Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to re: I’m curious

I am curious blue.
ER — (archived)

A report by an astronaut of an object he felt to be another spacecraft, particularly one of extremely unusual design, would have been taken seriously. Several reports by different astronauts of that nature would have provoked a formal investigation. If reports of that caliber continued to accumulate, there would be a crash program to find out what was going on.

Now, if an astronaut looks out the window and says "I saw a light out there, but it's gone now." , it probably would have been ignored. Earth-shattering observations require action, especially if they are confirmed. But space is an extremely novel environment, one we were not very familiar with. It was to be expected strange things would happen, ordinary events that could not be explained.

If you see something you cannot identify, that does not mean it is evidence of a paranormal phenomenon. Only if the observation is repeated, by credible witnesses, and after all other alternatives have been ruled out, do you make the next step. Otherwise, you would spend all your time chasing shadows.

This is not scientific protocol, it is only common sense. You don't rush to the emergency room because your arm aches just because you once read that is a possible symptom of heart attack. A lot of other things can make your arm ache, and if it hurts and you don't know why that doesn't mean you are dying. You should be alert though, just in case.

I've worked briefly as an investigator for a UFO magazine, and the quality of typical witnesses is terrible. These are not frauds or stupid people, they are just seeing things they are not familiar with and their reports are distorted by ignorance and excitement. I have seen things in the sky that I identified, and which are quite common, ordinary natural phenomena, that would have sent the average witness, ignorant of celestial phenomena, into gibbering fits.

And when you talk to these people, they don't want to hear what you have to say, they WANT to believe so badly... What's really sad is when you see something like a bolide or a satellite dumping fuel, and they are standing right beside you and they refuse to accept an explanation that you know to be true. If you want to believe, you probably will. You will get angry with those who point out what you saw is perfectly ordinary because you don't want to be ordinary. You want to be the one that saw IT.

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