Flame — HabitableZone

Flame » in reply to re: Perhaps I was wrong.

No, I don't concede that.
Hank — (archived)

Some UFO reports are too sketchy for any conclusions to be drawn about their physical nature. Others describe behavior totally inconsistent with our known laws of physics. This proves nothing either way, since the laws of physics are presumably not known completely at this time.

The evidence we do have of UFOs is all circumstantial, unverifiable, from unqualified witnesses, or otherwise inadmissable in either a court of law or a scientific journal. I cannot disprove the existence of UFOs any more than I can disprove the existence of Santa Claus and until UFO enthusiasts can bring me some hardware (a wrecked spacecraft, bodies of an alien crew, or observations from people I recognize as reliable, scientific witnesses) I am forced to conclude that there is no evidence of their existence. Because they have been unable to do this, they resort to conspiracy theories and by insulting their critics with accusations of closed-mindedness and refusal to face facts. I find this personally insulting and I don't have to put up with it from the likes of you.

As an astronomer with a thousands of hours under the night sky, I have never seen anything I can conclusively say was an alien spacecraft. I have seen some phenomena I can't identify, but none so strange that I must resort to such an extraordinary explanation for them. However, I have seen many honest but inexpert witnesses mistake perfectly ordinary phenomena for UFOs. This leads me to believe that until I am convinced by further evidence, UFOs are either hoaxes, hallucinations, or misidentifications of ordinary objects.

The situation is further complicated by the fact that UFO buffs WANT to believe so badly that anything they tell you is suspect, they cannot be relied on as witnesses, the honest ones are easily fooled, and the dishonest ones are legion. Witnesses are either ignorant or frauds, photographs either fakes or inconclusive because of poor or insufficient quality. But the major irritant is the logical fallacy that is perpetrated over and over again by the UFO community: that since scientists cannot explain everything, and since they cannot unambiguously disprove the entire concept, then somehow the idea of alien spacecraft visiting earth has legitimacy. I am a SETI enthusiast, but that doers not mean ET comes here regularly. The Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot may exist, but since the circumstantial evidence against them is so compelling, I must insist on a specimen before I accept their reality.

The whole anomalist program, cryptozoology, UFOs, psychic phenomena, religious experiences, reincarnation, New Age Mysticism, astrology, etc is so fraught with fuzzy logic, wishful thinking, and a pathetic need to believe that our salvation somehow resides just outside our grasp but accessible to you and you only, that it is impossible to believe anything you say, or take any of you seriously. The reason the scientific community refuses to collaborate with your "research" is simple: half of you can't be trusted to tell the truth, and the rest of you can't recognize it when it's staring you in the face. Until you can bring us the evidence we require, don't expect us to look at any of yours. And if you don't like our opinion of you, just remember you have brought it upon yourselves.

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