Should UFO Hoaxers Be Prosecuted?

reply to post by Aircow

IF you can prove it to be a hoax.

That's a great sentence there.

We'll just compare it with all the confirmed ufo cases and judge it by it's merits. Right?

millions are still homless and staving and you want to spend millions prosecuting 'UFO hoaxers' ?

What harm are they doing anyway? they arn't doing it to defraud someone of their money or property are they?

go after the corporate media for hoaxing before you go after harmless citizens.

I think a better question is; should we prosecute those that run into every UFO thread claiming "hoax", using nothing more than ad hominem attacks as their evidence, with libel?

I suppose it depends on the extent of the hoax. When the "balloon boy" hoax that happened just recently, the law did consider prosecting the father for wasting county resouces for what amounted to be a publicity stunt. I'm not sure what happened with that as I never followed it completely through. If it's some goof ball with a camera and a silver painted frisby and he calls up a news station then I guess the news station deserves what it gets if it posts the story, otherwise so what. If it involves getting half the military or whatever involved in someones little scam, then ya, fine the no good bum or put his butt in jail for a few days.

Originally posted by Heliocentric

Basically, it falls under the definition of forgery, which is the process of making, adapting, or imitating objects, statistics, or documents, with the intent to deceive.

Different countries have different legislation for sub-categories of forgery, but to most it is considered a serious offense.

A UFO Hoax cannot by law be proven to be 'Forgery". You would need to prove the existence of the real phenomena first. A baseline standard would have to be created/acknowledged before the forgery could be measured against it.

What constitutes a false UFO? After all, we're talking about an Unidentified Flying Object. If it turns out to be balloons or chinese lanterns, by definition, they still fit the criteria of a UFO.

Does it make a Hoax a bigger crime if someone was gullible enough to fall for it?

Can the hoaxer be held accountable for other peoples perceptions and belief systems? After all... it's just some balloons tied together right?

I just think it would be hard to prove that the hoaxers intention was for 'you' to believe it was a flying saucer with aliens inside. After all, how does one forge a belief system? That's really what it is!

Perhaps forgery isn't the correct charge in this case.

IRM

[edit on 27/11/09 by InfaRedMan]

Originally posted by InfaRedMan

Originally posted by Heliocentric

Basically, it falls under the definition of forgery, which is the process of making, adapting, or imitating objects, statistics, or documents, with the intent to deceive.

Different countries have different legislation for sub-categories of forgery, but to most it is considered a serious offense.

A UFO Hoax cannot by law be proven to be 'Forgery". You would need to prove the existence of the real phenomena first. A baseline standard would have to be created/acknowledged before the forgery could be measured against it.

What constitutes a false UFO? After all, we're talking about an Unidentified Flying Object. If it turns out to be balloons or chinese lanterns, by definition, they still fit the criteria of a UFO.

Does it make a Hoax a bigger crime if someone was gullible enough to fall for it?

Can the hoaxer be held accountable for other peoples perceptions and belief systems? After all... it's just some balloons tied together right?

I just think it would be hard to prove that the hoaxers intention was for 'you' to believe it was a flying saucer with aliens inside. After all, how does one forge a belief system? That's really what it is!

Perhaps forgery isn't the correct charge in this case.

IRM


[edit on 27/11/09 by InfaRedMan]

/win

[edit on 27-11-2009 by Bachfin]

reply to post by InfaRedMan


Good point. Far too many people run with the assumption that UFO="extraterrestrial" in origin.

UFO only means unidentified flying object, and it seems quite absurd to prosecute someone, on forgery charges, when they merely claim that something is "unidentified", regardless of whether or not they know what the object actually is. In this sense, a UFO claim is actually a non-claim, and leaves any interpretation to the viewer/reader.

[edit on 11/27/09 by redmage]

reply to post by chris34


How very interesting! Wish we had an interpreter. Whatever it was moving around though, didn't seem intelligent to me. Unless it was cleaning the street!

Originally posted by Heliocentric
. . .
Personally, I'm not a hardliner. I believe these people should be sentenced to community service. Apparently they have a lot of spare time on their hands that can be better spent cleaning streets rather than posting BS on the internet.

I'm impressed. That's really noble of you to not demand the death penalty for such deviously nefarious actions.

Well, to be honest, I'm only impressed with the the humour involved. This is definitely today's funniest thread.

Have you noticed an excess of public money around for prosecuting such cases? Have you any idea of the costs involved in gaining a prosecution in a complex case? Have you noticed lots of coppers with nothing to do because serious crime no longer exists in our society?

Seriously, the only worse way to waste public money would be to criminalise a relaxing, health-giving herb and institute witch-hunts against people who use it.

I'm sure we really need another excuse for witch hunts, and another excuse for the FBI to ransack our homes and steal our hard-drives. Imagine customs checks. Every data storage device would have to be checked to make sure there were no fake UFO or alien pictures or stories on them.

And what if someday a person actually captures a real alien interstellar craft on their iPhone? With this legislation would they dare show it to anyone?

I'm a sceptic. I look at UFO pictures to see how they can be faked.
But I wholeheartedly defend people's right to make these and see who they can fool. I also defend the right of debunkers to pull them to pieces, but I wish more would go to the effort of using logic rather than taking the easy way out using ridicule.

Logically, all Republicans who are against big government would be, (or at least should be,) against this idea . . .

I believe they should at least be slapped with a fine. Each time they strikeout, the fine becomes more hefty.

Something needs to be done because our world is superficial enough as it is with government and the MSM spouting rhetoric. Don't send them to jail, but fine the hoaxters. One day we will rise up and the MSM along with the elite will get whats coming for them. In the mean time, why allow all the fraudsters run around inciting BS everywhere they can and cash in on it ?

[edit on 27-11-2009 by disfugured]

reply to post by chris34


There's at least one thread regarding that instance already. You can find it here.

Sorry for the OT post, carry on.

reply to post by InfaRedMan

A UFO Hoax cannot by law be proven to be 'Forgery". You would need to prove the existence of the real phenomena first. A baseline standard would have to be created/acknowledged before the forgery could be measured against it.

When somebody gives a date and it comes up empty, then thats proof enough of a fraud especially with all the emphasis put on the subject by the prophetic date that never came to be. If David Wilcock is wrong about today (which sounds like he will be), he deserves to be fined and labeled a fraudster.. especially him being a significant part of the disclosure project running around the world reciting his rhetoric.

Originally posted by InfaRedMan
A UFO Hoax cannot by law be proven to be 'Forgery". You would need to prove the existence of the real phenomena first. A baseline standard would have to be created/acknowledged before the forgery could be measured against it.

No, I don't agree with this interpretation.

The key word in forgery is deceit, a falsified object pretending to be something that it isn't. It doesn't matter whether a supposed object in a video is a weather phenomenon or a Unidentified Flying Object, it's the intent that counts.

Of course the law will react differently whether the forgery concerns a Vincent van Gogh painting or a Youtube vid, but it's still forgery. Just on a lesser degree.

I think there should be some penalty if the Police and other agencies are involved, like someone reporting an event knowing it to be false, just like calling the Fire Brigade, or Police to have them attend a none incident, there will always be evidence something is not right.

The problem is proving it to be false, you cant just go taking the word of people based on opinion it was false, otherwise it would be like ye olde days of the Witch trials, pointing the finger and screaming Witch.

Most times there are either other witnesses (just not many seek out the other witnesses) or some kind of related evidence, such as video evidence which provides more than just the benefit of the doubt, any digital video or photograph can be analyzed and seen to be real or staged, it just needs to be looked at in the right way.

Seeing lights in the sky would be excluded anyhow, because it's only under extreme circumstances where the Police or anyone else would become involved anyhow, like several calls to say the same thing from different but close by locations, 4 or 5 people calling in claiming something strange passing by would be enough to investigate, because 4 or 5 people would be enough to distinguish the difference between normal and weird.

You couldn't prosecute for getting an investigator from the private sector involved, because that is the call of the investigator, no investigator worth their salt would jump in a car and rush to every light in the sky, something has to jump out and say there could be something to it, like 98 times out of a 100 turns out to be nothing, and that 100 comes from perhaps 1000 different reports or more, and then out of 100 something extremely attracting needs to be determined before on the spot investigation is needed.


To be honest, I cant really ever see the need for the Police to attend unless lives could be considered in danger, and I have never come across a case where that has ever happened in the UK, cant speak for the rest of the Planet, what could or would the Police do? even if an object was on the ground, the Police are just crowd control, so you could say it's the police wasting their own time for going out and looking for lights flying around the sky.

Hard one to answer with sincerity IMO.

Sorry but this thread brought to mind this video.

NO, the hoaxers shouldn't be prosecuted.

People who believe most UFOs are E.T. should though.

reply to post by Heliocentric


yes burn em all! and the lying news stations too

Due to the overriding public interest, there should be a requirement that anyone producing a fake UFO video or photo label it clearly as such.

Too much time wasted in both the private and public sector to continue without at least some guidelines.

That being said, I am also in favor of Chinese style justice for any low life who is caught red handed writing and distributing computer viruses and worms.

In my opinion, it's depending on the purpose: for example, most of the people like the ones in my friend InfaRedMan's signature would deserve it: not only they do it for money and they spread non sense: in some unfortunate cases they create some schools of philosopy based on utter and complete non-sense, pure garbage. If you really love your sons, or your nephews, you should hope that they will never fall into their traps.
Well, these people should be BANNED from MSM, because there are categories of people who could fall into their traps. And please, don't mistake this with censoship: it has nothing to do with it. It's a matter of distinguishing knowledge from garbage.
Once my nephew asked to me about Nibiru, and i confess that i had hard time in convincing him that it's all BUNK. It took to me ALL my efforts to show to him what are facts and what are crocks. ANd i had to wate my time in order to show to him both sides of the coin, because of my fairness. If you think about it, it's very sad: facts are often getting mixed together with theories, personal views, untrained interpretations of real facts and so on. Some people should keep away from SOHO images, from MOC images, even from the ol' lunar orbiter images. Actually, some people should be kept far away from EVERY image, just to make sure that they won't harm anyone.
Their IGNORANCE doesn't deserve to be taken as some possible truth: when one is unable to distinguish some ordinary crater from some ACTUAL unusual formation because of his ignorance, his priority should be to spend his time in LEARNING rather than spreading BS.
I like it whenever someone genuinely and frankly shares some picture from Mars showing something that he can't explain and asking for insights: now, that's a way to grow, to learn, to be honest with us and (most important) with himself. Not always everything can be explained, but to TRY to get as closer as possible to the most rational explanation is what we should always do.
Except the wannabeee money makers, there are thiose craving attention: well: they don't deserve to be prosecuted. Life has been already too evil with them.
UH, i had to vent, i feel better, now.
Thanks for the nice OP and for the good contributions