Skeptic misses point behind UFO book

a reply to: TheBolt

Fair enough, but one could just as easily and reasonably say that with so many unexplained cases out there until all of them are proven to be 100% beyond a reasonable doubt to have ordinary explanations then it's safe to assume there is some extraordinary cause for at least some of them that we haven't discovered yet.

You've put your finger on precisely the point that divides 'believers' from 'skeptics'.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

I agree that your personal experience isn't exactly on topic in every single thread about aliens and UFOs

Let's get this straight; out of the 40 UFO threads on the first page, I have posts in only 5 of them.

So drop the nonsense about me posting in every single thread.

Furthermore, I don't see a lot of other posters saying they have encountered aliens directly. But rather than seize the opportunity to ask about what I know, you want me to go post somewhere else.

Is my informed opinion too tiresome to scroll past?

a reply to: Ectoplasm8

It's counterproductive to repeatedly speak with authority of ET being on Earth through personal knowledge, while going through almost 400 posts without supporting it.

You are drifting off topic.
"
So the serial debunkers and the denial gang all agree that it's "counterproductive" for me to discuss the fact that I have stood face to face with aliens, in a chat room dedicated to discussion of UFOs and aliens.

I must be doing something right.

As for me writing my experiences down in a thread?

It would take a book, maybe two. And I don't want to write a book right now.

Besides, if I did write a book, people like you would say I was in it for the money.

I stated before, I am willing to answer questions about my experience, the more concise, the better.

originally posted by: Scdfa

originally posted by: Pinke

originally posted by: Scdfa
a reply to: gortex
I know aliens are here because of first-hand contact with aliens, starting in 1966.

Why not make a thread about it instead of making it a part of every single alien thread on ATS? Then just link it in your sig.

Here's a better idea, why don't you make a thread about what you want me to say and where you want me to say it, and which conversations you want me to stay out of, then just link it in your sig.

In the meantime, I will post in any thread I feel I can add something of relevance and substance, and that includes my first-hand experiences.

Go censor someone else.

So rude, and so pompous.

Jim Oberg has credibility, having worked for NASA, and being a specialist in orbital rendezvous techniques, and he gets respect on these forums because he knows what he is talking about. Pinke is a respected forum member who knows a lot about digital imaging (amongst other things), and is friendly and willing to share her knowledge. You are someone who takes a dump in many threads, asserting you've had contact with aliens (as if mere assertion is enough), and arguing many cases many others consider well and truly debunked (and for good reason).

As for your alien contact, maybe you have, maybe you haven't. All you've done is talk about how you 'know' aliens are here, as if that's enough, and everyone should simply believe you. Why should anyone believe you? How is anyone censoring you? It's an open forum, and there are plenty of people who are highly intelligent, skilled in their area, and bring their knowledge to this forum in a manner beneficial for those interested.

As Pinke said before (to paraphrase poorly), there's a whole other forum here that some posters miss out on, because of their own unwillingness to accept the knowledge of others.

originally posted by: mirageman

originally posted by: IAmPhoeniX07
Hi Again.
I actually want to save this but it seems I just cant hold it anymore.
Admittedly, I ought I missed the book of the UFO because when it was found it wasn't as expected.
I didn't even bother to read it it makes me sleepy.

Honestly, it was frustrating...

BUT!
You wanna know? Or ill save it for the Intro part. LOL.

I really have no idea what this all means. The words are English but they don't seem to make sense the way you've put them together.

But at least it made you laugh.

I am with you. I have seen several comments from this person in several threads and considering their start date I couldn't tell if it was a clever attempt at humor or they were detached. How any of their post - that I have read - have been starred is an exercise in mental gymnastics. Maybe we're not in on the joke...punchline to follow?

a reply to: Scdfa

So the serial debunkers and the denial gang all agree that it's "counterproductive" for me to discuss the fact that I have stood face to face with aliens, in a chat room dedicated to discussion of UFOs and aliens.

Hello Scdfa, I think I've heard of that before. Jeff Ritzman mentioned it somewhere maybe three or four years ago. Did involve a Q&A with an on-screen alien? Jeff's a member on ATS.

Putting that aside, although there's no common ground between many members in this thread, the topic is Oberg's views on Kean's book and/or evidence within it.

If your experience relates to the incidents I mentioned, I'd be interested to know what made you and others convinced that the being on the screen wasn't human. However, that discussion would be off-topic in this thread. Rather than run the risk of post-removals or worse, it's a better idea to refrain from being off-topic and consider posting a thread on your experiences. You're welcome to send me a PM if you wish to discuss it.

a reply to: charlyv

I have a hard time when threads go on the argumentative side.

It's regrettable. For whatever reason, when Kean's book came out, it polarised a lot of people and sides became too defensive/offensive in holding their positions. It's keenly divided a lot of people into believer or skeptic with no middle ground allowed.

I find that there are some cases in the book I find intriguing and others that aren't. Saying that, the inclusion of Fyfe Symington utterly baffled me. The man told two mutually opposing stories so why select one as truthful when the other one renders him unreliable? Neither do I support the book's overarching premise that all these reports indicate best evidence for aliens. The best books relay the details and leave the thinking for the reader to do. That's just my taste talking though.

Swords and Vallee manage to write about these subjects without insisting it was aliens and leaving the possibility open that there is indeed something unknown occurring.

a reply to: cuckooold

Jim Oberg has credibility, having worked for NASA, and being a specialist in orbital rendezvous techniques, and he gets respect on these forums because he knows what he is talking about.

Next time the conversation is about orbital rendezvous techniques, I promise to defer to Jim Oberg. But when it comes to the subject of UFOs and aliens, I know a good deal more than he seems to, starting with the simple fact that they exist.

Jim Oberg's deep association with CSICOP, an organization accused of a great many incidents of systematic bias and disinformation, raises serious questions in my book. In fact those accusations come even from founding members of CSICOP. I asked Jim to address specific questions in this thread, and my posts were ignored by him.

a reply to: Kandinsky

Rather than run the risk of post-removals or worse, it's a better idea to refrain from being off-topic and consider posting a thread on your experiences.

Et tu, Kandinsky?

I'm very disappointed to hear you join in with the debunker chorus, you are the one person in here I have a deep respect for. I thought you appreciated and valued my input, but if you don't think my posts in this thread are relevant, then I was mistaken.

If you want me to shut up, Kandinsky, then I'll shut up. But I thought you had my back. I'm sorry to see I was wrong.

a reply to: Scdfa

Don't work yourself up - if you read his post in its entirety he was simply saying this thread isn't for your personal experiences. He even encouraged you to make your own thread and to even PM him.

No reason to misrepresent what he said by taking only a portion of his post and quoting it.

I guess I just think "believers" and "skeptics" are both wrong, DEPENDING ON why they take a chosen side. Unexplained" means we don't know for sure. Not "unexplained" but eventually we'll discover the ordinary cause of it. Not "unexplained" but eventually the the extraordinary truth we don't yet know about will be revealed. A truly unbiased investigator wouldn't lean either way and take each case individually as a unique set of facts which will lead to a unique explanation. Someone said it earlier: it's ok simply to just say "I don't know". If your goal is to attempt to discover the true explanation for each individual incident knowing it could be anything from ordinary to extraordinary then I applaud you. If your purpose is to prove definitively that there are no such things as aliens and extraterrestrial UFOs then you're not open to all possibilities. I'm trying to ascertain whether you are a skeptic by this definition or if your research has actually considered kean's possibility and then by facts alone, not preconceived notions, has rejected them. I would be able to better appreciate the time and effort put into your work knowing I could fully trust the intention. a reply to: JimOberg

a reply to: TheBolt

Good points. A true investigator will delve into a subject unbiased, with feeling neither "this should exist" or "this shouldn't exist". It seems many are not open to the ET hypothesis, and even seem to be offended if someone else speaks of it.

Certain types in fact often use scorn or sarcasm in their remarks, which is a classic disinfo technique.

The problem is the one of "The Emperor's clothes". Even if there were an overwhelming amount of evidence pointing to an ongoing ET interaction with earth, the great mass of people will not acknowledge such until it is officially recognized, due to social conditioning. I was like that myself up until a few years ago until I really began to look at cases and disregard the MSM spin on the subject.

The essence of this thread is this:

Leslie Kean has collected an amazing work of UFO incidents over the years, truly never identified aerial phenomenon. Craft that go from a standstill to thousands of miles an hour in a second. Craft hovering above the earth that are over a mile big.

Geez, the COMETA report, put together by a group of very high ranking French military, scientific, and civilian authorities basically states that some cases are probably ET, and we had better have some plan for Defense.




COMETA report

We have ex CIA director Hillenkoeter saying there has been official government disinformation on the UFO topic:



We have thousands of cattle mutilations and crop circles over the decades, of which some or many yes have been done by humans, but some have not a shred of proof that they were done by humans......

So if there is an ongoing ET interaction with earth, it is obviously being covered up.

You would expect a point person on the cover-up to attempt to come up with explanations, however far-fetched, for almost every unexplained phenomenon. And that seems to be the case in this thread.

I would expect a true scientist to be open to all possibilities, including the ET hypothesis.

a reply to: Kandinsky

Why do you think Fyfe Symington told two opposing stories?

He admitted the point of his press conference after the incident of the Phoenix lights was to defuse the panic (from thousands of people who had seen the craft), that is why he had his Chief of staff spoof an alien with a costume.

He admitted later he had seen the craft, and he thought it was ET, and he is an ex-air force officer.

So, if he was trying to avoid panic, how would have telling everyone he had seen it as well defused the situation?

He never said that it wasn't a UFO or anything like that, so I don't see how those two positions are that contradictory.

You can see Fyfe speaking about the events from about 9:55 in:

a reply to: EnPassant

I looked at the youtube link and comments were all over the place, but either way, by itself, its merely suggestive. The yoda in the 79 star wars looked pretty good no?

I personally don't know enough about cgi to say one way or the other though.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Maybe there is and maybe there isn't an extraordinary cause in other cases, but it would not be consistent with the evidence to say "then it's safe to assume there is some extraordinary cause for at least some of them that we haven't discovered yet."

No that is not a safe, nor even reasonable assumption. It's only a possibility, and talking in generalities tends to be unproductive anyway. Look at specifics, such as this case which was in some top ten best UFO cases and appeared to have an extraordinary cause, but it's another event like the one in Jim Oberg's October 2014 article both of which show why it's not safe to assume that:

"Top Ten" UFO Case - Yukon, Canada, 1996 - BUSTED!

Time is a common link in the Yukon case and the others Jim showed were solved in Keans book.

Perhaps cases lasting less than 5 minutes should be considered less weighty than

Cases pre 1970 - Ravenna, Madagascar, Los Angles, Westall
Daylight sightings - Madagascar, Westall, Broadhaven
Sightings that reoccur - Brentwaters, Belgium, Hudson valley
Sightings lasting an extended time - Belgium, Ravenna, Trumbull
Sightings with physical harm - Colares, Iron Triangle in Korean war

originally posted by: gortex
a reply to: onehuman

The article seems to be fairly old and comes across like a rant by Kean that dreaded skeptic Jim Oberg has issues with the case reports in her book ..... quelle surprise !

The cases mentioned seem to be a rehash of the same old same old so obviously Keen brings nothing new to the table , I suspect this is more to do with advertising her book rather than any real surprise that well known skeptic Jim Oberg is skeptical of the cases presented within it.

Leslie Kean has built her UFO exposé on solid, well documented cases. Those kind of cases that simply cannot be explained away as CGI or plastic bags drifting with the wind. I guess that when the data stands up for scrutiny, better then to make the criticism more vague and whimsical, like "the book was based on a “questionable foundation.”. It doesn't really mean anything, still it makes the author and the book look bad.

Or why not "The cases mentioned seem to be a rehash of the same old same old so obviously Keen brings nothing new to the table" ? That way, Kean looks stuck on milling the same old cases over and over.

If you can't discredit the data, nor the person, then simply say something vaguely negative about it. Hopefully it will rub off on the author and the book. After all, in the world of UFO debunking, the ends justifies the means.

a reply to: Heliocentric

Leslie Kean has built her UFO exposé on solid, well documented cases. Those kind of cases that simply cannot be explained away as CGI or plastic bags drifting with the wind.

Two of the solid cases mentioned in the linked article aren't solid at all , the Cosford Incident has long held a fascination with me as it's close to where I live , the incident isn't all it would seem to be and subsequent investigation showed it was a mixture of a documented Russian satellite reentry , a misidentified police helicopter and an over eager investigator (Nick Pope)

The Phoenix Lights incident is now to anyone who cares to look at the evidence with open eyes explained.

I guess that when the data stands up for scrutiny, better then to make the criticism more vague and whimsical, like "the book was based on a “questionable foundation.”. It doesn't really mean anything, still it makes the author and the book look bad.

You're reading more into my comment than I actually wrote or implied.

originally posted by: JimOberg
a reply to: TheBolt

Fair enough, but one could just as easily and reasonably say that with so many unexplained cases out there until all of them are proven to be 100% beyond a reasonable doubt to have ordinary explanations then it's safe to assume there is some extraordinary cause for at least some of them that we haven't discovered yet.

You've put your finger on precisely the point that divides 'believers' from 'skeptics'.

I don't think it could ever come down to a case by case solution. It is not a question of people assuming 'it must be aliens' just because cases are unexplained. It doesn't work that way. In individual cases, yes, people may jump to conclusions, on either side of the argument. But people form their opinions in complex ways. There is all the surrounding evidence to consider, such as the case for Roswell, multiple witness sightings etc. etc. It is against the background of the whole phenomena that people make hypothesis, just as you cite the abilities of pilots to identify meteor trajectories, as a background to what you think they might have seen. You also cite rocket re-entries and misidentifications of such as a background to the way you approach a sighting. So it is not a case of saying it must be aliens just because no explanation has been found. People reasonably suspect that it may really be one of these craft because the evidence that they exist is beyond refutation (unless you want to shoot all the messengers).

Most people would agree that there is something very strange and very real going on and it is against this background of knowledge that the whole thing is assessed, on both sides of the argument.

a reply to: PlanetXisHERE

Why do you think Fyfe Symington told two opposing stories?

The way I see it is he was instrumental in dismissing all the witnesses by omitting to mention that he saw anything. The Press conference he led was the equivalent of twirling a finger next to his forehead to imply that the reported witnesses were ridiculous. How do you feel when an ATS member scorns your comments? Not good? Pissed off? That's what Symington did. His omission provided the media with a field day at the expense of those who said they'd seen something unusual:

Also known as a continuing misrepresentation, a lie by omission occurs when an important fact is left out in order to foster a misconception. Lying by omission includes failures to correct pre-existing misconceptions

Wiki definition

Later on, no longer Governor, he said he'd seen the same thing as other witnesses.

Maybe he did see something? I don't know. Which of his two positions was the reality? That's what I meant by saying he was not a good example of an honest observer.

a reply to: EnPassant
But there are no cases of aliens to compare against. However, there are plenty of cases of misidentification to draw from. That is a huge difference. You can assemble all the odd cases you want, there is just no way to determine that any of them are due to aliens.

Most people would agree that there is something very strange and very real going on and it is against this background of knowledge that the whole thing is assessed, on both sides of the argument.

Yes, and that very strange thing might just be that our perceptions are not what we think they are.