I think that the psychology of the exchanges between the two sides of the debate is by far the most interesting and the most relevant thing to look into. On the one hand, why do otherwise reasonable people, who know that they are most likely going to be ridiculed for their claims of having seen an UFO, an ET, a ghost or a monster, nevertheless go public and make those claims (and risk or suffer serious damage to their reputation, health and wealth)? And why do skeptics reply with ridicule and general negativity?
They reply with ridicule because they are being asked to a believe in something which otherwise a normal healthy human being would normally find difficult to believe, or that they chose not to believe for whatever reasons, from those being scientific to being too ashamed to admit they are in fact afraid of the idea. However, usually skeptics will resort to rudeness and aggressiveness because they do not like being contradicted on something in which the general view of UFO observers is somehow tarnished as being the explanations for the uneducated or perhaps UFO sightings are reserved only for the mentally-ill. Of course, time and time again, real UFO's have been seen by credible witnesses. The skeptic will forget these facts. They chose too, like they chose to bury their heads in the sand rather than discussing a subject of UFO's seriously. Of course, if the skeptic at any time gives into accepting anamolous events which otherwise cannot be explained with any traditional methods is almost like accepting that there indeed can only remain only a handful of explanations and this is almost as good as giving in and saying the observer-believer was right. This is the last thing they want to do, so they will shame and mame a decent discussion and revert to slandering the believer and making them out to be ''incapable'' of a proper analysis of the situation. It almost, sometimes feels like this is a last resort for skeptics, but nowadays I see it more and more often, that negative attitudes are taken almost immediately on such subjects. Real shame.
I believe you saw something you can't explain. That's all I have. I'm not going to jump to conclusions based on what you THINK you saw. That wouldn't be scientific. Has nothing to do with fear of the unknown or burying heads in sand. And this is a nice strawman, btw. Some skeptics might come right out and attack the idea that you saw something, but it's probably because they've heard it all before. If *I* saw something unusual, knowing what's already been covered again and again, I'd try to have more than the usual stuff you see on the internet. If I didn't have something to work with, then not only would I not expect some stranger to take it all in as factual, but I would question what I actually did see. Scientific discovery of new phenomena has always started with seeing something unusual that isn't explained by conventional theory. But it does no good to jump to a conclusion with no further study, experiment, or data collected. That's just bad science. But we see a lot of that with things such as UFOs, paranormal activity, or Bigfoot. Funniest thing I heard recently on TV..."Hey, you hear that? That's coyotes. That means there's sasquatches around." What???
There is a difference between knowing what you saw and what you think you saw. If indeed we are calling my experience a UFO because it is that I do not know it's origins then so be it. But I know the general facts of what I saw which in principle can be enough to turn a skeptic into a believer. I once believed aliens were completely improbable due to my knowledge of relativities principles behind space and time. I have been forced to reconsider these previous beliefs based on my observation of the three objects I observed that cold winter night. I let the facts detail what I think I saw, not because I am unable to describe its origins.
