I`ve found it! what makes a ufo skeptic!

There's good evidence on both sides of the UFO / Alien debate.

What makes a skeptic is the same thing that makes a believer. FAITH.

Originally posted by yeti101
reply to post by Xtraeme

 

well think about the investigation in new zealand i told you about earlier. If they had a thousand radar stations they would all show the blip, it still wouldnt alter the fact it was just turbulence in the weather. In those cases there were also claims of lights in the sky at the same time. It would seem those visual witnesses had nothing to do with the radar blips and were something else.

Again this is a singular incident and your trying to broaden it to encapsulate an entire field. No different than trying to say some exo-planet misidentifications then somehow diminish all other planetary studies. This is a circular argument.

If there was a visual component, as I have no idea which case you're talking about, then it wouldn't have anything to do with the inversion. So the question is what was the visual component? Was that discussed in this case? If it wasn't then whether or not there's a connection between the two is hard to establish. If you want to use this as an example please provide some more information. This way I can attempt to address your point in the concrete rather than having to argue purely in the abstract.

If that's your personal criteria then all exo-planet data has so far been non-repeatable

scientists do expermients then others can recreate them to verify results. You can do this with exoplanets you cant do it with ufos. The evidence is repeatable & testable in exoplanetary science.

You're not getting it. An astronomer (amateur or otherwise) observes the sky and if they see a distortion pass in front of the host star they notify other astronomers. Those astronomers also then try to make recordings. The "object" then continues to move and is eventually no longer illumined by the star. After that the data collected by all of these sources is all we have. The hope is if it is a planet, as we suspect, then it should make a circuit in a several year time-frame, but that's a guess. The repeatable component is happening in "tandem" with the original observer. No different than 3 or 4 different radar stations acting in tandem to verify or falsify other recordings.

It's only "repeatable and testable" for a small window of time. No different than the "repeatable and testable" aspects of a radar/visual UFO case.

on ufos in general there could be phenomenon that are yet to be recorded or understood by science. Sprites were only photographed in the 1990s. I'm saying the evidence for some ufos to be ET spacecraft is very weak thats why skeptics dont beleive.

The evidence for non-human intelligence is actually quite high. To follow an aircraft in-trail through course corrections implies some degree of intelligence (again this could be a computerized AI or something else like a von neumann probe). It doesn't require a biological entity to travel millions of years to get here.

reply to post by Xtraeme


no your right i dont get it what your saying at all. Exoplanet evidence is repeatable as the planet goes round its star. For tranists they get a dip in starlight or wobble for doppler, then another. Now they have a hypothesis that these dips/wobbles are a planet if thats corect we should see the dip/wobble at regualr intervals. They can do that Ad infinitum. Better if diffierent methods confirm reults then they can work out the density of the planet. Transit gives us radius, doppler gives us the mass both give us orbital period. Repeatable evidence. Frank drake made the same point to a user on ats in an email he didnt get it either

an equivalant in exoplanets would be to see one dip or wobble and declare it a planet even if 100 telescopes saw only 1 dip they wouldnt declare it a planet becuase it could be noise from the star , sunspots etc. Needs to be observed repeatadly

Originally posted by yeti101
reply to post by Xtraeme

 

an equivalant in exoplanets would be to see one dip or wobble and declare it a planet even if 100 telescopes saw only 1 dip they wouldnt declare it a planet

Excellent, you do it get it. In this case the observation is labeled a "candidate." No different than how a UFO observed across numerous channels should represent "a candidate" (or CUFO) for additional research.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/9f6fe1a42385.png[/atsimg]

... becuase it could be noise from the star , sunspots etc. Needs to be observed repeatadly

The point being if we look at the first observation and simply say, "Well we had one wobble, but we don't know how long it's going to take till we get another – best throw out the data and not waste time waiting because the hypothesis may turn out to be wrong." That's exactly what's happening with the UFO subject. Numerous Ph.D.'s have and continue to write on the subject calling for investigation because we don't know what these things represent – period –, but what's the reply? "Well several channels of data isn't that interesting, not enough evidence, meh, bugger off."

Guess we should cancel all exoplanetary research while we're at it. Also I suppose it's time we drop all studies probing dark energy because no one knows if it even exists.

Radar/visual confirmation should be a call for research.

You should really check out Alex Colliers theory (You should search him up on youtube if your into this stuff, he also predicted 9/11, hes a contactee of the E.T race, Andromedans) He also has free books online, very interesting. About the beginning of the universe.

reply to post by Xtraeme


the problem for transient phenomenon is you cant repeat the same incident over & over like you can with exoplanet evidence.

why arn't ufologists raising money to conduct such experiments that you think they should be doing. Just like seti do instead of making money selling books & dvds? ufo community needs to look at themselves instead of whining at everyone else.

Originally posted by yeti101
reply to post by Xtraeme

 

the problem for transient phenomenon is you cant repeat the same incident over & over like you can with exoplanet evidence.

Haven't we gone over this already? Any observation that's picked up independently by numerous modes of detection is considered a tangible objective repeated observation. This is a type of six sigma variance. Again if we were to contrast this against the "Wow Signal!" or Dr. Ragbir Bhathal's Gliese 581g OSETI detection, all that's required are 3 or 4 independent observations for academia to sit-up and take notice (scrape to 1:58),



This changes whatever's being observed to a "candidate" for being an objective something. Assuming you have a hypothesis, the object becomes a candidate for that hypothetical something. The question of what the object represents remains an open and unanswered line of inquiry.

In exoplanetary research the hypothesis of the objective candidate involves waiting for a full circuit of the object. If this occurs there's good cause to think it represents a planet (i.e. the subject of the hypothesis). If not that doesn't invalidate that there was something provably observed. So, irregardless if it fits the hypothesis or not, there are still positive attributes that can be used to describe this something. The first and most obvious being that the object more than likely wasn't a planet. Also details from spectrographic tracks might give a hint of the objects composition.

The difference with UFOs is that rather than have a positive hypothesis (like an exo-planet), what's sought after is determining if the candidate represents a genuine unknown (or TRUFO) that given perfect information wouldn't turn out to be a misidentification of an already known phenomena (i.e. a negative hypothesis).

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/0b85bfc5a64a.png[/atsimg]

If the object doesn't belong to the category of "known phenomena" then it represents a question mark worth further investigation. Put another way True UFOs (TRUFOs) represent problems for all scientists to attack. Very much the same way "unsolvable math problems" or "dark energy" represent goal-posts for mathematicians and physicists. The study of the unknown allows us to categorize things that are outside current understanding so people in specific fields of research can attempt to bring their specialty to bear against "true unknowns."

Unfortunately the phrase "unidentified flying object" has become bastardized to mean "alien spacecraft." This sort of a priori bias presupposes all unknowns seen in the sky must represent a singular phenomena when in all likelihood it represents many unique and different anomalies.

Through careful categorization and an exhaustive ruling out process this mechanism for finding TRUFOs would reduce the amount of time between anecdotal observation and objective confirmation using rigorous scientific processes (e.g. TLEs sighted in late 1880s that were only officially recognized in 1989).

That's what a UFO should represent. A crowd-sourcing technology that informs people of what they're seeing, and to keep scientists up-to-date on bizarre observations. This creates a nice feedback loop educating the public (reducing superstition) and provides helpful tips to research facilities looking for new lines of scientific inquiry.

To be extremely anal H(x) → y represents a function that tests a hypothesis against a given x_n candidate by giving a true or false y_n result. The falsification of an x_n candidate does not mean the given x_n is false, rather it simply means that x_n is not a part of the domain of H(x) → true. Then since all things are something, for any given six-sigma objectively provable x_n ∃ a hypothesis H_n(x_n) → y_n, where y_n is true. So all we have to do is create an application that tests x_n against all probable Σ(H_i())'s. This then will allow us to empirically determine if the x_n is a true unknown.

why arn't ufologists raising money to conduct such experiments that you think they should be doing. Just like seti do instead of making money selling books & dvds?

Because most "ufologists" (skeptic or otherwise) have no science backgrounds ‒ and this is to say nothing of the frauds. Those who write books on the subject in a legitimate and serious manner do so because it's a way to attract public interest through simple anecdotal stories (no different than a "A Brief History of Time" vs. arXiv:hep-th/0507171v2). Often times the money from those books gets placed in to research programs like FUFOR. As for academic funding, well, today's climate isn't exactly salubrious for finding research dollars.

ufo community needs to look at themselves instead of whining at everyone else.

What needs to change is the culture of dismissal because the "crazys" may in fact turn out to be right.

reply to post by Xtraeme

you dont have to have a phd to run experiments. Thats a total copout answer. What about friedman hes a scientists but prefers to personally enrich himself than run any ufo experiments.

what would help is if you had 1 decent photograph of a supposed "UFO". 60 years and nothing. If you expect any tax funding from such incredibly scarce evidence your living on another planet.

There are far far more deserving subjects than ufos for scientific research. Also your demand that other "scientists" investigate it completely ignores one important fact. They see it as a collosal waste and have more important things to do with there time.

Also you act as if nobody is observing our sky or atmosphere. Theres plenty of other scientists & astronomers doing just that on a daily basis. I'm sure they'd report anything interesting but again theyre not reporting much in the way of alien spaceships. I wonder why?

Something did not come from nothing. Basically reality is infinite, that is, infinite possibility. This reality has a structure, a form, from that infinity, that total randomness, inevitably, something with structure develops, and when something has structure it has permanance, and that permanance is what allows forms to exist that are self-sustainable within their reality.

they dont belive thaats what