UFOs (UAPs): Explanations?

[Yazata]

I remember Sean Kirkpatrick telling the congressional subcommittee that there were 650 anomalous cases currently. That's quite a few. I don't know if these were previous to ruling out other things or after it.

Sean Kirkpatrick told the NASA meeting that AARO currently has about 800, and that they are getting new ones in at roughly 50-100/month. The new standardized military reporting procedures and the emphasis on fighting stigma and fear of career-damage, seems to have dramatically increased the flow of reports.

I believe that these are all anomalous in Sean's minimal sense, meaning that whoever submitted them found them extraordinary and puzzling. That doesn't necessarily mean that they will remain anomalous upon inspection.

My impression is that the AARO are unable to reach any conclusion about most of their reports because the quality of the data isn't what they would like. Hence all the interest at the NASA meeting in improving the quality of the data.

Because AARO can't reach any conclusion on most of their cases, they can't just dismiss them as if they were convincingly debunked. But they do dismiss them in a sense, since their initial classification of their cases is sort of a triage process intended to identify a smaller set of cases that justify applying valuable investigative resources and attention.

Of their cases, a small percentage (2-5%) appear to be incompatible with the likelihood of conventional explanation. That's more strongly anomalous than the minimal sense that led to cases being reported initially. (So 'anomalous' comes in degrees.) Which suggests that they are receiving, on average, 1 to 5 truly puzzling cases per month. These presumably are the real meat of the matter and are what they devote most of their attention to.

But I'm assuming many are classified and will remain so because they expose the military's sensor capabilities.

I worry that excluding the classified cases will deprive NASA of access to some of the best-evidenced cases. (radar, satellites, highly trained aviators, exotic military sensors...) But NASA argues that excluding the classified cases will make it easier for them to collaborate internationally and with academia. It will also make it easier for them to be open with the worldwide public.

Kirkpatrick's alluding to those anomalous metallic spheres "seen all over the world" must be based on their analysis of these accounts.

Yes. My sense is that their residual class of more puzzling anomalies is heavily populated with the flying spheres.

I'd say this weights the evidence towards a definitely "open" worldview.

In my opinion, what makes a worldview open as opposed to closed is the willingness to consider, and not just ridicule and debunk, the possibility that at least some of these phenomena might be signs of something new, unexpected and interesting.

 

[DaveC426913]

So you are capable of not trolling. There's hope yet.

1) the signature of the uap looks nothing like a bird in flight. I've posted birds in flight on FLIR (see below) and you can plainly see their wings flapping. There are no flapping wings on the uap.

1. As I have shown, birds can indeed appear in IR with only their bodies showing significant heat signatures. You have no choice but to acknowledge that it can happen. Therefore, the video in question is consistent with birds.

2. You don't know there no flapping wings on the UAP; all you can say is you don't see any.

2) the uap skims the water and then goes under reemerging again at full flight speed. Birds can't do that..

It is by no means certain that anything goes under the water in that image. The earlier posted public announcement actually addresses a very well known case of an apparent immersion in the ocean, and they determined that is NOT what happened. It was a common sensor artifact. Sensors do not speak truth. They can't. That's why humans are there to interpret.

3) the uap is traveling too fast against 18mph winds to be a bird, especially one measuring 3-5 feet.

Who says?
Have you looked up the top speed of a Canada goose? I have..
What leads you to conclude that there was only one and then there were two? As opposed to, say, one was hidden behind the other? Surely you are familiar with how 3 dimensional space works?

Again, all these things are consistent with flying birds, under the right circumstances. You have yet to show otherwise.

Is this really what you propose as a defense of "ludicrous"?

 

[Magical Realist]

LOL! Sorry but no dice. Besides the supergeese flying at breakneck speeds against the wind, and the coincidentally malfunctioning FLIR camera blinking out at just the right moment, and the other goose that was flying right next to the first goose so as to not be seen the whole time until the last moment, the FLIR signature of the uap just doesn't match that of a bird in any way. You're just being silly now. Still awaiting more serious replies. James R? Wanna take a stab at it? Or are you already on team supergeese?

 

[James R]

Moderator note: Magical Realist has been warned for trolling.

Due to accumulated warning points, he will be taking another week away from the forums.

I suggest that MR should try to do better on his return than make weak arguments from incredulity. Argument by ridicule doesn't work either.

If you think a particular UFO can't be a goose, try to provide some water-tight reasons for your belief. If, on the other hand, you are unable to come up with anything that would rule out the possibility that the UFO could be a goose, it might be better not to try to nervously "LOL" your way onto some unrelated topic.

 

[wegs]

 

[James R]

They ruled out a bird or birds by comparing it to the FLIR camera signature of a bird or birds and it doesn't match.

Who is "they"? The History channel guys?

It looks like a pretty good match to a pair of birds to me.

What did "they" do to rule it out? (I note that DaveC already asked you, and you ignored his question. Why?)

Here's a FLIR video of flying birds. The UAP looks nothing like them..

There are similarities. But who cares what it looks like to you? You can't rule out that it could be birds, based on what you think it doesn't look like. (I note that you tried to ridicule DaveC for similar reasoning to yours. Hypocrite, much?)

Video evidence is video evidence. If that's not sufficient for you then maybe you should move on to another thread.

This is disingenuous rubbish from you.

Yes, there is a video of an unidentified thing. That is evidence that somebody took a video of an unidentified thing.

You assert that this is "sufficient". But sufficient for what? It is sufficient to show that an unidentified thing was caught on video, sure. But so what? It might have been a couple of birds - at least until somebody shows that it couldn't have been that.

What do you believe it was? An alien spaceship from the superadvanced species of aquatic aliens that lives at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean? Is the video "sufficient" to prove that belief? I'm fairly sure it is insufficient for that. Maybe, then, you should move on to another thread. What do you think?

LOL! Awaiting other more serious responses..

Your nervous "LOL" here, combined with your deliberately ignoring DaveC's post showing why birds' wings don't necessary show up in FLIR videos, merely shows that you're willing to ignore evidence when it doesn't suit the beliefs you brought to the table before you even saw the video.

Why don't you just admit that you have zero interest in actually examining any evidence? Why do you waste your time pretending that you're interested in such things, on a science forum, of all places?

You spend far more time and bandwidth here whining and bitching about me than contributing anything useful to the analysis of the posted accounts. If there's any trolling or time-wasting goin on it's all from you and not me.

... he says, whining and bitching, rather than contributing anything useful to the analysis.

We get it. You don't like being shown obvious deficiencies in your "evidence". That's why you react angrily whenever somebody presses you on the details. It's why you're desperate to change the topic whenever the details of the analysis don't go your way. It's why, the instant anybody starts to do any actual analysis of one of your videos, that you desperately try to change the topic to something different.

The suggestion that this is a bird is simply ludicrous..

"LOL" isn't an actual argument. I'm sure you know this. Try to do better.

LOL! Sorry but no dice. Besides the supergeese flying at breakneck speeds against the wind, and the coincidentally malfunctioning FLIR camera blinking out at just the right moment, and the other goose that was flying right next to the first goose so as to not be seen the whole time until the last moment, the FLIR signature of the uap just doesn't match that of a bird in any way. You're just being silly now. Still awaiting more serious replies. James R? Wanna take a stab at it? Or are you already on team supergeese?

This is your response to DaveC's careful rebuttal of your position that this UFO couldn't possibly be a pair of birds.

Just a bunch of false claims and flat-out denial.

What a hopeless troll you are. Try to do better.

 

[James R]

wegs:

I know, but “it could be birds” has been the go to “explanation” for quite a few of these UAP’s. In a broader sense. As though there’s this mindset out there that enthusiasts never consider mundane explanations, causing skeptics to feel that they are the lone voice of reason. That’s more of where I’m coming from.

I hope you understand what happened here. MR posted a UFO video. DaveC has done some actual investigation and analysis and has suggested birds as a likely identification of the objects in the video. He has made an argument, based on the evidence.

MR's response has been to try to ridicule DaveC's analysis, saying things like "Do you think it's a goose because it doesn't look like one. lol! Fine...awaiting other more serious responses." Both you and Yazata hit "Like" on that trolling comment from MR. I'd like to know why you did that.

Clearly, DaveC has suggested it could be a goose not because it doesn't look like it could be a goose, but because it does look like it could be a goose (or a pair of geese, more likely). The available evidence appears to be consistent with the objects in the video being a pair of birds. Nobody - especially not MR - has raised any substantive objection to this.

"It could be birds" is a go-to explanation in cases where the data suggests that it could be birds. It should be one of the go-to hypotheses in such cases. After all, flying birds are commonly sighted from aircraft. We know birds exist. We know their wingspans and their body temperatures and their flight abilities. We can compare what we know to the characteristics of the things seen in the video. If there's a good correspondence, as DaveC has shown in this case, then "it could be birds" ought be high on our list of likely candidates for a positive ID.

Note well: "It could be birds" is not the same as "It's birds." A UFO is not identified until it's identified. In many cases, we can narrow down the list of things the UFO could be by eliminating things it couldn't be. But that doesn't get us all the way to what the thing actually is.

In this case, DaveC's point is that we can't eliminate "it could be birds" in this particular case. In fact, I think we can go a step further and say that "it could be birds" seems like a probable hypothesis, given the data and analysis we have so far. Of course, that could change if new or better data or a better analysis comes along.

It could well be the case that we never get to a positive ID on this particular case. There just might not be enough - or good enough - data to reach a conclusion we can be really confident about, beyond "it could be birds". If that turns out to be the case, then our conclusion ought to be "It's unidentified, but it could be birds."

As for enthusiasts not considering mundane explanations, just take a look (again) at MR's desperate antics in response to DaveC's useful analysis of this UFO, for example. Tell me you think that MR wants to get to the bottom of what this UFO actually was, regardless of whether it turns out to be an alien spacecraft or a pair of birds. Surely you can see that he has zero interest in anybody "solving" this case? (Probably, if aliens landed on the White House lawn tomorrow, he'd still be talking about UFO videos, but now claiming that they can't possibly be the aliens that were filmed by the world press. He'd move on to some new woo, if aliens were ever confirmed to exist. The minute the aliens become "scientific" is the minute MR will lose all interest in them.)

Do we really think NASA would bother creating a group to zealously research some of these reported UAP claims if “birds” were a strong possibility? I can’t. -_-

Birds are a strong possibility in lots of UFO sightings. Among other things. I'm quite sure that NASA is aware of that.

In fact, in the recent public meeting, the relevant group made the point that better data is sorely needed. Far too many reports are the sort of low-information dross that MR regularly serves up here; there's just not enough data - or not enough good data - to pin many things down with confidence.

 

[Yazata]

Moderator note: Magical Realist has been warned for trolling.

Due to accumulated warning points, he will be taking another week away from the forums.

Very convenient when you define "trolling". Apparently it means anything that frustrates you. And very convenient when you control the ban-hammer. How is your behaving in that way not an attempt to steer the discussion in directions that you favor? An imposition of your own bias?

I suggest that MR should try to do better on his return than make weak arguments from incredulity.

I suggest that YOU stop talking behind people's backs when you have ensured that they can't respond. That's just wrong.

I think that an "argument from incredulity" works perfectly well if it's just MR saying that he isn't convinced yet. Maybe there's some implicit expection built in that he should be.

Argument by ridicule doesn't work either.

It's certainly not going to convince the target of the ridicule. It will just anger them and harden them against you. So in that spirit, I suggest that you refrain from using emotionally provocative troll-words like "woo" in the future, and refrain from all the dismissive stuff directed at "UFO believers", even if you are still thinking all of it privately.

Which is your right, I guess. But expressing it is bad rhetoric. People win arguments by making their opponents want to agree. Angering those opponents is just ass-backward.

If you think a particular UFO can't be a goose,

Did he really mean to argue that it can't logically be a goose? Or simply that in his estimation it's unlikely to have been a goose?

try to provide some water-tight reasons for your belief.

Has anyone provided any "water-tight reasons" that it was a goose? Or is the whole goose-thing merely somebody's speculative hypothesis? How do hypotheses move (often in the absence of evidence) from being mere speculations to being assumed to be "the explanation"? (I sense some logical slippy-sliding going on there.) Is it just conformity with pre-existing belief?

I think that both sides are guilty of that.

If, on the other hand, you are unable to come up with anything that would rule out the possibility that the UFO could be a goose, it might be better not to try to nervously "LOL" your way onto some unrelated topic.

Has anyone come up with anything that rules out the possibility that it was space-aliens? (Or any of the more exotic never-considered possibilities that the category "unknown" might conceivably include?) If not, maybe it might be better to not dismiss possibilities that don't conform to one's personal preconceptions with shrieks of "woo!" and with sarcasm, ridicule and insult.

Perhaps it would be best to follow the NASA committee in this regard and to adopt an "agnostic" position that doesn't jump to premature conclusions (in any direction) while combatting the profound stigma surrounding the subject.

 

[James R]

Yazata:

Very convenient when you define "trolling".

Very convenient when I define trolling and the community votes on it and the forum members agree by majority vote that it should be included as an offence in our posting guidelines. All of this happened years ago.

Apparently it means anything that frustrates

you.

Well, not exactly, although it does frustrate me. Here's what it means, straight from our site posting guidelines, which you agreed to when you signed up:

I18. Trolling is the posting of inflammatory posts with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional (often angry) response. Trolls aim to disrupt normal on-topic discussion, often by raising tangential or irrelevant hot-button issues. Trolling posts are intended to incite controversy or conflict and/or to cause annoyance or offence.​

Trolls are damaging to online communities because they attempt to pass as legitimate participants in discussions while actually seeking to disrupt normal conversation and debate. If permitted to remain, trolls tend to reduce the level of trust among members in an online community. One consequence may be that truly naive posts are rejected by sensitised members as just more examples of trolling.​

Trolls tend to follow certain patterns of behaviour that may include:​

• • Posting of similar responses and topics repeatedly.
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And very convenient when you control the ban-hammer.

I do not control the ban hammer. Our site warnings and bans policy is also available for your perusal in the Site Feedback subforum. Please read up on how bans work. Inform yourself.

How is your behaving in that way not an attempt to steer the discussion in directions that you favor? An imposition of your own bias?

Go through the definition of "trolling" given above. Does it apply to MR's recent posts? In particular, consider his repeated response of "LOL - I'll wait for a serious response" to several well-reasoned and data-filled posts that DaveC posted.

Was MR's intent to try to provoke an angry response from DaveC or other skeptics? It seems more than likely. Did MR's posts incite conflict and/or cause annoyance? Yes, they did.

Was MR trying to pass himself off as a legitimate participant in this discussion of UFOs, while seeking to disrupt normal conversation and debate? Yes, he was.

Does MR's continual lack of good faith tend to reduce the level of trust among members in our online community? Yes, it does.

Does MR post similar responses and topics repeatedly? Demonstrably, he does.
Does MR avoid giving answers to direct questions that are put to him? Consistently, he does.
Does MR attempt to justify his position? Only rarely, and half-heartedly.
Does MR demand evidence from others while offering none in return? Why yes, he does. Worse still, he makes claims about what little evidence he does provide that he knows he can't support.
Does MR vanish when his bluff is called, only to reappear later to argue the same point? Yes, he does.
Does MR deliberately try to derail discussions onto tangential matters in order to control the flow of discussion? Yes, he does.

This is a pattern, not one-off behaviours. Nevertheless, he gets away with this act of his a lot of the time, mostly because I give him the benefit of the doubt (he might, after all, really be the functional idiot he portrays himself as), and no other moderator seems to be very interested in policing his trolling.

But I can always rely on you to hit "Like" on his posts, because you feel like he's sticking it to the Man. You're willing to overlook the trolling, maybe because he makes your position on UFOs look balanced and reasonable, in comparison. (And, before you start, I might add that, for the most part, your position is just that, regardless of MR. If you could drop your Big Lie, then you and I would be pretty much on the same page when it comes to UFOs. As you know, my position is eminently balanced and reasonable.)

I suggest that YOU stop talking behind people's backs when you have ensured that they can't respond. That's just wrong.

I posted two posts immediately following MR's latest temporary ban. The first was to inform members about how the temporary ban came about, why MR was officially warned, and what he should do to avoid similar warnings in future. The second was a post I addressed directly to MR, in my capacity as a participant in this thread (not as a moderator), which he can respond to on his return if he wishes.

As for this current post, you invited me to talk about MR and this latest infraction for trolling.

I think that an "argument from incredulity" works perfectly well if it's just MR saying that he isn't convinced yet.

That's not what argument from incredulity means.

An argument from incredulity goes like this: "I can't imagine how the thing could be X. Therefore, the thing can't be X." It's an informal logical fallacy.

Maybe there's some implicit expection built in that he should be.

On the matter of being convinced, you and I both know that MR is already convinced that at least some UFOs are the woo. He won't tell us exactly what the woo is, for him, these days, because he made a bit of fool of himself the last couple of times he told us about his fantasies of the woo. But I'm sure those beliefs are still there.

It's certainly not going to convince the target of the ridicule. It will just anger them and harden them against you.

Right. And posting with the intent to incite an angry response is trolling.

 

[James R]

(continued...)

So in that spirit, I suggest that you refrain from using emotionally provocative troll-words like "woo" in the future, and refrain from all the dismissive stuff directed at "UFO believers", even if you are still thinking all of it privately.

I don't see the point of beating around the bush. Clearly, MR has something in mind when he claims that a UFO must be something supernatural, or beyond the abilities of mere mortal humans to construct or operate, etc. He won't tell us what he thinks that something is, exactly, but whatever it is, he has made up his mind that it is real. For convenience, I sometimes call it "the woo". The woo is always there behind the scenes in this discussion. You just don't like it when I mention the elephant in the room. I think it's because you have a bit of a yearning for the woo yourself.

Anything dismissive that I say about UFO believers as a group is, generally speaking, well deserved. Claims made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Which is your right, I guess. But expressing it is bad rhetoric. People win arguments by making their opponents want to agree. Angering those opponents is just ass-backward.

When it comes down to it, MR has no reason to be angry at me. I totally understand that he feels frustrated that the skeptics here keep poking our noses through the obvious gaps in the belief wall he has erected around his cherished woo. Maybe he is angry at himself, that he can't muster any argument for the woo that is stronger than that he just believes in the woo.

It doesn't surprise me that he wants to shift blame for his own poor showing here onto other people. What surprises me is that, apparently, he has apparently absorbed nothing about how to think critically, in all his years on this forum, despite careful attempts by many well-intentioned people to teach him. On the other hand, it's not so surprising if he's just trolling.

Did he really mean to argue that it can't logically be a goose? Or simply that in his estimation it's unlikely to have been a goose?

His argument is that the UFO isn't birds because he doesn't think the UFO looks like birds. That's all he has offered, on this, so far. The trolling comes in where he has mostly ignored the evidence and analysis that DaveC so helpfully provided. Not just mostly ignored it, with a little bit of failing to produce any but the most transparently ridiculous counter-claims for good measure, but also simultaneously trying to just wave it away with a nervous laugh, intending that to produce an angry response in readers.

Has anyone provided any "water-tight reasons" that it was a goose?

No. Nobody has argued that it was a goose.

Or is the whole goose-thing merely somebody's speculative hypothesis?

The word "merely" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Yes, the goose thing is a speculative hypothesis. Is it a better hypothesis than the woo thing? Yes, it demonstrably is. For starters, there are at least some persuasive evidence-based arguments that show that it plausibly could be the whole goose-thing, whereas there are no evidence-based arguments for the whole woo thing.

How do hypotheses move (often in the absence of evidence) from being mere speculations to being assumed to be "the explanation"?

I don't know how it works for you. For me, hypotheses don't move from being speculations to assumptions. Nor do they move to being "the explanation" without supporting evidence.

And you know how it goes: the more extraordinary the claim, the more extraordinary the evidence needed to support it.

(I sense some logical slippy-sliding going on there.) Is it just conformity with pre-existing belief?

I think that both sides are guilty of that.

Only one side started this discussion with pre-formed conclusions about what the UFO was. That was the woo peddlar.

Has anyone come up with anything that rules out the possibility that it was space-aliens?

Has anyone come up with anything that rules out the possibility that there's a tiny pixie up your nose?

(I hope you see how ridiculous a requirement to "rule out the possibility" would be, when investigating anything, in reality.)

If not, maybe it might be better to not dismiss possibilities that don't conform to one's personal preconceptions with shrieks of "woo!" and with sarcasm, ridicule and insult.

Let's not hastily dismiss the pixie-up-your-nose hypothesis, lest we let our personal preconceptions get in the way of a truly unbiased investigation!

No, really, let's not dismiss it. Let us ask, instead: when would be a good time to start believing there's a tiny pixie in your nose? I suggest the following: a good time to start believing that would be when there's some evidence for it.

(Oh, the horror! The dark goggles - they do nothing to help!)

Perhaps it would be best to follow the NASA committee in this regard and to adopt an "agnostic" position that doesn't jump to premature conclusions (in any direction) while combatting the profound stigma surrounding the subject.

That's what all the skeptics here are doing now, and have been doing consistently for the preceding 8969 posts in this thread.

 

[foghorn]

That's what all the skeptics here are doing now, and have been doing consistently for the preceding 8969 posts in this thread.

And, that’s what Mick West does, and look at how Mick’s take on the ‘Go Fast’ uap matches that of the NASA’s take on ‘Go Fast’.
I post these two videos here, from one of my previous posts, again for comparison of Mick's result to the NASA meeting's take on 'Go Fast'.
The NASA meeting.
See from time mark 2:28:25

Mick west on "Go Fast":

 

[exchemist]

(continued...)

I don't see the point of beating around the bush. Clearly, MR has something in mind when he claims that a UFO must be something supernatural, or beyond the abilities of mere mortal humans to construct or operate, etc. He won't tell us what he thinks that something is, exactly, but whatever it is, he has made up his mind that it is real. For convenience, I sometimes call it "the woo". The woo is always there behind the scenes in this discussion. You just don't like it when I mention the elephant in the room. I think it's because you have a bit of a yearning for the woo yourself.

Anything dismissive that I say about UFO believers as a group is, generally speaking, well deserved. Claims made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

When it comes down to it, MR has no reason to be angry at me. I totally understand that he feels frustrated that the skeptics here keep poking our noses through the obvious gaps in the belief wall he has erected around his cherished woo. Maybe he is angry at himself, that he can't muster any argument for the woo that is stronger than that he just believes in the woo.

It doesn't surprise me that he wants to shift blame for his own poor showing here onto other people. What surprises me is that, apparently, he has apparently absorbed nothing about how to think critically, in all his years on this forum, despite careful attempts by many well-intentioned people to teach him. On the other hand, it's not so surprising if he's just trolling.

His argument is that the UFO isn't birds because he doesn't think the UFO looks like birds. That's all he has offered, on this, so far. The trolling comes in where he has mostly ignored the evidence and analysis that DaveC so helpfully provided. Not just mostly ignored it, with a little bit of failing to produce any but the most transparently ridiculous counter-claims for good measure, but also simultaneously trying to just wave it away with a nervous laugh, intending that to produce an angry response in readers.

No. Nobody has argued that it was a goose.

The word "merely" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Yes, the goose thing is a speculative hypothesis. Is it a better hypothesis than the woo thing? Yes, it demonstrably is. For starters, there are at least some persuasive evidence-based arguments that show that it plausibly could be the whole goose-thing, whereas there are no evidence-based arguments for the whole woo thing.

I don't know how it works for you. For me, hypotheses don't move from being speculations to assumptions. Nor do they move to being "the explanation" without supporting evidence.

And you know how it goes: the more extraordinary the claim, the more extraordinary the evidence needed to support it.

Only one side started this discussion with pre-formed conclusions about what the UFO was. That was the woo peddlar.

Has anyone come up with anything that rules out the possibility that there's a tiny pixie up your nose?

(I hope you see how ridiculous a requirement to "rule out the possibility" would be, when investigating anything, in reality.)

Let's not hastily dismiss the pixie-up-your-nose hypothesis, lest we let our personal preconceptions get in the way of a truly unbiased investigation!

No, really, let's not dismiss it. Let us ask, instead: when would be a good time to start believing there's a tiny pixie in your nose? I suggest the following: a good time to start believing that would be when there's some evidence for it.

(Oh, the horror! The dark goggles - they do nothing to help!)

That's what all the skeptics here are doing now, and have been doing consistently for the preceding 8969 posts in this thread.

Excellent reply. I would add that MR is far from an idiot. He occasionally asks good questions about physical science and shows every sign of being able to take in the responses.

Yet when it comes to ghosts and UFOs he acts dumb, failing to engage with responses or doing so facetiously. He’s dishonest and provocative. Trolling seems a fair inference.

 

[James R]

Excellent reply. I would add that MR is far from an idiot. He occasionally asks good questions about physical science and shows every sign of being able to take in the responses.

Yet when it comes to ghosts and UFOs he acts dumb, failing to engage with responses or doing so facetiously. He’s dishonest and provocative. Trolling seems a fair inference.

Yes. Years ago, in somewhat friendlier times, I told him directly that my impression of him was that he was capable of critical thinking, and probably smarter than the character he plays here. That impression hasn't changed. Yet here we are, years after that exchange, and he is still playing the village idiot. Of course, I could be wrong: he could actually just be a well-presenting functional idiot, as he appears to be.

Assuming that he isn't an idiot, the interesting psychological question arises as to why he acts like he does, when it comes to the woo. One obvious explanation would be that he gets the sort of malicious thrill that all trolls get from trolling, and it's like an addictive habit for him. However, something feels a bit off for me about that explanation. Instead, I'm inclined to speculate that there might be some personal history that has made him distrustful of "official" institutions and experts. But he feels very comfortable trusting in the woo Fringe community and anybody who seems to be deeply involved in that. In other words, I think that, when it comes to the woo, he has swapped reliable sources of information and reliable methods of analysis for a bunch of dubious sources and people who don't really know how to analyse or investigate anything. In the process, he has picked up some conspiracy theory beliefs - the typical ones associated with UFOs, for starters.

I haven't had the opportunity to interact directly with a True Believer in UFOs for as long as I have with Magical Realist, so I can't say whether he is unusual in the fervency with which he wants to look the other way at evidence that tends to disconfirm his faith, or whether this is typical in the UFO community.

 

[exchemist]

Yes. Years ago, in somewhat friendlier times, I told him directly that my impression of him was that he was capable of critical thinking, and probably smarter than the character he plays here. That impression hasn't changed. Yet here we are, years after that exchange, and he is still playing the village idiot. Of course, I could be wrong: he could actually just be a well-presenting functional idiot, as he appears to be.

Assuming that he isn't an idiot, the interesting psychological question arises as to why he acts like he does, when it comes to the woo. One obvious explanation would be that he gets the sort of malicious thrill that all trolls get from trolling, and it's like an addictive habit for him. However, something feels a bit off for me about that explanation. Instead, I'm inclined to speculate that there might be some personal history that has made him distrustful of "official" institutions and experts. But he feels very comfortable trusting in the woo Fringe community and anybody who seems to be deeply involved in that. In other words, I think that, when it comes to the woo, he has swapped reliable sources of information and reliable methods of analysis for a bunch of dubious sources and people who don't really know how to analyse or investigate anything. In the process, he has picked up some conspiracy theory beliefs - the typical ones associated with UFOs, for starters.

I haven't had the opportunity to interact directly with a True Believer in UFOs for as long as I have with Magical Realist, so I can't say whether he is unusual in the fervency with which he wants to look the other way at evidence that tends to disconfirm his faith, or whether this is typical in the UFO community.

There seem to be parallels with creationists. They too can be ostensibly intelligent people, yet when it comes to the interpretation of the bible, they feign stupidity and carefully cultivate a studied ignorance of anything that might threaten their beliefs, resorting to facetiousness when they are backed into a corner. That's what seems to be going on here.

 

[foghorn]

And, why do the same two people Wegs and Yazata 'like' and seem to encourage MR?
And then there's Yazata's continuous use of the same strawman argument, what's that about?
What does this say about them?

 

[DaveC426913]

And, why do the same two people Wegs and Yazata 'like' and seem to encourage MR?

They're supporting the underdog.

There needs to be a pro-believer voice in the discussion, otherwise it would just become an echo chamber (as well as very short).
MR is the only pro-believer here. He would be stamped out by the rest of us - albeit not because we are too skeptical - but because he is too much of a troll*. True, he's more of a liability than an asset to his cause, but he's all we've got. (One must wonder just how tightly-coupled UFO-belief and trollish behavior is in the broader picture.)

*(meta-discussion)
As just one of the most recent - but very black-and-white examples of MR's trolling, see his comment above:

... supergeese flying at breakneck speeds against the wind...

1. MR knows - as stated in the video he posted - that the wind was 18mph.
2. The video mentions nothing about how fast the UAPs were moving against the wind so any flight speed over 19mph would do it.
3. He was given the opportunity to get educated that geese cruise at 30mph, (and can sprint at up to 60mph), so 19mph is merely a stroll for them.

So he has all the facts, but he's chosen to posit "supergeese" flying at "breakneck speeds" as the strawman for his ridicule.

I draw attention to this because it is irrefutable that Magical Realist is not just being dumb here. He is outright trolling - telling a deliberate lie for no other reason than to inflame the discussion.

That's Fox News / Sean Hannity -level trolling there.

It benefits no one. It certainly doesn't benefit Wegs or Yazata. And it certainly drags the intelligence quotient of the thread down.

 

[wegs]

I’m not really “cheering” for the underdog - I enjoy reading both sides of the debate, here.

Why argue so vehemently against something that you don’t “believe” in, like some of MR’s UAP “theories?” After a while, it should be clear that he won’t change his mind and I don’t see the harm in what he’s posting. Because without evidence, they’re just his speculations.

I guess an argument can be made that slippery slopes can form if we start “allowing” ideas within our imagination to trump reason. At the risk of beating a dead horse, I find this section of SF to be more on the level of entertainment than worthwhile scientific discussion, so that’s probably why I don’t find MR’s assertions to be all that “threatening.”

Not saying the two can’t meet in the middle, but it’s titled “On the Fringe” for a reason. *shrug*

 

[exchemist]

I’m not really “cheering” for the underdog - I enjoy reading both sides of the debate, here.

Why argue so vehemently against something that you don’t “believe” in, like some of MR’s UAP “theories?” After a while, it should be clear that he won’t change his mind and I don’t see the harm in what he’s posting. Because without evidence, they’re just his speculations.

I guess an argument can be made that slippery slopes can form if we start “allowing” ideas within our imagination to trump reason. At the risk of beating a dead horse, I find this section of SF to be more on the level of entertainment than worthwhile scientific discussion, so that’s probably why I don’t find MR’s assertions to be all that “threatening.”

Not saying the two can’t meet in the middle, but it’s titled “On the Fringe” for a reason. *shrug*

Lies and feigned stupidity are annoying to some of us, wegs, that's all. Nobody is "threatened" by any of this cobblers. We just think there is value in rationality and honesty, so we stick up for it, from time to time. As a matter of fact I'm rather off-piste here, as I tend to find MR's hobby horses too tedious to bother with, much of the time.

But here we have a textbook case of how instrument readings can mislead even trained pilots. So it is a valuable example to bear in mind when one reads breathless news reports about UFOs that "even the navy can't explain " and so on. Time after time, when these incidents are thoroughly investigated, the mystery disappears. The proponents of alien visitation like to Gish Gallop their way through the counterarguments by throwing in too many incidents at once for thorough analysis to be possible. That's bullshit.

 

[DaveC426913]

Why argue so vehemently against something that you don’t “believe” in, like some of MR’s UAP “theories?” After a while, it should be clear that he won’t change his mind and I don’t see the harm in what he’s posting. Because without evidence, they’re just his speculations.

1. We are not necessarily the only readers of this thread, either now or in perpetuity. I wish to teach future readers good discerning analytical habits as an antidote for an internet rife with misinformation.
2. We have a right and an obligation to teach and promote "respect for the scientific method, which demands critical analysis, clear thinking and evidence-based argument" as well as "reasonable standards of intellectual integrity and honesty".
3. Lost Cause as it may seem for now, I still want SciFo to rise from the ashes and return to being a site that draws engaging members.
4. This is my board too, and ideally trolls and misinformation will not prevail.

 

[wegs]

I do appreciate what you’ve both posted exchemist and Dave. And you’re not wrong. I’m trying to recall when I first joined, how this section was managed, but it all seemed so different then. Forums have become virtual ghost towns (it’s not specific to SF) but I’d like to see SF attract more genuine members, too.

Maybe part of what you’re lamenting, is that the decreased traffic here may have to do with a diminished interest the general public has with the scientific method, selling out for more “sensationalized” topics. Other science forums that used to be oh-so-popular have become shells of what they once were. And we’re talking about only seven or so years back that things were different. Is that due to increased troll activity etc or that science has been going down a slippery slope of letting people interpret the facts as they like.


Time will tell, I guess. . .

All of that said, why not simply continue to debate MR with scientific facts; why the need to silence (ban) him? In the end, lurkers will learn more from disagreement than in an echo chamber.