10 principles for investigating UFO reports

Yeah. I've seen at least one UFO while I was flying over the south shore of Long Island. It might have been the first wave of an alien attack, but it was probably just another airplane with unusual position lights.

 

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UFO is defined as follows:

"An unidentified flying object, or UFO, in its most general definition, is any apparent anomaly in the sky that is not identifiable as a known object or phenomenon."----https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unidentified_flying_object

Skeptics as a general rule do not accept this definition of UFOs. They insist it can always be explained by something known, even when these have been ruled out. Hence they do not believe in the reality of ufos/flying saucers. Note with this definition of ufo there is no assertion of its origin. That still remains unknown at the present time.

"In the lexicon of ufology the word UFO also has different meanings in different contexts. While it is clear that the word is meant to be applied to objects that appear to be extraordinary or out of this world, not all the objects in UFO reports turn out to be UFOs. Therefore for the purpose of investigation, the objects in UFO reports are not classed as UFOs until the reports have been investigated and all known natural or manmade objects have been ruled out with reasonable certainty. In his classic book The UFO Experience, eminent ufologist and astronomer Dr. J. Allen Hynek puts it this way:

'We can define the UFO simply as the reported perception of an object or light seen in the sky or upon land the appearance, trajectory, and general dynamic and luminescent behavior of which do not suggest a logical, conventional explanation and which is not only mystifying to the original percipients but remains unidentified after close scrutiny of all available evidence by persons who are technically capable of making a common sense identification, if one is possible.'"---http://www.ufopages.com/Control/Reference/AF_R01.htm?UFO-01a,Default-01a

 

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"May be" isn't synonymous with "always is". Attempts to discredit all firsthand personal experience threaten to do violence to empiricism generally and to natural science in particular. (It's basically another eruption of the age-old skeptical arguments, that if error is possible, then how can we ever be sure we aren't making a mistake?) In real life, personal experience is often the best evidence that individuals have for believing things.

I don't think that Klass is falling into that trap given his #2 immediately below, but others on this board (including a couple of its moderators) have made the argument that eyewitness testimony is bullshit simply because it's eyewitness testimony.

I think that the argument is more plausible if it's an observation that personal experience doesn't typically travel very well. Even if my own personal experience might typically be the best evidence that I can have for believing something, my reports of my experience might not be hugely convincing for others, especially if they already have some reason to doubt my claims.

Yes, I agree with that. Maybe the best way to approach eye-witness ufo reports is to adopt kind of a "sense data" approach. Try to "bracket-out" all of the interpretive stuff. That might include estimates of size or speed, since a small object moving slowly close to you can seem to cross the same portion of the sky as a large object moving rapidly much father away.

I guess that's true.

I agree. News coverage often reflects the interests and pre-existing prejudices of reporters and editors.

I won't argue with that, since I already said something very similar.

Again I agree. The characteristics of what is reported often seems to be influenced by previous publicity. The shape of the vehicles (saucers), the anatomy of the occupants (originally described as angelic, physically perfect humans in the early 1950's, later the archtypical 'greys' and 'reptoids'), their activities (assessing humanity for membership in some united federation of planets to alien abductions and weird sexual probings) all suggest a process of suggestion to me.

I'm inclined to agree.

But if laypeople apply that same policy to science, we would have to dismiss most of it. I don't have any reason to believe in quantum physics and some reason not to (its being so counterintuitive) apart from what physicists say in science books and classrooms. (For all I know, tech works because of magic.)

I fully and emphatically agree with that one.

If true, wouldn't that be evidence that there really is something physical there, something that can be detected both visually and on radar? Klass seems to be sneaking in his own pre-existing conclusion that there wasn't anything there.

Very true.

 

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"As we lunched, Cronkite told me about the TV Special and indicated that he wanted to interview me. He wanted a younger person's perspective on the phenomenon. Most of the UFO researchers in those days were older and had taken up the topic as a Retirement project.

Cronkite was very interested in some of the Air Force stories I had collected. He was especially interested in the fact that I had grown-up in an Air Force family as a person interested in researching UFOs. After about 30 minutes of talking, Cronkite said to me, "Let me tell you my UFO story." For the next five minutes I sat in stunned silence as he told me what had happened.

In the 1950s Walter Cronkite was part of a pool of News Reporters brought out to a small South Pacific island to watch the test of a new Air Force missile. After a short inspection of the new system by the reporters, they were lead to an area that was a safe distance from the launch site. The missile was mounted on a specially-built launcher that was attached to a cement base. It was obvious that the area had been quickly built just for the test. The details about the missile were going to be given to the reporters in he form of hand-out sheets and press releases after the test.

Cronkite mentioned that he and the other reporters had been warned that photography of the missile test and any audio transmissions or recordings by the press were forbidden. They would have to give a written account of the event. Just as the test was ready to proceed, everyone was writing as fast as they could. As Air Force Security personnel walked around the perimeter of the test area with guard dogs and the news reporters watched, the missile was fired-up and about to be released. Just then, a large disc-type UFO appeared on the scene.

Cronkite guessed that the object was about 50-60 feet in diameter, a dull grey color and had no visible means of propulsion. Because the noise of activity around him and the missile engine was so loud, he couldn't tell whether the disc made any noise. He did not notice any coming directly from the object.

As Air Force guards ran toward the UFO with their dogs, the disc hovered about 30 feet off of the ground. It suddenly sent out a blue beam of light which struck the missile, a guard and a dog all at the same time. The missile was frozen in mid-air about 70 feet from the launcher as it had taken off. A guard was frozen in mid-step and a dog frozen in mid-air as it had jumped at the disc. Cronkite reminded me that this all happened within the space of about five minutes or less.

Suddenly, the missile exploded! After that, the disc vanished. The guard and dog looked alright, but were quickly taken away by medical personnel always present at tests in case anyone became injured. At the same time, guards rapidly ushered the reporters into a concrete observation bunker. After about thirty minutes of sitting in that hot box, they were brought out into the air again and addressed by an Air Force Colonel.

The officer told them, "It was all part of the test." Obviously making it up as he went along, the Colonel said that the event was "staged" to test media reaction to UFOs. He reinforced the usual line to the reporters that Flying Saucers were probably not extra-terrestrial, but what people were actually seeing was secret planes being tested by the Air Force. This test was designed to show the media how "shocking" it could be to suddenly view a new technology. Well, Cronkite was certain that what he viewed was a new technology, but he was also sure it was not an Earthly one! He didn't believe the Air Force explanation then, and he still didn't believe it at the time when he told me the story.

After the event, reporters were told that since it was a test of media reaction to new technology, they could not report on it! But, they would be compensated later with exclusive stories on new Air Force projects (a promise that was never kept). Being as private as he was, Cronkite never did share with me his own beliefs about UFOs beyond the story he told me. I was so happy to have heard the story that I was afraid to ask anything further! "----http://www.ufoevidence.org/cases/case1178.htm

 

Never mind about this story. The guy who originated it, Bill Knell, turns out to be a notorious fraudster and con artist. I wish scum like this wouldn't complicate an already complicated field of research:

http://www.theufochronicles.com/2011/03/criminal-actions-of-bill-knell-again.html

 

That assumes there's no such thing as aerial anomalies that cannot be identified as a known object or phenomenon. It essentially denies the existence of ufos from the outset. Is that really in line with the healthy agnosticism of a true investigator? If ufos exist, then they CAN'T be identified as a known phenomenon. They are defacto exclusions of that sort of equivalence.

 

What is interesting ; and skipped over by most of us ; including myself ; is that , the US government has never actually denied that UFO's don't exist ; just that they are not a " National Security Risk " .

 

Of course.

 

Of course

So that UFO's are real .

 

You missed the point of my highlighting one word there. Can't see the double negative implied? Leave out 'don't' and that sentence would mean what you intended. I assume.

 

I think it does .

 

Of course some objects are identifiable , seen the video's . Many .

But some are not identifiable. At all .

James R

The US government has never actually denied the existence of UFO's .

 

I don't know .

And so...which leads to the reality of UFO's and their actual existence .

 

UFO's absolutely do exist. I've seen them. There is merely no evidence that they are space aliens.

 

The list in the OP is a great one, but:

IMO, this one is invalid.

Unlike all the rest, this one seems to be an attempt poison-the-well - to bias the otherwise objective evidence. It uses self-fulfilling logic: "Visual and radar sightings corroborating each other should be not be regarded as confirmatory, but instead as suspicious."

I know he's hinting at the power of suggestion here, but he has not stated it, he's merely implied it without warrant.

 

Ok ..so you admit UFOs exist. Well that's good for starters. What do you think these mysterious anomalies are?

 

What is even more Interesting and skipped over only by the gullible and impressionable amongst us, is that no one has denied that UFO exists.....no one has denied that sometimes some people see things that are unexplained and/or unidentified....but no government and no reasonable level headed thinking person, equates that with of Alien origin, time travellers, inter-dimensional beings or any other form of supernatural, paranormal nonsense.
As of this time, the extraordinary evidence is just not their to jump to those paranormal, supernatural, Alien reasonings.

Those are still the facts at this time.