Q, why must you put words in the mouths of others? Even when they disclaim the ETH, you appear to maintain that they secretly are still hoping to find aliens. Why else would they be interested in UFOs. . . . .
Where is your sense of curiosity? It appears from the time you spend here that you devote more time to mocking those interested in UFOs that most "believers" devote to the subject itself. That's far more pathetic, Q. I recall you tried to force the ETH down my throat as well when I first visited here, because I was willing to admit a hunch that ET was behind some sightings, as though that rendered me incapable of rational analysis.
Well, if it makes you feel any better, I have drifted further from the ETH, as Ivan can tell you from exposure to different forums. I'll probably regret this, but here is a reproduction of my post on this very subject: (These posts contain some casual references to other posters on other boards)
"Over time, I'm gradually leaning further and further away from the ETH as an explanation for which I can articulate support. Part of this process was simple evaluation of the evidence coupled with some difficult examination of what appeals to me vs. what inferences and conclusions I can logically make.
Don't mistake this for a decision on my part that there is nothing to the UFO mystery. Quite the contrary.
Rather than re-invent the wheel, I'm going to reproduce a portion of an email I recently sent to Ivan seeking on the ETH, which would be the best I could do to construct an argument in support of the ETH:
". . as I've said before I do have a sneaking hunch that ET is behind at least a part of the phenomenon. But I'm finding difficulty in translating that hunch into something I can quantify on paper. And I think the argument would be extremely tricky to construct.
One of the elements in my hunch is Paul Hill's book "Unconventional Flying Objects". I'm sure you've heard of it. Some of the more technical information was far over my head. However, two of his main points have always stuck with me.
1. The behavior of UFOs in many sightings, including "tilt to move", the "falling leaf motion", and more, is consistent with an object using some kind of field that counteracts gravity. Considering your background, and better understanding of the sciences than I have, you should read this analysis.
2. His explanation of the "on-board time factor". Hill regarded the "distance between the stars" arguments as a great fraud perpetrated on the American people. His basis was the slowing of time on board a fast moving ship. Now, I'm taking this from memory and am not a scientist, so take this with a grain of salt. But Hill calculated that a ship going 99% of the speed of light would be able to traverse not only the galaxy but the known Universe in almost no "on-board" time at all.
I found this to be relevant to any analysis of UFOs (assuming they are interstellar ships, or at least that the mother ships are) since arguments against them usually center on the great distances between the stars. Even recently I heard some "scientist" quoted in the press as saying that any interstellar ships would have to be multi-generational. No! Hill argued. Time would be slowed on-board.
Debunkers actually turn their argument around on themselves and argue that even at sub-luminal speeds, the galaxy could be colonized in 5 to 50 million years. (Scientific American, Nov. 2000, page 8). Fermi asked "Where are they?" And other debunkers followed up on this, claiming that aliens, if they were there, should have colonized Earth eons ago. This directly contradicts arguments that aliens could never get here because of the time factor, so the Fermi argument is really an argument that there is no intelligent space-faring life elsewhere in the Universe, or that they are not colonizers. In any event, Fermi based "where are they" arguments and "the distances are too vast" arguments are inconsistent with each other. And the debunkers have the gall to accuse the believers of cherry-picking their arguments and theories!
The long and short of all that is that interstellar travel, at subluminal speeds appears to be possible, and could easily happen within a single biological lifetime (as we know them).
So, a) interstellar travel is possible. 2) UFOs behave in a manner consistent with the laws of physics within our atmosphere, assuming that a kind of gravity-negating field is possible, and Hill believed that it was just a matter of time before even we could achieve that.
Now is when I take a deep breath and step back, and consider whether this really is an argument in support of ET, or just carefully selected facts and theories I've constructed to support the ETH."
So, that's the best I can do to support the ETH. I am inviting disagreement, because it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to understand how any rational, logic-based argument could arrive at a firm conclusion of ET. I find it fascinating that the problems in the early studies of the UFO found staffers that were leaning heavily toward the ETH, and found that the study in which they were participating already knew the answer, and it wasn't ETH. The Condon Committee in particular suffered from this problem.
In regards to witness sightings of UFO occupants, there are certainly some intriguing incidents out there, witnessed by people without obvious credibility problems. But the bulk of quality evidence for UFOs, and it is out there, comes in the form of multiple witness sightings that are corroborated by other means, like radar, photographs. No body of evidence exists for occupants of UFOs the way the evidence exists for the UFO itself. So that evidence for ET doesn't have the persuasive power that the evidence for the UFO itself does.
In my email to Ivan, I attempt to justify the ETH largely by trying to make a case that the ETH isn't impossible. And that's not very compelling, frankly.
So if one believes there is a genuine UFO phenomenon, but finds the evidence for ET lacking, where does one go?
Vallee at least gives some direction. I wonder how many people interested in UFOs truly understand the caliber of analysis this man has devoted to the subject for many, many years now. I'm currently reading this 1991 book Revelations, which is quite good. Vallee is skeptical about the ETH, not necessarily because he believes that the ETH is impossible, but because he believes we may have jumped to one of the more mundane conclusions about the core identity of UFOs.
Vallee constructs some pretty compelling arguments, given with extreme common sense and carefully thought out logic, that some of the major UFO events of the 20th Century, including the Bentwaters 1980 incident, were in fact carefully constructed hoaxes by elements within the US military complex, probably with the intent of testing the ability to manipulate human belief systems. He also maintains that all of us out here arguing back and forth about the evidence for ET are doing the bidding of those involved in the coverup. And that MJ12, as well as Gulf Breeze, may be perfectly fine with them, as part of their disinformation program.
Vallee maintains that there is a valid phenomenon, and that all indicators suggest intelligence behind it. As to the nature of the intelligence that may or may not be trying to send a signal to us. . . . . Vallee address that in the recent essay posted on this board entitled "Incommensurability and the Physics of High Strangeness".
There are so many layers to this subject. It is sometimes tempting to just toss it all away. But I think Vallee is trying to tell us to keep with it, for the answers may be wondrous and make bug-eyed aliens seem as mundane as lawn grass."
That's the end of the original post. I recently followed up, having finished Revelations and Night Siege over the holiday weekend:
"I had time to finish most of two books over the holiday weekend; one was Night Siege, on the Hudson Valley sightings, which occurred primarily in the 1980s. The other was Revelations, by Vallee.
I was particularly taken with Revelations, and what I took to be some of the best analysis anywhere of the UFO phenomenon. I've been noticing that the debunkers aren't quite as harsh on Vallee as they are on other UFO writers. Even Klass seems to pay some respect. I can certainly see why, although there is a certain irony to this. I'll explain.
Whether one agrees or disagrees with Vallee, there is no doubt his analysis of the phenomenon is advanced. Much of his writing is remarkably consistent with the debunkers, except that it is done better. I laughed several times at the common sense approach he takes to dubious claims, including one of an enormous underground facility in which thousands of aliens and people worked. “Who takes out the garbage? He asked, pointing out that such a large facility would have impacts difficult to ignore. The difference I see between Vallee and so many debunkers is that he does not start with a default position that there is nothing to the phenomenon. He believes that there are a core of cases which demonstrate a real phenomenon that by all indicators demonstrates intelligence. Yet he does not wish to suffer the fools of UFOLOGY.
John, you and I may not be so far apart as you think. I lack your subjective experience, so UFOs are for me an academic and epistemological exercise. I’m not arguing that in the long run, some UFO reports may turn out to be extraterrestrial. What I’m saying is that making that assumption may derail the proper line of inquiry. It causes us to engage in speculation as to why “they” are here, and the motives of interplanetary visitors might be vastly different from intelligences from other sources.
Vallee is quite emphatic that somebody wants us to believe the extra-terrestrial theory, and as I stated earlier, that many well-known incidents, including Bentwaters, were hoaxes designed to test the ability to manipulate belief systems.
Vallee refers to the entire inquiry as entry into a hall of mirrors, and I can see his point. As I was finishing Revelations, I was also working through Night Siege. Is this book widely read among Whisperians? I found it to really be a shocking book, in many ways. For the hell of it, I went to Amazon.com, having predicted to myself that someone would have posted there arguing that, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that all the sightings really were of ultralight planes flying in formation. The investigators involved in Hudson Valley, including Hynek himself, worked so hard to either rule in or rule out this theory that it strains credulity to continue to argue that all of the sightings were ultralight hoaxes. Yet there it is 6 or 7 reviews down. By someone claiming to have “knowledge” of what was really happening. The reviewer didn’t seem to feel a need to prove the basis of his inside knowledge.
Having said that the debunkers do not attack Vallee as much as others are, Magonia managed to get this jab in, in one of their online rants:
“. . . . they babble about UFO manifestations coming from "other dimensions" or having "higher rates of vibrations". They employ many other strange terms which all have one thing in common. They can sound good, especially if you can say them with apparent sincerity, and without getting the giggles, but they are utterly meaningless.
There are numerous examples in the UFO literature. Take Jacques Vallee, for instance. In his book Revelations he writes: "The genuine UFO phenomenon . . . is associated with a form of nonhuman consciousness that manipulates space and time in ways we do not understand" and "The entities could be multidimensional beyond space-time itself. They could even be fractal beings." (1) If any readers can make any sense of this the Pelican would be delighted to hear from them. Indulgence in this sort of nonsense can ruin what would otherwise be useful contributions to the subject, particularly where alien abduction stories are concerned.”
What Magonia fails to recognize is that Vallee is admittedly engaging in theorizing, but is doing so on the basis of what is probably the best empirical analysis of UFOs yet done. Magonia tries to make Vallee look like a fool, but he is way over their heads. He didn’t start with the assumption that all UFO reports are nonsense. A glimpse of Magonia’s true attitude is revealed in that same piece: “There is only one rational approach to ufology and that is - yes, you are way ahead of the Pelican here - the Psychosocial Hypothesis (PSH).” Okay, here’s my response to the PSH: What about the evidence itself? I think a good response to the PSH would be to use Magonia’s own words: “They employ many other strange terms which all have one thing in common. They can sound good, especially if you can say them with apparent sincerity, and without getting the giggles, but they are utterly meaningless.”
For the heck of it, I looked into the terms “fractal beings”, and found this:
“Fractals
French mathematician Benoit Mandlebrot discovered that there is a dimension of geometric forms between the spaces of our 3-D world. He called the space or intervals between our three dimensions, ‘fractals dimensions’. The word “fractal” is taken from Latin and means ‘to break into fragments’. He proved mathematically that the fourth fractal dimension lies between the first three, and he gave us the now famous formula for the calculations of fractals (z -> z^2 + c).”. This discussion of fractals is from something called StuartWilde.com. I don’t endorse the site. The point is that Vallee, unconvinced of the ETH as the sole or actual explanation for UFOs, is at least trying to engage in speculation as to the source of the undeniable intelligence behind the core of genuine UFO sightings. This is invalid to Magonia, because to them there is no genuine core of UFO sightings. They are the ones uttering the nonsense while pretending to be the defenders of science and reason. The hypocrisy of Magonia never ceases to sicken me; my first exposure to them was when they reviewed “UFOs and the National Security State,” written by historian Richard Dolan, and critiqued him for being “mired in the past” or words to that effect. An historian is examining the past? Shameful!
Night Siege gives us an opportunity to look at a long-running and remarkably consistent pattern of UFO reports given by credible witnesses. The incidents, taken at face value, certainly seem to justify, or in the minds of some, even prove the ETH. Yet I felt that reading these books together gave me more insight into Hudson Valley than I would have had I read it in a vacuum. As I read, I kept asking myself:
Why would extra-terrestrials fly low at night, flashing their lights, changing the color of their lights, chasing cars and scaring people by the thousands?
Is there any way that, after all is said and done, this could be an extraordinary hoax? I had wondered if perhaps some of these “craft” were far smaller than they appeared. Perhaps in the dark, and in the sky, it is difficult to judge size or height, and a smaller remote controlled craft might appear large, and would be able to give the illusion of great speed since it would grow even smaller rapidly as it moved away. I really doubt this, since some of the sightings were so widespread that people were pulling off highways and seeing the objects at the same time from various distances.
Many of the witnesses were extremely credible people with backgrounds and educations suggesting that they were anything but UFO buffs. Moreover, this would have to be a “hoax” spanning decades in that area alone, with an ability to launch objects of considerable size and hide them again before dawn. What I found particularly intriguing about the Hudson Valley sightings was the apparent lack of military interest. Can someone argue that our national security apparatus was unaware of a long-term incursion of unidentified objects, seen by literally thousands of people over heavily populated areas of the northeast? These sightings show how difficult it is to make sense of the entire UFO issue. Besides the lack of military involvement, the authors of Night Siege also noticed the lack of press involvement. As Terry Hansen would observe years later in his book “The Missing Times”, the local media reported the events but the national media did not. The authors of Night Siege noted that in this day in age, trivial events (like, perhaps, the arrest of a celebrity, or someone’s facelift) are all over TV and newspapers, yet these remarkable, repeated incidents failed to make the national news save for one network. Why? Why so little military interest? Why so little press interest?
It all goes to show you: the deeper you get into this subject, the less sense it makes."
That's the end of that follow up post. I would say that as time goes on, I'm realizing the truth of the old adage that "the more you know, the more you know how little you know."
Q, what is mildly fascinating about you is your mocking attitude in light of what is a very, very strange body of evidence. Please don't bother to write it off with generalized statements of prosaic explanations; as Vallee puts it, that attitude is the hallmark of one of the great intellectual failures of the 20th Century. The body of evidence of good, corroborated sightings by credible witnesses is simply to vast to justity your simplistic dismissals as genuine argument. Your kind lost this debate long ago, but sadly doesn't realize it.
Also sadly, too many toil endlessly under the assumption that the ETH is the explanation for UFOs. You yourself have stated, somewhere on this board, that it was arrogant for humans to think they were the only local form of intelligence. Strangely, you were almost agreeing with Vallee, and suggesting an even more bizzarre explantion for UFOs than the ETH.
If someone is arguing that the ETH has been proven, I agree that there are great flaws in their reasoning. You seem to extrapolate that problem into a broader belief that all those who express an interest are "nutters" or some other dismissive term. Instead, why don't you review some of the actual evidence and have a genuine, good-faith discussion about it?
By the way, how do you come by such absolute knowledge that ET visiting Earth is all fiction? I see no proof for it either, but your contention has a finality about it as though the matter were settled.
It isn't.