As you know, I'm a fallibilist. As such, I consider flat-out True and False propositional truth-values to be intellectual ideals.
Me too. Hence my query to MR about how he concluded that the eyewitnesses were "totally reliable".
I don't think he understood the point.
My own view is that the proposition that some unknown physical phenomena (perhaps more than one kind) are occurring in many of these reported instances is rather high.
What do you mean by "unknown" here? If you're claiming nothing more than the UFOs remain unidentified, then everybody here agrees with you.
If you think there's good reason to suspect the explanation will involve "new physics", I'd like to hear how you reached that conclusion, based on the evidence, such as it is.
In the Nimitz episodes, we have eye-witness reports from multiple observers, we have leaked videos, and we have descriptions by at least one of the radar operators.
Yes, all discussed at some length right here.
We know that the Navy has installed new standardized procedures to gather sighting reports, which they wouldn't have done if they dismissed the whole thing.
It keeps the UFO crowd happy - including the ones who are in the Navy.
In the subsequent Norfolk episodes, we know that multiple naval aviators made sighting reports (these have been released in brutally redacted form so we know they exist even if we don't know their content) and that video accompanied some of those reports. (Video that the military has declined to release because it's been deemed "classified".) And again, we have descriptions by those involved of what they saw.
Yes. More reports of unidentified things.
We have the Preliminary Assesment by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that notes that of the cases they looked at, more than half were supported by multiple information modalities (visual, radar, photographic, even satellites etc.) and that in their estimation something was physically happening.
That leaves a multitude of possible explanations open. Nothing points convincingly towards "unknown physical phenomena" (if "unknown" means anything more than "currently unidentified").
We have public remarks by the current NASA Administrator, and a former CIA Director and a former Director of National Intelligence that indicate that they take these phenomena very seriously and that some of the reports at least possibly indicate performance that exceeds our ability to defend against.
Lots of things are possible. What they aren't saying is that they haven't seen any convincing evidence of this reported extreme performance. We haven't, either.
We have remarks by members of Congress who have been briefed on the matter that they are concerned as well.
There's no reason to think the government wouldn't have a few alien-believers in its ranks.
We have current research efforts publicly disclosed by the Department of Defense and by NASA, which wouldn't exist if they all believed that this was merely "tin foil hat" material.
It would be interesting to look into the budget allocations in both cases. A small amount of money to keep the UFO crowd happy would not be unreasonable - actually, it's probably part of NASA's PR remit.
Given how the military operates, there's the possibility of additional efforts that haven't been publicly disclosed as well.
Lots of possibilities. Not so much hard data.
We have exceedingly reputable scientists starting to come around to the possibility that something interesting and important might be happening here. (Avi Loeb for instance, the former Chairman of the Harvard University astronomy department, who has started the Galileo Project, a private data gathering effort.)
Not hard to find a few alien enthusiasts among qualified scientists.
The "skeptics" are correct in asserting that none of this is 100% conclusive evidence that the Earth is being visited by extraterrestrials. (In my opinion that remains an open possibility, though it's hard to estimate its probability.)
Your opinion on this is, and always has been, shared by all the skeptics here. You like to think you're out on a limb on this, but you're not.
But my own view is that it is convincing indication that something very interesting is very likely happening.
Interesting? Moderately. We're all here discussing it, so I guess it's interesting. It's not like we haven't seen this sort of thing before, though, historically speaking. This is just the latest surge in UFO popularity - one of many. This too will pass (unless some really
good evidence comes to light).
It looks to me like it's an actual physical phenomenon (it's visible to the eye, it reflects radar and it shows up on photographic imagery).
In the vast majority of cases, that's true and completely uncontroversial. For instance, the most common UFO reports are mistaken sightings of astronomical objects, like Venus and Mars. They are indisputably actual physical phenomena. Weather balloons are real. So are human-made aircraft. Lots of things are actually physically real.
