wegs:
I think that many people enjoy the mystery behind not being able to prove something with objective evidence, but believing it just the same.
Personally, I love a good mystery, but at the same time I don't need to pretend that every fictional mystery is real in order to get enjoyment out of it.
I stand with many skeptics in saying that in my own life I want to believe as many true things as I can, while not believing in as many false things as I can.
I have real trouble understanding the mindset that just wants to believe in stuff, without having any particular reason for the belief. It seems like those people are going to waste a whole lot of their time. It's a shame, because we only get a limited time to live our lives, and there's so much fascinating and beautiful
real stuff out in the world.
Don't get me wrong. I'm a huge fan of science fiction and fantasy, and other fictional artforms more generally. But I don't feel any need to pretend that Middle Earth is real, or that ghosts exist, or that Harry Potter is a documentary.
When it comes to UFO's like the tic tac video, when does the science community take eye witness ''testimonies'' as valid? I mean, if something like that happens only once...but a few intelligent, critical thinkers manage to capture it on film, how can it ever be ''proven?''
Nobody, least of all me, is saying that eyewitness testimony is worthless. The story told by an eyewitness is one data point in the constellation of data points that go together to establish or refute a claim. The issue is in the weight given to the testimony of one or more supposed eyewitnesses.
In the case of UFO sightings, eyewitnesses testimony has a historically horrendous track record. Eyewitnesses just get it wrong over and over again, in case after case when we're talking about UFOs. So, a sensible person approaches anecdotal evidence from purported eyewitnesses to UFOs with caution.
Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. The earnest testimony of Farmer Bill from Hicksville who says a light in the sky flew down and sucked up one of his cows is, in most cases, probably not going to cut the mustard in proving that what Bill said actually happened. (And, before Q-reeus chimes in again, I might add that Navy pilot Fravor's testimony about seeing a "tic tac" is likely to be only marginally more reliable that Farmer Bill's, and even that's not guaranteed.)
I think that could be what many UFO enthusiasts want more than anything, is for some of the sightings to be ''cross examined'' by the science community a little more rigorously, so to speak.
Studies suggest otherwise.
UFO enthusiasts, these days at least, tend to be fearful people who tend towards conspiratorial thinking. They tend to be deeply distrustful of "authority" figures and institutions of all types. The "science community" is certainly not to be trusted, since it is deeply embedded in the the "elitist establishment".
An exception to this, of course, is in a small minority of enthusiasts who maintain an active interest in the UFO "scene" for the challenge of applying their investigative skills and critical thinking to the latest "craze" cases.
It's worth pointing out, perhaps, that there is
never a "smoking gun" remotely like the one in that cartoon, when it comes to real Air Forces investigations. Typically, all the UFO conspiracy theories have to work with is speculation and joining the dots between random factoids regarding the "official" explanations.
If the US military has never seen anything like this, why wouldn’t they relentlessly be searching for answers?
That's an excellent question.
The truth is, very probably, that US military has a very good idea about what all these recent"military grade" UFOs probably were. It is possible that the military is happy to let the UFO nuts have their fun, because it distracts from real undercover military operations. But, I should add, that's pure speculation on my part. I don't
believe it. (See the difference?)
