UFOs and the National Security State by Richard M. Dolan & Jacques F. Vallee

[manxman]

For the the record peter i have bent over backwards to not be rude as per a reputation i was getting, i have tried and will carry on trying to just directly address the point/s i am making, without any point scoring, that i say in all sincerity to you, if that comes over as abrupt then theres not alot i can do about that.
Too many words means to many potentail hooks to get caught on, so if short is seen as rude, then one shouldnt be forced to short concise replies for fear of continual badgering.

I would alsso like to post without people like nickw being able to legitimately compose false quotes and furnish them as mine, maybe you missed them, theres atleast 10 occasions where he says/quotes, !!my alien visitor!! !! Your arguing for alien visitation!!, i dont appreciate lies.

Now ive stated above there will be no more back handed insult etc and there has been none here in this thread, none meant nor none implied, henriks name mistake, was just that a mistake,, i want to post in peace without the fishermen trying their word play, and when they do, i fully hoped they would be treated the same way as you treat this poster.

[PetersCreek]

As has been said before, this thread is not the appropriate place to challenge or discuss moderator actions. This thread is not the place to complain about the behavior of others. Now for the last warning, back to the OP.

[manxman]

Ive read several pages of the book so far, he is a bit of a skimmer is my opinion so far.
{skimmer is skimpy on detail excepting the dramatic bits.}

[tnjrp]

All observations including controlled ones in a scientific experiment are necessarily partly subjective. The attempt to make them antiseptically objective is puritannical and delusional

I do believe that was rather my point. Obviously scientific method has tools to help with these limitations.

There are UFO reports that consist of 1. On-site observation; 2. Consistent radar confirmation; and 3. Consistent subsequent observation by additional witnesses and radar technicians. These are as reliable as possible. It is wrong to assume that UFO reports are in the main unreliable simply because you wish not to credit them

There are very few UFO reports that I know of that consist of this level of multiple observation confirmation. I’m obviously willing to look at your best cases in hopes some of the evidence turns out to be compelling this time around. Especially compelling toward "the extraterrestrial hypothesis of UFOs", of course.

The question is actually quite simple and should not have upset you or the others

I’m not sure who is upset, I certainly am not. I don’t have the benefit of knowing what other participants think or feel however.

The inability to answer it shows that you are not thinking clearly about the problem

Or that I simply didn’t understand the question as it was posed and didn’t want to jump to conclusions.

The question poses the situation in which there were no reports but the idea of UFOs was proposed to you

Now this is rather more clearly put.

And your answer? That fewer would believe in them

Indeed and it remains my answer to your elaborated question as well: if there were no reports of sightings that have been attributed to alien craft, a folklore associated with such sightings in fact, then fewer people would be willing to consider the possibility if it was presented to them out of the blue.

In other words, your position is that they are "real" to the extent that people "believe" in them. That is irrational: if they are real, it could not be because we imagined them

Your statements seem to make little sense again. If we imagined "them" (I assume UFO sightings), they’d specifically be "real to the extent" that we have observed them, but not to the extent that they exists in the real objective world. And even if "they" are real in the objective sense, it doesn’t mean that a given interpretation of what "they" are in this objective sense needs be true.

Ideally, rational method would not, at least on the surface, reflect prejudice. One does not advocate a proposition, only asks whether it might hold water. Later, with some work, you might decide to commit to it, even advocate for its adoption. At any rate, I don't see the use of the sarcasm. If you do not want to think about a possibility, or discuss it... simply don't

Sarcasm is entirely deserved by broad sweeping statements and assertions on what I and other participants think. And for the record, playing the victim afterwards is adding insult to injury IMCO.

I suppose the lesson from this is that one ought not to show any interest in psychological behavior or point out a curious reaction to an idea without having a college degree in psychology?

The lesson would be that I don’t think you know what I or other participants think and therefore you should not make assertions to that effect.

How do you know that I do not have such a degree?

I don't, but I do know that even trained psychologists make errors of judgment. They also oftentimes benefit from training and experience helping them to realize there’s a possibility of them having done so.

Taking the whole universe into account, this is correct, but the current work on this problem has focused on using the bigger numbers as a backdrop to figure probabilities. So far, the upshot is that it is highly likely that complex life exists within 50 light years on scores of planets and moons

"Highly likely" according to who -- are you perchance referring to Hawking? What assumptions have been made to arrive at that conclusion?

In our solar system, evidence of life and conditions for it have been found off the Earth

Sure, however somewhat as is the case with "extraterrestrial hypothesis of UFOs", the current evidence is far from compelling enough to jump into conclusions about something so momentous as life on other worlds is.

Extrapolating from what has so far been found-- a number of planets outside the solar system, some of which could support life, and so forth-- Hawking and others have decided to work with the strong probability that intelligent life exists in our stellar neighborhood. Drake's equation puts advanced intelligent life nearby, with the probability increasing the greater distance from Earth

Drake equation doesn’t calculate distances directly, you’ll need to further manipulate the results to get them. And in any case it gives out any numbers you choose. I would like to see a term-by-term breakdown of probabilities you (or Hawking and others) used to get to "high likelihood of life within 50 light years".

Science has concluded that intelligent life probably exists close enough to Earth to travel here and that visits by an advanced civilization are possible

I very strongly doubt "science" has concluded such a thing, tho you may have drawn such a conclusion from scientific extrapolation.

[Strange]

Why is it an unneeded hypothesis.

Because a hypothesis is intended to provide an explanation for observations or other evidence. Without those it is, as you say, speculation. And, as such, is on the exactly the same footing as any other speculation: invisible pink unicorns or whatever. It makes no difference if you believe one of these is more possible or more probable; it is still equally unfounded speculation. As someone else can equally well believe it is not possible or not probable, you have no basis to assert that invisible pink unicorms have less status than invisible pink nanoprobes.

ETA: posted this before I noticed there were two more pages of to and fro before the discussion, thankfully, moved on...

[HenrikOlsen]

I'm rather certain the hills were not abducted, I've never heard any stories about elves carting off several hundred tons of dirt for the fun of it. Aliens neither for that matter.

!!I'm rather certain!! is what you should have stated then.

Not really, as that comment was a joke on you mistake about what I was talking about.
To properly state my real opinion I should said that I'm 100% sure elves never dug up a hill and moved it somewhere else.

And I just noticed the moderator notice and will drop the rest of what I was going to say.

[Paul Beardsley]

I think this is on topic as it's a reference to one of my posts on the very first page:

This is what you wrote.

Perfectly possible that it might happen at some point, but clearly it hasn't happened yet.

You stated opinion represented as fact based on 5000 years of recorded history, 0.0001063% of the planets existence and were corrected, you nor I or anyone one else knows.
Or you based your opinion on the last 50 years 0.00000010638297872% of the planets existence.
Get over it.
I agree with most ive read so far from you.

I said, "Perfectly possible that it might happen at some point, but clearly it hasn't happened yet."

The "it" I was referring to was people going to bed on what they thought was a normal Tuesday (say), and waking up on a Wednesday to discover that the aliens have landed.

I repeat, this clearly has not happened yet.

I think, manxman, you have chosen to interpret my "it" as "aliens have landed at some time". It is an incorrect interpretation.

Yes, maybe aliens visited the dinosaurs, or they foolishly landed before the world had cooled, but there has definitely not been a Tuesday/Wednesday event.

[Garrison]

Garrison,



I understand that it is speculation.

I completely disagree that invisible unicorns and elves has the same merit.

Considering that we are currently delving into and finding success in the nano-scale world, I just don't know how you can compare the two ideas. Other than just being stubborn.

Can you tell me of any research into invisible elves and unicorns that has any merit ?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31665236...ce-innovation/

http://www.physorg.com/nanotech-news/

I could probably find some pictures of hoofprints without any horses in sight that could have made them, that would be on a par with the quality of the available UFO evidence. That nanotechnology exists is not in dispute but what you are doing is the equivalent of looking at a horse and extrapolating the existence of the aforementioned unicorn from it.
Also plausibility is irrelevant, the physical universe is full of things which are implausible but true regardless.

[Swift]

I am sorry, but we have decided to close this thread.

Soulless49er started it way back when and seems to have dropped out a long time ago. The conversation has wandered in many directions since then. There are now three current and seperate discussions going on: one from Paul Lyon, one from Manxman, and one from jpappl, and none of them are closely tied to the OP. It has become close to impossible to tell who is questioning who, and thus it is close to impossible to moderate this thread.

If any of those involved would like to continue their discussion, please start a new, individual thread. You can reference back to this thread, or we can move or copy an individual post or two - PM a moderator if you would like a move or copy (and you can just say "post # 62" - we don't have to have a link).

Thank you for your cooperation.