Whew! I can see that Q is a handful. While I don't wish to engage in a debate solely on Q's terms, I will reply to a few of his statements. I have to say that it is amusing to see his outright hostility to any position but his own. Let's take a few of his (or her) statements and examine them for merit.
Believers could care less what skeptics think. Why should anyone bother wasting his or her time chasing every ridiculous claim of a UFO? What benefit do you propose will come from such action?
First, you are overly general in your terms. I was careful in my introductory post to point out that I don't feel that the evidence justifies a leap to the ETH as an answer to the core identity of UFOs. It is one possible answer. Yet, you characterize all who disagree with you as "believers". What is it, exactly, that you presume I believe? I suppose it is easier for you to assign beliefs to me and respond to those than to the actual content of my posts. And that, Q, says more about the weakness of your position than it does about mine.
Believers could care less what "skeptics" think? I disagree. We should probably clarify our terms again. I regard myself as a skeptic; any truly critical thinker is a skeptic. I also tend to believe that an extremely high percentage of UFO sightings have prosaic explanations. I think there is a difference between a skeptic and a debunker, however. To debunk is to expose the falseness of something. So debunking carries with it a pre-disposition of the falseness of the phenomenon. This is just what I called it; a predisposition or bias, and is thus inherently anti-empirical. And an anti-empirical method has little chance of finding the truth. Yet to give credit where credit is due, debunkers have succesfully pointed out hoaxes and misidentifications many times, so they contribute a valuable service to the study of UFOs. The problem is determining when a debunker crosses the line from true critical examination of an incident to building a case to support their predisposed conclusion. That line is most often crossed in truly compelling incidents in which they appear to be compelled to offer something, anything , to appease the public.
As for why anyone would waste time chasing ridiculous claims of UFOs, well, I for one don't. You again generalize. Like many others, I use judgment in deciding what incidents are worth my attention. I am interested in the world around me, and find the UFO phenomenon intriguing. You pretend that the case for the UFO rises or falls on the existence of an alien ashtray or body, because that suits your argument. Like many things in life, the study of the UFO is more complicated than that. If you are familiar with the subject at all, you would know that the evidence includes not just the UFO incidents themselves, but our government's and media's responses to them. The entire history of UFOs in this country is a conflicted one, in which even government-sponsored studies had internal conflicts in which stafferswere actually leaning towards the ETH. Would you argue that the reactions of the military, intelligence and other governmental insitutions are irrelevant in a search for the truth?
What, in your opinion, is rational about aliens visiting Earth? Could it be the hide-and-seek games they are allegedly playing with us? They certainly have gone to a lot of trouble to visit without saying hello, don’t ya think?
I have not advocated that aliens are visiting the Earth. It is obvious now that you, like many debunkers, have some reason to vehemently discount the UFO, so you must construct the arguments of your opponents for them in order to shoot them down. So yes, I do think you are "in fear of the believers and the nonsense they shoot", as you put it. To address your specific question, I am aware of the practical challenges that interstellar flight presents. I also know that "science" as an institution has been telling us many things were impossible for a long, long time, and that often, science was wrong. Moreover, people more scientifically educated than I have concluded that such travel is not an impossibility. Perhaps you should read Unconventional Flying Objects by Paul Hill. Perhaps you should address why American tax dollars are at this moment examining exotic propulsion systems in the hopes of one day reaching the stars, if it is so irrational. Again, I do not advance the argument that genuine UFOs are occupied by aliens, because I've seen no direct evidence for that. I would argue that a small percentage of UFO incidents do not appear to represent human technology, but do appear to be intelligently operated or directed. If an object is under intelligent control but not of human origin, I suppose the intelligence behind it, regardless of core nature, could be termed "alien". There are endless possibilities that we could enjoy discussing, but you deny yourself that. Who knows, perhaps a point may come in which artificial intelligence on Earth exceeds human capabilities and finds itself at the top of the pecking order. If that is so, then perhaps other cultures in other star systems have also evolved into artificial intelligence. And if so, perhaps such intelligence visits us now. Would I argue there is evidence for that? No. But if we see evidence of non-human intelligence, what then? Do we simply ignore it, as you appear to support, or do we at least try to engage in thougtful speculation about it? Which is more in our interest as a species?
As for your question about hide and seek games, it is you who have anthropomporphized the "aliens", not me. You have also engaged in characterizing the behavior of aliens, or UFOs, or whatever you are talking about in overly general terms, as usual. Are you talking about abductions, sightings, radar cases, what? Clearly you want to engage on this subject. But your vagueness and over-generalizations are a waste of time. You need to do some homework and then come back prepared to talk in more specific terms.
