft haven't landed on the White House lawn.....would you do that? You'd get your antenna shot off. So what if the general public doesn't have an alien ipod, or microwave, or toe-cheese sucker-offer to look at and go "Ooohh...Ahhhh".

The facts are that something is going on up there, down here, (and "in the case of bodies of water) under there. Aside from Chris, how much does anyone else on here know about not just the "classic" cases, but about the entire world of UFOlogy?
You're telling me , after all you've heard and seen and read about, you really do not think SOMETHING isn't going on ?

 

[TClaeys]

SO the JAL 123 flight was just mistaken....what?
The RB 47 case was what?....confusion on the radar operators coupled with pilots seeing internal windscreen reflections?
The Trents faked the photo after all?
Rex Heflin won a bet from his buddies he could fool the world?
Lonnie Zamora was overcome by dessert heat?
Even the late great master of UFOdom, J. Allen Hynek was fooled?

I think you guys are missing the forest for the tree.
99.9% of all sightings, events, and reports are mistaken identities, secret aircraft, hoaxes and self delusions. That's been said countless times on this site and everywhere else. As Angelo says, "...a vast majority.."

What keeps my interest are the cases that DEFY normal explanations---no matter how much information is gathered about it/them, they still defy explanation.

It only takes one case people, and there are many more of them than one.
So what if these craft haven't landed on the White House lawn.....would you do that? You'd get your antenna shot off. So what if the general public doesn't have an alien ipod, or microwave, or toe-cheese sucker-offer to look at and go "Ooohh...Ahhhh".

The facts are that something is going on up there, down here, (and "in the case of bodies of water) under there. Aside from Chris, how much does anyone else on here know about not just the "classic" cases, but about the entire world of UFOlogy?
You're telling me , after all you've heard and seen and read about, you really do not think SOMETHING isn't going on ?

I think the point is that it doesn't indicate an extraterrestrial presence as so many researchers have said and what Tyder is saying.

SOMETHING going on is a far cry from ET. And just because something defies a normal explanation it doesn't mean it has no explanation, ... even a terrestrial one.

How much more info can we gather about the Trents photos?? How much more can information can we gather about RB47?? Were the airships of the 1800's airships of human construction?? Is ET visiting Hessdalen?? Is it possible Zamora was hoaxed?? Not if you ask Stanford, .. .you know the one that has so much definitive video proof and analysis that he won't share any of it. How many times has Roswell folded into different stories?? What really happened to the divers after the Shag Harbor UFO dive-down?? Where did the UFO videos go from Big Sur??

What I'm getting at here is that nothing ever seems to get past a superficial scratch of the surface. Why is that?? Why don't we have something more substantial?? Because if all we have is a collection of stories, confusing radar returns, witness testimony, he said-she said, lights in the sky, then it doesn't do too much for me. I have to remain skeptical until I see something, .... better. It's not good enough for me that a mystery suddenly takes the form of ET visitors. Whaaa?? It may as well be God. And there's enough similarity there.

What about military, psychological tests, misidentifying, delusion, optical anomalies, undiscovered natural occurences (like perhaps Hessdalen or other Earthlights), power of suggestion, hallucination, etc. The fact that something is going on doesn't lead me to the conclusion that it's space people. Some people take a sighting and run with it. But they never look back to discover they are running from Venus. They never look further to see that flares look exactly like what they saw. They never think for a second that perhaps what they saw was a hoax. It's this runaway mentality that drives the UFO world.

Is there weird stuff happening?? Sure. Can I explain it all?? No way. Should I be of the mind that since I can't explain it, that it must be aliens?? No, this is the same God of the gaps argument that creationists use. We don't understand it, therefore it must be a greater intelligent power. And just in my humble opinion that doesn't cut it. I don't refuse to think that aliens are here, I just don't see any convincing evidence for it thus far.

 

[mike]

This seems to be a common theme lately, for all my time and effort still no proof, i'll just stamp my foot and take my bat and ball home.
Personally i think the proof is there, the aforementioned radar tracks, multiple witness sightings etc etc
Does this data answer any real questions ? no it doesnt, but i see the proof all around me everyday.

This planet is teeming with life, it finds a foothold under great pressure in the oceans depths, in the freezing cold of the polar extremitys, the searing heat of volcanic vents.

There are only two sides to the coin folks, either the universe measured as vast in both space and time, is teeming with life as it is here (as above so below) or we are the single sole outpost of life in a place so big its almost beyond our ability to imagine.

Personally i dont think we are alone, i honestly dont see how we could be, if i had to bet my house on one side of the coin or the other, you can guess which option i'd choose.

there are any number of reasons why we would be quarantined, why the answers are denyed us, despite our sense of superiority we are primitive and barbaric.
We are a destructive and dangerous species, to look at us from "outside" we are like a swarm of locusts .
Its difficult for us to be objective about ourselfs, we say oh we are advanced enough, we are ready for contact, but thats not our choice to make. Its typical of our hubris to think otherwise.
No one handles rejection well, what im seeing in this field is akin to someone applying for a job and being told they were not suitable, and then deciding the job didnt exist anyway.

You can believe we are all alone and no one is watching, or that the universe is teeming with life, just as it is outside your very window.

Personally after watching the deep feild footage, i find the idea that we are alone, impossible, not just statistically unlikely...... Impossible

 

[exo_doc]

Excellent video Mike.

And some good points.
I guess I'm one of those rare people that don't get frustrated because we don't have incontrovertible proof of ....whatever (ET, Dimensional Traveler, time Traveler, other...) graces our skies and beyond.

Like I said before, almost all sightings or events have a prosaic explanation, and I'm sure some of the currently unexplainable ones will eventually turn out to be natural phenomena or super secret vehicles or some such.

And I do not automatically jump to the ETH. What I do say is "I do not know, yet, what that is."
But just because I don't know what something is doesn't make it not-real.

I do lean in the direction of ETH (for some sightings), but I hope I can maintain enough awareness of that not to unduly influence my critical thinking.

 

[boomerang]

Tyder, if your point is that ufology as a science is largely a failure, I would have to agree. If your point is that ufology is a non-mystery best ignored, then I could not disagree more. Ignoring incredible things seen by thousands of credible people isn't going to make the strangeness go away.

 

[tyder001]

It's never been my intent to say we don't have things going on that don't fit into a neat little box. Often these days we have code words that are intended to silence desent of any kind. Don't like the president? Racist. Don't think the world is a cosmic accident? Creationist. Don't vote repulican? Immoral scum. Don't vote democrat? See don't like president. Don't beleive in god? satanic illuninati. Believe in God? Uneducated idiot.

So, no I did not mean to imply there are not things to be looked at and legitimate points of contention. But, I did mean to imply that ufology as a science is indeed non-existent and the blind are leading the blind. No, I don't think we are being visited. But, I still look at the sky at night and I also agree that it's an awfully big cosmos. So, the possibility is certainly there. But, I still stand by my initial post on the thread.

 

[Sean Elifritz]

SO the JAL 123 flight was just mistaken....what?
The RB 47 case was what?....confusion on the radar operators coupled with pilots seeing internal windscreen reflections?
The Trents faked the photo after all?
Rex Heflin won a bet from his buddies he could fool the world?
Lonnie Zamora was overcome by dessert heat?
Even the late great master of UFOdom, J. Allen Hynek was fooled?

I think you guys are missing the forest for the tree.
99.9% of all sightings, events, and reports are mistaken identities, secret aircraft, hoaxes and self delusions. That's been said countless times on this site and everywhere else. As Angelo says, "...a vast majority.."

What keeps my interest are the cases that DEFY normal explanations---no matter how much information is gathered about it/them, they still defy explanation.

It only takes one case people, and there are many more of them than one.
So what if these craft haven't landed on the White House lawn.....would you do that? You'd get your antenna shot off. So what if the general public doesn't have an alien ipod, or microwave, or toe-cheese sucker-offer to look at and go "Ooohh...Ahhhh".

The facts are that something is going on up there, down here, (and "in the case of bodies of water) under there. Aside from Chris, how much does anyone else on here know about not just the "classic" cases, but about the entire world of UFOlogy?
You're telling me , after all you've heard and seen and read about, you really do not think SOMETHING isn't going on ?

Experience has taught us that even the best of cases can fall apart instantly and completely. Just a year or two ago Rendlesham seemed pretty impressive...now it's a steaming pile of poo. The Trindade photos were considered some of the best of all time. Now we know it's just a couple of spoons glued together. And how impressive are the Trent pictures...really? You don't think those could be reproduced by simply tossing something into the air and snapping shots of it? Yeah, the "experts" in the UFO community say they're real, couldn't have been faked. These are the same guys that dubbed the Trindade pics as some of the best ever and said they couldn't be faked. I'm not saying there isn't a handful of truly puzzling cases still out there. But unexplained doesn't mean unexplainable. They could fall apart tomorrow, could happen even before you sit down for dinner this evening.

---------- Post added at 09:58 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:29 AM ----------

And it seems to me that technology is catching up with the legend of the UFO. Millions of people armed with digital cameras and/or cell phones with cameras built into them. The world under 24/7 surveillance by satellites, now even commercial ones. You can use Google Earth to look at anything. And what has ufology gained from all of this? Nothing. We still keep looking back to pictures taken decades ago to proclaim as our best evidence.

 

[pixelsmith]

tyder when you see a "ufo" up fairly close, you will change your mind, and when you do see one, think real hard before telling anyone what you saw.

 

[tyder001]

Pixel I have learned that from personal experience. I have seen things and experienced certain things that reductionism says simply can't happen. So, I'm not trying to be a spoil sport on ufo's. I'm just honest in saying what I think. But, I don't mean to make an absolute dogmatic statement that everybody else has to follow.

 

[mike]

To my mind we have a situation where we have data, but no answers.
If there were no data, none of us would be here asking questions.

But as said prior, there are any number of reasons why the answers have not been made available/deliberately hidden from us.

We are predominantely flesh eaters, and for the most part we dont think twice about it, a million sold the signs proclaim, and few of the customers would ever consider the practise abhorent.
But to a species that no longer/never did eat flesh, the practise would be repugnent, just as it often is to vegetarian/vegans here. Indeed as repugnant as cannibalism is to us

Prior experience, remember for us "contact" would be a first, but "Vistitors" would likely have been there and done that before, our own terrestrial contact scenarios have in hindsight been a bad thing for the less advanced culture.

And along the same lines, if they are conciousness harvesters, prior experience may have had disastrous effects when the target bioform found out, including self annihilation.
Our own scientists are looking at copying and transfering conciousness, If another species possibly transbiological in nature themselves were recycling our conciousness at death, either for our benefit or their own, one scenario we could employ to stop them, would be to nuke our entire species into extinction, cut off the chain of supply for good.

there is the time traveller threat from paradox scenario.

There are many many possible reasons why letting us have the answers may not be desirable to them.

And at the end of the day thats all we want, answers.
Who are you, where do you come from, what are you doing here, what do you have to trade
Whats your history, what do you know of our history, how does your stuff work......

But history is replete with examples where answers are not given, but rather taken.
In war for example one side doesnt give the other the answers to troop size/movement etc etc, each side must spy that info out for itself

There are plenty of plausible reasons why the answers remain elusive, why deliberate deception seems part and parcel of the phenomena

 

[TClaeys]

tyder when you see a "ufo" up fairly close, you will change your mind, and when you do see one, think real hard before telling anyone what you saw.

This is the one thing I forgot to mention. I know many of you have had personal experiences. And I'm quite sure this changes a person. I have nothing to offer here since I've never had one, ... and quite frankly don't want. But the fact is some of you have seen things that I can barely imagine happening. I do not have any answer regarding the experiences and am puzzled by some of them. If I were to have one I'm sure it would replace all that lingering doubt, .... or leave me in a straight jacket.

 

[exo_doc]

Experience has taught us that even the best of cases can fall apart instantly and completely. Just a year or two ago Rendlesham seemed pretty impressive...now it's a steaming pile of poo. The Trindade photos were considered some of the best of all time. Now we know it's just a couple of spoons glued together. And how impressive are the Trent pictures...really? You don't think those could be reproduced by simply tossing something into the air and snapping shots of it? Yeah, the "experts" in the UFO community say they're real, couldn't have been faked. These are the same guys that dubbed the Trindade pics as some of the best ever and said they couldn't be faked. I'm not saying there isn't a handful of truly puzzling cases still out there. But unexplained doesn't mean unexplainable. They could fall apart tomorrow, could happen even before you sit down for dinner this evening.

---------- Post added at 09:58 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:29 AM ----------

And it seems to me that technology is catching up with the legend of the UFO. Millions of people armed with digital cameras and/or cell phones with cameras built into them. The world under 24/7 surveillance by satellites, now even commercial ones. You can use Google Earth to look at anything. And what has ufology gained from all of this? Nothing. We still keep looking back to pictures taken decades ago to proclaim as our best evidence.

There's more to it than that, but I just don't have the energy at the moment to discuss the pros and cons of re-writing history. I'll get back to you on this.
Good points btw Wickerman.

 

[exo_doc]

Experience has taught us that even the best of cases can fall apart instantly and completely. Just a year or two ago Rendlesham seemed pretty impressive...now it's a steaming pile of poo. The Trindade photos were considered some of the best of all time. Now we know it's just a couple of spoons glued together. And how impressive are the Trent pictures...really? You don't think those could be reproduced by simply tossing something into the air and snapping shots of it? Yeah, the "experts" in the UFO community say they're real, couldn't have been faked. These are the same guys that dubbed the Trindade pics as some of the best ever and said they couldn't be faked. I'm not saying there isn't a handful of truly puzzling cases still out there. But unexplained doesn't mean unexplainable. They could fall apart tomorrow, could happen even before you sit down for dinner this evening.

---------- Post added at 09:58 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:29 AM ----------

And it seems to me that technology is catching up with the legend of the UFO. Millions of people armed with digital cameras and/or cell phones with cameras built into them. The world under 24/7 surveillance by satellites, now even commercial ones. You can use Google Earth to look at anything. And what has ufology gained from all of this? Nothing. We still keep looking back to pictures taken decades ago to proclaim as our best evidence.

BTW Wickerman, where did you find the info on the Trinidad photos being two spoons together? I cant find that.
Also btw, I find it very difficult to beleive a photographer for the Brazilian Navy would hoax everyone like that. Imagine how much trouble he would have been in if he got caught.

I have my doubts it was faked. I have my suspicions about the possibility of disinformation here.
Check out this site about comparing the photos to an airplane: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mjpowell/Trindade/Trindade.htm

I continue to research this, along with the Petit Rechin photo being a fake......mmmm, sounds to skeptically good to be about a hoaxer suddenly coming forth on this.

We're naturally skeptical about UFO reports, ....but why do we take hoaxers admissions at face value and not treat such claimed admissions like we would a usual UFO report?
"Oh well, someone admitted it was a hoax, so we can forget all about it." What if a report is trying to be discredited by disinformation?........Worth checking out.

 

[Sean Elifritz]

BTW Wickerman, where did you find the info on the Trinidad photos being two spoons together? I cant find that.
Also btw, I find it very difficult to beleive a photographer for the Brazilian Navy would hoax everyone like that. Imagine how much trouble he would have been in if he got caught.

I have my doubts it was faked. I have my suspicions about the possibility of disinformation here.
Check out this site about comparing the photos to an airplane: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mjpowell/Trindade/Trindade.htm

I continue to research this, along with the Petit Rechin photo being a fake......mmmm, sounds to skeptically good to be about a hoaxer suddenly coming forth on this.

We're naturally skeptical about UFO reports, ....but why do we take hoaxers admissions at face value and not treat such claimed admissions like we would a usual UFO report?
"Oh well, someone admitted it was a hoax, so we can forget all about it." What if a report is trying to be discredited by disinformation?........Worth checking out.

Can't remember for sure. Might have been Kevin Randle's blog. Think I also read some stuff about it at UFO Updates a while back.