There's no need for you to be apologetic about this. But you just have to keep in mind why we are so passionate about this sort of question; it's not a matter of opinion, or knowledge, it's about procedure. Science works in a very different way than most other forms of human reasoning, it is a relatively new way of thinking, it came from roots in ancient Greece 2500 years ago but was only perfected in Europe just a few centuries ago. The only reason we can be so confident in this philosophy is that we have actually made progress with it, we can build things that work and we can predict natural events that used to be magical and mysterious for millennia. And although there is no guarantee against disagreements and mistakes, sonner or later they get sorted out. Every other form of human questioning about our world has made little or no progress whatsoever since the stone age: superstition, religion, magic, philosophy, politics, art, even the law.

Science works because we see something happen and then we try to explain it. That is the human creativity part of it. But then comes the procedural part: if our explanation is true, then it should be able to predict new things. Until those predictions come true, no one is obligated to take what we say seriously. Furthermore, those predictions must be public, available to everyone. If I think there are ghosts, I have to tell you where and when you can go to see one. You shouldn't have to take my word for it.

This procedure eventually builds up a body of reliable knowledge everyone more or less agrees on, knowledge that has been shown to work. If someone challenges this accepted wisdom, that person has the obligation to demonstrate exactly what has to be done to establish the new idea and abandon the old. He can't tell other people they have to disprove him, he has to convince them. And he has to convince them by suggesting what they have to do in order to substantiate his claims. We all know there may be true things that can't be proven this way, but those things that may be true need not be believed until we know they are. Science is often proven wrong, but it is always because new facts turn up which explain something better, and not only that, they have to explain why the old system worked even when it was wrong. Science once believed the earth was the center of the universe, it was mistaken but it was still good science because you could navigate ships and predict eclipses that way. The new astronomy not only allowed us to navigate and predict better, it was also able to show why the old, incorrect astronomy worked as well it did in some areas. This is part of the proof, too.

What really steams folks like myself and Vapors so much is that this incredibly difficult and creative and useful process is simply brushed aside as inconsequential and replaced with what looks to us like a personal attack (you have a closed mind not open to new ideas) or simple smoke and mirrors (look at this eyewitness' story and pictures on this website and tell me how it could be wrong). This not only seems to attack us directly, it trivializes and dismisses a discipline that requires deep study, hard work, and must pass rigid tests. Not only that, it works. We KNOW how to get to the moon, but no one can tell us how to catch the Loch Ness Monster (or prove the Bermuda Triangle, Astrology, Atlantis, UFOs, Bigfoot, or the Great Spirit).

A final word, there is nothing wrong with speculation and guesswork, that is how progress is made. But it must be identified as such. I happen to believe in extraterrestrial intelligences,
but I know I can't prove they are real. However, I can use scientific thinking to establish that they don't necessarily contradict known scientific principles, and most important of all, I can suggest ways we can go about finding these ETIs, through SETI or space travel. Until that day comes, I cannot say ETIs are real, what I think about them just doesn't matter. I have to be ready to admit to myself that even though circumstantial evidence for their existence is very compelling to me, I might also be missing some other evidence that rules them out altogether. Until we know for sure, all I can do suggest promising avenues for research.

That's the way science works, and so far it has revealed a world to us so much more exciting, interesting, and beautiful than the world the priests and the magicians have shown us.