The UFO Challenge – Stanton Friedman

Originally posted by Druscilla

Originally posted by smurfy

I don't need the history lesson, I was around a while before that.

Besides, everything you are saying is based on a presumption, including conspiracy, cover up, the whole gamut of things that those who delve into UFO's indulge in, or more likely come across in their research, just like Stanton in fact, and you can be sure he knew about all that shi'te a long time ago. The stuff you are talking about is a good starting point though.

I'll readily confess to a bias in favor of more terrestrial causation when presented with an overly convenient series of events, especially as it applies to concentrations involving Psychology.

Psychology, as it applies to the examination of Space Alien Abduction/Contact events readily supplies a wealth of damning data as far as the ease of replicating Space Alien Contact/Abduction events under controlled conditions in the lab.

Psychology can also explain some UFO experiences, but, those UFO experiences described in the paradigm already fall under the blanket of misidentification, hoax, and the overall majority of reports that are simply false positives.

Beyond the Psycho-Social paradigm, Space Alien Contact/Abduction does not stand up to any real criticism.
There is thus no data sufficient to warrant any claim of ET regardless of how much anyone desires to personify the UFO phenomenon with a face belonging to any one of a growing menagerie of creatures from supermodel blonde Pleiadians, Bug-eyed Greys, Insects, Reptilians, Cat people, and many other cartoon characters.

There is indeed a UFO Phenomenon, but, what it is, is still as of yet Unknown.

I think you need to go and see a fellow shrink. Psychology is so self satisfying it's almost unethical, and is as riven with bullshi'te, and uses child like qualities and applies them to adults in a romantic fashion, your last paragraph say is all. Your last sentence amazingly, merely means that you too succumb to everything you said in much of your last paragraph. Frankly, there's now't much wrong with Stanton in his pursuits, and he is quite open about the buck, and we all have to live, and I don't see any difference there from a shrink, and a lecturer.

Apologies to mods, but I did edit the quote, the rest IMHO was needed left.

Originally posted by Druscilla
reply to post by ZetaRediculian

 

Right, like it's REALLY interesting and oh so very convenient how the Hills didn't remember anything about what "happened" until some GOVERNMENT Military Psychologists were recommended to them by an also very convenient friend with convenient High level Military Connections, and accepted to implant ... oops, um hypnotize the Hills to implant false memories ... oops, there I go again, I mean, um, Recover their memories.

Yup.
Totally legit.

Oh, FYI, Zeta Rediculi is your member name where Zeta Reticuli is the Bayer designation for a wide binary star system in the southern constellation of Reticulum.

Nice try!

nice , the usual condescending response as expected from you, instead of mature response.. i dont understand some people always resort to scorn or insult when they got nothing to add to the current discussion. Why in the heck would you want to visit forum threads when all you contribute is insults ? boggles the mind..

to the OP : Great thread , i wish this will start a mature discussion on the topic at hand.

As for Stanton's quote , i have some opinion on them regarding his belief. I think stanton is stating his belief on existence of ET and not fact / evidence. Thats what he wants to believe. Just like some debunkers think its their mission to ridicule every UFO believer. at the end it boils down to personal belief because at the end no one , and i mean NO ONE know the truth about UFO phenomena... especially debunkers..

Regarding ROSWELL, this is like entering Halls-of-Mirrors(tm) where you got confused by so many irrelevant, fantasy, myth, stories, hype and therefore the truth about roswell is now impossible to discern from the massive amount of disinformation/hype. Any UFO case that ties to roswell have to be extra carefully examined because bad data produce bad result (garbage in -> garbage out).

There are MASSIVE number of cases around the world that dont involve roswell, so why these people always refer to ROSWELL as if its a Holy Grail of UFOLOGY ? its not, UFO phenomena affect entire world not just USA. The USA centric view of Roswell along with its attendant conspiracy theories and alien corpse/underground bases are ruining the serious research of US UFOLOGY.

It seems the only real fact about ROSWELL is that something crashed there and retreived by military. Not necessarily a flying saucer mind you, might be just another mundane secret man made object. but the massive amount of hearsay added to the mix ruin the true story and make it into MYTHOLOGY as it is now.

Regarding evidence of ET, again stanton friedman (imho) state his belief and not a real fact of evidence. there's not a single hard evidence of ET. all the UFO cases traces (physical/radar/psychical) dont lead to ET evidence, maybe they are made to seem like that but no hard evidence from them, just theories. The quote indicates that stanton cherry picked cases because he state that while some UFO are ET some are not, now which is which ? how do you know which one is which ? because the entities posing as UFOnaut told the witness (CE3) so ? how do the witness (CE3) knew the entities telling the truth ?

As for Carl Sagan, he was a closet UFOLOGIST and yet he put on different face on public. Just like a lot of scientist who dont want ridicule from his peers and lost funding. Many people have different opinion inside and different face in public, just like debunkers of UFOLOGY. Some received financial reward for their constant debunking of UFOLOGY, some do it just like an Atheist denouncing God, thats to say to defend his BELIEF.

regards

Originally posted by Druscilla
reply to post by ZetaRediculian

 

And how many hypnotic sessions did this couple undergo?
How many regular/repeated sessions are necessary to implant false memories, oops, sorry again, um, recover memories?
You may want to look into hypnosis and some rather fun facts about how False Memory Syndrome comes about, oh, wait, there I go again, how memories are 'recovered'.

i would caution taking too much from result of hypnosis session. especially UFO phenomena witnesses experiencing time loss. the hypnosis sessions should be done by a profesional hypnosis that dont have prejudice (against/for) to UFOLOGY and the Hypnotist shoulnt lead the witness with his questions.

even when everything going well , the hypnosys result should be taken with grain of salt since the limitless imagination of human mind and the tendency of human mind to fill out the gaps can dillute the real data.

maybe the 80-20 rule applies here , look for at least 80% result and discardd the 20%.. the hard thing is to define which part is the 80% and which part the 20%

Originally posted by Druscilla
reply to post by ZetaRediculian

 

I wasn't attacking you or your name ZetaRed.
I was pointing out that you used the "D" like your username as opposed to the proper "T" in naming the "star map".

That's rediculous. D and T are inderchanable sounds in Japanese.

In the end, it doesn't matter who interviewed whom, and what was believed.
Friedman isn't a lie detector, nor does he have any concentration in Psychology, so, other than being a talking head that threw away his career in Nuclear Physics to make more money on the entertainment circuit of the UFOlogy circus, how he 'feels' about eye-witness testimony is essentially worthless.

Really? I have a degree in psychology but I don't understand physics. So I guess I am more able to understand things psychologically. That makes no sense and there is absolutely no point to that statement whatsoever.

No amount of testimony from anyone except perhaps a verifiable ET is worth more than just entertainment unless testimony is corroborated by hard data.
All we really have with the Hill case is a story.

the star map is pretty solid. What are the odds..,,,,,?,,,? Several thousand : 1

Royal Flush 4 1 in 649,740.00
Straight Flush 36 1 in 72,193.33
Four of a Kind 624 1 in 4,165.00

Those are some interesting odds which prove things do happen.

The movie Avatar, or StarWars presents more credible evidence for the existence of ET than some story by some folk; a story that has enough holes and discrepancy to put serious question to its verisimilitude.

Ok. I'm done

Originally posted by milomilo

Originally posted by Druscilla
reply to post by ZetaRediculian

 

And how many hypnotic sessions did this couple undergo?
How many regular/repeated sessions are necessary to implant false memories, oops, sorry again, um, recover memories?
You may want to look into hypnosis and some rather fun facts about how False Memory Syndrome comes about, oh, wait, there I go again, how memories are 'recovered'.

even when everything going well , the hypnosys result should be taken with grain of salt since the limitless imagination of human mind and the tendency of human mind to fill out the gaps can dillute the real data.

That is true, and Barney was different than Betty, and it is not clear that he was ever really hypnotised, or was somewhere in the middle, although we know that they were both subjected to hypnotism. Barney was able though to produce this drawing, and talked about extending wings, red lights, German like people and all the rest including not particularly a disc shape per se



Compare that to the Kumburgaz picture,



So similar with 60 years whatever in between. Not something that you would consider as applied Psychology back then.

Stanton has a PhD in Nuclear Physics. That defines him as a Nuclear Physicist.
He worked as a Nuclear Physicist early in his career.
Irregardless of what he does in his day job today, that achievement is a lifetime title.
If I had a PhD in Nuclear Physics, I would certainly use the title I worked so hard for as well.
He could also put "Dr." in front of his name, but does not choose to do that formally.

I do not know why so many people have a problem with his title, because that is what he is.
He gives credibility to a fringe subject that very few PhD.s are willing to even comment on.

Long live Dr. Stanton Friedman.

reply to post by charlyv


No, a Master's plus about 14 years work experience as a nuclear physicist.
But he's got the credentials and actually worked in the field.

Originally posted by charlyv
Stanton has a PhD in Nuclear Physics. That defines him as a Nuclear Physicist.
He worked as a Nuclear Physicist early in his career.
Irregardless of what he does in his day job today, that achievement is a lifetime title.
If I had a PhD in Nuclear Physics, I would certainly use the title I worked so hard for as well.
He could also put "Dr." in front of his name, but does not choose to do that formally.

I do not know why so many people have a problem with his title, because that is what he is.
He gives credibility to a fringe subject that very few PhD.s are willing to even comment on.

Long live Dr. Stanton Friedman.

edit on 24-3-2013 by charlyv because: spelling where caught

Might have something to do with the fact he uses his credentials to constantly spew the same tired arguments from authority, while at the end of the day, his words carry no more validity than a high school dropout's. In fact, I'd be much more interested in the words of a high school dropout with relevant, tangible evidence rather than Stan the Physicist and his useless rhetoric.

Also, what does nuclear physics have to do with UFOs? Last I recall, nuclear physics has nothing do with UFOs. It would be on thing if he was an astrophysicist, but he's not. It's not unlike some dental-surgeon turned conspiracy theorist billing himself as "surgeon" and claiming there is a "pharmaceutical watergate" and that the government has colluded with big pharma to kill us all. Even if his claims are ridiculous, many people tend to be misled by credentials even if they are only tangentially related to the subject at hand.

The problem with his statements is that it hinges on the fact that Roswell was a real UFO.

So what if it wasnt? Well we know what all UFO believers would do... "Well, maybe THAT isnt real, but THIS [presents random UFO picture/sighting] looks real [thus implying everything before it is real as well]!!!"

Hell it even happened in this very thread. Look a few posts above. That was pretty much proven to be a boat window in the night.

And round and round the argument goes.

If Stan is a fraud doing it simply for the money, or an agent of disinformation, he is in his 70s now and still sticking to his guns. So my guess is he truly believes there is a Cosmic Watergate.

The "facts" he often quotes have been dissected and pulled apart by others. They are more like assumptions that Stan has come to. In a way, Friedman is part and parcel of the creation of Roswell and MJ12 mythos with his writing and lectures on the topic. Even though both have large elements of questionable evidence and misinformation. So the topics have become a self fulfilling one for him in a way.

I think it's fair to say that without people like Stanton Friedman then UFOlogy would be a lot less exciting. He gets people interested in the subject even if further down the line they may not ultimately agree with some or even all of his conclusions.


Out of interest ,here are Stan's choices for 10 most interesting cases when asked by Fortean Times 9 published in 2007:

1. The Betty and Barney Hill case

2. Roswell (if it wasn’t alien, why has the US government lied so much about it? Wonder if they are working on Explanation 5?)

3. The Yukon mother ship case, because of Martin Jacek’s fine work.

4. The RB 47 case.

5. Rendlesham, 1980.

6. Iran, 1976.

7. McMinnville, Oregon, 1950.

8. The Travis Walton case, Arizona.

9. Malmstrom Air Force Base.

10. Delphos, Kansas (lots of work on the soil).

Source: www.forteantimes.com...

All of these have been covered on ATS and can be found with the "Search" function for further reading.

That was pretty much proven to be a boat window in the night.

reply to post by merka


No..it wasn't.

The part where the "UFO" "changes" configuration has not been explained by the boat window hypothesis.

reply to post by mirageman


Billy Meier also sticks to his guns.
He's been doing his thing for well over half a century!

Further, he continues to prop himself up as some self appointed (chosen by aliens as the reincarnation of the ... ) messiah. Have a look at his FIGU organization. It's all about promoting himself as some messiah, here to save the planet (through the decree of magical super model aliens).

He's got volumes and volumes of something he's been writing that equates to being The Billy Meier Bible.
He's even got a save-earth-from-overpopulation plan with his Birth Stop Petition which involves the forced sterilization of peoples all over the planet with only a certain few privileged stratosphere thin set of people allowed to breed (with his approval, of course).

He's got public relations people, followers in the thousands that 'tithe' him around 10% of their annual income as well as making annual mandatory pilgrimages to his farm to labor (for free) for a week or two.
He's got Books, and DVDs, the clearest pictures of "UFOs" (models on fishing line using forced perspective) pictures ever seen, and the backing of an entire inter-planetary civilization (The Pledaians) where children worship him as a super hero of Earth and hold competitions to name his books and DVDs.

How can we discount an entire technologically advanced interplanetary civilization who's children worship Meier as a super hero?

Uh, huh.
Stanton Friedman by comparison to this god-like figure of Billy Meier is nothing, yet, Meier is a fraud.
Where does that put Friedman?
Friedman is an entertainer. He put on a decent show in the early years when he might have actually believed that he cared about the subject and maintaining scientific objectivity, but, over time, in seeing the parade of buffoons and charlatans sharing the metaphoric tour bus with him on the UFO lecture circuit, it became obvious that he didn't even have to really try to do anything much other than preach to the choir, coast along on dusty laurels of the past, and he'd get paid for essentially doing nothing but showing up, and spouting any old gibberish.

Claiming Aliens exist is just another button for him to push in validating the delusions of already sold nutters and believers at UFO conventions.

The biggest problem with the UFO phenomenon is the vast majority of people that adhere to an interest in it. Very few, the villainous, and usually hated few that don't tell the nutters and believers what they want to hear, are the only saving grace.

Originally posted by ZetaRediculian
reply to post by Druscilla

 

Whatever.

So attack my user name? Well, if you cant discuss the data, attack the person. You are obviously are a noisy negativist. I would love to have an actual discussion with you, but you obviously have no idea what you are talking about.

Stanton Friedman personally interviewed Betty Hill and believed her story. She is definitely one of the more credible witnesses.

I wonder when people will start to understand that belief is irrelevant when talking about facts.

"I believe he is the killer" Hmm ok.. ya thats a conviction right there Joe.

I would also like to point out something, while i find stanton one of the more "credible" people who speak on UFOs and ET. What new information has he released overall in the past 10 years?

I have seen this guy give interviews/lectures from the early 90s on up to..i think the last one i saw him do was in 2010,
at any rate, he doesn't bring out anything new.The words he says may change and he may tell a story a different way, but overall its the same hat trick.


I have seen many "Credible" people speak on UFOS, and the ET phenomenon, most of them don't say anything new it seems. Its rather disappointing, and leads me to think they are just in it for the money and not actually out doing any more research on the subject matter.

reply to post by mirageman


I've been in bed sick since Friday and decided to go on a little conspiracy theory binge on Netflix. I learned so much about aliens, 9/11, NWO, etc.

Four of the shows I watched were about aliens and every single show had Friedman on it. lol I personally have no issues with him. He seems to be pretty articulate and well grounded. He didn't seem to be nutty at all.

I just have a hard time believing a space ship operated by aliens could make an interstellar flight without incident and then crash here on Earth...

I like some of his info, his writing, but also find that it contains a box, his directions about what he considers real and not, is a box. Run from all boxes as fast you can. They want to own the field and define what is. And real experiencers are often much different than their ideas, and its not all the same, seems to relate to all the different souls everyone is, its not exactly cookie cutter model. But all of it is related to your soul and previous experiences and the teams up there watching over. In his case, since I don't know and don't want to guess, cannot tell if he is just trained in the scientific model, therefor in a box, or whether he is on agenda. I prefer to just like him without prejuding, anyway and sift through the info, as I do with anyone in the limelight.

Originally posted by GR1ill3d
I would also like to point out something, while i find stanton one of the more "credible" people who speak on UFOs and ET. What new information has he released overall in the past 10 years?

I have seen this guy give interviews/lectures from the early 90s on up to..i think the last one i saw him do was in 2010,
at any rate, he doesn't bring out anything new.The words he says may change and he may tell a story a different way, but overall its the same hat trick.


I have seen many "Credible" people speak on UFOS, and the ET phenomenon, most of them don't say anything new it seems. Its rather disappointing, and leads me to think they are just in it for the money and not actually out doing any more research on the subject matter.

edit on 3/24/1313 by GR1ill3d because: (no reason given)

I'd ask what overall new material has he really released in 20 years?

Friedman concentrates on the Hill abduction, his Roswell work and the MJ12 documents. Those are his main spheres of reference and the ones he will continually refer to when talking to the media. That and the fact that he worked in nuclear physics once upon a time.

But he remains one of the go to people for a TV or radio programme and his name will sell books and conference tickets. Stan is a what I would call an "infotainer". He knows what the public want to hear and that's why he's been doing what he does for 5 decades.

reply to post by Druscilla


Back to normal here.....

There is a documentary called "Stanton Friedman is Real". Now I watched this show when I was intrigued by him but there was one thing that kind of changed my mind about his sincerity. One skeptic made a point regarding Roswell and MJ12 inferring that Stan knew they weren't true but at one time believed them to be true. The point was that you can't just change your mind after you have all those books written and lectures to do. Who would buy those books then?

To me he is in that grey area. Not a fraud but...

reply to post by ZetaRediculian


He's become a product, a brand. Products and Brands must sway to consumer demand to survive in the market.