Wait a minute, since when were the documented observation of UFOs throughout the last several thousand years limited to certain types of documents?
Are you suggesting that someone here stated otherwise, either implicitly or explicitly?
Now would YOU care to assert "facts", as I am certain you are able, in place of all those you refute? Or will you go on contending, or better put, PRETENDING, that UFOs should be dismissed based on a ridiculous lack of "empirical truth".
What good reason is there to believe that there is anything mysterious or significant about UFOs? People see things they can't explain. There's no reason to expect that one should be able or required to have a ready explantion for everything that is observed. There's nothing wrong with being naturally curious and looking into the observations, but when an explanation isn't forthcoming, are you suggesting that there must, therefore, be a paranormal and supernatural cause? Must we insert space aliens and extraterrestrials simply because a ready, verifiable explanation is absent?
If that's your contention, then that's nonsense. If you hide behind the "I'm just saying UFOs are unidentified" garbage, then you aren't being honest because the mere quality of being "unidentified" doesn't mean that I need to find the specific bird I observed flying low across a field. It was flying and I'm not even sure it was a bird, but reason dictates it probably was, therefore I can dismiss the event and get on with my day.
Further, why should I be require to assert any "facts" about your claims? I can, if I cared to, but you wouldn't like them. They speak to human fallibility as witnesses, the human tendency to look for attention, and the natural state of
belief that exists in human nature, evident in the religious superstitions of all cultures.
This type of thinking achieves a ridiculously slow and even far retarded (as in slowed down within) level of results with respect to scientific advancements.
On the contrary, scientific discourse is far less forgiving than I in this forum when it comes to asserting claims. Having presented papers and seminars in conference, I can tell you that not having your "ducks in a row" is likely to result in a tragic, but timely, death of your ideas. The questions and query I'm presenting; the refutations I've offered are logical and rational. If your assertions can't withstand them (which, so far, appears to be the case), then you must be willing to accept the criticism and revise or re-examine your position.
Instead, you stick to the pseudoscientific paradigm of putting the cart before the horse, acknowledging only data which are supportive of your hypothesis, and reliance on logical fallacy for your arguments.
You simly CANNOT dismiss what is credible testimony and visually recorded EVIDENCE because of it being subject to observation, and thereby the powers of perception, to begin with. That's downright foolish and indeed circular logic to say the least.
And, yet, I have dismissed it -quite handily. You've shown no credible testimony or 'visually recorded evidence' (incidentally, using all-caps with frequency is another sign of
pseudoscience in action) that cannot have a far more mundane, more prosaic, and more likely explanation than space aliens and ET.
Anecdotal accounts are not evidence. No video exists that shows anything that
cannot have a reasoned and natural or human explanation.
We have evidence for natural and human events that can create what appears to be "flying objects." We have no evidence that space aliens and ET do. The probabilities, therefore, necessarily favor natural and human explanations.
Also, incidentally, the very term "unidentified flying object" makes several irrational assumptions: 1) that because the observer could not readily identify what was seen, it's necessarily a mystery to all; 2) -and more importantly- what was observed was actually and "object."
And if you aren't talking about space aliens and ET with regard to UFOs, what's your point?
