UFOs (UAPs): Explanations?

[wegs]

lol @ these last few replies

@ James - thanks for your reply. I'll respond later.

 

[DaveC426913]

Could it possibly be just another Logical Fallacy(ad hominem)... : https://thebestschools.org/magazine/15-logical-fallacies-know/

This is so weird. Do you know what an ad hominem fallacy is? Did you read the definition you linked to?

Here, I'll quote a bit for you:
"...someone rejects or criticizes another person’s view on the basis of personal characteristics, background, physical appearance, or other features irrelevant to the argument at issue..."

But I could have missed it. You could show me where someone invoked someone else's personal characteristics as a refutation of their argument.

 

[paddoboy]

This is so weird. Do you know what an ad hominem fallacy is? Did you read the definition you linked to?

Here, I'll quote a bit for you:
"...someone rejects or criticizes another person’s view on the basis of personal characteristics, background, physical appearance, or other features irrelevant to the argument at issue..."

But I could have missed it. You could show me where someone invoked someone else's personal characteristics as a refutation of their argument.

Perhaps something to do with not being able to see the forest for the trees??
https://www.google.com/search?q=can...for+the+trees&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.12895j0j7
"An expression used of someone who is too involved in the details of a problem to look at the situation as a whole: “The congressman became so involved in the wording of his bill that he couldn't see the forest for the trees; he did not realize that the bill could never pass.”

 

[paddoboy]

lol @ these last few replies

@ James - thanks for your reply. I'll respond later.

At the risk of drawing ire, condemnation, and accusations of me being in cahoots with James, from a certain party, let me say I believe James' reply to you was excellent and appeared to cover all contingencies. Just to add also, I do not always agree with James...in fact my absence from this forum for a long period was in many ways because of what I saw as James pandering to the pseudscience and crank brigade, and arguments between him and I stemming from such issues being discussed in mainstream science.
I also believe that your own view, while admitting that there is some apparent reputable eye witness accounts, is that it is just another UFO...As James has said, that is a reasonable logical conclusion to make.

Why am I addressing you on a reply from James? Because I see you as a reasonably logical person that the forum on the whole respects.

 

[dumbest man on earth]

Note : DaveC426913, I will reply to this one Post. After that, if you want to discuss Logical Fallacies, it would probably be best for you to start a new Thread for that discussion.

This is so weird. Do you know what an ad hominem fallacy is?

Yes.

Did you read the definition you linked to?

Yes.

Here, I'll quote a bit for you:
"...someone rejects or criticizes another person’s view on the basis of personal characteristics, background, physical appearance, or other features irrelevant to the argument at issue..."

Let me quote a bit more from : https://thebestschools.org/magazine/15-logical-fallacies-know/
" Ad Hominem Fallacy

When people think of “arguments,” often their first thought is of shouting matches riddled with personal attacks. Ironically, personal attacks run contrary to rational arguments. In logic and rhetoric, personal attacks are called ad hominems. Ad hominem is Latin for “against the man.” Instead of advancing good sound reasoning, ad hominems replace logical argumentation with attack-language unrelated to the truth of the matter.

More specifically, ad hominems are a fallacy of relevance where someone rejects or criticizes another person’s view on the basis of personal characteristics, background, physical appearance, or other features irrelevant to the argument at issue.

An ad hominem is more than just an insult. It’s an insult used as if it were an argument or evidence in support of a conclusion. Verbally attacking people proves nothing about the truth or falsity of their claims. Ad hominems are common known in politics as “mudslinging.” " - https://thebestschools.org/magazine/15-logical-fallacies-know/

But I could have missed it. You could show me where someone invoked someone else's personal characteristics as a refutation of their argument.

I could show you " where someone rejects or criticizes another person’s view on the basis of personal characteristics, background, physical appearance, or other features irrelevant to the argument at issue.", which seems to be the definition of one of the fallacies of relevance, an ad hominem.
See Posts: #2321(w/Strawman) ; #2323 ; #2328 ; #2335 ; #2340 ; #2353 ; #2360 and #2363 & #2364

Note : DaveC426913, I have replied to this one Post. Now, if you want to continue to discuss Logical Fallacies, it would probably be best for you to start a new Thread for that discussion.

 

[Q-reeus]

SADLY MR and DMOE, have both shown themselves to be gullible in the extreme, in entertaining this shit at all...just as you have, and why the three of you are never going to admit that at best it's just another UFO and unidentified, and to extrapolate that do of alien origin is unscientific and ludicrous. That my friend is it in a nut shell. The fact that at least two of you also entertain other supernatural/paranormal or conspiracy nonsense is another red flag. The fact that at least two of you have been banned or are handcuffed at other science forums, and the third would not even attempt such nonsense on other science forums, speaks for itself. And of course the most important issue is the doubt in official circles re this incident and the evidence so far pointing to what I and others have been saying. In essence, that is at best ignoring the evidence or lack thereof, and as I previously said, dabbling into the supernatural/paranormal, and conspiracy crap.

Answering each bit of your latest rant is pointless, but why do you continue to misrepresent regarding that bit highlighted? How many times already? Could be signs of a medical condition.

 

[wegs]

wegs,


Whether not we believe that UFOs/aliens might exist should be irrelevant to evaluating this kind of thing.

But, why?

If you assume at the start that you're likely to find aliens - like Magical Realist does - just because you already believe in them, then you're prone to a whole host of errors. ou go looking for information that tends to support your prior belief that it must be aliens, while ignoring or downplaying the importance of information that tend to refute the idea. It's called confirmation bias.

Correct, but...confirmation bias causes a person to not examine research that potentially contradicts that bias. I think that MR, while he might appear idealistic in his tendency to believe that ''it must be aliens,'' seems like a reasonable guy who would be willing to hear out counterarguments.

In extreme cases - as exemplified by Magical Realist - you end up throwing common sense and critical thinking out the window, so that everything starts looking like an alien spaceship or a ghost of the Loch Ness Monster, just because those things are what you want to see.

True, but does he do this all the time? I haven't been frequenting this forum until recently, so not sure. Maybe I should read this entire thread.

Skeptics get a bad rap from people who don't understand skepticism.

Maybe. But, I think sometimes skeptics can come across a bit caustic, you know? Like their way is the only way, and that dismissing of other ideas, doesn't exactly make them entirely credible, either. Many skeptics refuse to look at the potential of something rubbing up against their beliefs. Confirmation bias, in a different way.

Skepticism means keeping an open mind and looking at the evidence on its merits. You don't go in with a pre-determined conclusion (cf. Magical Realist). You do what a scientist does - you test multiple hypotheses that might explain the ascertainable facts, to the extent that it is possible to do so. If, in the end, you can't reach a definite resolution based on the available evidence, then you're not left with "it must have been aliens", but with "we don't know what it was (yet)". Aliens is not a default explanation (if we can't explain a sighting, it must be aliens). The default position is we don't know.

I completely agree with you, IF all or most skeptics did just that. But, some seem to be as rigid as believers, refusing to entertain any type of evidence if it's mentioning UFO's, paranormal activity, etc.

Having said that, we can often do better than "we don't know", as you've seen in this thread. While we can't be certain that the infrared footage shown here is a normal jet aircraft, there are certainly lots of good reasons to think that's what it probably shows.

It is possible that aliens are visiting Earth in spaceships. It is also possible that tiny pink dragons live in an unexplored cave in Antarctica. But both those claims are quite extraordinary. There's no good evidence that either of them is true, based on decades of data. The philosopher David Hume advised that in the case of extraordinary claims we ought to ask what is more extraordinary - that the claim is true or that the people making the claim are telling lies or are mistaken? To decide the answer to that, the only way is to look at all the available evidence, in the context of everything that we already know about the world.

Why is the idea of alien life considered to be extraordinary? As a culture, we obsess over Star Wars and other sci-fi type movies, so maybe we'd like to believe on some level, that alien life exists. I agree with you, that we should't make the leap to believe any and all evidence, but to believe none, always dismissing...seems to close us off to what might be. I'm not sure honestly, what would constitute as legit evidence, that would satisfy us all here in this thread, and beyond.

There are many problems with eyewitness accounts. Eyewitnesses make mistakes all the time.

Yet, thousands of people are convicted and incarcerated based on eye witness testimony, and little else. I've always wondered why we think nothing of possibly ruining a person's life, based on circumstantial or eye witness evidence, but we refuse to believe most eye witnesses when it comes to UFO's, etc. (Although, I have my set of standards as to what I dismiss and believe, too)

That is not to say that people are totally unreliable. Much more commonly, some elements of an eyewitness's account of an event can be perfectly accurate, while other elements can be mistakes of interpretation or mistakes of perception or mistakes due to other factors. Also, like it or not, some "eyewitnesses" actually tell lies for various reasons.

I should have read this first, before posting that above comment. lol I agree with you here, many people stand to make money off fabricating or outright lying about UFO and ghost sightings.

The most commonly reported UFOs turn out to be sightings of planets, such as Venus, in the sky. The witness descriptions of what they saw are usually accurate. They get it right as to what the object they saw in the sky looked like, and where it was in the sky and what time they saw it, approximately. But their interpretation that was an alien spaceship, or other unknown object (secret military aircraft, for example) is completely wrong.


You don't need scientists' permission for that. You can believe whatever you like. It's a matter of personal taste as to whether you prefer to believe what is true, or to live in fantasy world like Magical Realist does, or a world of dark conspiracies like Q-reeus does.

So, this is where I must ask...do you believe that alien life could possibly exist?

Skeptics aren't telling you what to think. We are urging you to apply some common sense and critical thinking, rather than to jump to conclusions because they are attractive or comfortable.

I'd say that I'm a skeptic at times. I don't believe most of the stories, so I hear you.

Magical Realist typically whines about how skeptics like myself are all closed-minded and have an "agenda" to debunk his fantasies. But we're not telling him what to think any more than we're telling anybody else what to think. What irks him more than anything else is that skeptics dare to challenge his assumptions, which threatens the cozy fantasy world he has chosen to build his identity around. His anger at the skeptics is displaced anger at the discovery that his core beliefs are built on shifting and unstable foundations.

Perhaps. But, I've seen on here in the past anyway, how rude some of the ''skeptics'' can be on here to him, and he doesn't deserve that, really.

Lots of accounts seem credible. We should never rely solely on the attested good character of a witness in order to accept that what he or she reports is true. This is not to accuse eyewitnesses of lying - a mistake that Magical Realist repeatedly makes - but to recognise that eyewitnesses are imperfect human beings like the rest of us. Human beings aren't video recorders. Our memories are not a film. Even our perceptions are susceptible to all kinds of illusions and distortions.


Mostly, it's the opposite. We're far to ready to believe stuff, based on flimsy evidence. We do that for all kinds of reasons. It's part of being human.

Let me say, I'm not completely convinced with any UFO or ghost story, but there are instances whereby I feel that some stories are more credible than others. It doesn't mean I'm going to stand outside and scream for the mothership to beam me up. Although, it's tempting

 

[dumbest man on earth]

Thou aren't god.

...sh...you'll blow my cover...

 

[wegs]

(continued...)

Okay....

Okay, so why ghosts and UFOs but not Bigfoot? I'm guessing that it's because you think there's better/more evidence for ghosts and aliens than there is for Bigfoot, possibly bolstered by your prior estimate that it is more likely that aliens could exist, as opposed to a Bigfoot. It's certainly true that there's more in terms of sheer volume of reports of UFOs, by orders of magnitude, but lots of reports aren't necessarily better than a few when it comes to establishing the existence of aliens. What matters is the quality of the evidence, overall. It's now about 70 years since the "modern" UFO flap started, and in all that time nobody has managed to produce anything really convincing. Think about that. It's not for a want of people looking for such stuff.

Hmm. Good question. The idea of Big Foot living on this planet just doesn't make sense. What is it? Why does it exist? How does it exist? To my way of thinking, we should be bumping into Big Foot families everywhere at this rate. So, is there just one big, old age Big Foot walking around ...lurking in the woods...always with his backside to a camera? lol It's just too absurd to even entertain. Alien life isn't absurd to me. It's more extraordinary to believe that we humans are the only ones in this vast universe. What do you think?

It's a common-enough shape for flying saucers. These days, people tend to report UFO shapes based on what is "expected" of such reports. The most common shapes reported (if they are more than mere lights in the sky) include saucers and cigar-shapes, but the "tic tac" shape is not unusual. Believers, of course, will tell you that there are many reports of similar shapes because those are the shapes the aliens prefer. Skeptics would suggest that, by now, we have culturally indoctrinated certain ideas of what an alien spaceship sighting should look like, so that's what people tend to report.

That's true. Let me repeat though, I'm not 100% on any one story that I've heard. That doesn't make me a skeptic, but I just find certain stories (not many) more credible than others.

They can't ever be ruled out. However, hallucinations shared by more than one person are very rare.


In one sense, it might not "hurt" to believe anything that isn't true. It can even be comforting or exciting or fun to believe stuff that isn't true. The idea of alien visitors is exciting, intriguing, and fun. If some people think you're a little weird for believing in little green men, does it matter? Maybe not.

But in a wider sense, do you think it's good to believe anything somebody tells you, without question? That's what Magical Realist says he does, though I doubt he's telling the truth (see what I did there?). You are sensible enough and experienced enough to know that people make mistakes and that people don't always tell the truth, I'm sure.

I totally understand where you're come from, James - but, if MR believed every story he read/heard without further examination, he probably wouldn't post what he considers to be evidence. Just something to think about.

This particular story is unlikely to have any serious impact on your daily life, so it probably doesn't matter much whether you believe it was aliens or not. Believing one way or the other won't threaten you. It won't cost you anything, most likely. But if you make it a habit to believe stuff that isn't supported by reasonable evidence, then I think you end up losing something important. You end up all at sea in a fantasy world, like Magical Realist. It's a choice whether or not you want to go down that road.

Yea, I don't really spend much time pondering ghost stories or alien life, to be honest. But, maybe it's sort of a hobby for MR.

It's very hard to judge the apparent size, speed or acceleration of an object by eye, especially when you don't have any familiar objects nearby to compare it to. This is the typical situation of aircraft in the sky.


That sounds like a reasonable position to me. Notice, though, that nobody dismissed this story without examining it. Magical Realist believed it without examining it, but he'll believe anything. At the end of the day, we still haven't dismissed it, even if we conclude it was probably a regular jet, for example. We don't know what it was, for sure. The best we can do is to make an informed judgment about what it probably was, and leave it at that until/unless new data comes in that can take us further.


The same advice regarding critical thinking and examining the evidence applies to conspiracy theories. We shouldn't conclude a conspiracy unless and until there is good evidence to show that there is, in fact, a conspiracy.

Needless to say, some gossip about people supposedly removing data after the event is not, in itself, persuasive evidence of a grand government conspiracy.

I can't say that I don't believe in government cover ups when it comes to this stuff. But, it's not something to dwell upon.

There are different types of "true". Something may be "true" for you in the personal sense of making you feel good, or conforming to your personal beliefs about the world. You can cherish that if it makes you happy. But the other sense of "true" brings in what everyone else can agree about. That is, can you convince anybody else that what is "true" for you is objectively true? If that's not important to you, then fine. Believe what you like. But one reason you might care - other than wanting other people on your side - is that you might prefer for yourself to believe stuff that is really true, regardless of whether it makes you happy or comfortable. If you realise that you're not an infallible observer or recorder, even of your own experiences, then it follows that the only way to work out what's really true is to compare notes with other people.

Welp, I think I need to take some time to read more of this thread, because I wasn't aware that MR is trying to convert others to his way of thinking. I've always just viewed him posting ''evidence'' of paranormal activity, UFO's, Big Foot, etc and people making fun of him.

I'd say that I'm a moderate skeptic in that I could believe many of these stories, with the ''right'' evidence. I'm just not of the view that we should dismiss any and all accounts, simply because the evidence will never be enough for us. Let's be real, will there ever be suitable evidence to convince us all...together in unison...that alien life exists? That ghosts and spirits lurk in the dark? Probably not. And therein lies the problem.

Who decides?

 

[Beer w/Straw]

If Bigfoot were alive he'd do a sex video, or at least do a selfie.

 

[sideshowbob]

I'm just not of the view that we should dismiss any and all accounts....

Who's doing that?

Let's be real, will there ever be suitable evidence to convince us all...together in unison...that alien life exists?

If I was an alien lifeform, I'd land my flying saucer on the White House lawn, plant a flag and proclaim, "This is mine." I think almost everybody would accept that evidence.

 

[wegs]

Who's doing that?

Really?

If I was an alien lifeform, I'd land my flying saucer on the White House lawn, plant a flag and proclaim, "This is mine." I think almost everybody would accept that evidence.

That sounds like a good plan.

 

[Michael 345]

If Bigfoot were alive he'd do a sex video, or at least do a selfie.

After some poor hiker dropped his mobile running away terrified and Big Foot worked out how to use it

 

[wegs]

If Bigfoot were alive he'd do a sex video, or at least do a selfie.

Lol!

 

[Magical Realist]

James R: :But in a wider sense, do you think it's good to believe anything somebody tells you, without question? That's what Magical Realist says he does,"

I never said that. I said as a matter of practice and common sense we believe the eyewitnesses and the people who were there over the skeptics who wish only to debunk their accounts. I mean we do this all the time don't we? News reports, accident reports, people telling us things that happened to them, historical accounts--all rest on this fundamental trust we have in the eyewitness as the one who actually experienced the event. A skeptic will immediately dismiss the eyewitness as unreliable or a liar because they don't want to believe in ufos or ghosts or Bigfoot. But how do they know that? They would have to have been there to know what the eyewitness was mistaken about or lying about , and clearly they weren't. Once again, all the information we have is what the eyewitnesses provide, plus video or photographic evidence if that's available. Unless we have a good reason to doubt the eyewitness, we generally assume they are right about what they experienced. That's just one of the basic epistemic rules of thumb by which we learn about our world.

 

[DaveC426913]

I could show you " where someone rejects or criticizes another person’s view on the basis of personal characteristics, background, physical appearance, or other features irrelevant to the argument at issue."

Perhaps, but not in the post you actually responded to.
So you just brought your grudge from elsewhere, here.

 

[wegs]

If there exists alien life on other planets, I wonder what their evolution process looks like, or...do they resemble us?

 

[DaveC426913]

Why is the idea of alien life considered to be extraordinary?

...but to believe none, always dismissing...seems to close us off to what might be.

Because those of us who have come to this science forum are interested in science - which is about finding out what things do exist.
Those who are interested in what might exist would find more fulfillment on a less-science-focused site.

Perhaps. But, I've seen on here in the past anyway, how rude some of the ''skeptics'' can be on here to him, and he doesn't deserve that, really.

I can only speak for myself, but it might give some insight into others. I've discussed other paranormal events with MR at great length. There are threads here that have got to be 1000 posts long, wherein I patiently explain - again - at great length (we're talking hundreds of posts) - how memory and perception are not reliable in many circumstances, and that eyewitness testimony can be very unreliable. MR flatly denies any possibility, despite these being extremely well-documented facts. I begged him not to take my word for it, or anyone else's word for it. He could do experiments himself in his own kitchen to prove it to himself.

MR would have absolutely none of it. He has denied the well-documented science of perception and memory recall so utterly that there is no choice but to conclude he is either astonishingly poorl-read and naive, or simply trolling for the fun of it.

Every opponent here has been through similar experiences with him, and inevitably reaches the same conclusion. Time after time after time. You are only seeing the shorthand, because no one will sit through another thousand posts of MR being so flatly ignorant.

 

[DaveC426913]

If there exists alien life on other planets, I wonder what their evolution process looks like, or...do they resemble us?

They will not.

Never mind other planets - if we rolled back time on our own planet 500 million years, and started the clock going again, even we wouldn't look like us.

500my ago, there were a large array of body plans - three-fold symmetry, five-fold symmetry, ten-fold symmetry, even twenty-fold symmetry. Virtually all of them got wiped out, (or almost wiped out) by competition. It's just dumb luck that the bilateral quadraped form happened to get a break. If we roll back out own history and let it run forward, the chances are very high that a completely different body plan would dominate.

This is not my opinion.

Read Stephen J. Gould's Wonderful Life - about the Cambrian Explosion as evidenced in the Burgess Shale.

In more modern terms: evolution on Earth is Chaotic - like The Butterfly Effect: very small changes in initial conditions will lead to very large consequences in outcome.

 

[paddoboy]

Answering each bit of your latest rant is pointless, but why do you continue to misrepresent regarding that bit highlighted? How many times already? Could be signs of a medical condition

Your own renowned attempts at bullying here and elsewhere point to more realistic medical conditions then you could ever gauge from my ow reasonable mainstream position.
Now again, at best this is nothing but another garden variety UFO meaning unidentified, so cut your bullshit attempt at trying to shift from your fence straddling, attempted closeted position and show that the highlighted part is false or otherwise. C' mon now old china plate, come clean!!!