What [if anything] does the existence of unsolved cases really prove?

originally posted by: JimOberg

originally posted by: game over man
.....
I've bet you have seen a UFO, or if not know someone you've trusted that has told you they've seen a UFO. Now granted you don't believe in what you saw, and I ask you. Why do you not think interstellar travel is possible? Why do you think it's not possible for our timelines to match? Why do you not think life could have been seeded by aliens?

Man, you're talking to some imaginary caricature out in the dark who you think is walking around with my name. All of your guesses about what i ought to think are imaginary -- have you actually ever read any of my more thoughtful essays on the subject, like the international essay contest winner back in 1979?

You dodged the question about space travel, and your reply doesn't make sense again. Answer my previous questions and be more specific about your post, what international essay competition in 1979?

You think debunking UFO claims in space confirms the Fermi Paradox?

originally posted by: TeaAndStrumpets...
UFO skeptics have had 60 years to comprehend and rebut this data. They haven't.

Are you a Stan Friedman sock puppet? [grin] No, never mind.

Don't you think most of us have learned a LOT more about how people form UFO interpretations from a wide variety of stimuli, in the past sixty years? Stimuli that weren't even known back then?

originally posted by: game over man.....


You think debunking UFO claims in space confirms the Fermi Paradox?

Do you accept the validity of my debunking this one specific genre of claims -- not even 'reports', since the real witnesses do not report them as UFOs, just the folks watching video from the ground?

I don't see how it applies to the Fermi paradox.

Unfortunately I see this thread has devolved into pettiness. Although the OP has impeccable credentials, he is guilty of this too. I originally found this topic to be quite interesting. Let me offer my perspective, if I may be so bold;

Although the OP may come across to some as a pure debunker, I do not believe this to be the case. I could site numerous examples of this, but I will use just one; From the OP's web site, under "99 Questions"- he says this pertaining specifically to supposed NASA/international astronaut encounters with ufo's -

"99 Q: Will space travelers ever come across evidence of ETI?"

"A: This will always be a possibility and is one possible explanation that should never be excluded. So far, the long list of likelier explanations have all turned out to be entirely capable of accounting for the ENTIRE range of human spaceflight experiences. But that’s no proof it will ALWAYS be that way." (emphasis his)

Therefor, despite the OP's occasional abrasiveness, I find him to be open minded on the question of this phenomena. Quite frankly, this field needs more people of this caliber. Just leave the snark out of the discussion, as it closes ears instead of opening eyes. As is often the case, it's not what you say but how you say it.

Perhaps we can now get back to the original purpose of this thread.

Just my 2 cents worth. Ok Jim, I'm ready for my screen to start smoking.

Jim: " All of your guesses about what i ought to think are imaginary -- have you actually ever read any of my more thoughtful essays on the subject, like the international essay contest winner back in 1979? "

originally posted by: game over man....
. Answer my previous questions and be more specific about your post, what international essay competition in 1979?

So can I presume the answer is 'no'? Why couldn't you just say that? Then explain to me where you got all that erroneous insights into what you THOUGHT I believed, please -- that you posted here to mislead other readers.

Can't we have a reality-based face-off where we address what each of us is really claiming, rather than have to keep detouring and correcting imagined nonsense that one of us assumes the other person ought to believe because they're so wrong?

You'll find a set of essays here:

www.jamesoberg.com...


The 1985 'Hynek debate' link is broke, google wayback gives this:
wayback.archive.org...://jamesoberg.com/ufo/debate.html

originally posted by: LiteraryJourney....
Just my 2 cents worth. Ok Jim, I'm ready for my screen to start smoking.

I stand justifiably rebuked for snarkiness.

Your screen should shine with healthy vibes.

a reply to: TeaAndStrumpets

a reply to: TeaAndStrumpets
60 years ago?

originally posted by: JimOberg

originally posted by: game over man.....


You think debunking UFO claims in space confirms the Fermi Paradox?

Do you accept the validity of my debunking this one specific genre of claims -- not even 'reports', since the real witnesses do not report them as UFOs, just the folks watching video from the ground?

I don't see how it applies to the Fermi paradox.

Of course I accept the validity of your debunking...

Do you think there is evidence of alien visitation to Earth? What are your thoughts on the Fermi Paradox? Does any of your research validate the paradox? Yes or no. You can add in a why answer if you decide to be polite. I look forward to your response.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

That thread is an example of what I'm talking about. The author of the thread says there are two possibilities and only two possibilities.

I say to be open-minded means being able to conceive of more than two possibilities, but to some people being open-minded means you have to conclude it's aliens or some kind of alien tech we aren't supposed to have. Seems like the idea of what it means to have an open mind is not well-understood.

When I think of the 2 possibility argument, it is either us or someone else. Perhaps they didnt word it well.

Other than that, most people do believe aliens exist elsewhere. Using time travel, we cant even be sure the future exists to travel too, much less if we are able to traverse time. Imo, the alien explanation is the most likely of the many possibilities, and it simplifies the conversation.

originally posted by: Scdfa

originally posted by: JimOberg
You'll find a set of essays here:

www.jamesoberg.com...

I'd rather have teeth pulled than read anything more this debunker has to say about UFOs and aliens. I've read more than enough.
For all his credentialed pretensions, he knows absolutely nothing about the alien situation, and that is simply by his choice.

I know more about aliens, for god's sake. I'm not bragging, that's simply by the events of my life. I'd be more than happy to fill him in, but he has convinced himself that he knows the events of my life never happened. He knows better than we do, and has the award winning essays to prove it.
He might as well be writing essays about Galileo being wrong, that is how far out of the loop he actually is.

I believe this thread is about unsolved cases, not the existence/non-existence of aliens.

It's a shame you are too close minded to read anything written by Jim Oberg. If you took the time to read some of his essays, you might actually learn something, and you may also be surprised by some of the things he has to say, and the nuance with which they are conveyed.

Of course it's much easier to see what you want to see, and disregard the rest.

Ok then, I suppose I will try to address the subject of the OP directly.

The question: What [if anything] does the existence of unsolved cases really prove?

It proves absolutely nothing. Nothing can be proven by taking the data from an unproven phenomena.

The question must then be transformed into the following: What (if anything) does the existence of unsolved cases suggest?

I believe it clearly suggests a lack of study at the highest and most critical level of all the relevant sciences.

Right then, that is all I think I have to say on the matter except for this. The answer will not be found in this thread, nor in ANY of the links provided.

a reply to: Scdfa

Would you rather have your teeth pulled out than respond to Jim? Apparently not. He’s held the same views for decades and long before you were posting on ATS. I’m not trying to be provocative here, just pointing out that his beliefs exist independently to your personal experiences.

Likewise, your personal experiences exist independently of whatever anyone else thinks. You don’t require approval do you? You know what you saw and you know what you know.

In the case of experiencers in general, they hold their varying beliefs through empirical reasoning. In the case of non-believers, they hold their varying beliefs through sceptical reasoning.

Casting aspersions of ‘brimstone’ seems to me the same level of ad-hom as the ‘other side’ casting aspersions of idiocy and mental illness. Equating scepticism to something devilish is tantamount to playground name-calling. Isn’t ‘brimstone’ as ridiculous a charge as ‘woo woo’ is to anyone who’s seen, or experienced, something extraordinary to them?

For the record, I’ve disagreed with Jim many times and he’s disagreed with me so please don’t misinterpret these comments as taking sides. I’ve agreed with you and disagreed with you too. Right now, I’m disagreeing with you that attacking a member is a valid approach on a discussion forum. To the exact same extent, I disagree with any member who attacks you rather than your points.

Getting on-topic:

The direction i'm going is that in any genre of activity there might be a 'natural' level of garble that prevents every single story from being explained naturally, without recourse to ANY extraordinary stimuli at all related to the perceptions being reported.

This is probably the case for much of that ‘residue’ of unexplained reports. There’s no consensus (that I know of) to define the percentage of unexplained reports within the mass of overall reports. Studies have ranged from almost 40% down to near 5% which highlights the shortfalls of research, recording, reporting and interpretations. I share your view that whatever percentage we choose will include a collection of reports that could have been explained if we’d had more objective investigations or access to information outside of the public domain.

At the same time, there exists a sub-level of reports that have been sourced from credible witnesses that, currently, defy prosaic explanations. The ‘perceptions’ of the claimants are, in themselves, extraordinary. Off the cuff, Pascagoula springs to mind. Two men claiming something extraordinary that reportedly left ‘welder’s burn’ in the eyes of one and put the other in hospital (sedated) suffering from PTSD. Joe Nickell's explanation leans heavily on 'might' to make sense of it and raises the dichotomy of hoax versus alien abduction. Neither explanation makes sense to me.

The Nash-Fortenberry report is another one where at least one of the claimants was adamant about what he’d experienced and argued convincingly against Dr. Menzel in a fascinating series of letters.

A long time ago, I wrote about the Damon, Texas report from Deputy Sheriff Goode and Sheriff McCoy. The account has elements that we can reinterpret along prosaic lines. For instance, the heat felt by Goode could have been from a displaced heat-shield on the exhaust manifold. Nevertheless, it’s a task and a half to explain how they claimed to ‘perceive’ a large object some hundred yards in front of them. If you have the time to read my posts in the thread, you'll notice that I haven't formed any conclusions.

As if it matters, my own interpretation from reading/listening to hundreds of reports is that there is something ‘extraordinary’ in the midst of some of them. Then again, ‘extraordinary’ is only a place-holder for concepts we’ll take for granted in the future.

Jim,

When it comes to astronaut ufo sightings, I defer to your expertise.

However, there is one case, for me, which defies explanation. My own sighting of an anomalous aircraft. Not going to get into the details here since it is off-topic for this particular thread. But, suffice to say, I am an educated experienced individual with healthy skepticism, in good mental health, with all my 5 senses working perfectly.

Because of this fairly close sighting, I became keenly interested in this subject. And that is the point of this post. I know mostly anecdotal information about all other cases. I have never seen video or photographic evidence that align with my sighting. Because of that, I remain relatively underwhelmed by the majority of evidence of ufo's in the vox populi. Kind of an egocentric strange extrapolation, I know, but just being honest.

I am impressed by my own sighting though. Incredibly so. I'm sure most people who have had their own personal sightings feel much the same way. However, this was not a life changing event for me. ET (who I did not see, just a ufo) did not impart some sort of wisdom or message to me either.

My gut instinct told me that this was not normal, in fact was so anomalous to only be from another world or dimension. Of course, "gut instinct" is not proof of anything. I cognitively understand that my sighting will always remain a mystery, no matter what. Especially since it occurred over thirty years ago and I never reported it.

I have always been reticent to discuss the particulars of my sighting because I have little hard evidence, except for two other witnesses to the event (one other has sadly passed away recently). But the experience did indeed have an impact on me. Sort of like, "Ohh... ok. These things do exist.".

So for me, my case tells my gut that something beyond accepted scientific human experience happened to me. I cannot in good conscience say one way or another what it was. Only that it was the strangest thing I have ever, or probably will ever, experience.

So, my unreported case goes squarely into the unsolved case bin, for everyone except my gut. In fact, it may be impossible to prove any mere visual sightings. This may be part and parcel to the pheomena. In which case, I'm not sure what value unsolved cases have.

originally posted by: JimOberg
Are you a Stan Friedman sock puppet? [grin] No, never mind.

I disagree with Stanton Friedman on many things UFO related. That doesn't stop me, and shouldn't stop anyone, from recognizing that he's 100% correct in emphasizing the importance of the SR14 data.

Could it be that your distaste of that particular topic stems from the significant hole it blows in your favorite anti-UFO arguments?

Don't you think most of us have learned a LOT more about how people form UFO interpretations from a wide variety of stimuli, in the past sixty years? Stimuli that weren't even known back then?

Yes, let's talk about the stimuli known of back then, and what has been added to the list since.

Ball lightning? A short-lived phenomenon. It can't possibly explain any sighting over a minute long, and is very, very unlikely to explain one over 30 seconds long. Ball lightning doesn't behave like a UFO anyway.

Spacecraft/satellite re-entries? Your area of expertise. Unfortunately, not relevant back then.

Anomalous propagation (radar)? Known of early on in the history of radar. Accounted for. Not relevant to sightings which also have a visual component... which is basically all of them.

'Swamp gas'? Maybe? I'm honestly not sure how much we knew about it in 1950. But any sighting away from swamp land couldn't be explained by it.

What else?

Should we make a list of the things that science has discovered, since 1950, that can mimic the speed, size, maneuverability, color, shape and basic appearance of a UFO? Because that'll be a very short list. It being of length '0', in fact, is not at all indefensible.

From my reading of your skepticism over the years, it seems that most of your doubt stems from the same old "they can't get here from there" kind of reasoning. And that has obviously colored all of your analyses. When you know the answer up front, 99% of the work is done. But that assumption is an old one, one that even mainstream science is now discarding.

originally posted by: cuckooold

originally posted by: Scdfa

originally posted by: JimOberg
You'll find a set of essays here:

www.jamesoberg.com...

I'd rather have teeth pulled than read anything more this debunker has to say about UFOs and aliens. I've read more than enough.
For all his credentialed pretensions, he knows absolutely nothing about the alien situation, and that is simply by his choice.

I know more about aliens, for god's sake. I'm not bragging, that's simply by the events of my life. I'd be more than happy to fill him in, but he has convinced himself that he knows the events of my life never happened. He knows better than we do, and has the award winning essays to prove it.
He might as well be writing essays about Galileo being wrong, that is how far out of the loop he actually is.

I believe this thread is about unsolved cases, not the existence/non-existence of aliens.

It's a shame you are too close minded to read anything written by Jim Oberg. If you took the time to read some of his essays, you might actually learn something, and you may also be surprised by some of the things he has to say, and the nuance with which they are conveyed.

Of course it's much easier to see what you want to see, and disregard the rest.

Count my stars in this thread, pal. I understand full well what Oberg was up to, and some of us in here called him on it.

I believe that my first hand encounters with these non-human beings, as well as viewing their ships from the inside, and traveling in these vehicles, put me in a position where it is Jim Oberg who might actually learn some things from me.
Not the other way around as you suggest.
You would both be surprised by some of the things I have to say, and the nuance with which they are conveyed.

originally posted by: TeaAndStrumpets ...
From my reading of your skepticism over the years, it seems that most of your doubt stems from the same old "they can't get here from there" kind of reasoning. And that has obviously colored all of your analyses. When you know the answer up front, 99% of the work is done. But that assumption is an old one, one that even mainstream science is now discarding.

Enough people are reaching this conclusion that it's my responsibility to make it more clear -- I know of no a priori reasons why Earth cannot be reached by interstellar travelers. None. If I ever even hinted at that view, please let me know where so I can correct it. My assumption is that any non-human intelligence operating in our vicinity can fully control the degree of our observation of it. And there are plenty of reasons they might want to be coy.