Highly Dubious USAF UFO Explanations.

• Researcher Jerome Clarke on USAF attitudes towards Police Officer Lonnie Zamora's UFO encounter:

See 12:10

• UFO incident involving Beauford Parham on June, 30th, 1964 where a 'top shaped' UFO burned the arms of the witness and caused heat damage to the car - also a similar burns case here from the same month.



Bluebook evaluation:

Ball lightning.







• This case happened after the closure of Bluebook but also involves a UFO descending on (and causing damage to) a police patrol car.

Officer Val Johnson lost consciousness and 14 minutes from both his car clock and his wristwatch - doctors also found his eyes were affected as if he had suffered 'mild welder's burns'.

link

Thanks to Dr Condon's conclusions being used as an excuse to close down USAF UFO investigations we only have the (highly dubious) explanation from CSICOP debunker Philip Klass.. who said it was just a 'hoax'.

Another case here involving an army helicopter encountering a UFO which CSICOP debunker Philip Klass said was just a 'meteor'.

link

And another pretty crazy UFO incident from Tehran described below which CSICOP debunker Philip Klass said was just the planet 'Jupiter'.

link

a reply to: JimOberg

The criticism of BB, or of Vallee, Hynek, Moody et al, seems for the most part to be dependent on preconceived (or to be generous unconscious) bias.

That ultimately is the issue with it, in that its given objectives were created from a different angle than that the Ufology community would have come from. Further then complicated by the "scientific" approach of classification.

I quote from your link - "These reports will never provide any convincing evidence that UFOs are something unknown to science. They will only indicate that something was seen that was unidentifiable."

If I agree with the reports methodology of classification then I can agree with above but any real study of the phenomenon cannot simply wash its hands of the high strangeness cases, in fact it should do the opposite.

The reason you give for reviewing the cases - "I continue to look at these “unknowns” to see if there are “reasonable explanations” for them." Considering your conclusion above then what is the point - to reclassify a few unknowns as could have been a meteor ?

Science would have been better served investigating the cases where there was no possible prosaic explanation but then the Air Force wasn't there to do science was it.

originally posted by: karl 12

And another pretty crazy UFO incident from Tehran described below which CSICOP debunker Philip Klass said was just the planet 'Jupiter'.

link

The Iran F4 case… one of my favorites.

The skeptical `explanation’ looks a bit like Frankenstein’s Monster: dubious simplifications of selected fragments haphazardly stitched together. We have Jupiter for the head, malfunctioning equipment for the torso and meteors for the limbs.

This link contains an interesting interview with Lt. Gen. Azarbarzin, at that time the deputy commander in chief of operations of the Imperial Iranian Air Force.

He interviewed the pilots and states that both jets had a radar lock-on and both jets were jammed with very wide band EM radiation when they got close (15-20 miles) to the UFO. This caused both of them to lose almost every avionics system on the airplane (until they enlarged their distance to the UFO again).

He also states that the UFO’s acceleration was remarkable, “especially going from zero speed maybe to Mach 3”.

And of course we all know the second pilot by now, the late Gen. Jafari:

a reply to: Guest101

Always liked this interview where Peter Gersten brings up the Tehran documents mate - he also talks about legal action taken against the CIA and FBI over the release of 1000's of UFO related documents and discusses lawsuits brought against the NSA, DIA and FAA.





Also more on Tehran below from Professor Michael Swords including an inclusion in the NSA's intelligence magazine from Major Henry Shields.

The Air Force Admits Again That UFOs Are Real and Nobody's Listening.

In those documents were phrases like "outstanding report", "case is a classic", "meets all the criteria for a valid study of the UFO phenomenon"...I kid you not.

link

Cheers

originally posted by: chunder

but then the Air Force wasn't there to do science was it.

Don't think it was mate and there's an interesting USAF document here about how to 'explain' UFOs to the public.

You mentioned 'given objectives' so thought it was relevant that when the USAF did sponsor the Colorado study, it wasn't for a scientific review of the UFO subject (although it was sold as one) but the actual contract was simply to answer two (and only two) questions:


• Were UFOs a threat to National Security?

• Will the further study of UFOs contribute anything to scientific knowledge?


Despite Dr Condon omitting 'some of the most puzzling cases on record' and never even investigating one case here's part of his conclusion (which he actually wrote before reading his own report).


• 'further extensive study of UFOs probably cannot be justified in the expectation that science will be advanced thereby'


It's pretty amazing just how many articles (and pdf files) dealing with severe scientific criticism of the Condon 'whitewash' have now disappeared but did manage to save this one:

1966 - 1968--The University of Colorado Study

...Of some 90 cases considered, almost 30 were not explained. As an indication of the lack of serious intent of the study, only three unexplained cases from the Air Force's total of almost 600 were looked into. It should have been obvious that if there was anything truly mysterious or even mildly interesting about UFOs, it could probably have been found in the cases that the Air Force admitted it could not explain.

Among the conclusions for cases the Condon Committee staff failed to explain were these samples of several they obviously found quite baffling:


5/11/50, Oregon. "This is one of the few UFO reports in which all factors investigated, geometric, psychological and physical, appear to be consistent with the assertion that an extraordinary flying object, silvery, metallic, disk-shaped, tens of meters in diameter and evidently artificial, flew within sight of two witnesses."


5/7/52, Brazil. ". . . one of the strongest and demonstrably 'genuine' flying saucer sightings."


8/5/53, South Dakota. ". . . no tenable conclusions can be reached."


6/23/55, New York. ". . . this sighting defies explanation by conventional means."


8/13/56, England. "The preponderance of evidence indicates the possibility of a genuine UFO in this case . . . ." [Unfortunately, the intriguing phrase "a genuine UFO" is not defined.]


5/13/67, Colorado. "This must remain as one of the most puzzling radar cases on record."


Despite the failure of the Condon Committee's final report to explain more than 30% of the cases investigated, it had the desired effect. In December 1969, the Air Force's Project Blue Book investigation was shut down, and a 25-year period of official silence began.

Lots more quotes but here's what Ronald D Story from the AIAA Subcommittee had to say about it:

"The opposite conclusion could have been drawn from The Condon Report's content, namely, that a phenomenon with such a high ratio of unexplained cases (about 30 percent) should arouse sufficient scientific curiosity to continue its study.

From a scientific and engineering standpoint, it is unacceptable to simply ignore substantial numbers of unexplained observations...

Ronald D Story - American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics UFO Subcommittee

Really do wonder if the U.S. public realise just how much they've been bullsh•tted when it comes to official government UFO investigations (and explanations).

Cheers.

originally posted by: JimOberg

why do you hassle me on my proposed explanations of SOME cases?

Well Jim you haven't really proposed any (or addressed any of the debunks, deceptions or fudged statistics in this thread).

You'd think as a person touted by the corporate media as a 'UFO expert' you'd actually be interested in objectively discussing the subject and addressing the very serious concerns raised over contradictions in the small residue assumption you keep promoting.

Also, the title of the thread is 'Highly Dubious USAF UFO Explanations' so I'm a bit mystified as to why you keep posting on it whilst simultaneously refusing to address the highly dubious USAF UFO explanations.

Sorry if you feel 'hassled' - guess I should know better than to ask open, direct questions in reply to your posts.

Another possible candidate involving Jupiter:

In 1965, Oklahoma Police, the Tinker Air Force Base, and a local meteorologist using weather radar independently tracked four unexplained flying objects. Under Quintanilla’s advisement, Project Blue Book would claim that these witnesses had simply observed the planet Jupiter. The problem with this explanation? Jupiter wasn’t even visible in the night’s sky. “The Air Force must have had its star finder upside-down during August,” Robert Riser, an Oklahoma planetarium director, said at the time. A series of more badly botched scientific explanations eventually led to a congressional hearing.

link

Kind of reminiscent of the Red Bluff case where Bluebook insisted the police UFO sightings were caused by Mars, Aldebaran and Betelgeuse.

The three celestial objects weren't even in the sky at the time so they changed the explanation to 'Capella'.

Police statements:

.. I have been told we saw Northern lights, a weather balloon, and now refractions.

… I served 4 years with the Air Force, I believe I am familiar with the Northern lights, also weather balloons. Officer Scott served as a paratrooper during the Korean Conflict. Both of us are aware of the tricks light can play on the eyes during darkness.

We were aware of this at the time. Our observations and estimations of speed, size, etc. came from aligning the object with fixed objects on the horizon. I agree we find it difficult to believe what we were watching, but no one will ever convince us that we were witnessing a refraction of light

The Red Bluff Police UFO Incident - August, 1960

Does anybody actually think this kind of officially sanctioned pseudo-scientific style of debunking is good enough?

Especially when the contents of the internal government UFO documentation were not really following the BS line they were feeding the public.

"For the government to continue to maintain that UFOs are non-existent in the face of the documents already released and of other cogent evidence presented in this book is puerile and ,in a sense, an insult to the American people".

Dr J Allen Hyneck,Phd, Former scientist with Project Bluebook.

Good summation of the Condon report describing how John Northrop (founder of Northrop Aircraft / Lockheed Corporation) described it as:

"One of the most deliberate cover ups ever perpetrated on the public"

Also reports that he told an audience of the California Institute of technology that "The twenty first century will die laughing at the Condon report".

From 1:26:20

'UFO Theory Gains Support' - Star News, Pasadena California, January 30th 1973.

link

originally posted by: karl 12

The Robertson Panel, as it came to be known,, was hampered by men of Page's mindset and thrown off by the highly selective presentation of UFO cases by the CIA, charged one of the attending Air Force officers. "We were double-crossed," commented a Blue Book member. "The CIA (didn't) want to prepare the public - they're trying to bury the subject. Those agents ran the whole show and the scientists followed their lead.

Following on from the above paragraph there's a nice clip below featuring Dr Hynek standing in the room where the Robertson panel was convened describing their unscientific debunking agenda for specific cases.

See 56:40

Dr. Mark Rodeghier & David Marler discuss the recent preservation efforts of the worlds largest collection of UFO case files, the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) archives.

Incident reported in the April 7th 1978 edition of the Tacoma Washington News Tribune:


• February 16th, 1978 - Shemya Island, Aleutian Chain, Alaska.

Personnel at Cobra Dane radar installation report observing 'five round glowing objects which appeared to hover and zip back and forth at incredible speed' - unidentified targets also appeared on radar screens.

See 4:05

USAF Explanation:

Stars and planets

Dubious? Try outright bold faced lies

Let's not church it up. They lie and therefore are liars. IE: the air force is a liar

Not just the AF. The whole of he government, one lie after lie after lie

Liars have no credibility. Many of those sightings were ET related, obviously given that mere humans are not smart enough to accomplish such feats (they outclass us military in all ways)

Anyway, liars should never be believed.

Draw your own conclusions, while knowing they're lying, stealing, scheming and worse

Dirty people, really

Take area 51 as a limited example. The Russians can fly a recon plane right over that base. Yet they LIED to the people paying their broke # about the same

The excuse of national security is another lie told by gutless liars. They hide what they're doing with our money and in our name, because if we knew we'd demand the standing armies be abolished as our Constitution requires

Bye bye liars!!

a reply to: karl 12

Why would it shut down? If anything it would be more busy by now...

I just finished watching "The Phenomenon" and hands down... has the be the best docu on the subject so far.
I would go as far as calling it soft disclosure (from the human side).

Both the Ariel and Westall encounters are amazing. Especially the Ariel one with damn telepathy going on.... I mean wtf!? This was in 1994 and the internet had pretty much only just started to take shape. But these kids experienced thoughts about us as a race taking the wrong path in regards to tech and caretaking for Earth.

I wish those beings would have gotten out of the craft in Westall as well. Just to give a connection between the two incidents.

The Belgium officer in the docu, asked "Why do they want to be seen?"

- Well, that's the alien way of soft disclosing imo. I hate the idea that any government believes they should be the ones to make contact and then get to choose what to disclose... the fact that these craft landed next to common folks and especially kids show that their intention is for the world to know, not selected government officials.

We simply cannot trust any official in being able to do what's best for the entirity of the human race.

So... they choose the kids and the common folks, because that removes power from these high ranking idiots.

But, I would also expect, when full disclosure is made from the alien side, that they will not be offering us the secret of the universe... they will not be offering us amazing tech and stellar travel.
Because we are still immature. Everything we do, is planned and accumulated around the average life expectancy of humans; "What's in it for me!? I want mooore!"

It's just so god damn ignorant... Why do we keep electing idiots and schooled politicians for decision makers?
And no... I don't mean we should have kept Trump, he's the king of immature. But we need a whole new way of thinking and planning, and have needed this for 1000s of years.

originally posted by: JBurns
Dubious? Try outright bold faced lies

Let's not church it up. They lie and therefore are liars. IE: the air force is a liar

Not just the AF. The whole of he government, one lie after lie after lie

Liars have no credibility. Many of those sightings were ET related, obviously given that mere humans are not smart enough to accomplish such feats (they outclass us military in all ways)

Anyway, liars should never be believed.

Draw your own conclusions, while knowing they're lying, stealing, scheming and worse

Dirty people, really

Yes, but I think it's becoming more evident by now, that maybe... that which Clinton joked about, probably isn't too far fetched. There probably are a large group succesfully withholding knowledge or tech and it's posible simply because the system is too complex for its own good.
Heck Aatip wasn't even hidden per say, but still only got found out this late?!

And then there's the art imitates life idea... 20.000 dollar doorhandles etc.

a reply to: flice

Amen to that flice!!!!!

I think you are right, and its criminal they would even have the ability to withhold such information

To me it shows how broken beyond repair the system really is

Much like their unlawful claims on nuclear energy (which keeps us stuck in the stone age, paying for our energy)

This is why I give so much weight to folks like Bob Lazar and Col. Corso among others. Even Rick Doty, who seems to really have it in his heart that he wants to make up for all the government ordered disinfo he did at AFOSI*

*Little gems like this makes such a belief much, much easier

originally posted by: karl 12
...
Don't suppose we're any closer to identifying the origin of Unidentified Flying Objects but certainly think a good case can be made for official government UFO investigations attempting to mislead the general public and initiate a 'cover up' of information.
...

Philip Klass, former senior editor of Aviation Week and someone who has studied the subject of UFO sightings, explained UFO’s as natural phenomena or as incorrect identifications. Klass’s thought is that people who are suddenly exposed to a brief unexpected event “may be grossly inaccurate in trying to describe precisely what they have seen.”

In his book Pseudoscience and the Paranormal, Terence Hines states that “careful investigation has resulted in straightforward natural explanations for even very impressive-sounding UFO reports. . . . All these cases make clear the nearly total unreliability of eyewitness reports. In almost every case, the witnesses’ reports differed substantially from the actual stimulus, but in only a very few cases were the witnesses willfully lying. Their knowledge about what UFOs ‘ought’ to look like influenced their reports, along with the effects of visual illusions.”

The author of a 1988 publication took advantage of the Freedom of Information Act, established in 1966 in the United States, together with sources in other countries, to gather information that according to him “proves beyond doubt that there has been a monumental cover-up of the UFO subject.”​—Above Top Secret, by Timothy Good.

On the other hand, Professor Hines argues that the 997 pages of documents released, covering the period from 1949 to 1979, do not reveal an attempt at a government cover-up. He states: “An examination of the secret CIA papers and documents on UFOs reveals an agency mildly interested in the phenomenon but skeptical of the extraterrestrial hypothesis. These documents . . . also contradict the oft-repeated claims of a government cover-up of the ‘truth’ about UFOs.”

Furthermore, alleges Professor Hines, “there is no UFO photo that can be considered genuine showing anything other than vague shapes or blobs of light.”

a reply to: whereislogic

Well... at some point, when you have spent a lot of years just observing people, you get good at telling who is a liar and who is not... or... who firmly believes in what he or she is saying.
There's always a give away... either they suck at lying or they try too hard to use the techniques they are taught to use when covering up.

What I mean: im more interested in peoples eyes and body language when they tell about their experience.

To be honest, i have zero respect for any professor ro experts opinion, least of all about their comments on photos, that is appointed by any official channels that does not first and foremost have the general public at interest.

Condon made sure of that, that lying piece of sh**

originally posted by: flice
a reply to: whereislogic
...
To be honest, i have zero respect for any professor ro experts opinion, least of all about their comments on photos, that is appointed by any official channels that does not first and foremost have the general public at interest.

I don't think people who write about the UFO phenomena the way Timothy Good writes about it, have the general public at interest. They've just found a nice niche market to sell their books to, among other ways of converting attention into money.

It's part of the entertainment industry, and in that industry, attention = revenue (after conversion, or capitalizing on that attention). The debunkers of the ET hypothesis (regarding UFO's) or the government cover-up idea, are likewise capitalizing on a niche market. I think they're more concerned about making money* than covering up something for the government. (*: at least in the form of salary, pretending to be doing something useful for their wages or research grants. In the sciences there's a common phrase used that says 'publish or perish'; but you'll still need to publish something that people take an interest in, otherwise you still perish into scientific obscurity, not advancing your career in the sciences with a corresponding level of income as much as those who captivate the attention of the potential readers of their publications. In that sense, the sciences also often function very similar to the entertainment industry; especially the science-fiction or pseudoscience of things like string theory, M-theory, the multiverse and life on other planets, or life emerging spontaneously on other planets by chance)

Extraterrestrials—Where Are They? (Awake!—1990)

ACCORDING to science writer Isaac Asimov, this is “a question that, in a way, spoils everything” for those who believe in life on other planets. Originally posed in 1950 by nuclear physicist Enrico Fermi, the question capped an argument that went something like this: If intelligent life has arisen on other planets in our galaxy, many civilizations should now exist that are millions of years ahead of our own. They should have developed interstellar travel long ago and spread abroad in the galaxy, colonizing and exploring at will. So where are they?

While some SETI scientists are admittedly shaken by this “Fermi paradox,” they often reply to it by pointing out how difficult it would be to voyage between the stars. Even at the speed of light, enormous though that is, it would take a spaceship a hundred thousand years to traverse just our own galaxy. Surpassing that speed is deemed impossible.

Science fiction that features ships hopping from one star to another in a matter of days or hours is fantasy, not science. The distances between stars are vast almost beyond our comprehension. In fact, if we could build a model of our galaxy so tiny that our sun (which is so huge that it could swallow a million earths) was shrunk to the size of an orange, the distance between the stars in this model would still average a thousand miles [some 1,500 km]!

That is why SETI scientists lean so strongly on radio telescopes; they imagine that since advanced civilizations might not travel between stars, they would still seek out other forms of life by the relatively cheap and easy means of radio waves. But Fermi’s paradox still haunts them.

American physicist Freeman J. Dyson has concluded that if advanced civilizations exist in our galaxy, finding evidence of them should be as easy as finding signs of technological civilization on Manhattan Island in New York City. The galaxy should be buzzing with alien signals and their immense engineering projects. But none have been found. In fact, one article on the subject noted that “searched, found nothing” has become like a religious chant for SETI astronomers.

The Doubts Begin

A number of scientists are beginning to realize that their colleagues have made far too many optimistic assumptions in addressing this question. Such scientists come up with a much lower number of advanced civilizations in our galaxy. Some have said that there is but one​—us. Others have said that mathematically, there should be fewer than one​—even we shouldn’t be here!

The basis for their skepticism is not hard to see. It could be summed up with two questions: If such extraterrestrials existed, where would they live? And how did they get there?

‘Why, they would live on planets,’ some might reply to the first question. But there is only one planet in our solar system that is not downright hostile to life, the one we occupy. But what about the planets circling the thousands of millions of other stars in our galaxy? Might not some of them harbor life? The fact is that up to now scientists have not conclusively proved the existence of a single planet outside of our solar system. Why not?

Because to detect one is exceedingly difficult. Since stars are so distant and planets do not emit any light of themselves, detecting even a giant planet, such as Jupiter, is like trying to spot a speck of dust floating around a powerful light bulb miles away.

Even if such planets do exist​—and some indirect evidence has accumulated to indicate that they do—​this still does not mean that they orbit precisely the right kind of star in the right galactic neighborhood, at precisely the right distance from the star, and are themselves of precisely the right size and composition to sustain life.

A Crumbling Foundation

Yet, even if many planets do exist that meet the stringent conditions necessary to sustain life as we know it, the question remains, How would life arise on those worlds? This brings us to the very foundation of the belief in beings on other worlds​—evolution.

To many scientists, it seems logical to believe that if life could evolve from nonliving matter on this planet, that could be true on others as well. As one writer put it: “The general thinking among biologists is that life will begin whenever it is given an environment where it can begin.” But that is where evolution faces an insurmountable objection. Evolutionists cannot even explain how life began on this planet.

Scientists Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe estimate that the odds against life’s vital enzymes forming by chance are one in 10^40,000 (1 with 40,000 zeros after it). Scientists Feinberg and Shapiro go still further. In their book Life Beyond Earth, they put the odds against the material in an organic soup ever taking the first rudimentary steps toward life at one in 10^1,000,000. If we were to write out that number, this magazine in your hand would be well over 300 pages thick!

Do you find these cumbersome figures hard to grasp? The word “impossible” is easier to remember, and it is just as accurate.* [*: The rest of evolutionary theory is equally fraught with trouble. ...]

Still, SETI astronomers blithely assume that life must have originated by chance all over the universe. Gene Bylinsky, in his book Life in Darwin’s Universe, speculates on the various paths evolution might have taken on alien worlds. He suggests that intelligent octopuses, marsupial men with pouches on their stomachs, and bat-​people who make musical instruments are not at all farfetched. Renowned scientists have praised his book. However, other scientists, such as Feinberg and Shapiro, see the gaping flaw in such reasoning. They decry the “weakness in the basic experimental foundations” of scientists’ theories about how life got started on earth. They note, though, that scientists nonetheless “have used these foundations to erect towers that extend to the end of the Universe.”

The Wrong Religion

‘Why,’ you may wonder, ‘do so many scientists take the impossible for granted?’ The answer is simple and rather sad. People tend to believe what they want to believe. Scientists, for all their claims of objectivity, are not exempt from this human failing.

Hoyle and Wickramasinghe observe that “the theory that life was assembled by an intelligence” is “vastly” more probable than spontaneous generation. “Indeed,” they add, “such a theory is so obvious that one wonders why it is not widely accepted as being self-​evident. The reasons are psychological rather than scientific.” Yes, many scientists recoil from the idea of a Creator, even though the evidence points that way. In the process, they have created a religion of their own. As the above authors see it, Darwinism simply replaces the word “God” with the word “Nature.”

So in answer to the question, “Is anyone out there?” science clearly gives no grounds for belief in life on other planets. In fact, as the years pass and the silence from the stars continues, SETI is a growing embarrassment to scientists who believe in evolution. If various types of life evolve readily from nonlife, then why do we not hear from them in this vast universe? Where are they?

On the other hand, if the question belongs in the realm of religion, how do we find an answer? Did God create life on other worlds?

[Box on page 8]
Visitors From Beyond?
Many people believe that man is being visited, or has been visited in the past, by extraterrestrials. Scientists generally dismiss these claims; they cite the lack of verifiable evidence in all cases and maintain that most UFO (unidentified flying object) sightings can be explained by natural phenomena. They tend to relegate the abduction claims to unexplored areas of the troubled human psyche or to psychological and religious needs.

One science-fiction writer noted: “The urge to investigate and believe in this stuff is almost religious. We used to have gods. Now we want to feel we’re not alone, watched over by protective forces.” Further, some UFO experiences reek more of the occult than of science.

But many scientists believe in “visitors” in their own way. They see the impossibility of life originating by chance here on the earth, so they claim it must have drifted here from space. Some say that aliens seeded our planet with life by sending rockets loaded with primitive bacteria. One has even suggested that aliens visited our planet ages ago and that life originated by chance from the garbage they left behind! Some scientists draw conclusions from the evidence that simple organic molecules are fairly common in space. But is that really evidence for the chance formation of life? Is a hardware store evidence that a car must accidentally build itself there?

Next page: Extraterrestrials​—Finding the Answer (Awake!—1990)[u rl=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhM3aQ_dsI8&list=PLQVwFZe_EHUBSfvTSXOQ1D62J1ncyHbUr&index=13]Ticker Tape Machine & Information Processing in Living Cells (short version; playlist with context)[/url]

a reply to: whereislogic
For some dumb reason the link at the end isn't working, I'll give it another try cause editing the previous comment is tricky and won't even solve the issue:

Ticker Tape Machine & Information Processing in Living Cells (short version; playlist with context)

originally posted by: whereislogic
...
I don't think people who write about the UFO phenomena the way Timothy Good writes about it, have the general public at interest. They've just found a nice niche market to sell their books to, among other ways of converting attention into money.

I just realized that I was basically alluding to the reality that they actually have the general public's interest at interest, rather than "the general public at interest", the phrase you used. How such a small change can make quite the difference having a rather large impact on the reliability and truthfulness of whatever they're 'selling' (both in a literal and figurative sense; especially if the truth is not as captivating or appealing to their potential audience or market as whatever they're selling and telling people, or generally talking about, i.e. what subjects their focus lies on when these subjects are shaped by the desire to cater to a particular audience or niche market as described at 2 Timothy 4:3,4, such as Sci-Fi fans in the entertainment industry).

“For there will be a period of time when they will not put up with the wholesome* [Or “healthful; beneficial.”] teaching, but according to their own desires, they will surround themselves with teachers to have their ears tickled.* [Or “to tell them what they want to hear.”] They will turn away from listening to the truth and give attention to false stories.” (2 Timothy 4:3,4)

Some people make clevel and profitable use of the phenomena prophecied above. And for me the bolded expression includes things that are pleasing to the ears, intriguing or captivating the attention. Also, when someone uses flattery, it is likewise tickling the ears of the one flattered (i.e. pleasing to the ears; just what you wanted to hear. Those in the conspiracy entertainment business, including the government cover-up concerning UFO's angle, make efficient use of that*).

*:

... You are one of the smart ones, you are not alone, you are comfortable and secure—so they say.

Source: Do Not Be a Victim of Propaganda! (Awake!—2000)

You can swap out "smart" there with various other positive descriptions, such as "awake" (that one is particular popular in the marketing or 'selling' of conspiracy entertainment; marketing and propaganda share many similarities).

Hynek on USAF UFO debunking policy ('it can't be therefore it isn't') and the USAF's persecution and character assassination of UFO witnesses.



Halfway