Originally posted by chunder
Good thread, please take my question in the vein of the intent it was asked in.

It is impossible to categorically prove an intelligently controlled machine was responsible for the effects caused in this case, or any other, to the degree required by a large chunk of the general public, let alone the hardened skeptic.

Originally posted by Wasco

Originally posted by Xtraeme
One common misapplication is to ignore evidence since Occam's razor implies that the evidence must be wrong.

What gave you that idea?

Paraphrased in modern English Occam's Razor states: All other things being equal the simplest explanation is probably the most likely. How do you construe that to mean "the evidence must be wrong"?

The UFO skeptics don't understand Occam's Razor, and they abuse it regularly. They think they understand it, but they don't.
What it means is that when several hypotheses of varying complexity can explain a set of observations with equal ability, the first one to be tested should be the one that invokes the fewest number of uncorroborated assumptions.
If this simplest hypothesis is proven incorrect, the next simplest is chosen, and so forth.

But the skeptics forget two parts: the part regarding the test of the simpler hypotheses, and the part regarding explaining all of the observations.
What a debunker will do is mutilate and butcher the observations until it can be "explained" by one of the simpler hypotheses, which is the inverse
of the proper approach.
The proper approach is to alter the hypothesis to accommodate the
observations.
One should never alter the observations to conform with a hypothesis by saying "if we assume the object was not physical, despite the level of evidence that would imply the solidity of a conventional aircraft with near-certainty, then we can also assume the object was not moving, was not exhibiting the color orange, was not 50 feet in diameter as described, and
then declare that it was really Venus."

But that's okay for the skeptics to do because it's an "extraordinary claim" being made that deserves to be explained away in a Machiavellian fashion as rapidly as possible with the urgent zeal of a religious missionary.
Now, to alter observations to force conformance with the
preferred hypothesis -- is that science? Or is that dogma? The answer, of course, is dogma.
This practice is extremely poor science, and the approach undermines the very spirit of scientific inquiry.
It is simply unacceptable to alter the observations that refuse to conform with the predetermined, favored explanation.

Originally posted by Xtraeme
Excellent commentary, Karl!

Dr. Bernard Haisch is definitely one of the more rational people looking into the subject.

You also quoted one of my more favorite sayings, "I propose that true skepticism is called for today: neither the gullible acceptance of true belief nor the closed-minded rejection of the scoffer masquerading as the skeptic."

"Project Blue Book was ballyhooed by the Air Force as a full-fledged top-priority operation. It was no such thing. The staff, in a sense, was a joke. In terms of scientific training and numbers, it was highly inadequate to the task. And the methods used were positively archaic. And that is the crack operation that the general public believes looked adequately into the UFO phenomenon".

And:

"Blue Book was now under direct orders to debunk...I remember the conversations around the conference table in which it was suggested that Walt Disney or some other educational cartoon producer be enlisted in the debunking process".

Dr J Allen Hynek, Chairman of the Department of Astronomy at Northwestern University and scientific consultant for Air Force investigations of UFOs from 1948 until 1969 (Projects Sign, Grudge and Blue Book).

"My study of past official Air Force investigations (Project Blue Book) leads me to describe them as completely superficial. Officially released 'explanations' of important UFO sightings have been almost absurdly erroneous."
James McDonald, speech to American Meteorological Society 1966



"Most scientists have never had the occasion to confront evidence concerning the UFO phenomenon. To a scientist, the main source of hard information (other than his own experiments' observations) is provided by the scientific journals. With rare exceptions, scientific journals do not publish reports of UFO observations. The decision not to publish is made by the editor acting on the advice of reviewers. This process is self-reinforcing: the apparent lack of data confirms the view that there is nothing to the UFO phenomenon, and this view (prejudice) works against the presentation of relevant data."
Peter A. Sturrock, "An Analysis of the Condon Report on the Colorado UFO Project," Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol.1, No.1, 1987



"Every time I get skeptical, I think of the other reports made by experienced pilots and radar operators, scientists, and other people who know what they are looking at. These reports were thoroughly investigated and they are still unknowns.
We have no aircraft on this earth that can at will so handily outdistance our latest jets... The pilots, radar specialists, generals, industrialists, scientists, and the man on the street who have told me, I wouldn't have believed it either if I hadn't seen it myself, knew what they were talking about. Maybe the Earth is being visited by interplanetary space ships.
Captain Edward J. Ruppelt-Chief of Project Blue Book



"We had a number of reports from reputable individuals (well-educated serious-minded folks, scientists and fliers) who surely saw something".
As Air Force Chief of Staff, in his 1965 autobiography, Mission With LeMay, stated that although the bulk of UFO reports could be explained as conventional or natural phenomena, some could not.
Many of the mysteries might be explained away as weather balloons, stars, reflected lights, all sorts of odds and ends. I don't mean to say that, in the unclosed and unexplained or unexplainable instances, those were actually flying objects.All I can say is that no natural phenomena could be found to account for them... Repeat again: There were some cases we could not explain. Never could.

General Curtis LeMay
Statement from 1965 autobiography Mission With LeMay, with MacKinlay Kantor, New York: Doubleday, 1965.

Originally posted by bananasam
your profile graphic is awesome. I wonder who discovered that breakthrough?

Originally posted by Kandinsky
Great OP as ever, Extraeme

The Lakenheath/ Bentwaters incident is one of the best supported early cases out there. Multiple witnesses, documents, radar traces corroborated by two other radar stations and official acknowledgment. Although the thread is focused on the single UFO tracking the plane, it all began with multiple UFO sightings by witnesses and radar traces.

We were using ______ on our radar, which eliminated entirely all ground returns and stationary targets. There was very little or not [sic] traffic or targets on the scopes, as I recall. However, one controller noticed a stationary target on the scopes about 20 to 25 miles southwest. This was unusual as a stationary target should have been eliminated unless it was moving at a speed of at least 40 to 45 knots. And yet we could detect no movement at all.

The target made several changes in location, always in a straight line, always at about 600 MPH and always from a standing or stationary point to his next stop at constant speed -- no build-up in speed, no set pattern at any time.

The first movement by the UFO was so swift (circling behind the interceptor) I missed it entirely, but it was seen by the other controllers. However, the fact that this had occurred was confirmed by the pilot of the interceptor. The pilot of the interceptor told me he would try to shake the UFO and would try it again. He tried everything -- he climbed, dived, circled, etc., but the UFO acted like it was glued right behind him, always the same distance, very close, but we always had two distinct targets.

We can't attribute the events to ET intelligence, but we have to accept that there were no reasonable explanations to account for the incident. Perseids, faulty radars and meteorites have been discounted. It was a true UFO incident as the objects remain 'unidentified.'

in⋅tel⋅li⋅gence
–noun
1. capacity for learning, reasoning, understanding, and similar forms of mental activity; aptitude in grasping truths, relationships, facts, meanings, etc.

7. interchange of information: They have been maintaining intelligence with foreign agents for years.