50th Anniversary -- Gemini-IV [McDivitt] 'Space UFO' event

originally posted by: TeaAndStrumpets

originally posted by: JimOberg
Maybe a more workable approach would have been to visit my website and see what I've already written on exactly that theme -- what evidence would be persuasive?

Yes, here's the question your essay answers: "What evidence would be persuasive?" (Your answer, basically, is hard proof.)

The question I mentioned, and that you quoted, pertained to "... which UFO sightings Oberg thinks might hint at having been 'significant special events'?"

So no, what you provided is not "exactly that theme" I had mentioned. There is no significant talk of sightings.

Or... with that article, are you now confirming that, to you, there is NO SINGLE UFO SIGHTING over the last 70 years which "might hint at having been a 'significant special event'?"

That's the answer from you I kinda predicted. Even warning people they'd better sit down for that one, too.

So here we are, in another NASA UFO thread, with you wondering why people don't seem to accept everything you say at face value. To you, they should, given that you're the resident space flight expert. (I can imagine that's a frustrating thing for you... as frustrating as it is for the rest of us to read.)

But here's the thing: there's an inescapable perception here, one you seem to be unaware of, that you play to the audience, i.e., "try to have it both ways."

When a pro-UFOer has you on the run, for example, you'll say nice and reasonable sounding things like way up above, what I quoted. Things pertaining to your goal of "filtering out those significant special events from the overwhelming mass of non-extraordinary pseudo-UFOs"... or you'll mention how it's "worth the search" to "separate the wheat from the chaff," as you always say. It seems that you do this to placate the UFO masses coming at you, just to get the heat off, because you can't deal with the data. As if you're backing away from the staunch position we all know you maintain....

But then things calm down a bit, and it's back to the less accomodating version of you, with you saying (again saying, this time with that article) that after 70 years of UFO reports there is really nothing there at all, and there never was.

So what is all this nice talk by you about your goal of helping everyone in "sharpening our filtering skills" for UFO reports? Because lets's face it: for you, there is really NOTHING THERE TO 'FILTER', is there? The only 'evidence' you'll accept is proof -- a body or a saucer, basically. That's the message in your article. No UFO report would be good enough for you, and you admit it. Because your evidentiary filter for UFO reports, the one you urge everyone else to adopt, isn't even a "filter" at all, is it? It's more like the rim of a filter, with no mesh attached, where EVERY UFO report does and must fall through, down into the dirt.

THAT is why these words of yours from way up above make no sense: "The tragedy we face now," you said, "is our current inability to filter out those significant special events from the overwhelming mass of non-extraordinary pseudo-UFOs. It's worth the search and worth sharpening our filtering skills.... " Your words there ring hollow. To you there can be no "significant special events" (nothing short of a captured ET craft or body suffices), so in reality, there is no "tragedy" involved for you when amateur UFOlogists keep tripping all over themselves. It's disingenuous of you, and so transparent, and -- given your professional position(s), holding yourself out as an expert, and your expectation that people must treat your opinions as such -- I think, and I know MANY others agree, that new ATS members reading this UFO forum deserve to know such things about the experts present here. Not that you or others are bad people or whatever. Just about tendencies and oft-exposed biases of yours that have come out over the years. You're a space expert, right, so with the benefits of that Expert label -- increased respect re: certain topics, for example -- comes a few burdens, and one of them is having to endure increased scrutiny.

Now... is all of this related to YOUR thread on YOUR area of expertise (NASA and space flight)?

Yes. Since we see it thread after thread, whenever NASA is involved. The same fighting, round and round.

There is a reason, Jim, that you have to work so hard in order to get people to listen to your NASA UFO explanations... even when those explanations make perfectly good sense. Just like in this very thread. And I'm mystified that you seem to not know of that reason, or else don't care.

The reason is because you damage your own credibility when you pretend to care more about UFO respect and witnesses and the "health" of UFOlogy than you actually do (according to your website writings.) As I said before, if you truly cared about separating the UFO signal from the UFO noise, you'd support efforts to get science more involved and the destigmatization of the topic. You don't support those efforts.

Bottom line: if you want people to take your NASA UFO explanations like in this thread more seriously -- and I actually wish they would, too -- then you might consider minimizing your use of the hollow sounding, almost pro-UFO kind of language that we've seen here.

Excellent post, you hit the nail right on the head.
I'd love to say more, but apparently I'm not allowed to.
It seems like are the one who is really sharpening your filtering skills. I have a great respect for people like yourself who are able to see things clearly and honestly.