Skeptical Of UFO/ET Skeptics: Motivation, Tactics, Persistence Called Into Question

I come in peace. All I want is some honest answers to a few basic questions. Many ATS'ers, myself included, come here to find answers to difficult questions. In my life, I have had two UFO close encounters involving missing time, and have stood shoulder to shoulder with an ET. These events were both profound and life changing.

When I accessed the internet for the first time in 1993, I began intensively researching the subject of UFO/ET. I went to various newsgroups and posted the details of my encounters, expecting some positive feedback from fellow experiencers. My posts drew lots of replies alright, from so-called UFO skeptics spewing pure venom. In short order, I was belittled, ridiculed, and laughed at while my posts were quickly buried by an overwhelming majority of rude hecklers.

Fast forward to 2008. The present situation remains largely the same, with scenarios similar to what I have just described taking place daily all over the internet and here at ATS.

My questions regarding the existence of these skeptics on forums devoted to the subject of ET/UFO have gone unanswered for fifteen years now. While many of us utilize the world wide web to seek answers and truths, we are vastly outnumbered by people who seem to exist only to prevent this from happening.

Why?

I am highly skeptical of religion, but I am not motivated in any way to try and change or make fun of anyone else's beliefs. Likewise, I don't frequent any Pokemon forums to argue the fictional nature of those discussions. I would consider any effort spent on such misguided endeavors to be a giant waste of time.

So now we get to the crux of this post. Please enlighten me as to why many skeptics/debunkers [SNIP] feel the need to stay glued to the UFO forum. Don't humor me, as I have had my fill ad nauseum of these types of responses. What is the mission of these people and why are they so aggressive and prevalent at sites such as ATS?


[Mod edit to remove reference to another member]


[edit on 11/7/08 by HaveSeen4Myself]

[edit on 11/7/2008 by yeahright]

Originally posted by HaveSeen4Myself
My posts drew lots of replies alright, from so-called UFO skeptics spewing pure venom. In short order, I was belittled, ridiculed, and laughed at while my posts were quickly buried by an overwhelming majority of rude hecklers.

Fast forward to 2008. The present situation remains largely the same, with scenarios similar to what I have just described taking place daily all over the internet and here at ATS.

Methinks your perception is a bit off.....I'm not seeing the "belittled, ridiculed, and laughed at" running rampant here at ATS. Every now and then, both sides of any issue may slip into "flame" mode; but that isn't a trait specific to any one demographic. I think it's also bad form to call out one particular member.

What you perceive as "rude heckling" may simply be direct, honest questions that offend you.

You've painted a large group of the membership here with an enormous brush.....yet I'm willing to bet you get the exact opposite response you're describing above.

reply to post by MrPenny


While I respect your difference of opinion on the current state of the ATS UFO forum, your post did not go far to answer the questions posed in the OP. Thanks for participating, and I look forward to your further involvement in this thread if you so choose.

i guess my post wasn't worthy of a response so all i will say is...

thanks for spamming the board with another skeptic argument

[edit on 7-11-2008 by easynow]

The reason we're here is because we are also in search of the truth. However, we don't find the truth in blurry videos of lights in the sky and "eyewitness" testimony. The fact of the matter is, the internet has made it much easier for people to hoax. Not only because of the access to more people, but also because of the anonymity. In the past if you had an experience, but no physical proof, it would still have some weight to it because by coming forward you were exposing yourself to ridicule. Now, however anyone can go online and post a story and experience no backlash of any kind.

The fact is most skeptics find ufology to be just as important as the believers and thus this leads to our reason for our skepticism. Believers tend to think they can change people's minds based off the sheer amount of evidence there is regarding the UFO phenomena, but the fact of the matter is you can show a person millions of videos of lights in the sky and their mind will never change. The skeptic is trying to move ufology away from this, which is why we try to disregard any evidence that isn't beyond a shadow of a doubt unexplainable.

We want ufology to move beyond the laughingstock it is now and to become a legitimate science, but this can't be done with unverifiable stories and ambiguous videos. You need undeniable evidence and the more times people present bad videos and personal accounts as proof of what is going on the farther away we move from our goal of legitimizing ufology.

[edit on 11/7/2008 by Badge01]

Maybe the difficulty is understanding the totality of ignorance in the world today.

When a child is born into the world, the child sees the possibilities, understainds reality in a way most adults never can. Why?

Because life itself as we live is a process of deception which begins at birth to create the lie which serves those who choose to destroy. We send our children to school and it there that the painting of false ilusions. It is there that the ignorant teach your child to become ignorant of truth and possibility.

We as adults claim to know "history, science, reality, fantasy, truth and lies" and yet all we have is what someone tells us is so. The historian does not teach history, they teach what was told told to them as being history. From birth until now people believe what they have been told to accept as real. Any child unwilling to accept this "reality" is a "dropout" and disruptive influence. In truth the only way to become "credible and acceptable" is not only to learn ignorance, it is to become proficient in ignorance, to memorise it, to accept it fully so that you to become a teacher of lies, that you reinforce the illusion to others, that you willfully indoctrinate your own kids.

So strong is the illusion that people have made it a solid thing, they talk of proofs and evidences as if they are some concrete answer, when in truth they are the devices which enforce further the lies.

Dark days? Yes. Troubled times? Yes. Impossible odds? No.

Those who seek truth will see through the lies. Those who open their minds will transcend the illusions of the real and unreal.

Science tells you that it seeks the "Higgs Boson" in the furtherment of science. The reality is that they seek to sew deeper a great deception, to draw the greatest strength of all within the web of lies. It shows more than any other thing how ignorant people truly are.

What they seek is the esscence of creation itself, the force that binds all things together so that they may weild the power it holds.

The reality is that YOU and you alone define your reality and your willingness to live in the web of lies. Humanity was born with the ability to see with what you call the Pineal Gland, the seat of the soul.

After 45 days in the womb this gland begins to function, why? Because it is through this that your "soul" and you body become one, it is the link between the physical and metaphyisical and it is your connection to the universe. This "higgs boson" that science so desperately seeks is the force that binds all things, the link between all things and the thing that ensures that you can never be disconnected from anything.

You live in three dimension because someone told it was so and you have long accepted the lie. You believe that stone is a solid thing because someone told you it was so, and somehow you refuse to see the obvious truth.

All things are made of atoms and beyond that all things are bound by the force of creation, how can they be solid? The stone is no more solid than the air, the air no more real or unreal than the stone, they are the same. YOU create the illusion of solidity, you create the web that bind the illusion and you and you alone carry in you the eye which sees the truth.

If you opened the eye that has long been closed you would all know that "reality" is not what you think it is. You cannot become light without first understanding that you, the fire, the water, the air, the earth, are all the same thing, that you are all of the light.

The answer has always been there for your to see when you are ready. Why were the four elements placed in your understanding? Earth, Fire, Air, Water? Isnt it obvious?

They exist to show the transcience of matter, to show you that while form may change, energy never dies, it only changes form and you like all the forces are energy like all things.

Why should you believe me? You shouldnt. You were created with the ability to see for yourselves the truth of this world and the will to seek it, as I said before, those who seek the truth will find their own answers.

While the illusion may seem all powerful and all binding, it remains an illusion and it will never have the power to stand the test of truth.

The skeptic and those in denial are those whose fear is greater as the illusion functions on fear, on acceptance, on communal belief as those are the lies that bind.

The closer to the truth you become the closer to what this illusion calls "madness" because to breakfree from the lie you must shed the concept of the greatest lie of all "reality" and by definition that would brand you mad. Madness in this reality is the greatest form of genius because the the further from this reality you become, the closer to the truth that sets you free.

None of this is exclusive to me, none of this is defined in my words, all of you have the ability to seek that truth and all have the ability to find it for yourselves.

If you seek to disprove this "lie" so be it, seek that answer for yourself and if I "lie" then you can reaffirm your strength in "reality", why matters not, because the truth will set you free.

reply to post by HaveSeen4Myself


1. You are making an extraordinary claim, and that requires evidence or other information to help back it up. A regular skeptic will ask tough questions, but they will never attack the person who experienced them.

2. Some people just like to be mean, and they get a kick out of bullying people and writing the nastiest comments. That is what the ignore button is for if you want to tune out that type of person.

3. I do believe that we were visited and there are many excellent cases out there. Unfortunately, more than 90% of the rest of the cases are hoaxes or explainable. The hoaxes are the ones that start making some here a little meaner than they should be.

4. I have never met you, and have to tell whether you are really sincere, or are a 14 year old boy (or adult for that matter) taking us along for a ride. If I ask a question, it is to get some more information. Most of us may be able to help guide you to a group or someone to help you try and get answers.

Originally posted by Badge01
Great post on the 'illusion' of science and 'fact'. It's true we only perceive that which is evidenced by our own senses and we know that our senses lie to our brain (example: perspective).

BUT, I don't think you can say that the Members -here- who take a skeptical point of view do so because they are in denial or they have fear.

Sightings that are hoaxed on purpose comprise a high number of the total 'sightings'. So it makes sense that driving out and exposing hoaxes should be everyone's numer one priority. Only then can we look at what remains, both objectively and subjectively.

Though perception is only a measure of reality it is also our best measure. We know perception can be fooled. So any real encounters have to stand up to considerable dissection and deliberation, lest we group them in error with any 'true' sightings and thus form an inaccurate picture of what is going on

HTH

It is the "best guess" of an adult, but not of child. The child has a strong connection to the metaphysical world. It is adults who tell them they "hallucinate" and that these things are not real, we create fantasy to define their reality.

The Indigo Child lives on the other side of the spectrum, they live within a greater reality and are unable to understand well enough to connect with what we cal real. They cannot see or understand this illusion because to them this reality is the greatest fantasy of all.

While we may choose to not call it fear, it is fear, a deep rooted need for this and all we know to remain solid and tangible because we have never developed the understanding we once had as children.

There is no pretence, dreams tell you your whole life the nature of world, its answers are all around you everyday, the question is the will to see.

If you always believe the table is solid then it will always be solid, until the moment that you understand that you and the table are the same thing, the gathering of energy, your hand will always be blocked by it. In the moment that your illusion fades you hand would pass right through because the table and your hand are the same thing in different perceptions of form.

There will come a time when people understand this.

In theory, there should be no problem with discussing evidence - documents, photos, videos, whatever - as, although skeptics and believers might approach it with different expectations, the discussion should still be based mainly on the evidence itself.

When it comes to direct witness testimony, though, it's tricky. The fact that someone claims to have stood next to an ET is not enough for me to believe ETs exist, and that is always going to be a problem in discussions. Although it may remain unspoken, we would both know I don't believe you. The possibility of offence is inherent in the conversation.

Is the solution for skeptics not to respond in such threads? Or for people to post them in The Grey Area? Or for people to have thicker skins? I don't know. But you must be able to empathise with people who don't believe, and see how your story alone isn't going to be enough?

[edit on 11/7/2008 by Badge01]

The way it works for me is this. I'd like to know what's really happening. Simple as that.

That means I don't want a lot of people waving their arms and telling me they absolutely know the complete truth about what's happening when they really don't, when all they have is an opinion based on crappy or incomplete evidence. As it turns out, a lot of people apparently can't tell the difference between their opinion and an established, provable fact. And what's worse is you can't get them to see that difference. They protect their beliefs at all costs, and just won't let the obvious holes in their logic or the weakness of their evidence into their minds. And that is just sad, really.

But I figure if I can possibly get through to some people about how to apply strict logic to the situation, and how to recognize where the holes are, maybe it will become more difficult for people to pull off ridiculous hoaxes, or waste everyone's time and energy with what ultimately boils down to conjecture. This could possibly reduce the amount of noise enough in the field that more of the good, solid cases can be examined and maybe we can get to a point where we can start coming up with testable hypotheses. Maybe work our way toward actually finding out what's really going on.

Something's happening. I'm pretty convinced of that. As for what that something is, though, I have no idea.

Because of all the hoaxes and people who don't understand the difference between fact and opinion, the only reasonable response to this stuff is hardcore skepticism. As I've said many times -- in this field, if you're not a skeptic, you're a sucker.

[edit on 7-11-2008 by Nohup]

reply to post by Badge01


The greatest way to hide reality was to make it a solid fantasy, friend.

To make the pursuit of truth repugnant to your sense of order and reality was the greatest scam of all. It is very hard to believe that the table isnt solid when both the binds of reality and fantasy scream to you that it must be solid.

The Indigo Child is overwhelmed by the metaphisical. Again, the truth has always been before our eyes, the symbols of balance tell us the nature of consciousness within the realm of possibility, the Indigo Child has not the balance to reign in their consciousness and to understand the nature of physicality in the same sense we do not understand the metaphysical. It happens because they were born with a powerful connection to that side of existence and yet they had no guidance in the path to understanding and so instead they roam in a world where everything is trascient without comprehension of form or matter or coinciousness.

Hoaxers are irrelevant, so are believers as even they are tied to the same illusions of reality. If your hand is blocked by the table, then you remain in the insanity of "reality" for the "madmans" hand would pass through should they choose it to be so.

People often talk of the Nephilim and yet fail to understand that we are all Nephilim but until humans can accept that reality we live chained in this one.

The path to truth may seem far away but it is in truth far closer than most realise, those seek it will find it because it is not denied to denied to you by creation, it is hald from you by those whose purpose is to sew discord and weird power.

What we should understand of "god" is that despite the names and dogmas people have fabricated to represent it, there is only one truth, "gods" light speak directly to all, it is the light inside all, it is everything. Why doesnt he speak? Creation has been speaking to you since the day you were born but your ears cannot here because it doesnt not speak in the way you have come to understand. Creation speaks to you in your dreams, in your imagination because that is the domain of the part of the mind which links you to the metaphysical world, the Pineal Gland always hears creation and it speaks as it can though you live in denial of. Creation speaks in your instincts, in your gut feelings, in deja vu, in dreams it calls you to truth and will do so throughout your life in the hope that someday you will believe enough to seek further truths.

It is not creation that fails to speak, it is you who cannot listen and speak to creation.

In all tests you will find an answer to the question. All texts of "god" are corrupted by the will of man but there exists some universal.

You will be forgiven all things except the denial of god. People interpret this as some vengeful dogma because they cannot understand. In order to be forgiven, to believe truly you must be connected. If you deny that connection then you will forever be trapped in this reality. That is the meaning. It is not that creation would punish you, it is that if you deny that one simple truth then by definition you curse yourself to be damned by it.

You will find that line used time and again in every "book of faith" and despite how people would have you interpret it, it remains as simple truth.

Eden was not place as you undestand it, it was the existence within a metaphysical truth. Creation did not cast humanity from "Eden", humanity was lured by the "devil". Humanity chose the physical lie and became blind that is the reality.

The gates of "eden" have never been closed and it is humanities choice to live in hell, not the will of creation. By definition then the only way to be "redeemed" is not to deny the "light of god" which simply means not to silence the truth of creation and your connection to it in your mind.

The creation of the physical world is always bound to be destroyed by the "wrath of god" but there is not "wrath" only the simple understanding that the phsysical world can only ever be temporal and some time it must change form for energy itself is transcient. When that time comes, those who are bound to the physical can only pass with it because they cannot exist without the physical.

Those who are transcended will live on because they by nature are not bound by pysical rules and the destruction of the physical world cannot harm them.

Truth is far simpler than the illusion of lies.

Thank you for quality responses silver6ix (wow that was deep and eloquently stated) and Badge01.

You bring up some very good points and raise equally good questions. I personally consider the study of ET/UFO to be the single most important undertaking in the history of mankind. I am dumbfounded by the concerted and unwavering effort by TPTB to marginalize the message, the messenger, and the horse they rode in on. Hoaxing is definately a WMD to ufology, both innocently and intentionally.

From an experiencer's point of view, the absolute proof came with having my encounters. I am not asking anyone else to believe what they haven't seen with their own eyes. I hasten to say that I would probably not even entertain the idea of ET controlled UFO's without witnessing the phenomenon first hand. Even then, the encounters could easily be brushed aside if a friend had not been present on one of the occasions.

What should be painfully obvious by now is that absolute proof is in the eye of the beholder ONLY. I am skeptical of anything and everything I haven't seen, and I don't expect anyone else to hold to a lesser standard. I just wish the skeptics would take on a more passive role and be more receptive to personal accounts of UFO/ET related events.

We need to all find a common ground and work together towards finding answers now more than ever while we have this great tool at our disposal that we call the internet.

Originally posted by damagedoor
When it comes to direct witness testimony, though, it's tricky. The fact that someone claims to have stood next to an ET is not enough for me to believe ETs exist, and that is always going to be a problem in discussions. Although it may remain unspoken, we would both know I don't believe you. The possibility of offence is inherent in the conversation.

As far as eyewitness testimony is concerned, I'm willing to give people the benefit of the doubt. If someone says they had coffee and donuts on a spaceship with aliens who took them to Jupiter, well, good for them. I won't call them a liar, because maybe they sincerely believe that such a thing happened. And maybe it even did. I wouldn't know, though, because I wasn't there.

They gotta give me a break, here. If they want me to accept that what happened was really and truly real, and not just something they dreamed up (because it's been proven that people do dream things up), they need to offer something a little more solid than a story. For me, I don't care if it's a story about UFOs and aliens, or Jesus, or whatever. Once we can get it past the story stage with some hard physical evidence we can test and share, then that will go a long way toward getting me to accept that something really happened.

If they don't care that I accept what they say really happened to them, then that's fine, too. Seeing is believing for most people. I wonder what would happen if I was ever put into a situation like that. I've seen magicians at work. I know that my perceptions can be wrong. I wonder how much I would believe, experiencing such things personally. Maybe I'll find out someday.

Otherwise, hey, you saw a UFO, but have nothing to show for it? Good for you. Congratulations. It must have been cool. You get a cookie. But that's all I can offer.

This has all been discussed in depth here

www.abovetopsecret.com...'

reply to post by kidflash2008


Your post is bang on and I agree with everything you stated. If everyone exhibited the level of respect and critical thinking expressed in your post, there would be no problems that we could not all solve together. I am 42 years young and firmly grounded, my friend. I like your approach and would be interested in hearing your take on issues such as 9/11, etc.

reply to post by damagedoor


Solid reply damagedoor. The burden of proof is a mountainous immovable hurdle in the path of ufology. A careful and most well thought out description of the events surrounding my encounters always sounds far-fetched even to me. I often find myself leaving out the most unbelievable aspects of my experiences, which are also the most difficult to put into words.

Originally posted by Xcalibur254
The reason we're here is because we are also in search of the truth. However, we don't find the truth in blurry videos of lights in the sky and "eyewitness" testimony. The fact of the matter is, the internet has made it much easier for people to hoax. Not only because of the access to more people, but also because of the anonymity. In the past if you had an experience, but no physical proof, it would still have some weight to it because by coming forward you were exposing yourself to ridicule. Now, however anyone can go online and post a story and experience no backlash of any kind.

The fact is most skeptics find ufology to be just as important as the believers and thus this leads to our reason for our skepticism. Believers tend to think they can change people's minds based off the sheer amount of evidence there is regarding the UFO phenomena, but the fact of the matter is you can show a person millions of videos of lights in the sky and their mind will never change. The skeptic is trying to move ufology away from this, which is why we try to disregard any evidence that isn't beyond a shadow of a doubt unexplainable.

We want ufology to move beyond the laughingstock it is now and to become a legitimate science, but this can't be done with unverifiable stories and ambiguous videos. You need undeniable evidence and the more times people present bad videos and personal accounts as proof of what is going on the farther away we move from our goal of legitimizing ufology.

Good answer. I want to belive to, like mulder in x files, but i need proof.

People like blossom goodchild with schyzofrenia dont get any credibility for the existenze of aliens, she is just a psyho.