Convincing Someone

When I had a close encounter I thought I'm sharing this with the world!

Well guess what ? The world doesn't care!

I honestly am already tiered of trying to convince anyone!

If I was going to try to convince someone , I would bring up Colares , Brazil '77 only because its been verified by the Military , and there is a lot of credible information, including physical evidence.

But in my opinion its is the mountain of eye witnesses such as myself over the centuries that I believe is convincing evidence. Not just one case or another.

I agree. I don't think it's really worthwhile trying to convince anyone. Regardless of what evidence you present, at the end of the day, the person you're trying to convince has to have the openmindedness an willingness to at least accept whatever informaton you're trying to convey as at least possible.

In other words with at least the faintest belief in a possibility of extraterrestrial life, any try to convince a person is absolutely futile.

A lot of excellent examples have been brought up already in the thread. And yeah Rendlesham is something I'd use as well being from the UK, however, before I'd use any particular "case", I would as others here rather first talk about probability. As mentioned already the amount of galaxies and containing stars is so vast that it simply would be almost illogical to assume we are the only lifeforms to develop in a universe in which you find infinite diversity in infinite combinations.

Regardless though how much evidence there is, if a person cannot get their mind around a mere possibility of alien life, be it intelligent or just a bug or microbe, if that little bit of tolerance is not there as basis, you can just as well forget it right from the start.

However, there is also the possibility that a person would deny such a possibility, behind closed doors though, maybe you could make them think again. And possibly eventually try and consider it. Depends on personal judgement.

I dont blame them either. Take the battle of l.a. for example. This is one case where there are supposedly tons of witnesses, photographs (1 good one), the military is involved etc.

Now this all sounds fine, sounds like we have a good presentation. But when you try to back it all up, its pretty hard.

There are different kinds of people in the world. Some types have reasons of their own for not wishing to see what is right in front of their eyes. With this sort of person no amount of evidence will do because they simply will not accept the logical conclusions.

There are no other photos of TBOLA, at least not any that were taken by the many newspapers that operated there at the time. This is significant because it sets the pattern for what it is follow for years: secrecy. The newspapers at the time even reported on this, although they called it censorship.

When presented with that picture, and scans of the newspaper it came from and that followed about the story, any reasonable person should admit something visited that night. If I told you your car was totaled, and showed you a single picture of it, what else would you need?

Here we have a simple event, with huge consequences.

Truth is truth, there is no extraordinary truth. The same level of evidence should suffice for anything. Have we been visited? Here is a picture.

If you need anything more than this then you are dealing with psychological factors not reason. Those can be overcome, but not in any simple way.



A.T
(-)


[edit on 8/21/05 by Alexander Tau]

I should note that my intention of this thread was not to try and get people to convince others, but to talk about what you think have been the best cases, ones that could make for a good argument when debating the fact.

Im not saying to go out and try convince people this stuff is real.

I think cases are the last thing you should use. I've not had much trouble convincing people that extraterrestrials have likely visited and I rarely if ever cite a specific case. I don't think I even know of more than 2 anyway. When I'm trying to convince someone of alien visitation I instead deal with the psychology behind why a person doesn't believe it may have happened to begin with. That's the very first thing before anythng else. How a person can swallow that thousands of people all went momentarily crazy at the same time and saw the same thing before they could swallow the idea of an alien craft being sighted at a baseball game. Why a person demands physical evidence for aliens but accepts other beings on faith even in the face of glaring implausibility and contradiction.



Follow that up with the archeological evidence and cover-up documentation and people will generally open up. I guess I have an easier time since I was such a staunch skeptic myself and can just use what broke me out of that mindset.

[edit on 21-8-2005 by Loungerist]

If I read right what you meant towards the end of your post, then that's definately a good way.

If you get people to think about religions and the forced beliefs and odd connections of events within religious faiths then they will at some point grasp the missing logic and think for themselves.

But, maybe off-topic, but just out of curiousity. What made you change your, as you said, mindset into a more tolerant approach?

If you have the skills the psychological approach is certainly best. If you do not have the skills it is unwise and will increasing the chance you will fail to convince your subject.

Personally I only find it is necessary to ask a couple of basic questions, a carefully read their response, to know what aspects of my presentation to focus on. One about how they think they would feel if it was all real, and another about how much research they have done into the subject. I build-up the first question a bit, put a bit of Drama into it, and get the best feel that I can for how they do feel about the subject, emotionally.

"If, saying if here, lets assume they are real. We are not alone, never have been in fact. They have been visiting from other Planets since the dawn of human history. They visit, quite a bit, they watch, most of the time, they experiment, at least a little. It is not another Race of People, it is Other Races. How do you feel about that?"

While I respect other people's rights to believe what they wish, I have to admit that here I feel a bit of an obligation to gently convince as many people as possible that the above question is indeed the Truth. It seems to me that more than one group of people, some human, others not, are looking for signs that humanity is 'Ready' for contact. While I cannot do more than guess as to what the complete set of factors might be it does seem logical that basic acceptance of the general concept of other Life has to be in there somewhere.



A.T
(-)

I have never convinced a logical person that there are alien races visiting Earth, never mind visiting me, unless he's already had some kind of personal experience to related it to. Unfortunately, having one's own alien experience or two usually just forces the person to believe in all the junk he reads about the aliens. When a person can't or won't learn about the aliens from the aliens himself, it's better for him to believe nothing at all, than all the junk. Seeing a craft does not enlighten anybody, it just adds their mentality to the mass confusion of the human's stupid UFO field.

Most people have had some kind of a spiritual (natural or psychic) experience. And alien experiences are spiritual experiences first and foremost, and they are also sometimes physical experiences. So for instance, if a person has never had an alien experience that he is aware of, but he has had experiences with people who have died, knows who is on the phone before he answers it, or has had the same dream at the same time as others, and recalls them with those in the dreams, then he can FATHOM the nature of advanced life. He can understand how the aliens can be right here under everybody's noses and not be known unless and until they want to be known, and only by those they want to be known by. He may not see the aliens yet, but he can see why all these people are acting this way about them.

The psychological aspects of denial of evidence are another story, but one that the alien races can gauge our general public willingness to accept the alien races for what and who they are. If a person has never seen any evidence, I don't blame him for not embracing the ideas of other life. But if he's seen the evidence and still won't consider it, there is something wrong with him. If the publics are still so willing to believe whatever our leading govts tell us to believe about the aliens, then we aren't ready to openly meet the aliens yet. It will not serve a very productive purpose yet.

Send them to this website:

www.netro.ca...

It is the Disclosure website and let them listen to the Eyewitness accounts given by people that are willing to testify before Congress. This is what convinced me.

Originally posted by Overseer

But, maybe off-topic, but just out of curiousity. What made you change your, as you said, mindset into a more tolerant approach?

In short,the evidence. Up until a few months ago it wasn't very difficult for me to dismiss proported cases of alien visitation because I know the power of suggestion and the mind's ability to play tricks on people. I also know that's it's human nature to ascribe fantastic things to occurences that one cannot explain. So as far as I was concerned there was no significant evidence of aliens on Earth no matter how many people claimed to have seen them. But after reading the debate linked above I started doing some research and found that I had no clue at all of the amount of evidence of alien visitation there actually was. From ancients texts speaking about aliens visiting left and right all the time,to the discovery that the Bible was based in large part on earlier writings but with the alien parts curiously editted out,to government documentation,to centuries old eyewitness accounts and sketches of rockets ships in the sky long before the first human rocket ship had ever been invented,to anciet astronomy beyond that of even modern astronomy,etc. Alien visitation also explained the many questions I've always had about the accepted sciences of human origins such as the Missing Link,ancient civilizations that seemed impossibly high-tech,etc.

After awhile logic simply no longer supported my skepticism so it disappeared.

overseer says:

I agree. I don't think it's really worthwhile trying to convince anyone. Regardless of what evidence you present, at the end of the day, the person you're trying to convince has to have the openmindedness an willingness to at least accept whatever informaton you're trying to convey as at least possible.

In other words with at least the faintest belief in a possibility of extraterrestrial life, any try to convince a person is absolutely futile.

Overseer, I don't think any skeptic would argue with the comment that "whatever information you're trying to convey is at least possible".

I do not say that any of the assertions made regarding UFOs or Spaceship Guys is impossible. All I'm saying is there is no hard evidence for it.

And as far as the idea of implying that skeptics lack "...at least the faintest belief in a possibility of extraterrestrial life..." that is not the case either. Skeptics can use Drake's Equation as well as 'true believers' can. I doubt that even the most hiudebound anti-UFO person would say that there's no chance of life -- even 'intelligent' life in other star-systems, if not in our own.

But while a study of probablilities (in this case, the Drake Equation) argues for the existence of life elsewhere, there are just as rigorous a set of mathematical formulae which show that the chance of one of the Drake-derived societies visiting us to be vanishingly small.

If you're familiar with the Drake Equation and want to discuss mathematical aspects of a statistical probablity of a visit, I'd be glad to do so, but that stuff usually puts most people off.

Well yeah I suppose if you've got the understanding and the will you obviously, even as a skeptic, at one point have to at least admit to a faint possibility.

I think a very good example is Loungerist above. Finding out for yourself and learning for yourself, fiding clues and hints, is the best way. But again, you have to develop the wish to do so.

"Remember this is you trying to convince someone." == Dulcimer

People tend to convince themselves based upon what they are taught. It is far more rewarding
to be a teacher rather than a salesman. Which brings me to my own question.

Why is it so important to convince others that the sky is falling ? (Same leap of conclusion anyways regardless of what acorn you show them.)

"If you're familiar with the Drake Equation and want to discuss mathematical aspects of a statistical probablity of a visit, I'd be glad to do so, but that stuff usually puts most people off."
== Off the Street

I can save you the math, its here

www.abovetopsecret.com...

The assumptions belong to Tyler Nordgren but the comments are mine.

"the chance of one of the Drake-derived societies visiting us to be vanishingly small." == Off the Street

Agree, and also the math for that is there, but at the end, where I said radius of
1000 parsecs, correct that to diameter instead. Does not change results

nightwing,

The beauty of the Drake equation , is that I can challenge you at every variable , and we will still end up with an astronomical number Intelligent civilizations no matter what we input.

"The beauty of the Drake equation , is that I can challenge you at every variable , and we will still end up with an astronomical number Intelligent civilizations no matter what we input."
== lost shaman

Well, you know I like tennis and I enjoy playing when your in the opposing court, but in this case, the rules already exist and you cannot change them.

For example, what would your challenge be to change the fl value ?

Remember, it is based on what we know, not what we speculate. To increase this value, what other planets inside our solar system have life
besides Earth, and where is the proof. (Science, not Ufology, so I gotta see it)

And further we may both have to apologize to Dulcimer since this could be headed way off topic.

Originally posted by nightwing

And further we may both have to apologize to Dulcimer since this could be headed way off topic.

ne is the number of planets per star that are capable of sustaining life

fl is the fraction of planets in ne where life evolves

Question: On what percentage of the planets that are capable of sustaining life does life actually evolve?

Answer: Current estimates range from 100% (where life can evolve it will) down to close to 0%.

Close to Zero .... That's a Mathematical answer if I've ever heard one !

Even estimating "Close to Zero" we end up with many more intelligent civilizations in the Milky Way than just Humans on Earth.


[edit on 5-9-2005 by lost_shaman]

"ne is the number of planets per star that are capable of sustaining life

fl is the fraction of planets in ne where life evolves " == lost shaman

I am glad to see you are really thinking about this. To derive a reasonable value for ne,
we select what seems to be a reasonable "life" zone, ergo, liquid water. (Until we know
life can be very different than on Earth, we dont go crazy, cause this aint Ufology.) As you noted, ne and fl are
closely related. A best guess for ne is to look at the percentage of stars that would have
planets in a habitable zone that is not being zapped by what we believe to be lethal radiation
of various sorts. fl would then be a fraction of those planets, based upon our knowledge of
our own system, that contain life. I say 10 percent is overly optimistic for ne but that was what
was used in the example. If you want to say 100 percent, I need to hear your reasoning for
how there would be habitable planets around dead stars, neutron stars, black holes, supernovas,
red giants that have swallowed their habitable zone, and etc.....

"current estimates range from 100 % down to 0 %."

And in the equation, thats a multiplier of 1, for 100 %, and a decimal for less than 100 %.
You never get to use the 100 as the multiplier (smirk)

Originally posted by nightwing
I am glad to see you are really thinking about this. To derive a reasonable value for ne,
we select what seems to be a reasonable "life" zone, ergo, liquid water.

Liquid water? We don't know that ! All you can say is " based on what we know from Earth".

(Until we know
life can be very different than on Earth, we dont go crazy, cause this aint Ufology.)

Are you bashing the cataloging of events? Be they strange to you or your experiences?

As you noted, ne and fl are
closely related. A best guess for ne is to look at the percentage of stars that would have
planets in a habitable zone that is not being zapped by what we believe to be lethal radiation
of various sorts.

Please define what you call lethal radiation. A Roach can survive 200 times the radiation of the average Human.

So you must clarify this.

fl would then be a fraction of those planets, based upon our knowledge of
our own system, that contain life. I say 10 percent is overly optimistic for ne but that was what
was used in the example. If you want to say 100 percent, I need to hear your reasoning for
how there would be habitable planets around dead stars, neutron stars, black holes, supernovas,
red giants that have swallowed their habitable zone, and etc.....

No I agree, there would absolutely not be 100% , but an average of 30 - 40 % is not unreasonable.

"current estimates range from 100 % down to 0 %."

And in the equation, thats a multiplier of 1, for 100 %, and a decimal for less than 100 %.
You never get to use the 100 as the multiplier (smirk)

I never need to either (smirk)!

Originally posted by Loungerist
I would direct them to this debate.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

It's what opened me,a lifetime skeptic,up the possibility of alien visitation. While it didn't totally convince me it did lead me to do some research and after finding and reading cover to cover a book called Humanity's Extraterrestrial Origins I have little if any doubt that aliens visited/visit us rather frequently.

Just read through that entire link... Amazing stuff. I never knew about those lines that can only be seen from space that have been there for ages.

I am still a skeptic even though I really want to believe. But where I get stuck is in the logic? How can someone be awakened in the middle of the night by a bright light, yet no one else ever sees it? Why do aliens hide in secrecy? Are they afraid of us? World wide panic when supposedly 90% believe in other intelligent life (I read percent that in another thread somewhere, I can't remember.)

Why have aliens been doing the exact same thing for the last hundred years? How many anal probes are necessary before they find out what they need? I mean, our doctors figured out what the function of the anus was a long time ago. (yes, there is a lot of sarcasm there).

Does the human race keep changing so drastically that over 200 races of aliens have to keep watching us? I guess we don't have an intergalactic right to privacy huh?

Don't get me wrong. I believe there are other intelligent beings in the universe. I believe they PROBABLY have visited us. But the skeptic in me needs proof in which they are here.

What proof do I need? Well, that gets hard. You'd think I'd believe in pictures. But there have been so many faked pictures that you can't believe them any more. How about regressive hypnotism. I bet that can't be faked. Well aparently people have faked hypnotists. How about a piece of metal that fell off their craft? I guess they use the same metals that we do. I admit that some of the videos of moving lights get me excited, but as much as I wish they are alien vessels, I also think that it's quite possible that earthly entities such as the U.S., Russia, China, or even France could have invented that technology as well.

There have been so many people that have cried wolf (be it disinformation artists, people wanting attention, psychos, whatnot) that it basically discredits the people who really are telling the truth. That sucks for the people who truely believe or those that know it's the truth. But for the rest of us who want to know there is probably nothing left short of some guy call them down from the sky at his will..... hey that was tried already too.... Seriously, It would take first hand experience to truely believe. Even if I saw it for myself, part of me would wonder if it wasn't a genetic experiment putting human genes in a praying mantis, or a lizard or something. It is just as hard as convincing a true buddhist that Jesus was the son of god.

Sorry for the long post, but just wanted to get the skeptic thoughts out there. At least mine. What other proof is out there that hasn't been discredited in the past or could possibly be someone just lying? *Gasp*

I picture that the aliens bring from their home planet might be nice(assuming it looks different than our civilization). But I'm assuming there's a reason why they don't have the technology or need for pictures on their planet.

Just my 2 Cents.