Originally posted by jritzmann
If they dont get the answer they want here, theyre going to go elsewhere and find those willing to believe what they do. Ultimately this hurts the UFO
research field and misleads the interested public.
I don't know. I've gone back and forth on this argument for years. Sometimes I feel that hoaxers are evil incarnate. Other times I just think
they're a pesky annoyance, like a gnat.
I guess it just depends on how much credit I'm going to give the general public any given day. On one hand, I guess I would like to see the UFO
research "community" (if there is such a thing) gain a bit more respectability, but I don't think hoaxers have much of an effect on that. If an
interested person sees some short UFO footage on TV, they probably aren't going to make any firm judgments about it. Most people know what can be
done with special effects, so they take it all with a grain of salt.
Of course, there will always be the kooks who believe it all without bothering for proof of any kind. But they've already made up their minds about
it, and a hoax isn't going to sway them either way.
Hoaxes do provide the UFO community the opportunity to present their case and their expertise to the public. And if it's made clear that someone in
the UFO community is doing the debunking - a debunking believer - that actually adds weight to the opinion and furthers the notion that the days of
debunkers v. believers is a thing of the past. That there are rational experts out there in the UFO field who don't jump up and wave every blurry
photo around, claiming it to be proof positive of imminent alien invasion.
To the general public, this will (hopefully) evolve into an understanding that not all UFO enthusiasts are wingnuts waiting for the Space Brothers to
land, and many UFO experts are really trying to find solid proof and good, hard evidence to back up claims of extraterrestrial contact, intervention,
or what have you.
I think, or at least I hope, that most people have finally had enough of the fringe freaks, the people who are either all for or all against the
notion of UFOs as things that are unusual and deserve serious study. The rabid believers or debunkers are boring, like church fundamentalists,
because they always say the same thing. No new information. No conversation. Just dogma.
So, I don't know. So I have to sort through the chaff to get to the wheat. Nobody said it was going to be easy. On the positive side, whatever
might eventually be proven to be REAL and not a hoax, will certainly have been tested in every possible way, making absolutely sure that it is REAL.
Which means something in my book. I always want the best, airtight proof I can get, if for nothing else than to make sure I don't look like a
complete fool. Sure it's disappointing to find out someone's just trying to pull a fast one. But it's better than the alternative of putting all
of your faith into something only to discover later that it's all just a lot of hogwash.