Why does the government hide UFO's?

[DaveC426913]

The problem, Yazata, is that whenever "anyone" (and we know who we mean, don't we?) comes forward with stuff on this topic it is weak, anecdotal and lacking in any kind of corroboration. It is this that gets everyone so exasperated, especially when the response to criticism of the information offered is, not to delve more deeply into well-researched cases, which would actually lower the temperature and be interesting and challenging to us all, but simply to flood the thread with even more unsubstantiated anecdotes - and then to claim that because of their number there must be something in it. This is effectively resorting to the Gish Gallop - a disreputable rhetorical technique..

I can't say it any better than this.

 

[DaveC426913]

As I see it, the problem isn't that our skeptics are being skeptical, it's that they are being skeptical in a such a crude way.

It would be interesting to try this discussion again and see how long it could go without someone committing and ad hominem.

I agree with you. So why all the knee-jerk hostility and reflexive anger at the subject of ufos just because it's the subject of ufos?

Not anger, exasperation.

All of the loud posturing around the views that yes, they are extraterrestrials and no, they aren't extraterrestrials,

Except that opponents are not claiming they aren't extraterrestrials. They are simply requiring compelling evidence that they are, and it is not convincing.
So the default state is: it does not require an extraordinary origin until it does.

It is only the proponents here that are making an assertion. Opponents are merely not granting it prematurely.

 

[Magical Realist]

Except that opponents are not claiming they aren't extraterrestrials. They are simply requiring compelling evidence that they are, and it is not convincing.

I haven't claimed they are necessarily extraterrestrials either. I simply present the evidence for the ufo phenomenon itself, whatever it may turn out being. It's like how we knew there was a phenomenon called lightning long before we had a theory of electricity to explain it. And the inability to prove it was electricity back then never at all put the reality of lightning into question.

 

[exchemist]

It would be interesting to try this discussion again and see how long it could go without someone committing and ad hominem.



Not anger, exasperation.


Except that opponents are not claiming they aren't extraterrestrials. They are simply requiring compelling evidence that they are, and it is not convincing.
So the default state is: it does not require an extraordinary origin until it does.

It is only the proponents here that are making an assertion. Opponents are merely not granting it prematurely.

Though it is true that people do get annoyed, due to the track record and debating style of the chief protagonist and this inevitably degrades the discussion.

If somebody else were to come forward to discuss this topic with a bit more regard for what constitutes good quality evidence, and without the confrontational attitude, then maybe we might get something out of it.

 

[Magical Realist]

So why exactly DO the local pseudoskeptics get so emotional in this forum and start ad homing and flaming us? We anomalists or forteans who simply acknowledge the overwhelming unknownness and transcendence of our limitedly-perceived reality? It's because we simply present compelling evidence and logical arguments for phenomena that they desperately don't want to be real.

I mean, just as a neutral observer of psychology here, why exactly WOULD people so assured of their scientific worldview get so frustrated and upset by anomalous phenomena happening? Why do they go thru 20 pages nitpicking over not understood details and frantically moving the goalposts around on what counts as evidence? Does it really threaten anything science has discovered? Ofcourse not. It only threatens a faith-held dogma that everything in the universe is easily explained scientifically. It pokes at the complacent status quo mindset of everything as well familiar and mundane and trivial. As if science is now totally complete, providing all the answers to any phenomena we discover from now on.

Such is NOT the nature of science. Like when noone believed rocks could fall out of the sky. Or when repeated anecdotes of blue rays of light shooting up from the ground were reported right before earthquakes. Well, eventually science said yes!, there IS something real going on here, and we need to investigate why it happens. Science enthusiastically embraces the new and mysterious events, not rashly dismissing them as faked or delusions of incompetent humans. It's job is always to EXPLAIN, not to "EXPLAIN AWAY".

In the meantime the pseudoskeptics run around, hysterically patching holes in their sinking ship while cursing the cold outer darkness, all in the name of Science that was never at risk from anomalous phenomena to begin with!

 

[paddoboy]

Whenever anyone tries to start a thread on Sciforums about ufos that takes the phenomenon seriously, that suggests that there's might be anything at all mysterious about it that deserves further investigation, they will inevitably be shouted down by idiots and flamed into smoking lumps of charcoal. That makes it awfully hard to discuss the subject in any thoughtful way.

I do take it seriously: Seriously enough to see that there is no conclusive or convincing evidence to suggest any UFO is from another world.
The problem exists with the fact that the two well known UFO/ghosts/Bigfoot/Supernatural/Paranormal supporters here, do not like their pet myth to be questioned and cannot accept that their claims need to run the gauntlet so to speak.

This thread had already descended into ad-hominem insults by post #10.

You mean this....

"Interdimensionals"?
Why not go the whole hog and just claim they're Magical, Realist?

Are you serious? :shrug: That's what I mean about refusing to be questioned or run the gauntlet.

I don't think that you are in any position to discuss the subject of truth, Paddoboy. The nature of truth, and the means by which truth might become known by human beings are philosophical questions.

That's your subjective opinion, and taking into account the fact that your angst has at times been raised to boiling point when I have posted quotes being less that complementary about Philosophy, I probably understand how and why you think I'm not qualified to speak of simply maintaining common sense and the scientific method.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with that.
I agree with you. So why all the knee-jerk hostility and reflexive anger at the subject of ufos just because it's the subject of ufos?
Why shouldn't people say that there's a huge body of reports of anomalous sightings in the sky and that nobody really knows how to account for many of them? That's all that anyone really knows. That's something fascinating and worthy of investigation in and of itself. All of the loud posturing around the views that yes, they are extraterrestrials and no, they aren't extraterrestrials, is all just speculation at this point, things that nobody really knows and typically more an expression of people's pre-existing beliefs and desires than anything else.

But that's all I have ever said! They are unidentified and remain UFO's...I've said that 100 times.

There's an implicit assumption in there that ufos are nothing but bullshit and that any attempt to take them seriously is "antiscience" or "pseudoscience" or whatever it is.

That's probably quite correct, but you forget the other side of the coin: The implicit assumptions that anything unidentified, anything not quite explainable, anything that is unexpected, is extraterrestrial in origin.

So perhaps the best mode of operation is for both sides to step back and take a deep breath....I'm sure the so called opponents of these sightings being extraterrestrial craft would totally agree with me that they are UFO's...simple as that.
Let's see if the proponents can shift ground to that far more logical, sensible position. I won't hold my breath though.

 

[Magical Realist]

My own guess is that they are items of modern folklore that very likely don't correspond to any single objective physical phenomenon. I'm more inclined to speculate that a whole variety of physical phenomena are being interpreted in a particular way, in accordance with a particular modern myth. I'd guess that's the result of people's desire to believe in certain kinds of things

That seems to me to be a myth propagated by the pseudoscientific community. That the majority of eyewitnesses to ufos, and ghosts too for that matter, are fervent believers in those things who are just looking for excuses to call anything a ufo or a ghost. Actually it's quite the opposite. Most the people who see ufos are just everyday people going about their secular lives. Pilots, astronomers, teachers, campers, policemen, politicians, rangers, truckers, farmers, etc. They aren't new age kooks standing on their roofs at 3 AM holding up glow sticks. There is no underlying "myth" that they are trying to interpret mundane events into. As you said already, people generally know when they see something strange. They know what planes at night look and sound like. They know what meteors look like. They know what balloons look like. Something stands out to them unexpectedly enough to get them to report it to others, in spite of the tremendous ridicule and mockery they are risking for themselves. The event typically has a numinous, almost mystical, flavor to it, like a spiritual encounter. But unlike a religious vision, it is an event that comes totally from the outside (physis), not from the inside (psyche). And because of that "otherness", it is traumatic, terrifying, and jarring to everything they know and believe in.

 

[DaveC426913]

I simply present the evidence for the ufo phenomenon itself, whatever it may turn out being.

...unless it's anything mundane. You simply and utterly refuse to accept that as a possibility.

 

[Magical Realist]

...unless it's anything mundane. You simply and utterly refuse to accept that as a possibility.

Like I said, I and others rule out the mundane in every case. After that, we infer non-human origins.

 

[Daecon]

But you don't rule out mundane explanations, you dismiss them.

 

[Magical Realist]

But you don't rule out mundane explanations, you dismiss them.

No I don't. I consider each one objectively, ask if the facts of the entire case match it, and then eliminate them as not plausible or choose them as plausible explanations accordingly. Why would I want to overlook the mundane possibilities at all? Many times ufo sightings ARE mundane in nature. Eliminating these cases is standard investigative practice. There's nothing hard or undesireable about this. It's how we arrive at the truth.

 

[James R]

Yazata,

Question to JamesR: Why even have a 'UFOs, Ghosts and Monsters' forums on Sciforums, if discussion of those subjects is unwelcome?

I hope you're not getting the impression from me that discussion of those subjects is unwelcome. I assure you that I do not ordinarily involve myself in discussions here that don't interest me in some way (other than when I need to pay attention for reasons to do with moderating the forum).

For me, the value in having such discussions here, which is not available in many other forums, is that claims of the paranormal are typically not accepted uncritically. At sciforums, real scientists and educated people (such as yourself) mix with true believers in pseudoscience. I find (some of) those interactions interesting. There are plenty of pseudoscience sites out there that never examine claims critically, but act more as cheer squads and mutual-support societies. Exposing people who frequent such sites to some critical thinking can only be a good thing. It's not all one way, either. As a skeptic, I am always interested to hear directly from those who believe, so I can better understand their position.

I like your drawings of various ufo morphologies. I would suggest that if they haven't already done so, that ufologists try to quantify these, and determine how frequently each type is reported. Then they should assign dates to them and see if some forms are reported more often in particular places and how they undergo waves of popularity. My guess is that the different forms are often cultural-historical, in the sense that they display popular ideas of cutting-edge aerospace technology in particular times and places.

Some efforts have already been made to do just that. And UFOs do follow waves of popularity. For example, one sighting is usually closely followed by many other sightings once people hear about it. Descriptions of alien spaceships also seem to be tacitly agreed on.

The very idea of a "flying saucer" is a mistake, based on the first reported sighting by Kenneth Arnold. He described seeing a craft that was not saucer-shaped, but which bobbed up and down "like a saucer skimming across water" (or something like that). Soon after that, the "flying saucer" craze took off in earnest, and suddenly hundreds of people were seeing saucers.

One interesting point to make is that UFO sightings are not at all evenly distributed geographically. Aliens apparently have a special fondness for the United States, in particular. And in countries that have had less exposure to the pop culture of aliens from movies and the like, alien spaceships are seldom, if ever, reported. I know what this suggests to me.

 

[James R]

Magical Realist:

And round we go again.

An allegation of fakery isn't evidence of fakery.

True. Similarly, an allegation of truth isn't evidence of truth.

All sorts of things are possible. That is not sufficient grounds to dismiss evidence.

The aim is the explain the evidence in the most parsimonious way, not to dismiss it.

But with unbiased examination of the evidence and background on the events, we eliminate most of those possibilities.

I disagree, and there's ample evidence in the "why do ghosts wear human clothes?" thread to show that (a) true believers aren't interested in an unbiased examination of the evidence; (b) true believers aren't interested in trying to eliminate mundane explanations - instead they prefer to dismiss them without any consideration; (c) true believers think that if there's not enough evidence available to come to a firm conclusion, then the paranormal explanation is the preferred explanation - withholding judgment until the evidence is in is not part of their psyche.

It is not sufficient to claim plausibility with no evidence to support that claim.

But that's exactly what you do all the time!

"Look at this fuzzy photo. It looks to me like a ghost!"
"Look at this fuzzy photo. Don't you think it looks like a flying saucer?"
"Read this guy's anecdote! Let's just assume he is telling the truth, unless we can prove he isn't."

Is it plausible that this particular person lied? We don't know that until we meet the eyewitness and research his background. Then we can say it is or isn't plausible.

Right!

And yet for the vast majority of the anecdotal evidence you present as "compelling", we know little or nothing about the people telling the stories. But you're happy to take them all at face value if they are saying something you've already decided must be true.

 

[James R]

Yazata:

It occurs to me that one problem with pseudoscientific claims is that they take no risks. Their claims are often built in a way that makes them immune to falsification, which is the exact opposite of what scientists do.

Do you notice how, when a skeptic raises a potential problem with the believer's interpretation of some evidence, they believer all too often has an ad hoc way out of the problem?

For example:

Assuming that they are non-human intelligences (which is something that we don't really know), maybe they have any number of hypothetical reasons for not making unambiguous contact. Maybe they are extraterrestrial anthropologists of some sort and want to examine the development of another species at a crucial moment in its history, the period right after the rise of science and industrialism perhaps, without distorting the unfolding of Earth history by making their own presence known. A flight of science-fiction speculation (it's nothing more than that) that I'm personally fond of is that they are time travelers from our own future who know that they can't change the past without endangering their own history. But if they already know about the history of the ufo phenomenon in our time, they figure that they are safe if they conform to it (since it turns out that they are the ones who created it in the first place).

This is a nice piece of speculation and - who knows? - it could be true. But it's also noticeably convenient, isn't it? Why don't the aliens make unambiguous contact with humanity? Because of any of a number of possible unverifiable motives they might conceivably have. But there's nothing here we can sink our teeth into as an explanation for the lack of convincing contacts between humans and aliens. And the simpler explanation for the lack of such contacts is that there actually are no aliens making contact in the first place.

We can't prove that the aliens aren't motivated by something that makes them shy. So, the "shy aliens" hypothesis is, as a practical matter, unfalsifiable. The hypothesis is immune to any actual test.

And this is just one example of the kinds of claims often used to justify the poor quality and lack of evidence for aliens.

 

[Magical Realist]

Magical Realist:

And round we go again.


True. Similarly, an allegation of truth isn't evidence of truth.

Evidence of a phenomena IS evidence of its truth, whether that evidence be anecdotal or photographic. Your sole strategy has been to simply accuse the witness or the photographer of fakery based on no evidence whatsoever. That's not sufficient. It certainly wouldn't pass muster in a court of law. "Well jury members, the eyewitness to the murder COULD be lying. I rest my case." Is that reasonable doubt? No. It is just a made up allegation designed to plant doubt that is not logically warranted.

The aim is the explain the evidence in the most parsimonious way, not to dismiss it.

No..the aim is to explain the phenomena based on the evidence given. The evidence doesn't require explaining. Does the DNA test of the murder suspect need explaining? No..and with no evidence of fraud or dishonesty there is no basis to doubt it.

I disagree, and there's ample evidence in the "why do ghosts wear human clothes?" thread to show that (a) true believers aren't interested in an unbiased examination of the evidence; (b) true believers aren't interested in trying to eliminate mundane explanations - instead they prefer to dismiss them without any consideration; (c) true believers think that if there's not enough evidence available to come to a firm conclusion, then the paranormal explanation is the preferred explanation - withholding judgment until the evidence is in is not part of their psyche.

(a) psuedoskeptics aren't interested in an unbiased examination of the phenomenon based on the evidence (b) psuedoskeptics aren't interested in any explanation BUT unevidenced mundane possibilities that don't fit the facts of the case. (c) psuedoskeptics think that if the evidence supports a paranormal cause, then the mere possibility of a mundane alternative is sufficient to dismiss that explanation.

But that's exactly what you do all the time!

"Look at this fuzzy photo. It looks to me like a ghost!"

You're lying. The photos look like ghosts--transparent and solid human figures. Even when the photo is fuzzy, it is still an image of an apparition. Cameras don't make up things that aren't there.

"Look at this fuzzy photo. Don't you think it looks like a flying saucer?"

lol!A fuzzy photo of a car is still a photo of a car. A fuzzy photo of a ufo is still a photo of a ufo.

"Read this guy's anecdote! Let's just assume he is telling the truth, unless we can prove he isn't."

Right. Because you just happen to know he's lying because? Because you know ghosts don't exist somehow. You assume what you pretend to conclude and so call all eyewitnesses either liars or deluded based on no evidence at all. That's called confirmation bias.

And yet for the vast majority of the anecdotal evidence you present as "compelling", we know little or nothing about the people telling the stories. But you're happy to take them all at face value if they are saying something you've already decided must be true.

And you assume they're all lying because they claim to have witnessed something you personally don't believe exists. Your sole basis for calling them liars is that they have seen a ghost. That's blind skepticism as has been repeatedly pointed out to you. Why is this not sinking in for you?

 

[Magical Realist]

Why don't the aliens make unambiguous contact with humanity? Because of any of a number of possible unverifiable motives they might conceivably have. But there's nothing here we can sink our teeth into as an explanation for the lack of convincing contacts between humans and aliens. And the simpler explanation for the lack of such contacts is that there actually are no aliens making contact in the first place.

We can't prove that the aliens aren't motivated by something that makes them shy. So, the "shy aliens" hypothesis is, as a practical matter, unfalsifiable. The hypothesis is immune to any actual test.

We simply don't know enough about the intelligences behind this phenomena to project our own motives onto them. Is the fact that they don't make public contact evidence of their nonexistence? Not at all. It's like saying unless aliens behave like I think they should behave, then I'm not going to believe in them. That is the fallacy of incredulity plain and simple. We are dealing with nonhuman intelligences here with an entirely different psychology altogether, not with atoms and electrons. The limitations of testability and falsifiability are clearly obvious.

 

[Sarkus]

Evidence of a phenomena IS evidence of its truth, whether that evidence be anecdotal or photographic.

No, evidence of a phenomena is evidence of the phenomena, but what that phenomena actually is is what is debated.
It might be an alien-origin UFO, it might be an experimental aircraft, it might be a model, something thrown into the air, or simply cgi/photoshopped image.
What you seem to be saying with your statement above is that the evidence is evidence of the truth of what someone has already interpreted/claimed it to be. This is therefore an a priori assumption on your part of what the evidence is of.

Your sole strategy has been to simply accuse the witness or the photographer of fakery based on no evidence whatsoever. That's not sufficient. It certainly wouldn't pass muster in a court of law. "Well jury members, the eyewitness to the murder COULD be lying. I rest my case." Is that reasonable doubt? No. It is just a made up allegation designed to plant doubt that is not logically warranted.

First, science is not a court of law.
Second, using your example, let us assume that the method of murder that the person is being accused of is so unlikely (so that it is an extraordinary assertion) and that the only evidence the prosecution have is a the witness. Ther is no corroborating evidence that you might expect. I very much doubt it would have even gone to trial, as the jury, being reasonable, would see due to the extraordinary assertion that it is more likely the witness is not necessarily lying but simply mistaken in their interpretation of what they saw.

No...the aim is to explain the phenomena based on the evidence given. The evidence doesn't require explaining. Does the DNA test of the murder suspect need explaining? No..and with no evidence of fraud or dishonesty there is no basis to doubt it.

Actually the DNA test does need explaining, so that the jury would know that there is only a remote possibility of the DNA belonging to someone else. It might be assumed to be known, but you can't dismiss that it needs to be known.
In the case of anecdotal or photo evidence presented to support UFOs, the evidence is not "these are photos and stories of UFOs" but "these are photos and stories..." and the jury must decide whether they support the assertion of them being UFOs or whether they think it more likely they are of something else.
You, however, present the photos and stories as a fait accompli with regard what they are evidence of, yet all you should be doing is presenting them as evidence for the case that UFOs exist. It is up to others to determine whether they think they are of UFOs or not, whether they are convinced or not. That is how evidence works. Not your style of "these are proof of UFOs, now prove me wrong!"
If it is more likely to someone that the photos are shopped, or faked in some way, you - as the one presenting the case for UFOs - must counter those concerns, not merely dismiss them.

(a) psuedoskeptics aren't interested in an unbiased examination of the phenomenon based on the evidence

Have you provided any unbiased examination?

(b) psuedoskeptics aren't interested in any explanation BUT unevidenced mundane possibilities that don't fit the facts of the case.

Such as?

(c) psuedoskeptics think that if the evidence supports a paranormal cause, then the mere possibility of a mundane alternative is sufficient to dismiss that explanation.

This is true of rational thinkers. The more extraordinary the claim the more extraordinary the case needs to be to support it. And if faced with a paranormal explanation rather than an unlikely but possible normal explanation, I know where my money lies. Given that the paranormal has never been proven to exist, the paranormal as an explanation should always come below an unlikely normal explanation in the pecking order of acceptability.
This isn't saying the specific normal explanation is therefore correct, but just that it is more acceptable to the rational than the paranormal one.

 

[James R]

Sarkus more or less wrote what I would have written.

Evidence of a phenomena IS evidence of its truth, whether that evidence be anecdotal or photographic.

A fuzzy photo is only evidence of something fuzzy that requires explanation. You can't jump from fuzzy blob to alien spaceship without considering the other alternatives (faked fuzzy blob, a trick of the light, a lens abberation, a misidentified planet Venus, etc.)

Your sole strategy has been to simply accuse the witness or the photographer of fakery based on no evidence whatsoever.

I'd appreciate it if you would stop misrepresenting my position. I'm beginning to think it is deliberate, rather than just stupidity on your part.

I have not accused anybody of fakery in the absence of evidence of fakery. Where I suspect possible fakery but am not sure I merely point out the possibility and leave the question open. And wherever I suggest fakery, I suggest how it might be done, and/or what features of the available evidence indicate it.

That's not sufficient. It certainly wouldn't pass muster in a court of law. "Well jury members, the eyewitness to the murder COULD be lying. I rest my case." Is that reasonable doubt? No.

Right. In itself, that is not reasonable doubt. But if we compare 5 other witnesses who tell a different story to the accused, it starts to raise more doubt. And if CCTV footage of the accused shows that he wasn't were he said he was, we have more doubt. And if the accused's DNA is found on the victim and he can't explain how it came to be there, then we have even more reason to doubt.

Reasonable doubt can be raised in a number of different ways. If the accused claims that he couldn't have murdered the victim because he was having dinner with a giant pink dragon at the time, most people would doubt his testimony, and such doubt would be eminently reasonable. If the accused said aliens flew down in a spaceship and murdered the victim, that would be sufficient to raise reasonable doubt for most members of a jury.

No..the aim is to explain the phenomena based on the evidence given. The evidence doesn't require explaining. Does the DNA test of the murder suspect need explaining? No..and with no evidence of fraud or dishonesty there is no basis to doubt it.

You are quite wrong. All evidence has a context, and we must look at it in context. DNA evidence never stands on its own. Nor is it 100% reliable (that's a common misconception people have). DNA evidence needs explaining just like other evidence. And it can be challenged, just like other evidence.

In a field rife with fraud and dishonesty, such as the UFO field, it is very reasonable to doubt "eyewitness" testimony and other anecdotes.

You're lying.

I'm lying? What am I lying about?

The photos look like ghosts--transparent and solid human figures. Even when the photo is fuzzy, it is still an image of an apparition. Cameras don't make up things that aren't there.

Consider the photo of the mist that you posted recently. You interpreted it as a screaming dead teenager. You claim it is "an image of an apparation" because you've already decided what it is. Cameras don't lie, you tell us. But people do. That photo only shows some bright light reflected from what appears to be some mist. The fact that you interpret it as a ghostly image doesn't make it so. The camera didn't make up the ghost. You did.

lol!A fuzzy photo of a car is still a photo of a car. A fuzzy photo of a ufo is still a photo of a ufo.

Recall that a UFO is an unidentified object. And yet, here you are identifying all these photos as alien spaceships. If they are unidentified, they are unidentified, not spaceships.

If you tell me "here's a fuzzy photo of a spaceship" then you've already decided what it is. And you're unlikely to change your mind if I tell you it's the planet Venus, or a camera artifact or a reflected light from something.

A fuzzy photo of a reflected light is still a fuzzy photo of a reflected light. It only turns into a spaceship when you imagine it to be so.

Right. Because you just happen to know he's lying because?

I don't know he's lying. I ask myself: what would be more extraordinary? That some guy on the internet is lying about his ghost photo or that he sees dead people?

It remains possible, of course, that he really does see dead people. But I need more than his word to take that seriously.

Because you know ghosts don't exist somehow.

Again, you are at pains to misrepresent my position. Why do you persist in that nonsense? Can't you face the truth?

I have told you time and again that I don't know that ghosts don't exist. That I have an open mind and that I'll happily examine any good evidence that they do exist. And yet, you can't cope with that for some reason. You seem desperate to paint me as a closed-minded cynic who has no imagination and who is scared of the Truth and somehow worried that I'll suffer a monetary or other personal loss if ghosts turn out to be real after all. Why is that?

You assume what you pretend to conclude and so call all eyewitnesses either liars or deluded based on no evidence at all. That's called confirmation bias.

No. I've told you time and again that I make no assumptions up front. I am merely skeptical of extraordinary claims, as any sensible person should be.

Confirmation bias means only looking at evidence that tends to support your pre-existing beliefs, while ignoring evidence that tends to go against them.

I have not set out to collect evidence that ghosts and UFOs do not exist. In fact, I have been open to examining evidence that you claim shows that ghosts and alien spacecraft exist. I'm not sure I can say the same for you. You have dismissed almost every objection I have raised to your evidence with a one-line throwaway remark. And you collect pro-ghost and pro-alien evidence assiduously, never properly questioning any of it. Every fuzzy photo is a confirmed ghost or UFO to you.

 

[Magical Realist]

Sarkus more or less wrote what I would have written.

A fuzzy photo is only evidence of something fuzzy that requires explanation. You can't jump from fuzzy blob to alien spaceship without considering the other alternatives (faked fuzzy blob, a trick of the light, a lens abberation, a misidentified planet Venus, etc.)

I don't jump to alien spaceship. I jump to the next adjacent possibility of a flying craft that is obviously fuzzy because it is moving so fast. The fuzziness is not grounds to dismiss the object as unreal.

I'd appreciate it if you would stop misrepresenting my position. I'm beginning to think it is deliberate, rather than just stupidity on your part.

I have not accused anybody of fakery in the absence of evidence of fakery. Where I suspect possible fakery but am not sure I merely point out the possibility and leave the question open. And wherever I suggest fakery, I suggest how it might be done, and/or what features of the available evidence indicate it.

You need to focus less on the meaning of your statements and more on their function. When you claim it is possible your wife is cheating on you, you ARE accusing her of cheating on you. When you say it is possible someone murdered your brother, you ARE accusing them of murder. And when you claim it is possible someone is faking something or lying, you ARE accusing them of lying. That's how words work. And the more reprehensible the deed you are claiming, the more it is an accusation. Problem is, such accusations are just things you make up as an alternative to accept the extramundane explanation. And that is disengenous.

Right. In itself, that is not reasonable doubt. But if we compare 5 other witnesses who tell a different story to the accused, it starts to raise more doubt. And if CCTV footage of the accused shows that he wasn't were he said he was, we have more doubt. And if the accused's DNA is found on the victim and he can't explain how it came to be there, then we have even more reason to doubt.

But you don't provide 5 other witnesses that saw something else. You don't provide CCTV footage of the witness being somewhere else. And you certainly don't provide DNA conflicting the witness's story. You just make up a scenario of the witness lying or being deluded, with no knowledge of the witness themselves and no evidence at all. You are essentially using slander to defame a witness. That doesn't raise reasonable doubt at all, and would immediately be overruled by the judge.

Reasonable doubt can be raised in a number of different ways. If the accused claims that he couldn't have murdered the victim because he was having dinner with a giant pink dragon at the time, most people would doubt his testimony, and such doubt would be eminently reasonable. If the accused said aliens flew down in a spaceship and murdered the victim, that would be sufficient to raise reasonable doubt for most members of a jury.

The status of the probability of the phenomena is what we are trying determine by looking at the evidence. It is not something we have any preexisting knowledge of. If you think the phenomena too unlikely to have evidence for it, then you have already dismissed it without weighing evidence for. Again, you assume what is only determinable by looking at the evidence from an agnostic perspective.

You are quite wrong. All evidence has a context, and we must look at it in context. DNA evidence never stands on its own. Nor is it 100% reliable (that's a common misconception people have). DNA evidence needs explaining just like other evidence. And it can be challenged, just like other evidence.

No lawyer would ever challenge the authenticity of a DNA test unless there were some evidence suggesting it was in error or faked. Just saying, "it's possible the DNA test is faked" says nothing. It's also possible the DNA test is accurate. You have provided nothing substantial to call the DNA test into question with.

In a field rife with fraud and dishonesty, such as the UFO field, it is very reasonable to doubt "eyewitness" testimony and other anecdotes.

How do you know it is a field rife with fraud and dishonesty? When have you caught a ufologist lying about a case or an eyewitness making shit up? Back up your assertion. Once again you are accusing people of fraud based on no evidence whatsoever. And then you claim you never accuse people fakery!

I'm lying? What am I lying about?

That I interpret smudges and smears as ghosts.

Consider the photo of the mist that you posted recently. You interpreted it as a screaming dead teenager. You claim it is "an image of an apparation" because you've already decided what it is. Cameras don't lie, you tell us. But people do. That photo only shows some bright light reflected from what appears to be some mist. The fact that you interpret it as a ghostly image doesn't make it so. The camera didn't make up the ghost. You did.

I totally debunked your so called "reflected mist" explanation. I showed how mist doesn't reflect light like that, with distinct colors and hard edges. There wasn't even any mist where the image was located. Once again, a dismissal of evidence in favor of your assumed conclusion---it can't be an apparition because there's no such things as apparitions.

Recall that a UFO is an unidentified object. And yet, here you are identifying all these photos as alien spaceships. If they are unidentified, they are unidentified, not spaceships.

The word "UFO"has now acquired more meaning over the decades than just an acronym. It refers to a whole phenomena like the paranormal that presents special attributes that are not explained by science or by mundane causes. A ufo IS a craft in the sky. That is what all the evidence shows. Is it a spaceship? That remains to be decided.

If you tell me "here's a fuzzy photo of a spaceship" then you've already decided what it is. And you're unlikely to change your mind if I tell you it's the planet Venus, or a camera artifact or a reflected light from something.

If I show you a fuzzy photo of a ufo, I am showing you a photo of an unknown craft in the sky. If it was a fuzzy photo of Venus, or reflected light, we'd call it that. Not a ufo.

A fuzzy photo of a reflected light is still a fuzzy photo of a reflected light. It only turns into a spaceship when you imagine it to be so.

A fuzzy photo of a ufo is still a photo of a ufo. It only turns into reflected light when you imagine it to be so.

I don't know he's lying. I ask myself: what would be more extraordinary? That some guy on the internet is lying about his ghost photo or that he sees dead people?

If you are considering the phenomena objectively, then you have no grounds for saying it is unlikely. The whole point of looking at the evidence is to determine if such things occur and so rule out their unlikelihood. But you assume it unlikely from the get go and so assume the photo is of something mundane. You have abandoned the agnosticism of a true skeptic for the denialism of the faith-driven debunker.

It remains possible, of course, that he really does see dead people. But I need more than his word to take that seriously.

That's why we have thousands accounts of the same phenomena, and photos, and videos. Given all this other preexisting data, it is imperative that we take his account seriously................

 

[Magical Realist]

Again, you are at pains to misrepresent my position. Why do you persist in that nonsense? Can't you face the truth?

You're the one accusing people of lying and then claiming you are not accusing anyone of lying. Why don't you get your story straight?

I have told you time and again that I don't know that ghosts don't exist. That I have an open mind and that I'll happily examine any good evidence that they do exist. And yet, you can't cope with that for some reason. You seem desperate to paint me as a closed-minded cynic who has no imagination and who is scared of the Truth and somehow worried that I'll suffer a monetary or other personal loss if ghosts turn out to be real after all. Why is that?

Because that is the nature of the pseudoskeptic. You are certainly not original James. You fit a profile that turns up again and again in these debates. Of the debunker who on the one hand makes faithheld claims about the enormous unlikelihood of paranormal phenomena in the universe, and who OTOH claims to be entirely open to their plausibility. Like I said, you are assuming what you pretend to conclude. Are ghosts unlikely? Well let's look at the evidence! Oh but the evidence isn't real because ghosts are so unlikely! Are you seeing the circularity of your position now?

No. I've told you time and again that I make no assumptions up front. I am merely skeptical of extraordinary claims, as any sensible person should be.

If ghosts are real, then they are not anymore extraordinary than earthquake lights or tornados. It means they are real physical phenomena that cannot be ruled out in favor of more familiar mundane events. You make the assumption that ghosts are extraordinary because you have no explanation for them or have never seen one. Yet thousands of people have seen them. Therefore they are NOT extraordinary, and certainly not in places where there is a long history of hauntings.

Confirmation bias means only looking at evidence that tends to support your pre-existing beliefs, while ignoring evidence that tends to go against them.

Right, like sticking to your claims that the evidence is faked because evidence of ghosts goes against your pre-existing beliefs.

I have not set out to collect evidence that ghosts and UFOs do not exist. In fact, I have been open to examining evidence that you claim shows that ghosts and alien spacecraft exist. I'm not sure I can say the same for you. You have dismissed almost every objection I have raised to your evidence with a one-line throwaway remark. And you collect pro-ghost and pro-alien evidence assiduously, never properly questioning any of it. Every fuzzy photo is a confirmed ghost or UFO to you.

I don't make metaphysical assumptions about the likelihood of a phenomena prior to looking at the evidence. I consider the evidence as given, and do not favor one explanation over any other. That is what true scientific skepticism is. Then over time, eliminating mundane explanations in the best cases, I reach the conclusion that the phenomena is not only likely, but real too. And since it is real, it will likely manifest again and again in the future. So when I look at a new case, I now have an appreciation for the likelihood of the phenomena that I didn't have before. You call this believing what I want. I call it sound induction based on an unbiased review of the preponderant evidence.

Consider using your debunking approach in the field of science. You might assume that prior to looking at the evidence that the existence of dark matter is extremely extraordinary and unlikely. You would then pretend to look at the evidence objectively, while always favoring mundane explanations like misreadings or fakery because you assume dark matter is too extraordinary. You effectively prevent yourself from ever discovering a new phenomena based on your unevidenced claim that the phenomena itself is too improbable to ever be accepted as real. You essentially always confirm what you have already assumed.