'No evidence' for extraterrestrials, says White House,....

Discussion in 'Pseudoscience Archive' started by phlogistician, Nov 8, 2011.

  1. 420Joey SF's Incontestable Pimp Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,189
    Im not saying they want our DNA I said that all scenarios involving aliens dont have to be about extracting resources as it could be about examining the enviormental triggers in the creation of dna. Read the link I posted.

    From the quote I link I just stated the aliens are likely to be abroad not neccesarily that they are interested in us I just always see superstring saying it would be improbable for aliens to exist.
     
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. nietzschefan Thread Killer Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,721
    I read somewhere this announcement came as a result of HAVING to respond to any petition with 11000 signatures.

    It doesn't really matter much to either camp on this issue.
     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. phlogistician Banned Banned

    Messages:
    10,342
    Sorry, but you sound a little naive,... governments need to keep secrets. It's known there have been secret aircraft developed and deployed, from the U2, the SR71, the B-2, and more recently, that the precursor to the Shuttle, the 'Dynasoar' doesn't appear to have been cancelled, the project just went black, with the govt recently admitting to the existence of the Hypersonic Test Vehicle, which appears to be derivative.

    The govt aren't going to make a press statement every time a secret aircraft is tested, or flies, in case some UFO nutters sees it and freaks out. I've seen a couple of aerial oddities, but as it was near a 'disused' missile testing site, have the inclination to think it was probably something advanced, cool, and military.

    But this highlights the problem with the term UFO. Many things reported as UFOs aren't even flying. If we acknowledge the existence of secret military aircraft could be the cause of UFO sightings, it all becomes a bit 'meh'. It's only worth further investigation if we have the opinion it could be more than that, and the craft of extra-terrestrial origin, and really, there's no evidence for that. We have various types of telescope, working at many different wave lengths, looking up and down, and we don't capture anything. We have more people carrying more cameras than ever before, in their cellphones, and their digital cameras have decent optical zoom, far better than we had 20 years ago, but the quantity nor quality of images has improved.

    We had a woman come here, claiming to have been serially abducted, and in possession of pictures and videos of UFOs,... went by the name of 'Orions Stargirl' and in real life, Paula Thorneycroft. All of her images were of appalling quality, and a couple of SF members offered to take better quality equipment and go visit her, and see if they could capture better images. Initially, she agreed. but of course, it never came to fruition. Of course, Paula had a book for sale.

    Then we had another guy 'Chris Beacham' who posted his 'UFO' pictures here (he's since deleted them all). After talking to him, it became clear he took photographs of sky, and then applied various filters in image manipulation software, until he created an anomaly, and them reckoned he's uncovered a UFO. He also sold these pictures.
     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. phlogistician Banned Banned

    Messages:
    10,342
    I don't think I've ever seen him write that.

    Improbable they are visiting, but not that they may exist elsewhere, is what I read from his posts. String's position is very reasonable. The Universe is HUGE. To travel across it requires an immense leap in technology, and it's reasonable to assume that technological levels in such a society will advance in step with each other, and so they will have very advanced physics, materials science, medical knowledge etc. So why visit a populated planet? They'll have solved their energy problems, perhaps be able to terraform planets, and use them as farms, if they still rely on biological matter as food of course. And it's unreasonable to cop out and say 'well, they are alien, we can't predict how they'd behave', because they would still be sensible aliens, they aren't going to be flying around with their underpants on their heads, pencils up their olfactory outlets, and saying 'wibble', are they?
     
  8. clusteringflux Version 1. OH! Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,766
    So let me get this straight. You don't believe there are Alien craft. But you're quite sure you could predict the reasons behind their actions if you did believe there were Alien craft, which you don't.
    Sheesh.
    That's pretty absurd considering we're still studying and learning about the behavior of animals that we've studied for hundreds of years.
     
  9. 420Joey SF's Incontestable Pimp Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,189
    I may have confused him with stryder or someone else than.
    I more or less agree with this position. I was basically saying there could be other reasons contending with him refuting the possibility via the resources-extraction point.
     
  10. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,910
    EXCUSE ME, where did I say that governments do not have a need to lie? Oh that is right, I didn't. I merely said that they do lie and gave evidence of same which was contrary to the assertions to which you were a party.
    Is this some how relevant to the discussion or contrary to anything I wrote? No it isn't.
    With this kind of thinking we would still believe in the the four elements, earth, water, fire and air and living as hunter gathers at best. Anomalies have been the source of all major scientific advancments. So to assert as you have that we should only investigate those incidents for which we know the answer is rather backward.

    When you have anomolies, events for which you cannot explain, there is something wrong with your model. And to simply dismiss it as you have is to go back to that animalistic thinking - reverting to our congative biases and that is bad science any way you look at it.
    No one is saying, certianly not I, that there are a lot of kooks out there. But that should not be reason to ignore or summarily dismiss those incidents for which science can offer no reasonable explanation. Even Project Blue Book (per previous post) could not explain all UFO events. Your solution, to ignore events that you cannot explain, is not good science. It is using your cognative bias as a subsitute for scientific method. And that is just as bad as the kook runnning around making absurd claims for which there is not a shred of evidence. A good scientist does not dismiss credible evidence from credible sources (J. Hynek) per previous post just because it does not agree with his/her preconceived notions.

    Notice I have never once speculated on what credible UFO's might be other that to say that the US government has been known to expolit UFOs to cover clandestine operations.

    You know skeptism is a good thing and it works both ways. One should be skeptical of everything - inclulding commonly held beliefs. There is no substitute for fact, reason and evidence.
     
  11. Boris2 Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,106
    i'll be seriously disappointed if they do.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  12. Arioch Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,274
    @Joe --

    Yes they have been, but there are many explanations which fit the data better than "aliens are here". In fact just about any other explanation is more parsimonious than that.
     
  13. phlogistician Banned Banned

    Messages:
    10,342
    That's not quite what I said. There are probably alien craft,... just that they aren't visiting Earth.

    That's not quite what I said. I said their actions would not be unpredictable, or make no sense. Any race that can construct craft to travel across the vastness of space is highly intelligent, that much we can predict.

    It's pretty absurd to equate an advanced alien race with a terrestrial animal. Learning about animals would be much quicker if they were sentient, and able to talk, after all.
     
  14. phlogistician Banned Banned

    Messages:
    10,342
    I agree completely. Joe hasn't made the distinction between UFO, UAP, and ETI. Until he does, he's rather dodging and weaving amongst the ambiguity between these terms.

    Joe also hasn't ruled out the human element, but decries my science. Science should be devoid of human bias.
     
  15. phlogistician Banned Banned

    Messages:
    10,342
    And I have not done that. I'm saying that we can't go shouting 'The aliens are coming' because someone sees something in the sky they can't explain.

    The whole 'UFO' thing says far more about human perception than it does about the Universe. But anyway, first you need to get your terms straight, and I really find UFO to ambiguous. Do you mean Extra Terrestrial Craft, or Unexplained Aerial Phenomenon? And like I said already, we know there are secret military craft up there, so really, the only mystery is the former, especially given that people report Venus as a UFO, and it doesn't exhibit the qualities of flight.
     
  16. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,910
    I think you have. But be that as it may, no one is yelling the aliens are coming - merely questioning the credibility of US government statements on aliens.
    Now this is a supposition on your part for which you have no evidence. Is it about human perception or more about human biases and other human behavioral issues?
    Terms straight? Where have I misued a single term? I haven't. That is you creating an error in logic - ad hominem. UFO means unidentified flying object - look it up. If you find the term too ambigious, well that is your issue. The term describes a phenomena and does not ascribe a cause for the phenomena. Because a cause cannot be determined.

    You want to jump from observation to cause with out any intervening logic or evidence, just as the UFO kooks do. There is not enough information/evidence to make that jump between observation and cause in some observations. That is why those observations are called UFO's.

    And you keep going back to known misidentifications as if that explained all known observations. As perviously pointed out and proven, the misidentification excuse does not explain all UFO observations (e.g. J. Allen Hynek).
     
  17. phlogistician Banned Banned

    Messages:
    10,342
    Hynek, who sold a book on the subject? Who contradicted himself?

    Oh, and you can't say "the misidentification excuse does not explain all UFO observations" until you identify what it was that was allegedly seen, can you?
     
  18. clusteringflux Version 1. OH! Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,766
    High intelligence would only compound the difficulties in studying them especially if they were unwilling and elusive.
    To the other, if we're the subjects of research one wouldn't expect much explanation. Jane Goodall (when making herself visible )wouldn't try and explain the social science or the automobile to Gorillas even though she can communicate with them on a basic level. Even if they could understand the basic concepts it wouldn't make sense to introduce it into the experiment.

    Indeed.
    But again if we're the "animals" being observed "highly intelligent space travelers" would likely know how receptive we would be to attempts at communication.. We wouldn't be. We have a recorded history of war and violence to prove it.


    Edit

    Bah! now you have me doing it..Pretending to know what non-existant beings think!

    LOL
     
  19. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,910
    You have not been paying attention. Hynek started out as a professional UFO debunker working for the government. He could not debunk all reported incidents. And unlike you he did not simply dismiss those incidents. And as a result of his studies and work for the government he reversed his opinion on UFOs.

    I am not using the misidentification excuse. You are. What I have said consistently is that there are well documented observations by very credible observers, including the military, for which there are no credible explanations. If you don't have an explanation, you shouldn't invent one as you have done and continue to do or simply dismiss the observation.

    This is a non sequitur, ""Oh, and you can't say "the misidentification excuse does not explain all UFO observations" until you identify what it was that was allegedly seen, can you?"".

    It is a proven fact, not all UFO observations can be adequately explained. Even Project Blue Book, the government's attempt to debunk UFOs, came to that conclusion. So you cannot say with any degree of credibility that all UFO observations are just misidentifications of something else. They are unidentified, hence that is why they are referred to as Unidentifed Flying Objects (UFOs).
     
  20. Me-Ki-Gal Banned Banned

    Messages:
    4,634
    It is a ghost phlo. I don't mean like a supernatural spooky spooky. Like the war on terrorism or the war on drugs . Like that it is a ghost. Chasing water falls . Netting butterflies .

    You know fun , work , business , play, sleep

    Aliens come into the planet all day every day from my understanding of science anyway . Terrestrial objects penetrate the atmosphere don't they?
    Do you understand every little quark about all that ?
     
  21. Arioch Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,274
    @joe --

    No it's not. It's a fact that we can't explain all UFO observations as physical events, but if we treat them as altered mental states and other psychological experiences we can. Not only does this have the benefit of explaining what people like you claim can't be explained, but it doesn't require a huge number of unsupported assumptions. It's a win win.
     
  22. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,910
    So you are telling me ground deformation, burnt objects, radar tracking, are the result of altered mental states? And just what would cause this altered mental state?

    Where is your proof that the unexplained events are from an altered mental state? If you had some proof, you might be on to something. But the bottom line here is that we can speculate all day. What we need is evidence. And that is something we are woefully short of in this arena.

    I think what is needed is more research and more evidence.
     
  23. Arioch Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,274
    @joe --

    Who's to say that those events don't have a perfectly normal, physical explanation. Perhaps vandalism or some crashed military craft(they like to keep those secret). There are hundreds of possible explanations out there and not a single one that requires aliens breaking the known laws of physics to visit us when they have literally no reason to do so.

    We know that some of them are altered mental states because an unbelievably large number of eyewitness accounts match stories of "abduction" by demons, faeries, angels, and numerous other imaginary beings over the course of history(these sorts of reports have been happening for pretty much all of human history). Now, there are two possible explanations for this, one that's plausible and one that's not. Explanation number one is that all of these other reports are misidentified aliens and they've been with us all along, this is completely implausible and we have literally no supporting evidence for it. The other explanation is that it's all, or almost all, in our brains, this is very plausible as we know for a fact that the human brain is more than capable of creating entire imaginary, populated worlds.

    So which seems more likely to you?
     

Share This Page