Jim v. Jim: Two Opposing Views of UFOs

A lot of people who have seen something would have prefered not to. To be part of something that they consider posiibly "otherwordly" will be incredibly disturbing maybe even frightening to witnesses. They will be vunerable and wish the whole thing would just go away. Yet they speak out anyway in the face of ridicule as they have every right too. This is when they become easy pickings for the debunkers, who will skillfully try and give a normallity to the situation, preying on the confusion and weakness of the inherant belief systems of people.
If they can persuade you that its swamp gass you might stop beliving it yourself. even though you saw it with your very own eyes.

Jim Oberg said:
As for the Iranian case, the Iranian AF pilots did tend to come from a particular socio-economic class and they also rarely flew at night, as American airplane techs and military advisors knew well. Whatever the original stimuli of that story, the story itself has clearly 'evolved' over the years as testimony 'improved'. As in most dramatic encounters, the earliest direct raw testimony is critical, and it's a very perishable item that once gone cannot be reconstructed.

Not flying often in the night does not mean that one has no experiences in flying in the night. I dont want to waste your time, so could you tell me if you have studied this case and is it present on your website for me to elaborate? I like to look at some of your early raw testimonies as you state. The non-corrupted data as I am sure you mean. Jaffar Panahi was one of the top guns in Iran. So are you suggesting that he has changed his testimony through these years? If so please direct me to some evidence for me to study.

By the way Mr. Oberg, you have not answered me regarding your discriminative way of talking about Iranians. Please justify what you said as I am really bothered by those comments and I am sure it is or should not be tolerated on ATS.

Best wishes.
StringTh

Originally posted by Elvis Hendrix
If they can persuade you that its swamp gass you might stop beliving it yourself. even though you saw it with your very own eyes.

Maybe that's your problem, in that you think people see things with their eyes, instead of their minds. That's where perception occurs.

The commonly accepted figure is that somewhere between 80% and 95% [possibly higher] of UFO perceptions are erroneous, caused by misperceived or misinterpreted prosaic stimuli.

Do you believe that the actual error rate is closer to zero? What is your own view on this percentage?

Also, a lot of people seem to get into ego-defense mode by assuming that misperception is somehow a negative judgment on a person's intelligence or sobreity or honesty.

Do you believe that people who misperceive a 'UFO event' are less smart, less honest, less sober than those who don't misperceive?

I don't. If anything, in my view the more intelligent and experienced a person is, and the more self-confident they are, the more susceptible they could be to misperception.

Originally posted by StringTh

Jim Oberg said:
As for the Iranian case, the Iranian AF pilots did tend to come from a particular socio-economic class and they also rarely flew at night, as American airplane techs and military advisors knew well. Whatever the original stimuli of that story, the story itself has clearly 'evolved' over the years as testimony 'improved'. As in most dramatic encounters, the earliest direct raw testimony is critical, and it's a very perishable item that once gone cannot be reconstructed.

Not flying often in the night does not mean that one has no experiences in flying in the night. I dont want to waste your time, so could you tell me if you have studied this case and is it present on your website for me to elaborate? I like to look at some of your early raw testimonies as you state. The non-corrupted data as I am sure you mean. Jaffar Panahi was one of the top guns in Iran. So are you suggesting that he has changed his testimony through these years? If so please direct me to some evidence for me to study.

By the way Mr. Oberg, you have not answered me regarding your discriminative way of talking about Iranians. Please justify what you said as I am really bothered by those comments and I am sure it is or should not be tolerated on ATS.

Best wishes.
StringTh

OMNI magazine did extensive studies of original press reports, that I took part in, and commissioned their own translations of source materials -- this in the early 1990s. Also, Phil Klass interviewed at length a US engineer who did maintenance of the jets in question -- he reports in one of his books.

"Jaffar Panahi was one of the top guns in Iran" -- so he says? What's the evidence?

As for your allegedly hurt feelings as an Iranian, you've provided no evidence you're an Iranian, but since your English is pretty good, all I care to say is man up and get over it.

reply to post by JimOberg


Explanation: St*rred!

Then with that position and taking Descartes "cogito ergo sum" aka "I think, therefor I am" and Quantum Mechanics rules, where the observer collapses the wave function from an infinte set of possible probabilities down to a finte set of actual realities, and also the metaphysical concept of Tulpa's aka thought forms, which can possibly become manifest and then take on a life of their own after being projected consiously or unconsciously [such as poltergiest activity for an example], all wrapped up in that eternal cliche ...

"We Create Our Own Reality"

... what is real and what isn't?

Personal Disclosure: By bringing up the philosophical debate over perception and its validity or not depends on a whole set of unspoken apriori postions and I question whether you think that is truely a wise path to walk down as it broadens the scope to a large degree IMO?

Also, a lot of people seem to get into ego-defense mode by assuming that misperception is somehow a negative judgment on a person's intelligence or sobreity or honesty.

Going to add yourself to that list?

You seem to use personal attacks in most of your posts. Is your style of conversation typical of the NASA mindset or are you just being you.

Ironically the aspect I find most compelling about the alien UFO hypothesis is the olympian efforts of governments to exhaustively investigate and simultaneously deny any knowledge of the subject

If there were similar efforts to understand other ethereal phenomena, like ghosts or the loch ness monster, then we could perhaps assume that goverments simply have too much time and money to waste on such frivolity

But having personally observed highly advanced spacecraft, which make the space shuttle look like a horse and cart, I have no doubt that there exists some institution, military or alien or otherwise, that is far in advance of contemporary civilisation

And perhaps that is the great division; those who have witnessed such things are not easily reconciled with those who have not

Originally posted by JimOberg

Originally posted by StringTh

Jim Oberg said:
As for the Iranian case, the Iranian AF pilots did tend to come from a particular socio-economic class and they also rarely flew at night, as American airplane techs and military advisors knew well. Whatever the original stimuli of that story, the story itself has clearly 'evolved' over the years as testimony 'improved'. As in most dramatic encounters, the earliest direct raw testimony is critical, and it's a very perishable item that once gone cannot be reconstructed.

Not flying often in the night does not mean that one has no experiences in flying in the night. I dont want to waste your time, so could you tell me if you have studied this case and is it present on your website for me to elaborate? I like to look at some of your early raw testimonies as you state. The non-corrupted data as I am sure you mean. Jaffar Panahi was one of the top guns in Iran. So are you suggesting that he has changed his testimony through these years? If so please direct me to some evidence for me to study.

By the way Mr. Oberg, you have not answered me regarding your discriminative way of talking about Iranians. Please justify what you said as I am really bothered by those comments and I am sure it is or should not be tolerated on ATS.

Best wishes.
StringTh

OMNI magazine did extensive studies of original press reports, that I took part in, and commissioned their own translations of source materials -- this in the early 1990s. Also, Phil Klass interviewed at length a US engineer who did maintenance of the jets in question -- he reports in one of his books.

"Jaffar Panahi was one of the top guns in Iran" -- so he says? What's the evidence?

As for your allegedly hurt feelings as an Iranian, you've provided no evidence you're an Iranian, but since your English is pretty good, all I care to say is man up and get over it.

There is absolutely no problem for me to prove that I am Iranian. Do you speak farsi? We could have a conversation, maybe then you believe.

So I should man up and get over racism. Oh wow, talking about, shooting yourself in the foot. My god, you would think that there should be some sort of at least politically correct way to address your feelings but that ia of not interest to you. Yes I'm hurt by your comments and I will file an official complain to ATS on that. What they do with it is up to them. I do not ask anything more than clarifying this for me.

As to the OMNI magazine, I will be searching and researching it and I thank you for that info.

And appologies I meant of course Parviz Jafari and not the film director Jaffar Panahi. My bad.

Forget about him being a top gun. We agree that he was in the military, he was a pilot, not insane person and retired as a general. That for me is not proof but indication of him being ridiculed for coming out and saying what he believes he saw.

Nevertheless, thank you for your time.
StringTh

Originally posted by roadgravel

Also, a lot of people seem to get into ego-defense mode by assuming that misperception is somehow a negative judgment on a person's intelligence or sobreity or honesty.

Going to add yourself to that list?

You seem to use personal attacks in most of your posts. Is your style of conversation typical of the NASA mindset or are you just being you.

Please don't deflect from the question.

Help focus on the evidence, and if anyone strays -- anyone -- help steer them back into productive arguments.

Originally posted by JimOberg

The deliciously ironic aspect of this controversy is that most of the eager-believers who profess opposition to 'gummint coverups' while demanding 'disclosure' [a synonym for officially conceding the eager-believers were right all the time, so family and friends can be forced to stop laughing at them]

And you call yourself open minded. You really are a nasty little man.

Originally posted by JimOberg

Originally posted by Imtor
reply to post by JimOberg

 

I have been observing you for a while and after your posts in this thread and your quotes I can say for sure you are one of those that need to be shut down from every TV show and every internet website....

What was it I was saying about intellectual self-ghettoization?

Is somebody PAYING you to pose as a closed-minded fool?

Seriously, look in the mirror.

Without even reading your entire post I was going to say - look in the mirror and ask yourself the exact same questions about being paid to debunk, close minded etc, etc. Now that was a funny coincidence in the words used.

What are you doing here, 'Jim Oberg'? Do I sense weakness of your points? You must have failed to convince real public so now you spread your 'debunking' to a forum such as ATS that no serious investigator wants to visit, with few exceptions that only dropped by.

I am open minded for all sorts of expanations for cases that may even be considered unusual, however this is clearly not the case with every one. Even if it was, I am fine with it, seems you are not fine with it if it turns out it's not what you claim to be,

I am not arguing about the Iranian case or any specific, just in general seeing how you think is not the way - you should take your own theories and consider them a possibility as well as the cases you try to give natural explanations also a possibility rather than thinking that there is nothing unusual, unseen, undiscovered, maybe even we have nothing else to discover according to you? So all has to be explainable, or else it doesn't exist.

Maybe it is best if you stay where you have been, unrelated to UFOs, I do not see any real evidence showing that what you claim as explaination is really what it is. You are just making theories, you are not sure yourself if it as you think.

If you are, then there is nothing scientific in your approach. You show that you think a case is as you think without any solid evidence.

reply to post by StringTh


I don't think Jim made any comments that can reasonably be considered racist. Seems like you're being a little oversensitive. His "rich kids" remark, while condescending and possibly inaccurate, is in no way aimed at the Iranian race(?) as a whole, but specifically at Iranian Air Force pilots - who, he says, come from the privileged class in that nation. The remark seems to have been intended to imply that the pilot(s) involved in the incident were what? Lazy? Not really qualified to be doing what they were doing? Immature? Inexperienced? Not to be trusted to make competent observations?

As with several of Jim's assessment that I've come across, the disparity between the details related by the witnesses and any proposed prosaic explanation require us not only to assume massive misperception but also to simply ignore many of the salient details of the report, chalking them up to the wild imaginations of uninformed ignoramuses. This style of debunking is 100% reliable, as it allows us to explain every possible UFO report - past or future - in conventional terms by pointing out that some of the details reported could possibly be a result of prosaic stimuli and discarding as unimportant the more troublesome details by attributing them to imagination. The human mind can indeed create some fanciful experiences that have no basis in physical reality, so the "imagination" card and its variants can be played at any point in any explanation for any UFO report to dispose of any unaccounted-for details.

That being said, the hostility apparent in this thread and the unfortunate lack of debate of the information presented in the OP is something that maybe I should have expected, but which I would like to request be scaled back a little in favor of a more civilized discussion.

Has anyone even bothered to read the two papers in the OP? They're really not that long, and there are many points in each that could make for some interesting - and certainly more helpful - back-and-forth.

Originally posted by Elvis Hendrix
Oberg has no more idea of whats going on than you or I. The difference is its his job to belittle any notion that the UFO phenomenon is real. A pretty sad job really when you think about it. Anyone trully interested in the subject hasnt taken him seriously for years.

It's his job to say that the scientific method is not invalid or obsolete because the topic is UFOs.

He just expects from ufologists the same discipline and care that he expects from himself.

But I agree that he's not perfect, nobody is. Some cases are genuinely strange...

Either the witness is wrong or officials are wrong or maybe both are wrong...

What about this:
Stephen Michalak died in 1999 at the age of 83. So several years after this was filmed he passed away forever and his son is still left with all these questions about it..

I've spoken to people personally who've seen UFOs. Once you speak to somebody about this, your view changes from "Haha, that's crazy!" to "Gee, this is a real person..."

It's then that you realize that this isn't just on TV or in tabloid magazines. It's real.

Many of these reports are not your typical "I saw a light in the sky." They're more than that. They go so far as to explain the exterior of the craft and even to the extremes of seeing strange beings.

So either you accept that the witness is truthful and that there're potentially alien beings or strange circumstances going on or you have to pick it apart and explain it another way.

Real people can be wrong. But it's a stretch to say that they're completely wrong...

This is where the scientific community gets itself in hot water with the ufology community. When the scientific community consistently ignores witnesses and tells them that they're wrong, what happens is that there's a valley that forms and this valley separates them and causes hostility.

Regardless of your true feelings, this is the source of most of the angry debate. Witnesses do not like to be told they're wrong. And if you do this enough, a pattern forms that's hard to shake.

Newton summarises the scientific method as 'he who draws conclusions from his hypotheses forms an ingenius romance'

So long as we draw conclusions from data, even within the narrow context of a single case, then we are being scientific

Ultimately science is about making predictions of repeating phenomena and therefore will never yield absolute general conclusions regarding sporadic phenomena such as UFO sightings

Perhaps a better approach is that used to decide criminal cases where the court cannot prove 100% that the suspect is guilty but rather endeavours to prove his guilt 'beyond all reasonable doubt'

Originally posted by Orkojoker

That being said, the hostility apparent in this thread and the unfortunate lack of debate of the information presented in the OP is something that maybe I should have expected, but which I would like to request be scaled back a little in favor of a more civilized discussion.

Well said Orkojoker and I suppose it's better just to try and objectively focus on the reported facts of UFO incidents and understand why people hold certain opinions rather than engaging in personal attacks - that said, I suppose if you set yourself up as a self proclaimed 'UFO expert' within the field of corporate media then you should expect a little flak - especially if you routinely belittle people who take the UFO subject seriously without ever addressing any of the truly puzzling cases.

I'd like to directly ask Jim Oberg (again) about Dr James Mcdonald's comments on 'absurdly erroneous' official USAF UFO explanations.

Does he agree with the following three USAF evaluations and if not why not?

Thread:

*Above BlueBook* - Ohio UFO Chase , Portage County April 17, 1966

Official explanation:

'The Planet Venus'.





Thread:

The Minot AFB B-52 UFO Incident

Official explanation:

'Twinkling Stars'





Thread:

UFOs Over Edwards Air Force Base

Official explanation:

1. Astro
2. Balloon
3. Returns Due to meteorological condition

One issue I take with Oberg's article regards the following passage, which quotes Hudson Hoagland on what the author calls "the residue fallacy":

Writing in Science magazine in 1969, Hudson Hoagland expressed it as follows: "The basic difficulty inherent in any investigation of phenomena such as those of. .. UFOs is that it is impossible for science ever to prove a universal negative. There will always be cases which remain unexplained because of lack of data, lack of repeatability, false reporting, wishful thinking, deluded observers, rumors, lies, and fraud. A residue of unexplained cases is not a justification for continuing an investigation after overwhelming evidence has disposed of hypotheses of supernormality, such as beings from outer space.... Unexplained cases are simply unexplained. They can never constitute evidence for any hypothesis."

This idea, in my opinion, ignores the fact that - at least according to reputable investigators of UFO phenomena such as Jacques Vallee, J. Allen Hynek and James McDonald - there is an evident pattern among the reports that make up this "residue", a worldwide pattern in both the appearance and behavior of the objects in question. In other words, unexplained cases are not simply unexplained. They are unexplained, AND they fall into patterns which are consistent across time and location.



Another point to make about the residual unknowns it that they are generally not deemed unidentified due to a lack of clarity and detail in the report. They don't, as the quote in Oberg's article asserts, "remain unexplained due to a lack of data". Of course, there is always one crucial piece of data missing in these reports: that of the identity of the object. It has been noted, however, that reports of high strangeness by reputable observers, thoroughly investigated by competent people who make it there business to interview UFO witnesses often contain plenty of high-quality data to explain the report in conventional terms, were the object in question anything conventional.

The claim of a "lack of repeatability" in the study of UFO reports is valid. Unfortunately, that is the nature of the phenomenon. That does not justify the failure to look at what data we do have in whatever way we can. After all, if any part of the UFO phenomenon actually did represent something highly unusual - for example, the existence of non-human intelligence - we might not expect that it would manifest in a predictable manner that would be amenable to our customary scientific methods of learning about the natural world. This point can be safely ignored only if we rule out a priori the mere possibility that something like this may be lurking in that residue of unexplained reports.

The remainder of the objections put forth in this passage - "false reporting, wishful thinking, deluded observers, rumors, lies, and fraud" - should play little to no role in creating this small percentage of unknowns if investigators are doing their job of vetting alleged UFO witnesses to the best of their ability. It has been repeatedly observed by the more reputable investigators (read: Vallee, Hynek and McDonald) that the reporters of these unknowns are by all accounts sober, serious, competent individuals who are unlikely to be lying or deluded. An assessment of the likelihood that the alleged event occurred approximately as reported - a factor Hynek labelled probability and which is based on the apparent reliability of the witness - must be a key factor in the determination to plop a report into the "unidentified" bin.

Finally, we have the statement that "a residue of unexplained cases is not a justification for continuing an investigation after overwhelming evidence has disposed of hypotheses of supernormality, such as beings from outer space", a judgement which suffers from two flaws. As I said above, the issue is not just a residue of unexplained cases, but rather a residue of unexplained cases that fall into a relatively limited number of discernible patterns which recur over and over again across the globe. This, I feel, is a justification for continuing to investigate. And secondly, "overwhelming evidence" has far from "disposed of hypotheses of supernormality, such as beings from outer space." To be sure, such hypotheses are not proven, but they have not been put to rest as Hoagland implies.

I had to spend most of the day working -- watching and reporting on the Dragon docking [including one UFO-like blip], then going to studio to provide 'expert comments' for NBC Nightly News tonight, with Brian Williams. If you enjoy throwing popcorm at the screen [or kisses -- that happens occasionally too], tune in.

Originally posted by JimOberg

..then going to studio to provide 'expert comments' for NBC Nightly News tonight, with Brian Williams

Can't catch you on NBC Jim, but I did see your 'expert comments' on this TV programme at 5:30 - nice job and I hope it paid well.

I also hope you can actually address some of the points raised in this thread.

Cheers.

Originally posted by karl 12

Originally posted by JimOberg

..then going to studio to provide 'expert comments' for NBC Nightly News tonight, with Brian Williams

Can't catch you on NBC Jim, but I did see your 'expert comments' on this TV programme at 5:30 - nice job and I hope it paid well.

I also hope you can actually address some of the points raised in this thread.

Cheers.

Some points deserve response, and there are several essays I am scoping out to treat them adequately. Pester me on it, but right now I need to write some deadline stuff for paying cusomers.

The kinds of good questions I get hereabouts make all the abusive silliness of others, worth enduring. I am very impressed by the breadth and depth of expertise -- and insight -- a lot of people are willing to share.

Originally posted by JimOberg
I am very impressed by the breadth and depth of expertise -- and insight -- a lot of people are willing to share.

Well thanks Jim, that statement actually gave me a little bit more faith in our kind.

Interesting thread.