Originally posted by gameisupman

Honestly, you could have the majority of your self indulgent thread bumps in your original thread post?

Whoa. It's unfair to label karl12's threads and his periodic updating of them as "self-indulgent", in my opinion. He certainly doesn't need me to defend him, but there IS another way to look at it:

-often he's updating them because of new or newly-found information.
-many of his threads deal with UFO cases that are decades old, of the high-strangeness / high-credibility type, and which have still not been properly (or even AT ALL) addressed by skeptics and debunkers.
-given the high number of deniers around here -- debunkers "masquerading as skeptics", as someone recently described it -- periodic bumps of well-documented threads discussing the most bewildering and convincing UFO cases is not just a good idea, but a necessity.

We DO want people to be as informed as possible with respect to this topic, don't we? Any true skeptic should want that. This 'skeptical believer' wants that, and so do several others who think along the same lines. In my opinion, there should be more threads of this type... and yes, they should be bumped regularly ;-)

Originally posted by gameisupman
Maybe those "armchair debunkers" as you like to broadly paint them in order to belittle their posts and make yourself feel all high and mighty (but ultimately makes you look like a stereotypical ufo enthusiast) don't see the serious added value exploring things like this that are so old, and new information isn't worth it's salt other than to feed some dough eyed believers religious like fantasy about UFOS.... But I do understand your desire to explore old crap that can't really be looked into any more... allowing you to continue your fantastical beliefs. Makes sense. If you wasted your time with more modern sightings... you would be depressed and give up, because the modern state of "ufology" is a joke. By living in the past you are trying to distance yourself from this joke any way you can...[etc]

Wow. See what happens to a "true denier" in the face of actual evidence, much of it decades old, regarding a case which has resisted debunking for 40 years? (Sure, let's pretend Menzel and Klass didn't try... haha.) But isn't it interesting that a skeptic would get so angry by mere presentation of evidence? Let's think about this.

We all understand the UFO witness / believer's routine frustration with debunkers. It makes perfect sense within the big picture of the UFO phenomenon, where witnesses have been ridiculed by so-called 'skeptics' for decades. (Though no true skeptic thinks the UFO phenomenon is 100% ridiculous -- perhaps 95%! -- and no true skeptic would be ridiculing anyone who gives weight to this particular case. It's an impressive, multi-witness radar-visual one, and even a skeptic should admit "not so easy to dismiss.")

But for a skeptic to get as nasty as 'gameisupman' has gotten here.... what explains that? It's not as if UFO believers have been poking and prodding the skeptics for two generations now, with the apparent weight of "science" and skepticism on their side. It's been the other direction. So that doesn't explain it.

I think maybe what we see here is evidence of why some individuals literally CANNOT allow themselves to even admit the possibility of "real" UFOs. Maybe the above poster is being forced to question his religious beliefs? Maybe it's just scary? Maybe the possibility of real UFOs challenges the very natural assumptions we've all mostly carried -- that this is "our planet", we're top dog, are in complete control of our destiny, and its. (Not new ideas, i know.)

But TRULY accepting even the possibility of UFOs (and i say this with no sarcasm) forces one to deal with some difficult issues. So I try not to be too hard on 'skeptics' with SUCH extreme reactions to evidence, as above. A nerve has been hit. And let's face it, even respectable, mainstream science itself is not immune to this bias against confronting our human assumptions. Because we all remember the following (most telling!) part of the Trick Memo, no? (For newer members, this was written by the Project Coordinator of the Condon Report -- science's supposed "final word" on the UFO topic -- in a memo summarizing (among other things) why several science team members didn't think U. Colorado should accept the USAF contract.) Here it is:

"[The scientists'] argument runs like this: in order to undertake such a project one has to approach it objectively. That is, one has to admit the possibility that such things as UFOs exist. It is not respectable to give serious consideration to such possibility. Believers, in other words, remain outcasts. Branscomb suggested that one would have to go so far as to consider the possibility that saucers, if some of the observations are verified, behave according to a set of physical laws unknown to us. The simple fact of admitting these possibilities puts us beyond the pale, and we would lose more in prestige in the scientific community than we could possibly gain...."

Pretty enlightening, no? These were very smart,'"skeptical" men -- our best and brightest, the scientists, advocates of truth, right? Yet behind closed doors (the memo was leaked, not supposed to be public) these scientists were admitting they couldn't even be objective about this issue... couldn't even TRULY consider the most obvious hypothesis as legitimate. (Have to "go so far as to consider the possibility...."?)

Beyond what that all says about the Condon Report's objectivity -- any positive UFO findings in that scientific atmosphere would be impressive, right, and yet there they are, in the BODY of the report, ignored in Condon's conclusions -- the point is, if our best and brightest scientists can't be reliably objective about UFOs, can't bring themselves to actually consider the ET hypothesis a valid one, then what can we really expect of the casual ATS skeptic?

UFOs challenge world-views. (Again, not a new observation!) But it's rare to see the effects erupt so forcefully, like above. So go easy on 'gameisupman'. He's dealing with some tough stuff!

I am new to ATS, and the list, but have been following this discussion over the past year. I am also the principal researcher and creator of the minotb52ufo site. I generally don't participate on public list-serves but definitely appreciate the level of discussion by members on this particular list. I would add, regarding recent comments, that all UFO cases are essentially historical, which is the study of individual cases after the fact that can only tell us some UFOs defy conventional explanations. In my humble opinion, aside from the story, this case is unique in the respect that it includes quantifiable data sets in the form of radarscope photographs that can be (have been) examined by physical scientists. It also includes a remarkable amount of documentation, as well as personal communications, that allow insight into the process of the investigation and attitudes of the responsible officials. Not many cases provide as much multiple and independent ways to reconstruct the events, or, much less, the ability to examine hypothetically the performance characteristics of the UFO.

Kind regards...