the alien agenda

[Crunchy Cat]

Radar detecting UFOs is incredibly common and could be anything from an unusual bird migration(tightly packed flocks can appear as a single object on radar) to an unknown type of aircraft as all radar readings have to be compared to known radar profiles. If something with an unknown profile(such as a currently existing aircraft with a modified frame) is detected then of course it's going to be a UFO. Technically every single flying object detected, whether by radar or even by sight, starts off as a UFO. I fail to see what the significance is as just about any explanation, including multiple sensitive systems experiencing identical mechanical failures, is more likely than ETs.

The significance of course was that an object was detected by 2 independent radar systems, was confirmed (briefly) by a pilot, tailgated the pilot, and then zoomed off.

The reason I mentioned ETs in relation to this was that they were the original topic of the thread, not UFOs.

I understand. The reason why I raised this is because out of all fringe's crackpot assertions, this is the only one that actually has some evidence behind it. Does it make anything else he is asserting less woo? Nope. Even a crackpot can't be wrong all of the time (oooh I just made myself giggle).

 

[Gustav]

I fail to see what the significance is as just about any explanation, including multiple sensitive systems experiencing identical mechanical failures, is more likely than ETs.

do you have any numbers?

 

[Jan Ardena]

Dywyddyr

No there isn't.

So eyewitness doesn't count as evidence?
Why?

jan

 

[chimpkin]

So eyewitness doesn't count as evidence?

jan

Several studies have been conducted on human memory and on subjects’ propensity to remember erroneously events and details that did not occur.

http://agora.stanford.edu/sjls/Issue One/fisher&tversky.htm

 

[Dywyddyr]

Dywyddyr
So eyewitness doesn't count as evidence?
Why?
jan

Oh Jan doesn't read:

well there is evidence that aircraft are flying around doing breakneck maneuvers being tracked on radar.

No there isn't.

There isn't any radar evidence.

(In addition to Chimpkin's link on eyewitness "reliability" - something that is notoriously fallible).

 

[Jan Ardena]

Oh Jan doesn't read:

There isn't any radar evidence.

(In addition to Chimpkin's link on eyewitness "reliability" - something that is notoriously fallible).

Let's just say I assumed your position of ufo's would be skeptical.

Also eywitness reliability can be accurate.


jan.

 

[Jan Ardena]

http://agora.stanford.edu/sjls/Issue One/fisher&tversky.htm

Do you think every single eyewitness account of ufo's mistaken.
I'd like an answer from you, not from any talk or discussion.

jan.

 

[Dywyddyr]

Let's just say I assumed your position of ufo's would be skeptical.

Which has what to do the point?
It depends what you mean by "sceptical". I've seen two (one of which was later explained completely).

Also eywitness reliability can be accurate.

Can be, but that's also beside the point.

 

[Jan Ardena]

Dywyddyr,

It depends what you mean by "sceptical". I've seen two (one of which was later explained completely).

So what?

Can be, but that's also beside the point.

What point?


jan.

 

[Dywyddyr]

So what?

Simply a reply to your "Let's just say I assumed your position of ufo's would be skeptical." And you still haven't explained exactly what you mean by "sceptical".

What point?

That eyewitness testimony is generally unreliable. To show that it is reliable (in those rare cases when it turns out to be so) it requires corroboration.

 

[Jan Ardena]

Simply a reply to your "Let's just say I assumed your position of ufo's would be skeptical." And you still haven't explained exactly what you mean by "sceptical".


That eyewitness testimony is generally unreliable. To show that it is reliable (in those rare cases when it turns out to be so) it requires corroboration.

I assume you are as skeptical about ufo's as you are about God.
If you're not, my bad.

My point is that there are lots of eye witness testimonies, some from what is regarded as credible (though I don't buy into that).
There is no way we can conclude ufo's don't exist, but there are reasons to believe it.

What exactly do you mean by corroberation?

jan.

 

[Arioch]

@Jan --

I'm not skeptical about UFOs at all, in fact I know they exist. It's just that most of them get identified along the line and those that don't are not adequately explained by shouting "it was aliens!" In fact that raises more questions than it answers.

With regards to eyewitness testimony, it's only useful(even in court) to back up other evidence. Eyewitness testimony alone isn't enough to get a conviction on anything(anymore, thankfully this isn't the Inquisition anymore). Besides, we have a plethora of physical evidence that human memory is altered almost immediately upon formation and that alteration continues to occur as time passes. Add to that the fact that our brains have also been shown to invent memories that plain didn't happen and the fact that humans are, even in large numbers, susceptible to delusion and hallucination and eyewitness testimony appears to be more and more and more unreliable.

Case in point, there was a town of some seventy thousand people in Peru(or was it Brazil...I can't remember at the moment but that's irrelevant) where they all saw the sun fall out of the sky and crash into their town square. Now, we know that this didn't really happen even though they all saw it and their accounts match in detail(first of all, it would have destroyed the planet). So that leaves one of two options, that there was a supernatural phenomenon(which was visible only by those in that town and thus was completely local) or they had a mass hallucination. The latter is far more likely than the former.

 

[Dywyddyr]

I assume you are as skeptical about ufo's as you are about God.
If you're not, my bad.

Assumptions again...

My point is that there are lots of eye witness testimonies, some from what is regarded as credible (though I don't buy into that).
There is no way we can conclude ufo's don't exist, but there are reasons to believe it.

UFO's (actually the preferred term is UAP = Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) undoubtedly exist. Though whether they are are craft or not is debatable. They are simply unidentified.

What exactly do you mean by corroberation?

Ever thought of using a dictionary? An eye witness account, on its own, is not worth much. You can't tell if the witness is reporting accurately (reliably) UNLESS there is some other method of checking his/ her story. I would have thought that was obvious even to you.
You can't tell if the report is "reliable" based simply on who the person is that's giving it.

 

[KilljoyKlown]

I assume you are as skeptical about ufo's as you are about God.
If you're not, my bad.

My point is that there are lots of eye witness testimonies, some from what is regarded as credible (though I don't buy into that).
There is no way we can conclude ufo's don't exist, but there are reasons to believe it.

What exactly do you mean by corroberation?

jan.

What is a UFO? Is it possible to believe in and see a UFO and not believe in alien spacecraft? Also, it's not possible to be skeptical about something that doesn't exist (that would be God).

 

[Arioch]

@KilljoyKlown --

Yes, a UFO is merely an unidentified flying object, there's nothing that says a UFO has to be an alien by default. Abduction enthusiasts and those wacky Illuminati/Reptilian/Greys conspiracy theorists tend use the two terms interchangeably though they don't mean the same thing. This, of course, leads to a lot of confusion on the subject.

Anybody looking for a good book on the matter should read Carl Sagan's Demon Haunted World. Like everything Sagan touched, it's wonderful.

 

[Gustav]

There isn't any radar evidence.

in which incident?

 

[Dywyddyr]

Go back and read the relevant posts.

 

[Gustav]

i see

/chuckle

I'm not skeptical about UFOs at all, in fact I know they exist.

ahh
do you refer to any particular incidents? which ones?

I fail to see what the significance is as just about any explanation, including multiple sensitive systems experiencing identical mechanical failures, is more likely than ETs.

again... how did you figure this out?

 

[Arioch]

@Gustav --

Read my posts. I explain things fairly thoroughly in there. System failure, even in multiple systems, is still more parsimonious than any explanation involving ETs.

 

[Gustav]

so it is occam you invoke rather than some probability equation or some statistical "likelihood"?

as for explaining..... do you deal in specifics? i just see run of the mill debunkery there. care to elaborate on.......

I'm not skeptical about UFOs at all, in fact I know they exist.

... that? what are you referring to?