Credible UFO witnesses not sufficient proof

Aaron Sakulich - "The Iron Skeptic" attacks again! This time with all out insults and humiliation directed toward the unexplainable. If what you saw isn�t explainable as a strange atmospheric phenomena, classified aircraft, weather balloons or rare weather pattern you must be cognitively hopeless or insane. He backs this theory by using two friends that are mentally �unstable� in his opinion, and another that was sexually assaulted. I�m sure glad I don�t know this guy personally, else he might be writing nasty things about me on the internet.

from article
In the modern era, there are literally thousands of people who claim to have been abducted by UFOs. They replaced the "contactees" of previous years, who were usually happy to talk to their alien friends. It was from the late 1960s onward that UFOs began to take on a more sinister air.

Though they would have you believe otherwise, it is easy to pinpoint the beginning of the abductee craze: Betty Hill. She and her husband were driving down a long, dark road and were "abducted". They described small, gray aliens with heads shaped like light bulbs, the now common staple of pop culture.

Full article

-sp

[edit on 13-10-2004 by Seth76]

It's just his opinion/theory, way too general if you ask me.

But I suppose it reassures him to some degree.

[edit on 13-10-2004 by Koka]

There are tons of credible witness testimony, beyond simply civilians who encounter such phenomena, that goes ignored daily. Beyond mere hearsay testimony. We have people who have come forward with their names and careers on the line over what they espouse as the truth from government positions and military contractor jobs. All of it seemingly useless when in a standard judicial court situation, it would condemn a defendant to a guilty verdict.

Conspiracy is a charge applied daily to people facing criminal proceedings. Some are even convicted of it. Its not just some nebulous myth of a crime that never happens in the real world. I am quite sure that if a trial were ever to occur on the subject of government criminal conspiracy and racketeering to defraud constituents on the matter of UFO/ET visitation, the government of the United States and perhaps all governments of the world would be found guilty. Enough witnesses and evidence exist to prove portions or all of such a case.

Let's not forget the vast amount of unexplainable evidence caught on radar, footage etc. I wonder if Mr Sakulich would like to call those examples of someone being 'cognitively hopeless or insane', as well..?

You know, I watched the TWA 800 documentary on History the other night, and the government used this same old dead horse tactic....what the the witness thought they saw wasn't what they saw.

Yeah...whatever, I know up from down...so if I say two red projectiles were headed toward the plane, please don't insult me by saying they were coming from the plane.

Same thing goes here. As a person who has had a UFO sighting, and some one that has at least enough education and intelligence to discern whether what I was seeing could be any known aircraft or not, they need to just leave me alone if they're considering treating me like this...I bite back.

[edit on 10-13-2004 by Valhall]

You know, I watched the TWA 800 documentary on History the other night, and the government used this same old dead horse tactic....what the the witness thought they saw wasn't what they saw.

Is that the docco that concluded that the cause was due to vapour build up in the half empty fuel tank, whilst sitting on the tarmac coupled with faulty wires running through the interior of the tank? And that the 'missile' people thought they saw, was the front of the plane exploding off? And that the sight of and sound of the explosion was the speed of light vs the speed of sound confusing people?

The problem is that there is no definite evidence, only a large collection of witnesses and vague evidence.

Some people would need a dead alien, in hand, before they would believe in alien life.

I understand these people, I'm one of them.

What I don't get is why anyone would activly argue with people who have first hand experience. Billions of people claim to talk to God...why not go crusade against them... or the ghost believers, etc.

Some skeptics just take it too far in trying to explain how they think.

Actually, there is tons of EVIDENCE, just no PROOF. Remember, there is a huge difference between evidence and proof. For instance, personal witness accounts can be considered as evidence (just like in a courtroom). Now one would have to decide if that witnesses account is credible enough to be called proof. More often than not, only hard evidence becomes proof, like DNA, or an actual alien specimen in this case. Even photo's or videos can't be called proof. They can be called good evidence, but since there is reasonable doubt in just about every picture and video, you can't call it proof.

He can go tell his ideas to the Belgian Airforce, the Mexican Airforce, the Michigan State Police, etc. I'm sure they have a few things to say about his theories.

Valhall which way does lightning strike? If you see a car going by and look at the wheels are they rotaing forward to backward or opposite?

Originally posted by mwm1331
Valhall

Yes, I know I�m not Valhall but this is a public board. Do you mind if I answer?

which way does lightning strike?

Lightning strikes to the path of least resistance. So this could be horizontally cloud to cloud, vertically down to the ground, or vertically up into space. The call the last one lightning sprites, so you might not agree that it lightning per se but I maintain that it is. Also the typical ground lightning strike usually has a positive runner going up toward the sky.

If you see a car going by and look at the wheels are they rotaing forward to backward or opposite?

You can�t really answer this question without knowing if the car is in a forward gear or in reverse and the point of reference for the tire going forward or backward being the top or the bottom of the wheel.

Now, before you pat yourself on the back by getting someone to fall into this trap I must ask you what direction does a surface to air missile fly? What direction does a crippled airplane travel in? Why do the three witnesses that came forward still maintain what the experts say happened is wrong?

For the same reason that eyewitness accounts are usually wrong. Becuase people dont see what is, they see what thier brains interpert of what is. The fact is that while eyewitness reports and testimoney are the most powerful they also have the least mount of evidenciary value. Have you ever seen some of the perception exoiriments that prove that people will see what they expect or are prepared to see in a visually ambiguos situation? Did you know that 90% of what you see is actually created by the brain and is not based on the actual visual stimuli you receive? Did you know that if the brain is presented with a situation where visual stimuli contradicts what it expects it will actually ignore the stimuli?

www.wcupa.edu...
psylux.psych.tu-dresden.de...

[edit on 14-10-2004 by mwm1331]

Originally posted by mwm1331
Valhall which way does lightning strike? If you see a car going by and look at the wheels are they rotaing forward to backward or opposite?

No...I'm sorry, we are not talking about issues of such speed and effect on the TWA 800 instance. bologn-eeeee

And until you take the time to read my sighting account...which I believe I have posted and linked to enough times on this board that any interest to research it burdens the interested party to do a search....you really can't apply these things to what I saw either.

There are instances of eye-witness accounts where things can be eliminated because of optical effects, I realize that. And then there are instances when you are dealing with a trained, educated person, who has the clarity of view, the clarity of description and the clarity of reason that makes you have to listen...and not just say - well, eye witness acccounts are unreliable.

That's such bullcrap.

In my opinion, the whole UFO debate is simply divided by two sets of people - those with open-minds and those with closed-minds.

Those with closed-minds simply won't accept anything that's outside their sphere of understanding, which they've been fed since birth - if it isn't the 'accepted norm' then they won't entertain idea. They will remain firmly on the 'safe' side of the fence until the governments of this world say otherwise. No amount of evidence or proof will convince these people to even entertain the idea that we are not alone in the universe.

The open-minded people are not stupid. They accept that a lot of the evidence that UFOs are ET craft is on shakey ground. Some are more eager to accept the possibilty that we're being visited by ET than others. But all open-minded people are willing to accept that we, the human race DO NOT KNOW ALL THERE IS TO KNOW about the universe and that our current models of how the universe works may need to be modified or even thrown away in future as further discoveries are made.

I've come to believe that the whole debate about whether some UFO's are ET craft is irrelevant. It's missing the point and a waste of our energies and time. The real question is 'Are we alone in the Universe?' - if you accept, that in all probability, we are not alone and that intelligent life exists elsewhere then it's only a matter of time before they come knockin' and there's no reason why that time can't be in our present or sometime in our past.

Forget about trying to prove UFO's are ET craft - you won't convince the majority of the people on this planet with any amount of evidence - they simply won't accept it. It boils down to credibility - most people see the government (and NASA) as the one single credible source of 'the truth'. Anyone who isn't sponsored by the government will have a very hard time convincing people of anything that contradicts the 'official' truth.

Just look at The Disclosure Project - they have hundreds of military witnesses willing to testify under oath about the involvement of the US Government with ET craft and biological entities and no one is taking any notice. Why? Because the Government is not going to give them any credibility by allowing them their 'day in court'. Some of you are saying that these witnesses only present evidence and not proof. That may be true, but if this action was allowed to go ahead in the full glare of the worlds media then many of the closed-minds may open up a little and demand official investigations into the claims. The result of these investigations may then lead to the discovery of actual physical evidence stashed away in secret facilities - but I think the reality is that even the Government does have the evidence it won't give it up until it's ready to.

For those people who don't believe that we are being visited ask yourself this question - if NASA announced today that they had discovered an alien base on the dark-side of the moon in the 60's and that they have been aware of ET craft visiting this planet for decades, would you believe them? If the answer is 'yes' then the question about UFOs really does have everything to do with credibility and nothing to do with proof.





[edit on 14/10/2004 by Deckard_BR26354]

Actually, there is tons of EVIDENCE, just no PROOF. Remember, there is a huge difference between evidence and proof.

All too often, we forget the above, when speaking on this subject....kudos for the reminder to all...(something I point out on a regular basis as well, hehe...)

Valhall do you have any idea how many innocent people have been put in jail by the eyewitness testimony of credible educted people who did not see what they thought they did? I'm not talking about optical illusions, that was merely an illustraton of the fact that we dont always see reality. Just as car tires will appear to spin backwards we often see things as very different than they are. There are cases where people in clinics for sleep paralysis have seen videotapes of themselves sleeping through the night and yet still sworn they were abducted because of how "real" the experience was. Seeing is not believing, Believing is seeing.

Where's the proof that we went to the moon? I see lot's of evidence, but no proof.

...do you have any idea how many innocent people have been put in jail by the eyewitness testimony of credible educted (sic) people who did not see what they thought they did?

If eye-witness testimony is so unreliable why were these people put away in the first place?

[edit on 14/10/2004 by Deckard_BR26354]

Beacuse eyewitness testimoney is also the most powerful and easy to understand. Think about it what makes a bigger impression someone standing up in court pointing at the defendant and saying "he did it" or a detailed explanaton of fibers found on the crime scene in comparison to the fibers n his shrt?

Fibres found at a scene aren't proof that the person was there - they are evidence that they were there.

What if someone else wore that shirt?

Why wasn't O.J. Simpson convicted?



[edit on 14/10/2004 by Deckard_BR26354]