The most convincing case of an Identified Alien Craft (IAC) is?

[dyingsun]

Mostly agreeing with you, Pcar, but still, who invented those scientific Instruments ? I like to give shit to the 'human race', because quite frankly, we deserve it, but not all is lost. I still have a glimpse of Hope left....somewhere, but it is there.

 

[Randall]

Humans are also very good at misperceiving patterns, and then remembering them wrong. This is extremely well documented. We make really lousy scientific instruments.

You accuse me of fallacy, but have not identified one. However, you argue that we can identify alien spacecraft because we have identified alien spacecraft!

Not exactly, I say we can identify something as an alien craft via deductive reasoning. As for whether or not it's a spacecraft, that's another matter that would require much more specific information. On your comment about me accusing you of a fallacy, I'm not certain exactly what you're referencing there, so we'd have to clear that up before I can address that issue.

On the comments about the problems humans have with perception and memory: The assertion that humans are, "very good at misperceiving patterns" only applies to specific sets of circumstances designed to support that assertion, not on the overall ability of normal, healthy, well informed humans to identify patterns and remember them well enough to draw reasonable conclusions.

On the issue of humans being, "lousy scientific instruments": Human intelligence gives us unparalleled ability to solve complex problems, and besides that, scientists are instruments of science, which makes them the most important scientific instruments science has. All the other instruments pale in comparison. Without humans, the tools alone would accomplish little or nothing.

The mantra of human fallibility is a typical skeptical device designed to impart an unreasonable sense of uncertainty regarding human ability, and it almost always infers that the alternative ( machines and instruments ) are superior and infallible, which is not the case. All scientific instruments are subject to failure and error. Lets consider your example of memory: Computer memory failures are among the most common problems I deal with regularly in my work as a PC tech.

If you face the reality of all these checks and balances, the argument that humans are so fallible as to make them completely unreliable for information gathering and intelligent analysis is completely unsubstantiated. Humans are still at the top of the heap. Period. No machine has yet come close to our ability to perceive and intelligently analyze a situation and come up with a reasonably accurate assessment of a random and unfamiliar situation.

This brings me to my final point about the propensity of skeptics to hail the genius of ancient man in order to debunk ancient alien mythology, while at the same time exaggerating human fallibility in order to debunk modern UFO sightings. The double standard makes transparent, the tactic of skeptics to move the goalposts and cherry pick their examples to suit their predetermined agendas. Instead, we should all be considering the pros and cons as objectively as possible and attempt to determine the truth of the situation.

Having said all this, I'm not suggesting that you are yourself one of those skeptics ( I don't actually know you well enough yet to know your personal position ). I'm just saying that we should not allow ourselves to become caught in the same traps as some of the skeptics who habitually use arguments similar to yours.

 

[manxman]

he mantra of human fallibility is a typical skeptical device designed to impart an unreasonable sense of uncertainty regarding human ability, and it almost always infers that the alternative ( machines and instruments ) are superior and infallible, which is not the case. All scientific instruments are subject to failure and error. Lets consider your example of memory: Computer memory failures are among the most common problems I deal with regularly in my work as a PC tech.

If you face the reality of all these checks and balances, the argument that humans are so fallible as to make them completely unreliable for information gathering and intelligent analysis is completely unsubstantiated. Humans are still at the top of the heap. Period. No machine has yet come close to our ability to perceive and intelligently analyze a situation and come up with a reasonably accurate assessment of a random and unfamiliar situation.

This brings me to my final point about the propensity of skeptics to hail the genius of ancient man in order to debunk ancient alien mythology, while at the same time exaggerating human fallibility in order to debunk modern UFO sightings. The double standard makes transparent, the tactic of skeptics to move the goalposts and cherry pick their examples to suit their predetermined agendas rather than considering the pros and cons and attempting to determine the truth of a situation.

Having said all this, I'm not suggesting that you are yourself one of those skeptics ( I don't actually know you well enough yet to know your personal position ). I'm just saying that we should not allow ourselves to become caught in the same traps as some of the skeptics who habitually use arguments similar to yours.


i like that alot randal, but considering you are so so picky on using the correct terms and phrases, i am surprised you make such a fundamental mis-representation at the end, none of that deception would be employed by a true sceptical thinker, to whome intellectual integrity was paramount, you are describing dyed in the wool debunkers, please try to use the correct desciptor in future, as self proclaimed ''skeptics'' like klass oberg moody printy utah and the rest of their ex forces/nasa ilk are as bereft of integrity as hoagland et al, but they are alot better trained and organised..

 

[Randall]

i like that alot randal, but considering you are so so picky on using the correct terms and phrases, i am surprised you make such a fundamental mis-representation at the end, none of that deception would be employed by a true sceptical thinker, to whome intellectual integrity was paramount, you are describing dyed in the wool debunkers, please try to use the correct desciptor in future, as self proclaimed ''skeptics'' like klass oberg moody printy utah and the rest of their ex forces/nasa ilk are as bereft of integrity as hoagland et al, but they are alot better trained and organised..

Your point is well taken, however my comments weren't aimed at those who you and I might consider "true skeptical thinkers", but those self proclaimed skeptics who employ those kinds of tactics. In the past I've found them inhabiting the rather toxic landscape of certain skeptical oriented forums. Believe it or not, on this forum sometimes I take flack for being too skeptical, which is somewhat ironic because my personal belief is that although skepticism is a useful backup system when we get lazy, it's really second rate compared to critical thinking. Of course then you get the skeptics who say skeptical thinking is the same as critical thinking . Maybe it makes them feel better to think there is some special intellectual gift imparted to those who call themselves skeptics, I don't know.

 

[PCarr]

Mostly agreeing with you, Pcar, but still, who invented those scientific Instruments ? I like to give shit to the 'human race', because quite frankly, we deserve it, but not all is lost. I still have a glimpse of Hope left....somewhere, but it is there.

Well, to our credit, we can as a species do very solid science, but we need humility, persistence, integrity and skepticism to pull it off. We also need to be able to work together. It takes a lot of dialogue, a lot of careful work and a lot of time to overcome our blind spots, biases and self-justifying narratives.

It's not about absolute answers or pat dogma, but about eliminating error and false conceptions and asking better and better questions.

 

[PCarr]

On the comments about the problems humans have with perception and memory: The assertion that humans are, "very good at misperceiving patterns" only applies to specific sets of circumstances designed to support that assertion, not on the overall ability of normal, healthy, well informed humans to identify patterns and remember them well enough to draw reasonable conclusions.

On the issue of humans being, "lousy scientific instruments": Human intelligence gives us unparalleled ability to solve complex problems, and besides that, scientists are instruments of science, which makes them the most important scientific instruments science has. All the other instruments pale in comparison. Without humans, the tools alone would accomplish little or nothing.

I think you are massively wrong about that = not even in the right ballpark. The literature is full of examples in which intelligent people are badly biased or easily fooled, and professional magicians can make an excellent living off the flaws in the human perceptual apparatus and memory. Think no magician can fool you? Eyewitness testimony that can send a man to Death Row has often been shown to be wrong. False memories have destroyed families and sent innocent people to jail. Even counting cells under the microscope is biased depending upon the result expected. this is why double blind studies and replication are essential to doing good science.

When dealing with something completely out of the ordinary, our perceptual apparatus is even less trustworthy.

You are also confusing scientific instruments with science. I can't see how this would be possible if you had even a passing familiarity with how science is done. Science still involves lots of human scientists, and will for the forseeable future. Scientists are keenly aware of the limitations and error proneness of their instruments, and spend enormous amounts of time and energy trying to understand this better, to mitigate it, and to calculate how it lends uncertainty to their results. So, we have humans doing what we do best - collaborating to carefully reason through problems and creating solutions, and instruments doing what they do best - reacting to their environment in some well-understood way. With patience, we can make progress that way, but jumping to conclusions is never justified.

 

[trainedobserver]

There is also the problem that all UFOs are not the same and may not even be the same type of "thing" at all. Some may be a "craft", meaning a manufactured vehicle of some kind. Others may be life-forms or something even stranger. The point is we don't know and as far as I know, we have no way of telling in most cases.

Burnt State's UFO report seems to indicate manufactured vehicles, manned or unmanned, searching for or gathering something under a common direction. Flying Saucers. Organized, intelligent behavior utilizing unrecognizable technology for some inexplicable end. Makes you want to say "alien" doesn't it? Is it though? Does putting that label pile too much baggage on it and steer our thinking down worn paths? I don't know.

Someone whose opinions about such matters I take pretty seriously told me the other night that it appears that we are in an ant-farm. There are the keepers, the gawkers, and the mean little kid next door that likes to mess with the ants. If we are living inside a manufactured and controlled environment created for purposes we cannot possibly comprehend, where the mechanisms of our creators perform incomprehensible tasks within the confines of our "ant-farm", it would explain a lot now wouldn't it? That is just such a disturbing thought.

 

[PCarr]

There is also the problem that all UFOs are not the same and may not even be the same type of "thing" at all. Some may be a "craft", meaning a manufactured vehicle of some kind. Others may be life-forms or something even stranger. The point is we don't know and as far as I know, we have no way of telling in most cases.

Yes, very good point. My gut tells me that even in the tiny residual of good cases, we are dealing with more than one thing, but it is also possible that we are simply perceiving different small aspects of a much larger thing that defies both our perceptual and conceptual faculties.

For example, take the very rapid accelerations that are often observed in UFO cases. Perhaps that's what it is - rapid acceleration - or perhaps the object was never where we perceived it to be in the first place.

If we really are talking about a highly advanced technology, I think all bets are off. It's as if we were sitting and watching a really good magic show. We know there is much that is hidden that we can't see, and what we do see is utterly baffling.

Dream of the Open Channel: Clarke's Third Law

 

[manxman]

Your point is well taken, however my comments weren't aimed at those who you and I might consider "true skeptical thinkers", but those self proclaimed skeptics who employ those kinds of tactics. In the past I've found them inhabiting the rather toxic landscape of certain skeptical oriented forums. Believe it or not, on this forum sometimes I take flack for being too skeptical, which is somewhat ironic because my personal belief is that although skepticism is a useful backup system when we get lazy, it's really second rate compared to critical thinking. Of course then you get the skeptics who say skeptical thinking is the same as critical thinking . Maybe it makes them feel better to think there is some special intellectual gift imparted to those who call themselves skeptics, I don't know.

nope it's all about the ego and loyalty, the money they make is a bonus ontop of their 'loyalty' cheque, these propagandist's are all well trained, however that training is clearly discernible once you go one on one with them tactically, they are also well organised, as you would see if you go to their bloggs/sites, they do not duplicate cases, if a case is brought up in the comments section, they refer to whichever colleagues site has debunked it, like oberg for shuttle ufo.s, they all have their supposed 'professional' strength, it looks like allocation to me, its is certainly a slick well organised operation, going back decades, and they are constantly rotated around the best portals, to get their snake oil 'out-there'.

 

[Randall]

I think you are massively wrong about that = not even in the right ballpark. The literature is full of examples in which intelligent people are badly biased or easily fooled, and professional magicians can make an excellent living off the flaws in the human perceptual apparatus and memory. Think no magician can fool you?

You've just used an example that reinforces my point. Magical acts are a perfect example of, to quote: "specific sets of circumstances designed to support that assertion, not on the overall ability of normal, healthy, well informed humans to identify patterns and remember them well enough to draw reasonable conclusions." So sure, if one practices until they become an expert at exploiting known weaknesses, then some people are going to be fooled by the routine. But on the flipside, not everyone will be fooled, and it is after all, a human designed the illusion in the first place. Now take away the expertise of deliberate deceptions based highly specialized knowledge and skill, and see how many people would be fooled?

Eyewitness testimony that can send a man to Death Row has often been shown to be wrong. False memories have destroyed families and sent innocent people to jail. Even counting cells under the microscope is biased depending upon the result expected. this is why double blind studies and replication are essential to doing good science.

And on the flip side of that, it's self-evident that eye witness evidence has also provided countess clues that have been useful in solving problems, while at the same time getting us through our normal daily lives. Plus there's still plenty of evidence for products of science and engineering to be faulty. Consider all the automotive recalls and lawsuits against medical companies. I'm not claiming that humans are perfect, I am claiming, once again, to paraphrase: "Humans are not so fallible as to make them completely unreliable for information gathering and intelligent analysis. Humans are still at the top of the heap. Period. No machine has yet come close to our ability to perceive and intelligently analyze a situation and come up with a reasonably accurate assessment of a random and unfamiliar situation."

When dealing with something completely out of the ordinary, our perceptual apparatus is even less trustworthy.

On the contrary, humans excel at the intelligent analysis of the unfamiliar. No other animal or machine on the planet matches our ability.

You are also confusing scientific instruments with science. I can't see how this would be possible if you had even a passing familiarity with how science is done.

I'm not confusing anything. I'm pointing out how in this type of debate there is an the implied perfection in the workings of science that is juxtaposed with an exaggerated deflation of human capacity. That is not a coherent argument. It's basically saying the ideals of science are perfect and humans are faulty, therefore science is superior. So what? By definition, all ideals are perfect. But that doesn't mean that they're realistic or apply evenly to the real world.

Science still involves lots of human scientists, and will for the forseeable future. Scientists are keenly aware of the limitations and error proneness of their instruments, and spend enormous amounts of time and energy trying to understand this better, to mitigate it, and to calculate how it lends uncertainty to their results. So, we have humans doing what we do best - collaborating to carefully reason through problems and creating solutions, and instruments doing what they do best - reacting to their environment in some well-understood way. With patience, we can make progress that way, but jumping to conclusions is never justified

Don't get me wrong. Science is an excellent tool; perhaps the best we've got to closely study specific sets of problems and phenomena, but it's not the only tool in the toolbox for ascertaining the truth with reasonable certainty. Have another look at the Elements and standards for critical thinking. It's actually much more sophisticated than the scientific method alone and can be applied not only to science, but to thinking in general. It goes where science alone can't go because strictly speaking, science hinges on the ready availability of empirical evidence. Without a specimen to physically weigh and measure and perform scientifically valid experiments on, the scientist is just sitting and twiddling his or her thumbs. Meanwhile, the critical thinker, the theoretician, the explorer, the philosopher, the investigator, and the experiencer can all provide meaningful and valuable evidence of their own.

 

[Burnt State]

Lance et. al. Skeptics, why do you think human beings have an incredibly long history of seeing strange objects & occupants that share both patterned shapes and event characteristics? Can it all really just be misidentification, combined with cultural frontloading and a will to believe in the wee folk? After all, just WTF were those Foo Fighters all those pilots were seeing - please don't say seagulls? Is it all just in our heads these mistaken events, products of our time, place and mass media memory programming?


WWII Pilots Witnessing Early Coca-Cola Sky Ads

I agree very much with trainedobserver and PCarr's estimate of the situation. One sees something in the sky but knows not what it is. I don't think these experiences are all just misidentifued birds, balloons or military experiments. But, can we call it aliens from another planet? Might as well call it cheesecake.

It's not just that we're fallible and that 99% of what we experience as reality is based on previous mental recordings combined with 1% of our actual sensory input. That's current science, and it means we navigate reality quite well, invent lots of great crap to buy in the stores, and we do it all mostly while on autopilot, using pre-recorded experiences to help fill in the gaps. Reality is exactly like watching a magician do her thing because we just follow the patterns. So those strange lights in the sky, well really anything's possible, from sky critters to ultraterrestrials.


Actual Foo Fighters on Vacation out at Jaques Vallee's Ranch

When our consciousness actually gets down to bear on reality, and we have our intellect fully focussed (which are very few moments in the day - maybe when we are learning things), I bet we make exceptional witnesses...and neurosurgeons. At least I hope the surgeons are not on autopilot, but most likely they are. I think there are these external things in the sky that people see; who knows WTF it is, but it's there in the sky and you need to make sense of it. Maybe these strange, rare events are not just sudden & anomalous flashes of natural DMT neural overloads, but something absolutely incredible or mundane, and our brain just tries to make sense of it all. I know I believe i saw two structured craft visit close to some houses with another person and then we watched them go back to the stars. But what they really were, especially given my faulty perceptual apparatus & childhood sci-fi stuffed brain, I can't truly say.

 

[PCarr]

Lance et. al. Skeptics, why do you thing human beings have an incredibly long history of seeing strange objects & occupants that share both patterned shapes and event characteristics? Can it all really just be misidentification, combined with cultural frontloading and a will to believe in the wee folk? After all, just WTF were those Foo Fighters all those pilots were seeing - please don't say seagulls? Is it all just in our heads these mistaken events, products of our time, place and mass media memory programming?

I think it's an interesting question why there are certain patterns in myth and folklore, but I would be extremely hesitant to take any of it literally. Taking your mythology literally leads to the madness of fundamentalism. I hope no one wants to go down that blood-soaked path anymore.

As for foo fighters, I have no idea what they were, or what they have to do with UFOs in general, and neither does anyone else.

 

[Burnt State]

I think it's an interesting question why there are certain patterns in myth and folklore, but I would be extremely hesitant to take any of it literally. Taking your mythology literally leads to the madness of fundamentalism. I hope no one wants to go down that blood-soaked path anymore.

As for foo fighters, I have no idea what they were, or what they have to do with UFOs in general, and neither does anyone else.

Whether you take it literally or not is not the question. The question is why do people see these things in the first place and why is it so culturally patterned? I think it's a bit of a stretch to go from folklore to fundamentalism unless you are considering organised religion as the equivalent to tales of leprechauns and gnomes.

The foo fighters do fit a certain pattern of ufology that is undeniable, which includes a distinct interest in our low level, violent technology. As lights in the sky that appear to have maneuverable skills of a very high order under intelligent control we can continue to describe, analyse and both speculate and infer, as our intellect will.

 

[Jeff Davis]

This is an extremely confusing thread that really doesn't state anything. I am attempting to gain contextual entrance here but there is not much to latch on to. Just safe talk of what might be. I realize no one knows for certain, but I am honestly interested.

Lets get real for a moment: There is no such thing as a substantiated "alien craft" or an identified alien craft.

Pcarr, Burnt State, trainedobserver, what do you think UFOs are apart from mysterious lights or objects in the sky?

 

[Burnt State]

If our limited senses could actually perceive all there is to see I suspect the bits of reality in the sky that we scratch at every now at then probably looks more like harrowing scenes from Northern European painting than just plain ole blue skies.

 

[PCarr]

Whether you take it literally or not is not the question. The question is why do people see these things in the first place and why is it so culturally patterned?

But I don't assume that they did see them, because I don't take these stories literally. Not that myth, folklore and religion aren't interesting - I think they are - but we have no basis for the claim that the myths and legends are based upon real events. Maybe some of them are, but you would need some corroborating evidence.

 

[PCarr]

This is an extremely confusing thread that really doesn't state anything. I am attempting to gain contextual entrance here but there is not much to latch on to. Just safe talk of what might be. I realize no one knows for certain, but I am honestly interested.

Lets get real for a moment: There is no such thing as a substantiated "alien craft" or an identified alien craft.

Pcarr, Burnt State, trainedobserver, what do you think UFOs are apart from mysterious lights or objects in the sky?

Apart from the majority that we know are misperceptions, hoaxes or delusions, I don't know what they are, and I am keen to avoid fallacious jumping to conclusions or facile, one-size-fits-all "explanations."

The Wow! Signal Podcast: My Balticon 47 talk

 

[Burnt State]

But I don't assume that they did see them, because I don't take these stories literally. Not that myth, folklore and religion aren't interesting - I think they are - but we have no basis for the claim that the myths and legends are based upon real events. Maybe some of them are, but you would need some corroborating evidence.

As we know, truth is stranger than fiction; consequently, it behooves us to pay attention to both our folkloric traditions and consistent witness reports, as this smoke surely is indicative of some kind of fire, no? Corroborating evidence is always the desire but until a new mechanism is invented to consistently record and document what is seen that's unlikely.

 

[Constance]

Here's a different take on the McMinnville photos: The Bragalia Files: MAKE-BELIEVE IN MCMINNVILLE: FAMOUS 1950 UFO PHOTOS FAKED?

I don't think there are any photo based cases that hold much by way of certainty, or that have not been eviscerated by modern critics and cynics - look at how the Belgian triangle photo was the bees knees until the hoaxer came out of the closet.

Yes, that was too bad about the classic photo of the Belgian triangle, but there were other photos of the ufos sighted during the year and a half of the Belgian 'flap' and several hundred investigated sightings, some by impeccable witnesses.

I hadn't heard about this attempt originating with Oberg to debunk the McMinnville photos and was impressed to read that Anthony Bragalia promoted it. Also surprised and disappointed that Bragalia didn't do further research concerning the photo of the Trent's child on the ladder, which is developed in the comments at your link, Burnt State, as well as at the link below. I've learned over the years that one should not take Oberg at his word, and this latest attempt of his makes it clearer than ever that Oberg is a dyed-in-the-wool debunker.

I'd also like to know what in fact are the "hard core cases" as Jerome Clark calls them. Aside from the classic RB-47 I'm not sure what other cases are no longer 'tainted.'

Iran 1976, the JAL case, the Belgian flap, the Hudson Valley flap, the multiple police sightings over Illinois about a decade ago, the Phoenix Lights, the Stephensville, Texas, case, and the O'Hare case would top my list of suggestions to pursue if you are looking for hardcore cases in the US (not forgetting the 1952 Washington DC case). And then there are the well-researched cases in other cases around the planet.

 

[Constance]

Not exactly, I say we can identify something as an alien craft via deductive reasoning. As for whether or not it's a spacecraft, that's another matter that would require much more specific information. On your comment about me accusing you of a fallacy, I'm not certain exactly what you're referencing there, so we'd have to clear that up before I can address that issue.

On the comments about the problems humans have with perception and memory: The assertion that humans are, "very good at misperceiving patterns" only applies to specific sets of circumstances designed to support that assertion, not on the overall ability of normal, healthy, well informed humans to identify patterns and remember them well enough to draw reasonable conclusions.

On the issue of humans being, "lousy scientific instruments": Human intelligence gives us unparalleled ability to solve complex problems, and besides that, scientists are instruments of science, which makes them the most important scientific instruments science has. All the other instruments pale in comparison. Without humans, the tools alone would accomplish little or nothing.

The mantra of human fallibility is a typical skeptical device designed to impart an unreasonable sense of uncertainty regarding human ability, and it almost always infers that the alternative ( machines and instruments ) are superior and infallible, which is not the case. All scientific instruments are subject to failure and error. Lets consider your example of memory: Computer memory failures are among the most common problems I deal with regularly in my work as a PC tech.

If you face the reality of all these checks and balances, the argument that humans are so fallible as to make them completely unreliable for information gathering and intelligent analysis is completely unsubstantiated. Humans are still at the top of the heap. Period. No machine has yet come close to our ability to perceive and intelligently analyze a situation and come up with a reasonably accurate assessment of a random and unfamiliar situation.

This brings me to my final point about the propensity of skeptics to hail the genius of ancient man in order to debunk ancient alien mythology, while at the same time exaggerating human fallibility in order to debunk modern UFO sightings. The double standard makes transparent, the tactic of skeptics to move the goalposts and cherry pick their examples to suit their predetermined agendas rather than considering the pros and cons and attempting to determine the truth of a situation.

Having said all this, I'm not suggesting that you are yourself one of those skeptics ( I don't actually know you well enough yet to know your personal position ). I'm just saying that we should not allow ourselves to become caught in the same traps as some of the skeptics who habitually use arguments similar to yours.

Cheers, Randall. Especially for this:

The mantra of human fallibility is a typical skeptical device designed to impart an unreasonable sense of uncertainty regarding human ability, and it almost always infers that the alternative ( machines and instruments ) are superior and infallible, which is not the case. All scientific instruments are subject to failure and error. Lets consider your example of memory: Computer memory failures are among the most common problems I deal with regularly in my work as a PC tech.