The Science of UFOs: Fact vs. Skepticism

Sorry to be a quotemonkey but I thought this bit of insight fitted in quite well with your observation.

Sorry to keep you waiting I had a soccer match to attend to.


Yes I have but I try to steer clear of the fanatics and their tall tales on these boards. You do have a point and maybe I was too quick to jump you.. Admitting you were somewhat off with your previous comment demands respect in my book.


Yes is it and no I don't think it's because they are all in on it. I am of the opinion that for example the US government has managed to create a situation of scientific and public disinterest through discredit and ridicule. See Karl12's and my previous posts in this thread (Rand report and Robertson panel) for more information on this. Furthermore the numerous charlatans and hoaxes has made the media think twice about risking their reputation on the UFO/ET phenomenon.


Well actually we have something more than that. There are authentic photo's and radar data for example. This is strong evidence for UFOs but not for aliens.


Yes I agree there is no hard proof or anything. But when trying ones best to wade through the BS and examining the most credible cases and whistleblowers one can get the feeling there is something there that certain authorities do not want us to see.


I am truly sorry to hear your time is running out. If you have had an interest in this subject since the 60's with all the BS flying around I can somehow understand you got cynical after all these years.

Theres some interesting UFO/OVNI photographs and footage here-not all are 'blurred images':

Photos:
www.abovetopsecret.com...
Footage:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

The Catholic Church did not ask Galileo for proof, extraordinary or otherwise. He had proof in the form of careful observations. He saw that the planets were worlds like Earth. He saw that Jupiter had moons of its own. He saw that Venus had phases. These things were proof that the Copernicanism was correct, that the Earth was not the center of the Universe. He was shut down. He was not asked for proof. No discussion was allowed.

Ferdinand Magellan was not asked for proof that the world was round. No proof was needed. By his time the educated people of Europe accepted that the Earth was round. People had been sailing "beyond the edge" for many, many years. After Columbus had found the Americas and it was realized that they were not the "Indies", Magellan proposed to sail a new route (Portugal having the only use of the route around Africa). Like Columbus, his intent was strictly profit, not proof of a round world.



[edit on 1/7/2009 by Phage]

reply to post by Phage

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Ummm, okay?

According to Vatican maintained literature Galileo was brought three times before the Holy See and twice was he recused by Pope Urban. Only in the final "trial" was the case set before the Commissary of Inquisition wherein his verdict was decided prior to arguments. However, in the apologia documents of Pope John Paul II you may read the court witness and he was, indeed, scoffed and taunted for extraordinary evidence that would have put his life on the line if he did not prove to their satisfaction. It is annotated by the Vatican under John Paul II that Galileo was too weary and afraid, and, thereby his statement of recant was coerced and untrue.

The Commissary also put forth an inquisition of Magellan, and according to Vatican documentation his inquisition was closed. Probably meaning that money changed hands.

However, as I get my information from the Vatican literature I will accept that it may be biased and be open to your version.

My point still stands that people with good ideas were debunked by authority rather than encouraged.

reply to post by Rintendo

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Though it seems you have it from "the horse's mouth" (I don't read French, German, or Italian) there is every indication that the Inquisition was not so much interested in Galileo providing evidence as in his renouncing the Copernican system altogether.

I can find no reference to an Inquisition of Magellan. It would seem odd since it was Spain that financed his voyage and he, of course, died before returning. It was not a hard sell for Magellan to convince the Spanish Court that it was in their best interest for him to find a new route to the Spice Islands. As I said, there was no "debunking" involved.

There is no denying that new ideas require evidence before being accepted. That is what science is. You know the drill; hypothesis, evidence, theory, peer review. Part of the review process is the analysis of the data by independent parties. Does the data hold up? Does the data support the theory? Is there contradictory data? Do you really think it should be any other way? It's been working pretty well. The encouragement is there; get more, better evidence then we'll talk about it.

[edit on 1/7/2009 by Phage]

Thanks for the kind words.


You indeed have a point here. Of all the UFO shapes that people claimed to have seen I also find the triangles the best candidate for human made craft. I mean good luck getting a sigar shape to fly.

The best triangle UFO case is obviously the one from Belgium in 1989. There are people that think this craft was actually the supersecret TR3B. The thing is there is not a single shred of evidence that even confirms the existance of the TR3B to my knowledge. If this craft was the TR3B then it has been kept secret now for 20 to 30 years atleast. The interesting thing about this is that it then refutes the claim by many skeptics that the US government cannot keep a secret even if it wanted to.

Now lets take the Belgium case as an example (links to the case are in this thread) and assume it was the TR3B or another supersecret aircraft.

The following problems arise with this theory in my opinion.

If this craft is so secret why test it above a highly populated area for all to see? I live close to Belgium and they have high population density just like my country.

Some people would argue that it was a test to measure public reaction. Public reaction to what? Aliens? But according to the US government aliens do not exist. Furthermore they wanted to check the public reaction for five months? Multiple sightings occurred from November 1989 to March 1990.

The Americans assured the Belgium authorities that no craft of theirs was flying there at that time. Of course they could be lying but that could jeoperdise their relationship with Belgium if the Belgium goverment ever found out the US were using them as some sort of test subject and then lied about it afterwards.



[edit on 8/1/09 by Fastwalker81]

reply to post by Phage

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Phage ,I'd be interested to hear your opinions on this video featuring the work of John Greenewald Junior (from Black vault.com) who has amassed over 250,000 authenticated government documents pertaining to the UFO subject.

Although not conclusively proving anything,it does go a long way to show that many claims made by the US government about UFOs are highly contradictory,hypocritical and misleading;particularly in regard to them not taking an serious and active interest in the subject.

Google Video Link

Cheers Karl

[edit on 02/10/08 by karl 12]

Well just thought I would throw my two pence in here. First point I would like to make is this... UFO = UNIDENTIFIED flying object.
Untill someone grounds one , and digs an alien out of it, everyone who sings out with calls of extra terrestrial life and what not, is doing the possibility a diservice by appearing hysterical and manic. Fact is , if the craft which we have physcial , video , and radar proof of are alien in origin, then its a matter of time before this becomes completely undeniable... for example "So sorry we crashed into your barn, a space frigate was tailgating us , and we are very tired. The last rest stop was just spinward of Alpha Centari ... do you have a mint?"
If there is no such thing as aliens, then I dare any man to prove it. Its not a simple task to disprove the existance of something, and dont forget , that up until relatively recently we knew nothing of sub atomic physics... If you had asked a man 500 years ago wether he thought that the Higgs boson was responsible for particles attaining mass at the begining of the universe, he would have told you to sling thine hook, and then gone and had you arrested and burned as a witch. That doesnt mean that theres no such thing as the sub atomic , and who knows, the Higgs might be the cause of mass in the universe. Untill we can examine the facts with clarity and hindsight, we will not reach an all encompassing agreement in this regard. Meanwhile , arguing the toss is a pointless excersize, and is not helpful and educational debate, but a series of intellectual broadsides, launched from a position of arrogance and ignorance.
DENY IGNORANCE.
Open your minds everyone, we are all right , we are all wrong.

reply to post by karl 12

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I didn't watch the whole video (connection problems, long pauses) but I got the gist of the first part of it and went to the Black Vault to see the section on "Government Interest". One of the claims seems to be that the Air Force, with the the termination of Project Blue Book, lied about a lack of interest in UFO's.
www.theblackvault.com...

That statement does not appear in the document presented as Article 2. The document speaks only of the Air Force discontinuing its investigation of UFO reports. In the document presented as Article 1 this statement is made
Does this sound like they are saying henceforth there should be no investigation by anyone for any reason? That is what Greenewald would have you believe but I don't read it that way. Rather than taking his interpretation of the material, have a look and make your own conclusions.

I'm not going to go into this too much more other than to point out that it is really no surprise that misinformation and confusion can be encountered when dealing with the government at any level. That is the nature of bureaucracy. Add to that the very real need for security and it becomes very easy for claims of contradiction, hypocrisy, and misdirection to be made. Does it happen? Probably. But take a look at the world of ufology. Never see those things there, do we?

I think an obviouse thing to point out is the fact that ufo's and aliens are the only subject I can think of that gets such instant ridicule and laughter if people talk about it.It just doesn't make any sence that people react in this way. Other than its been made that way over the last 50 years through the media.It seems like the perfect way to keep it secret.Make it a subject people just don't wan't to talk about.

reply to post by Phage

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Phage,
I guess like how you didn't watch the whole video you didn't read the whole page. what you quoted first is not his opinion or analysis; it is from the USAF fact sheet. if you keep going past the part you quoted you see where he credits the quote to where he got it. Even if your post is incredible wrong, you do do a beautiful job pointing out why he created the site to begin with. the government has clearly stated two different approaches to the UFO subject. It is not a subject of interest and it wont be investigated but wait it will be investigated just not by a special division, or at least not a publicly declared special division. It is for this reason that he has created this site to gather all the double talk documents the government has let him have and make them publicly available to the everyone so they can draw their own conclusions.

conclusions should be developed from critical thinking and accurate reading/assessment not predetermined.

reply to post by Anonymous ATS

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As I said, the statement does not appear in the document cited as


Here is Article 2. I must be blind because I cannot find the statement. Maybe you can have better luck at finding it than I did.

[edit on 1/9/2009 by Phage]

I'll admit that I haven't read all of the posts in this thread but I have gotten a sense of the disgussion from those I did read and I have to say you are all skirting the subject. Scientist need tangable data and evidence. That is how they are wired.

The reason why our U.S. government claims the absence of proof of UFOs and USOs in and around America is because they are being honest and truthfully candid. Don't get me wrong... I'm not taking a supportive point-of-view for the corrupt government. I am, however, seeing things from their point of view.

Take a second or 20 to think about it.

What is a UFO? An alien space craft? The mothership for E.T.?

Think harded and define UFO.

Unidentified Flying Object

If you believe in any one of the hundreds of stories where U.S. military has gotten involved from Aroura, TX to Roswell, NM or the nummerous cases on the East coast USA then the truth must be that there aren't such things as UFOs because our government has learned how to identify them.

Our US Government knows who and what they are, where and when they come from and how and why they keep coming back.

These flying craft are not UFOs; they are infact IFOs Identifiable Flying or Submerged Objects The opperative word here being Identifiable.

It is rare but in this case our government tells the truth. They merely hold back the rest of that truth. Maybe we should refrase the question... what do you think?

A CIA historian has confirmed on the record that numerous "UFO" observations of the early Cold War years were actually U-2 or other U.S. activities but they were not acknowledged at the time.

I heard this first hand from the government official.

It is logical to presume that this same phenomenon is extendable beyond those years and the U-2, but only those times and situations are officially declassified now. I have no personal knowledge to add, this is only a theoretical inference.

[edit on 10-1-2009 by mbkennel]

Did you talk to this CIA historian? And do you mean Gerald K. Haines?

I'm only asking this because that sounds a lot like this CIA report, CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90, by Gerald K. Haines.

At any rate, let's not forget the CIA is in the business of deception. Most likely even it's (public) history is completely false or incredibly distorted, so I always take these "public admissions" with a grain of salt.

From the report:



Taking into consideration the U-2 didn't make many flights over the US, the majority of them were probably in Nevada, the U-2 flew at extremely high altitudes and in a straight line, I doubt it would account for "more than half" of the UFOs reported at the time.

Moreover as Stanton Friedman points out here



I would just add that the USAF wouldn't need to lie the CIA. I'm pretty sure the CIA was aware of the U-2's flight dates.

reply to post by theresult

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Hi,

That was exactly my point - the world is here, the stars are in the heavens,
and all is right in the world (NOT, actually, and I worry about it ALL THE TIME- because of our trespasses against this Earth).

We will not get away lightly.

I agree with u all that their are unidentified object in the sky but are they Alien?!!
All what u see is just a big plan for the New World Order!
we all know that the us government is way too far from the public in technology!! maybe 60 years ahead! this is what they say and claim the secret military technology for ur safety to assure the new world order!
i may seem crazy to the unaware audience and might be clear to those who are aware of this system! (novus ordo seclorum)
plz don't prejudge and go over these videos that won't take much of ur time and they are interesting!!
www.youtube.com...
www.youtube.com...

[edit on 11-1-2009 by zouzou0]

reply to post by Phage

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Phage,its a great shame you didn't actualy watch the video before commenting upon it but I appreciate the reply anyway.
video.google.com...
Around the 17:00 mark John Greenewald Junior discusses how NORAD is now the government's 'information clearing house' for military and commercial UFO reports.
NORAD have constantly 'lied through their teeth' and denied this but the
JNF 146 E UFO reporting forms are sent directly to them by the US (and Canadian) military as well as comercial FAA UFO encounters -of which it seems there are quite a lot.
The film also goes to show how the government's claims that
'UFOs are of no defense significance' are spurious as many authenticated military documents report UFO encounters over military bases and nuclear facilites (around 29:30).
Its realy worth having a watch if you want to cultivate a balanced, informed view of how the US government constantly lies,distorts and misrepresents the truth when it comes to this subject.


[edit on 02/10/08 by karl 12]

reply to post by converge

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Good post
Very interesting stuff;particularly about the CIA's alleged role in the UFO subject down the years.
I've read in a 1969 US Rand report about the ridiculing of UFO witnessess and its intruiging as to 'why' the Robertson panel was convened to deride,belittle and discredit the subject in the eyes of the public.

I think this is an important quote made by Dr. H. Marshall Chadwell from the CIA:



As is this one made by Roscoe Hillenkoetter,the first director of the CIA:



And this one by the 1955 CIA Director,Allen Dulles


These comments appearing in authenticated military documents are also interesting:

Letter to the Commander of the Army Air Forces on the subject of "Flying Discs" dated September 23, 1947 from Commander of the Air Materiel Command, Lieutenant General Nathan :



Also from a declassified Canadian government document about how the United States regards the UFO subject:
(there is a comprehensive history of these documents and others in the book 'UFOs and Military Intelligence-Need to know' by well respected author Timothy Good).



Cheers Karl

[edit on 02/10/08 by karl 12]