Why does the government hide UFO's?

I can't say it any better than this.

 

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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.

 

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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.

 

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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.

 

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!

 

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.

You mean this....

Are you serious?

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

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.

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

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.

 

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.

 

...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.

 

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.

 

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.

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.

(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.

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.

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.

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 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?

 

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.

 

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.

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.

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.

Have you provided any unbiased examination?

Such as?

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.

 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

That I interpret smudges and smears as ghosts.

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.

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

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.

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................

 

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?

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?

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.

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

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.