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LarryCoon
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2018 12:05 pm    Post subject:

Are we really doing this again? Okay, we'll start to get some of these out of the way. Let's start with the Rendlesham Forest Case, one of the cases on unleasHell's list of the best documented UFO cases. And as I say every time this comes up, I don't write this (or in this case quote this) with any expectation of swaying anyone who's already a true believer. One of the primary tenets of teaching critical thinking is to NOT do it over an issue that the person is already emotionally invested in -- instead, do it over an issue where they already agree with the science. Through that you will learn how to evaluate evidence, how to evaluate logic, how the human cognition system fails and how self-deception works, and THEN you will develop the critical thinking skills that you can later apply to your sacred cows. But since unleasHell and I have had direct conversations about how to apply logic and evidence to evaluate claims and the conversation had zero resulting effect, that's not going to change today. This here is for the rest of you --

Quote:
The Sci-Fi Channel calls it[1] the most comprehensive cover-up in the history of Britain. It's often called the most important UFO incident of the 20th century. Imagine, alien spacecraft drifting through the woods on the perimeter of a US Air Force Base in England, shining their colored lights around in plain view of pursuing military security personnel, for three nights in a row. And how did the United Kingdom and the United States react to this obvious threat to their nuclear arsenals? They didn't. There's no wonder the Rendlesham Forest UFO Incident is the one that UFOlogists consider the most frightening.

If you watch the Sci-Fi Channel, the History Channel, the Discovery Channel, or any of the other paranormal TV networks, you've probably heard the popular version of events on those three nights. Here are the significant points:

Two old Royal Air Force airfields, RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge, are situated just two miles apart near the eastern coast of England. Throughout the cold war they were operated by the United States Air Force. On the night of Christmas Day, December 25, 1980, personnel at the base reported bright UFOs streaking through the sky. Later that night, in the wee hours of December 26, security personnel from RAF Woodbridge entered Rendlesham Forest to investigate some strange, pulsating, colored lights moving through the trees, that they thought at first might be a downed aircraft. Local constables were called and also participated in the observation. Base personnel described the craft they pursued as metal and conical, with a bright red light above and a circle of blue lights below, and suspended in a yellow mist. By daylight, they located a clearing where they thought the strangely lit craft had set down, and found three depressions in the ground in a triangular pattern. The constables were called again and photographed and confirmed the landing site.

Two nights later in the wee hours of December 28, they returned to the site, led by Lt. Colonel Charles Halt, second in command at the base. They brought a radiation detector and recorded high levels of radiation at the landing site, again observed the colored, pulsating lights through the trees, and again pursued them through the forest. Other colored lights were seen flying through the sky. Col. Halt recorded the audio of this pursuit on a microcassette. Two weeks later, after debriefing all of his men who participated, he wrote down the specifics of the episode in a signed memo titled "Unexplained Lights", and sent it in to the British Ministry of Defense. Ever since, the airmen involved claim to have been coerced to change their stories and deny that anything happened, and were threatened with comments like "bullets are cheap."

Wow. That story is really something, isn't it? But even more impressive than the story is the documentation, mainly Col. Halt's audio recording and signed memo. You don't rise to be deputy commander of a United States Air Force base with nuclear weapons if you're a nutcase, and when you're accompanied by local police constables and a number of Air Force security personnel who all file written reports, you don't exactly make up ridiculous stories. There's little doubt that Rendlesham Forest probably has the best, most reliable evidence of any popular UFO story.

Ever since I first heard about the Rendlesham Forest incident, I've been as curious as anyone to know what actually happened. So I decided to begin with the null hypothesis — that nothing extraordinary happened — and then examine each piece of evidence that something extraordinary did happen, individually, on its own merit. I wanted to see if we could find a natural explanation for each piece of evidence: You always have to eliminate terrestrial explanations before you can consider the extraterrestrial.

Let's take it chronologically. The first events were the reported UFO sightings at the base on the night of the 25th and the early hours of the 26th. It turns out that people on the base were not the only people to see this. UFO reports flooded in from all over southern England, as it turned out that night was one of the best on record for dramatic meteors. The first were at 5:20pm and again at 7:20pm over southeastern England. Later at 9pm, the upper stage of a Russian rocket that had launched the Cosmos 749 satellite re-entered and broke up. As reported in the Journal of the British Astronomical Association[2], 250 people called in and reported a sighting as first six fragments came streaking in, which then broke up into more than 20. Finally, at about 2:45am on the morning of the 26th, a meteor described[3] by witnesses as "bright as the moon" flew overhead with an unusually long duration of 3-4 seconds. The experience of the airmen was described in a letter home written by one of them:

Quote:
At [about 3am], me and five other guys were walking up a dark path about 2 miles from base... Then we saw a bright light go right over us about 50 feet up and just fly over a field. It was silent.


At the same time on base, a security patrolman was dispatched to check the weapons storage area to see if a "falling star" had hit it. It had not. But it does seem clear that all of the UFO reports from the base are perfectly consistent with known meteor activity on that night. So much for the UFO sightings. Next piece of evidence.

Airmen at the east end of RAF Woodbridge went into the forest to investigate a strange, pulsing, colored light that they suspected might be a downed aircraft. We have the signed statements[4] of the three men who went into the forest, SSgt. Penniston and Airmen Cabansag and Burroughs, as well as that of their superior, Lt. Buran. At this point it's important to know the geography of the area. Heading east from the east gate of RAF Woodbridge, there is about one mile of forest, followed by an open farmer's field several acres in size. At the far end of that field is a farmhouse. A little more than 5 miles beyond that sits the Orfordness lighthouse, in a direct line of sight.

Although the three men stayed together, their reports are dramatically different. Penniston and Burroughs reported moving lights of different colors, that they felt came from a mechanical object with a red light on top and blue lights below surrounded by a yellow haze. They even drew pictures of it in their reports, but Penniston's illustration of their best view of it shows it partially obscured by trees and well off in the distance to the east. Burroughs' drawing of the object is based on Penniston's description, as Burroughs himself only reported seeing lights. Cabansag, however, reported that the only light they saw after actually leaving the base was the one that all three men eventually identified as a lighthouse or beacon beyond the farmhouse. Cabansag reported that the yellow haze had simply been the glow from the farmhouse lights. Once they reached the field, they turned around and returned to base without further incident.

A further problem with Burroughs' and Penniston's stories is that they have grown substantially over time, particularly Penniston's. In more recent TV interviews, they've both claimed that they saw the craft fly up out of the trees and fly around. Penniston has also unveiled a notebook which he claims he wrote during their forest chase, which he displayed on a 2003 Sci-Fi Channel documentary. Its times and dates are wrong, and Burroughs has stated that Penniston did not make any notes during the episode and would not have had time to even if he'd wanted. Penniston's story has also expanded[5] to include a 45 minute personal walkaround inspection of the object during which he took a whole roll of photographs (seized by the the Air Force, of course), which from the written statements of all three men, is a clear fabrication.

Only Cabansag's version of events, that there was a single pulsing light later determined to be a distant beacon or lighthouse, describes events that all three men agreed on, and is consistent with the statements of others. For example, A1C Chris Arnold, who placed the call to the police and waited at the end of the access road, gave this description[6] in a 1997 interview:

Quote:
There was absolutely nothing in the woods. We could see lights in the distance and it appeared unusual as it was a sweeping light, (we did not know about the lighthouse on the coast at the time). We also saw some strange colored lights in the distance but were unable to determine what they were... Contrary to what some people assert, at the time almost none of us knew there was a lighthouse at Orford Ness. Remember, the vast majority of folks involved were young people, 19, 20, 25 years old. Consequently it wasn't something most of the troops were cognizant of. That's one reason the lights appeared interesting or out of the ordinary to some people.


Police constables responding to Arnold's call of "unusual lights in the sky" did arrive on the scene while Penniston, Cabansag, and Burroughs were still in the forest. Here is the report they filed[7]:

Quote:
Air traffic control West Drayton checked. No knowledge of aircraft. Reports received of aerial phenomena over southern England during the night. Only lights visible this area was from Orford light house. Search made of area - negative.


So much for unusual lights or strange flying craft reported by the airmen in the forest on the first night.

Next morning, some of the men found what they believed to be site of where Penniston's craft must have touched down. It was a clearing with three depressions in the ground, possibly made by landing pads. Again the police were called. The police report stated[8]:

Quote:
There were three marks in the area which did not follow a set pattern. The impressions made by the marks were of no depth and could have been made by an animal.


Forestry Commission worker Vince Thurkettle, who lived less than a mile away, was also present at the examination of the landing site[9]. Astronomer Ian Ridpath, who has a fantastic website[10] about the event (and check out this YouTube video of his original BBC report here[11]), interviewed Thurkettle[12] about the impressions and the reported burn marks on the surrounding trees:

Quote:
He recognized them as rabbit diggings, several months old and covered with a layer of fallen pine needles... The "burn marks" on the trees were axe cuts[13] in the bark, made by the foresters themselves as a sign that the trees were ready to be felled.


So much for the landing site.

It was two nights later that Col. Halt decided to take the investigation into his own hands (contrary to the popular telling that says there were events on three nights in a row, there are no reported events on the second night). Halt properly armed himself with a Geiger counter and an audio recorder (Download the complete 17-minute recording here), and took some men to examine the landing site and the strange lights. It's been reported that Halt found radiation levels at the landing site ten times higher than normal background levels:

Quote:
Col. Halt: "Up to seven tenths? Or seven units, let's call it, on the point five scale."[14]


He used a standard issue AN-PDR 27 Survey Meter[15], which detects beta and gamma radiation. The highest level reported by Col. Halt on his audio tape, "seven tenths", corresponded to .07 milliroentgens per hour, just at the lowest reading on the bottom range of the meter, the "point five scale". The UK's National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB) told[16] Ian Ridpath that levels between .05 and .1 mR/h were normal background levels; however, this particular meter was designed to measure much higher levels of radiation and so it was "not credible" to establish a level of only ten times normal background. So much for Col. Halt's radiation.

And then they observed the mysterious colored light flashing through the trees:

Quote:
Col. Halt: "You just saw a light? Where? Slow down. Where?"
Unidentified: "Right on this position here. Straight ahead, in between the trees – there it is again. Watch – straight ahead, off my flashlight there, sir. There it is."
Col. Halt: "I see it, too. What is it?"
Unidentified: "We don’t know, sir."
Col. Halt: "It’s a strange, small red light."


Every lighthouse has a published interval at which it flashes. This is how sea captains are able to identify which light they're seeing. The Orfordness lighthouse has an interval of 5 seconds. Now listen to the same exchange again; I've added a beep at exactly five second intervals[17]

Although several times during the tape Col. Halt calls the light red, he is contradicted by his men who say it's yellow. In photographs of the 1980 light[18] taken before it was replaced, it did indeed look orange. Even the new light, which is mercury vapor discharge and therefore whiter and bluer than the original incandescent, appears distinctly red in photographs and video when viewed from Rendlesham forest.

Col. Halt, having been in the area longer than most of the young servicemen, did know about the lighthouse; but he didn't think this light could be it because it was coming from the east. Col. Halt believed the lighthouse was to the southeast. This is true from RAF Bentwaters, where Halt was from. But the chase through the forest proceeded due east from RAF Woodbridge — two miles south of Bentwaters — and from there, unknown to Col. Halt, Orfordness lighthouse is indeed due east.

Quote:
Col. Halt: "We've passed the farmer's house and are crossing the next field and now we have multiple sightings of up to five lights with a similar shape and all but they seem to be steady now rather than a pulsating or glow with a red flash.[19]"


Five steady lights glowing red. The Orfordness Transmitting Station is just two miles up the coast from the lighthouse, and features five tall radio towers topped with red lights. Col. Halt's thoroughness was commendable, but even he can be mistaken. Without exception, everything he reported on his audiotape and in his written memo has a perfectly rational and unremarkable explanation.

And with that, we're nearly out of evidence to examine. All that remains is the tale that the men were debriefed and ordered never to mention the event, and warned that "bullets are cheap". Well, as we've seen on television, the men all talk quite freely about it, and even Col. Halt says that to this day nobody has ever debriefed him. So this appears to be just another dramatic invention for television, perhaps from one of the men who have expanded their stories over the years.

When you examine each piece of evidence separately on its own merit, you avoid the trap of pattern matching and finding correlations where none exist. The meteors had nothing to do with the lighthouse or the rabbit diggings, but when you hear all three stories told together, it's easy to conclude (as did the airmen) that the light overhead became an alien spacecraft in the forest. Always remember: Separate pieces of poor evidence don't aggregate together into a single piece of good evidence. You can stack cowpies as high as you want, but they won't turn into a bar of gold.


SOURCE: Skeptoid #135 by Brian Dunning https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4135

[1] http://www.scifi.com/rendlesham/

[2] http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/%7Eipswich/Miscellaneous/Archived_astro_news.htm

[3] http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/image/3amfireball.jpg

[4] http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/rendlesham2c.htm

[5] http://www.hyper.net/ufo/vs/m18-020.html

[6] http://web.archive.org/web/20021210083709/www.ufoworld.co.uk/v15.txt

[7] http://www.suffolk.police.uk/NR/rdonlyres/2EF34838-589D-4DA7-95F1-CA23BE34E924/0/unusuallights.pdf

[8] http://www.suffolk.police.uk/NR/rdonlyres/2EF34838-589D-4DA7-95F1-CA23BE34E924/0/unusuallights.pdf

[9] http://www.rendlesham-incident.co.uk/images/the-lighthouse-theory/landing-marks-original-photo.jpg

[10] http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/rendlesham.htm

[11] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsu0oVIZaEk

[12] http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/rendlesham1a.htm

[13] http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/image/Rendlesham2.jpg

[14] https://traffic.libsyn.com/skeptoid/rf_halt-seven-units.mp3

[15] http://www.dcfp.navy.mil/cbrd/ca/radiac/anpdr-27.htm

[16] http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/rendlesham4.htm

[17] https://traffic.libsyn.com/skeptoid/rf_halt-with-beeps.mp3

[18] http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/AtNightlarge.jpg

[19] https://traffic.libsyn.com/skeptoid/rf_halt-five-lights.mp3
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LarryCoon
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2018 3:15 pm    Post subject:

And the Betty & Baney Hill abduction. Again, among the list unleasHell cited as one of the best documented UFO cases:

Quote:

It was shortly before midnight on September 19, 1961 when Betty and Barney Hill had the experience which was to shape all of modern alien folklore. They were driving from Canada to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Near the resort of Indian Head, New Hampshire, they stopped their car in the middle of Route 3 to observe a strange light moving through in the sky. The next thing they knew, they were about 35 miles further along on their trip, and several hours had elapsed.

Betty telephoned their close friend, Major Paul Henderson at nearby Pease Air Force Base, to report a UFO sighting. Major Henderson found that this was corroborated by two separate UFO reports from radar data from two different Air Force installations nearby. All three reports are officially recorded in Project Blue Book. Then Betty began having nightmares two weeks later. In her nightmares, she described being taken aboard an alien spacecraft and having medical experiments performed. As a result of these nightmares, Betty and Barney decided to undergo hypnosis. In separate sessions, they described nearly identical experiences of being taken on board the alien spacecraft by what we now call gray aliens: Short beings with huge black eyes and smooth gray skin. Both of the Hills had a whole spectrum of tests done. Betty was shown a star map which she was able to memorize and reproduce later, and which has been identified as showing Zeta Reticuli as the aliens' home planet. After the experiments they were taken back to their car in a dazed condition, and sent along their way.

Innumerable books and movies were made about the Betty & Barney Hill abduction. It was the introduction of the gray alien into popular culture. It was also the beginning of the entire "alien abduction" phenomenon. The physical evidence of the star map and the radar reports are said to have both withstood all scrutiny. In fact you almost never hear a critical treatment of their story.

Much of the Hill story is said to be based on these separate hypnosis sessions. In fact, that turns out not to be the case at all. It's important to note that it was more than two years after the incident that the Hills underwent hypnosis. During those two years, Betty was writing and rewriting her accounts of her dreams. All of the significant details you may have heard about the Hills' medical experiments came from Betty's two years of writings: A long needle inserted into her navel; the star map; the aliens' fascination with Barney's dentures; the examination of both Betty and Barney's genitals; and the overall chronology of the episode, including being met on the ground by the aliens, a leader coming forward and escorting them to exam rooms, the aliens' general demeanor and individual personalities, and the way they spoke to Betty in English but to Barney via telepathy. Betty wrote all of this based only on what she claims were her dreams, and probably told the story to Barney over and over again until his ears fell off over a period of two years, before they ever had any hypnosis.

During those two years, Barney's own recollection was somewhat less dramatic. When they first saw the light in the sky, Betty said she thought it was a spacecraft, but Barney always said he thought it was an airplane.

Betty's written description of the characters in her nightmare depicted short guys with black hair and "Jimmy Durante" noses. It was only in Barney Hill's hypnosis sessions that we got the first description of skinny figures with gray skin, large bald heads, and huge black eyes. After Betty Hill heard these sessions, suddenly her own hypnosis accounts began to describe the same type of character, and from that moment on, she never again mentioned her original Jimmy Durante guys. Many modern accounts wrongly state that her original nightmares also described grays.

Although the popular version of events is that Barney Hill's hypnosis description is the first appearance of a so-called gray alien in modern culture, that first appearance actually came twelve days earlier, on national television, in an episode of The Outer Limits called The Bellero Shield. The alien in that episode shared most of the significant physical characteristics with the alien in Barney's story: Bald head, gray skin, big wraparound eyes. The Hills stated they did not watch it and didn't know about it.

Remember: Before examining the specific claims made in a fantastic story, you should check the source of the story for credibility. Barney Hill died only a few years after the alleged incident, but Betty Hill stuck around long enough for her credibility to be pretty thoroughly demonstrated. Skeptical Inquirer columnist Robert Shaeffer wrote:

Quote:
I was present at the National UFO Conference in New York City in 1980, at which Betty presented some of the UFO photos she had taken. She showed what must have been well over two hundred slides, mostly of blips, blurs, and blobs against a dark background. These were supposed to be UFOs coming in close, chasing her car, landing, etc... After her talk had exceeded about twice its allotted time, Betty was literally jeered off the stage by what had been at first a very sympathetic audience. This incident, witnessed by many of UFOlogy's leaders and top activists, removed any lingering doubts about Betty's credibility — she had none. In the oft-repeated words of one UFOlogist who accompanied Betty on a UFO vigil in 1977, she was "unable to distinguish between a landed UFO and a streetlight." In 1995, Betty Hill wrote a self-published book, A Common Sense Approach to UFOs. It is filled with obviously delusional stories, such as seeing entire squadrons of UFOs in flight and a truck levitating above the freeway.


She also once wrote in a 1966 letter "Barney and I go out frequently at night for one reason or another. Since last October, we have seen our 'friends' on the average of eight or nine times out of every ten trips." But is it possible that Betty's obsession with UFOs could have been caused by her trauma from a genuine abduction? Yes, it's possible that it could have pushed her further in that direction, but Betty had commonly spoken of UFOs even before 1961, including one story she often told of her sister's own close encounter in 1957.

So here's what we have so far: A woman who clearly had an obsession with UFOs saw a light in the sky that her husband described as an airplane. She then spent two years writing an elaborate story and no doubt telling and retelling it to her husband. Later, under hypnosis, Barney was asked about the events described in Betty's story, and surprise surprise, he retold the story she'd already told him a hundred times, with an added dash from The Outer Limits episode of twelve days before. So far, we have a tale that's hard to consider reliable.

But then there are those three items said to be physical evidence of the Hill abduction: first, the star map hand drawn by Betty by memory from one shown to her aboard the spacecraft; second, the purple dress she was wearing on that night, kept for forty years in her closet, torn and covered with mysterious dust; and third, reports in the Air Force's official Project Blue Book stating that radar confirmed the presence of a UFO on that night at two separate Air Force facilities in the area, both within hours of the Hills' claimed abduction. Let's look at those first.

The first report was from Pease Air Force Base, about 82 miles southeast of Indian Head, at 2:14am. The Hills got home in Portsmouth at 5:00 in the morning on September 20. Their story states that they came to after their medical experiments about 35 miles south of Indian Head, near the town of Ashland. From Ashland to Portsmouth is about an hour and 45 minute drive, so they came to in their car around 3:15. This chronology puts Pease AFB's UFO radar evidence squarely in the middle of the Hills' three hours of medical experiments aboard the spaceship, which they say was sitting on the ground the whole time. If the Hills' story is true, the Pease AFB report must be an unrelated event.

The second report is from North Concord Air Force Station, a small hilltop radar station (closed in 1963) that was about 40 miles north of Indian Head, at 5:22pm on September 19. This is about seven hours before the Hills observed their light in the sky. It clearly does not corroborate the Hills' sighting. The reports in Project Blue Book note each target's extremely high altitude and low speed, and conclude that each was probably a weather balloon.

Next we have Betty's purple dress, the zipper of which she found to be torn. She then hung it in the closet. Two years later, after the hypnosis, she got it out and said there was strange pink dust on it. She hung it up again, this time for forty years, when a group of crop circle investigators examined it. They concluded the dress had an "anomalous biological substance" on it. While a good stretch of the imagination might consider this to be consistent with the abduction story, it's also consistent with perfectly natural explanations, namely, 40 years of dust mites, moths, and mold. I don't find the Great Purple Dress Caper to be good evidence of anything.

So the only thing we're left with is Betty's star map. In her original written stories, she described the aliens' star map as three dimensional. Under hypnosis, she redrew it on paper, in two dimensions. It's seven or eight random dots connected by lines, and it's quite rough and by no means precise. Several years later, a schoolteacher named Marjorie Fish read a book about the Hills. She then took beads and strings and converted her living room into a three dimensional version of the galaxy based on the 1969 Gliese Star Catalog. She then spent several years viewing her galaxy from different angles, trying to find a match for Betty's map, and eventually concluded that Zeta Reticuli was the alien homeworld. Other UFOlogists have proposed innumerable different interpretations. Carl Sagan and other astronomers have said that it is not even a good match for Zeta Reticuli, and that Betty's drawing is far too random and imprecise to make any kind of useful interpretation. With its third dimension removed, Betty's map cannot contain any useful positional information. Even if she had somehow drawn a perfect 3D map that did exactly align with known star positions, it still wouldn't be evidence of anything other than that such reference material is widely available, in sources like the Gliese Star Catalog. We would not conclude that an alien abduction is the only reasonable way that Betty could have learned seven or eight star positions during those two years.

And so, there we have it. The Betty & Barney Hill abduction story has every indication of being merely an inventive tale from the mind of a lifelong UFO fanatic. Despite the best efforts of authors to bolster it with mischaracterized or exaggerated evidence, it is unsupported by any useful evidence, and is perfectly consistent with the purely natural explanation.


SOURCE: Skeptoid #124 by Brian Dunning: https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4124
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LarryCoon
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2018 3:24 pm    Post subject:

Lonnie Zamora. Also cited by unleasHell has one of the best documented cases:

Quote:

In any tome on UFOs worth its salt, the name of Lonnie Zamora always looms large. He is that species of eyewitness held in the highest regard by UFOlogists: a police officer. Police officers, so it is said, are never mistaken. They always know exactly what they're looking at. They cannot be fooled, they are experts at identifying anything they see, and their memories are faultless; all necessary requirements of their job. So when Lonnie Zamora saw an egg-shaped UFO in Socorro, New Mexico in 1964, it quickly became regarded as one of the most reliable. To this day, his sighting is cited by some as proof of alien visitation; and it is one of the legendary "unknown" cases listed in Project Blue Book. Today we're going to look at Zamora's report, the theories suggested to explain it, and see what lessons there are to be learned.

Socorro, New Mexico is not renowned as a great metropolis. It is home to the modest campus of New Mexico Tech (New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology) and enough infrastructure to support a small local mining industry. Its population has never managed to crack ten thousand, yet its siting on the banks of the Rio Grande allow it to be a spot of green in an otherwise bleak desert landscape.

In 1964 Officer Zamora was chasing a reckless speeding driver when he heard what he thought might be a dynamite storage shack exploding, so he abandoned the chase and turned up toward a perlite mine. Here's what he described two days later to radio interviewer Walter Shrode:

Quote:
ZAMORA: I went up that little road, for about half a mile, I guess, came up to this little parking (?) there on the side of the road, and I thought I'd glance out of the window, looked to my left and seen this white object on the ground. Thought that it might be a car that had turned over. Crossed the (?) to go out there to investigate, thought maybe somebody might be hurt. At that time, I saw this white, egg, like egg-shaped looking object...

SHRODE: That it looked something like an egg, you mean?

ZAMORA: Yeah, from that distance I was it looked like an egg to me...

SHRODE: About the size of a car, I think someone said.

ZAMORA: Yes sir, it looked like a car that had turned over, therefore I would say about the size of a car.


As he got closer, he saw something like two people near the object.

Quote:
SHRODE: Did they have helmets on like spacemen or anything?

ZAMORA: No sir, I wouldn't say they were people, I just... I saw something white, white coveralls, that's all I can say.

SHRODE: But you couldn't identify them as actually being an actual human being, like you or I are?

ZAMORA: No sir, I couldn't.


It blasted off with a loud rocket-like sound, and Zamora saw flames.

Quote:
ZAMORA: It was very low to the ground, at the time I was seeing it, it was very low to the ground up to the perlite mill there, and then it started gaining in altitude.


Nobody doubted Zamora's remarkable report. The FBI came out and verified burn marks in the desert scrub from the object's rockets. Air Force investigators recorded a detailed account from Zamora for Project Blue Book. Their version was more explicit: the figures were definitely humanlike in white suits, and the vehicle was smooth and white, with no windows or doors, shaped either like a football or an oval. Its only feature was an insignia in red, about two feet high: an inverted V with three lines beneath it.

For some time, there has been an interesting candidate explanation floating around. At that time in 1964, NASA was testing an early engineering model of Surveyor, the lunar probe that went to the moon in 1966. This testing was done out of Holloman AFB in New Mexico at the White Sands Missile Range, and researchers have found records showing that the model was being carried by helicopter on the same day[1] — although earlier in the morning — as Lonnie Zamora's sighting. Some have even pointed to early logos of various Hughes subsidiaries (Surveyor was built by Hughes Aircraft) as possible matches for the insignia drawn by Zamora. Surveyor landed with rockets, the same loud rockets that Zamora heard. And what would Hughes technicians be wearing besides white coveralls? In some articles describing this theory, it appears to be a virtual lock.

Maybe I'm just a skeptic, but I find it to be a terrible explanation. For one thing, Holloman is directly adjacent to the White Sands Missile Range where the Surveyor testing was done, yet Socorro is a full 150km away. It can hardly be argued that the engineers strayed slightly outside their boundaries. For another, never once in the recorded history of NASA or the Air Force have they transported their experimental craft far from their remote desert test facilities and directly into populated towns to test them, and it strains credibility to conclude they might have felt that doing so was the best course in this case.

Surveyor it was a tripod of aluminum trusses with a couple boxes at its base. By no remote description can it be said to look like an egg, an oval, a football, or an overturned car. It doesn't even have a flat surface on which an insignia could appear. And if it did, it would — like every piece of hardware NASA had ever flown — have had the NASA logo displayed, not some obscure Hughes subsidiary logo.

Surveyor had never been designed with any takeoff ability. Its retros slowed its descent, then it fell the final 3 meters to the surface, where it stayed. Zamora's description of a craft taking off and flying away had nothing to do with anything related to Surveyor. Anyway the engineering model had to be transported by helicopter, and Zamora probably would have noticed that. If the claim is that the oval-shaped craft that Zamora saw take off was the Air Force helicopter, then he was the most monumental ignoramus in the history of ignoramuses, and I don't hear anyone saying that.

So I'm going to go out on a limb and say no, whatever Lonnie Zamora saw was most definitely not the Surveyor engineering model from Holloman.

A more persuasive explanation came from the unlikely source of Linus Pauling, the famous chemist who is as well known for his two Nobel prizes as he is for having descended into crankery in his later years, both with the promotion of Vitamin C as miracle cure-all, and less well known, for his interest in UFOs. After his death, a letter was found in Pauling's files[2] from 1968, which he'd sent to Stirling Colgate, then President of New Mexico Tech, and received a handwritten reply on the bottom. As a postscript to his letter, Pauling had asked Colgate what the people at New Mexico Tech thought about the Lonnie Zamora incident, and Colgate scrawled back:

Quote:
I have good indication of student who engineered hoax. Student has left.
Cheers, Stirling.


Students at tech universities have a long and time-honored tradition of pranking, and it turns out that Lonnie Zamora had worked on campus for several years, where he had developed a reputation for being somewhat rigid and impatient with the students. Consequently he was not overlooked by those with mischief on their minds when he became a police officer. UFO researcher Tony Bragalia corresponded with Dr. Colgate by email several times in 2012, as well as with two others from New Mexico Tech, to get some more of the story — although no former students' names were forthcoming. What it came down to was this.

The Energetics Lab on campus stocked all kinds of pyrotechnics, more than enough to make all the audio and visual rocket and explosion sounds that Zamora saw and heard, as well as the burned scrub. White lab suits were conveniently available. And in the exact words of the university president himself, the craft itself consisted of:

Quote:
A candle in a balloon. Not sophisticated.


With one driver to possibly lure Zamora to the scene by speeding, perhaps another to tow the big white balloon off into the distance at high speed when it took off:

Quote:
ZAMORA: It flew low to the perlite mine, and then from there on it did go faster than you could barely view.


It's also noteworthy that in the Air Force report, when Zamora radioed in and was asked what it looked like, his exact words were "It looks like a balloon."

One criticism of the hoax explanation is that these alleged students were never named or came forward. But I'm not surprised. In this case especially, there's no way I'd expect any real hoaxers to ever reveal themselves. Why not? Because when you're a college student, and your little afternoon prank on the local constabulary turns out to mobilize not only the Feds but half the branches of the armed services, some of whom work with your professors, and you'd rather graduate than spend the rest of your life at Fort Leavenworth, you tend to zip your lip. No, I'm not at all surprised that these students — assuming they existed — never went public with their involvement.

The faculty of New Mexico Tech certainly seemed satisfied that their little rapscallions were responsible, and that those same rapscallions had the means and a motivating lack of other diversions. It's the only complete explanation anyone has proposed that neatly checks all the boxes, fits all the descriptions, and requires no alien intervention. No doubt this will not be a popular explanation among those UFOlogists whose preferred conclusion is an alien spacecraft, but that's going to be the case no matter what.

As for Lonnie Zamora, he stayed in Socorro, had a good full career as a police officer, and was buried there in town when he died in 2009. Not a word written about him by anyone cast the slightest doubt on his sincerity, his honesty, or the integrity with which he conducted himself in all the official interviews that were thrust upon him. Moreover, he was said to be friendly and well liked, a good patriot and family man. He just didn't want to talk to you about UFOs anymore. He'd been there and done that.


SOURCE: https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4582

[1] http://www.nmsr.org/socorro.htm

[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20111214150713/http://ufos.homestead.com/colgate-letter.jpg
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LarryCoon
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2018 3:26 pm    Post subject:

Travis Walton, also cited by unleasHell as being one of the best documented case. Seeing a pattern here?

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Take cover: The UFO's are coming out tonight to capture us with light beams and whisk us away to their planet for medical experiments. Today we're going to cast our skeptical eye upon the Travis Walton UFO abduction case, better known by the title of the movie made about it: Fire in the Sky. Among many UFO proponents, this case is considered among the most compelling, because of the number of corroborating eyewitnesses. Let's take a look, and see what happened.

In 1975, Travis Walton was a rural Arizona teenager working for his buddy (and eventual brother-in-law) Mike Rogers. Mike had a forest service contract to do odd jobs in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest, and this particular job was to clear brush from a 1200 acre parcel. Travis, Mike, and five buddies spent the day working, and reported the adventure of a lifetime as they drove home along a remote forest road that evening. A small silvery disk shaped UFO, about 20 feet across, came floating along. Mike stopped the truck and they watched for a few minutes. Travis thought it was pretty cool and jumped out of the truck. He ran toward it for a better view, when suddenly a blue beam of light from the UFO struck him, lifted him a few feet into the air, and while his buddies watched in terror, he was tossed like a rag doll and thrown backward into the ground on his shoulder. Mike floored it and they got the hell out of there. A few minutes later, they decided this was perhaps not the most heroic and loyal of actions, so they went back. The UFO was gone. They searched for Travis for 20 minutes, but found nothing.

Once back to town they reported the story to police, who were more than a little skeptical. Upon hearing the news, Travis' older brother Duane telephoned a UFO group in Phoenix called Ground Saucer Watch, who advised him that if Travis ever returned, to take a urine sample and bring him to Phoenix immediately for a medical exam. After a few fruitless days of searching, Travis and Duane's mother instructed that the search be called off, which the police found a little strange.

The sheriff was not very pleased, and asked Mike and his crew to take a lie detector test. They all did, and all passed, except for one crew member whose results were inconclusive. This test was administered by an examiner named Cy Gilson, who was destined to return to the story almost 20 years later.

Five days after the abduction, Travis' brother-in-law Grant Neff said he received a midnight phone call from Travis asking him to come pick him up at a pay phone outside a gas station. Neff and Duane found Travis there, brought him home, but did not notify the police. Instead, they drove to Phoenix in the morning, to meet with the doctor promised by Ground Saucer Watch. Duane was upset to discover that the doctor, Lester Steward, turned out not to be a medical doctor at all, but a hypnotherapist.

Police were a little annoyed that they only learned of Travis' return through the mass media several days later: Neither Duane nor Mike had informed them. Still suspecting either foul play or a criminal hoax, police checked out the phone booth story. They found that the phone company did confirm the Neff home had received a call from the phone booth around midnight, but that none of the fingerprints on the phone were Travis Walton's. They found other problems too. While other people were out searching for Travis, Duane and Mike spent most of their time giving interviews to UFO investigators. Among the taped interviews that the investigators shared with the police were two interesting stories. Mike stated that he was delinquent on his forest service contract, and said he hoped Travis' disappearance would alleviate the situation. Duane said that he and Travis were lifelong UFO buffs, that they frequently saw them, and that they had recently discussed what to do if one of them were ever abducted.

There was one additional significant player in this cast of characters: The National Enquirer tabloid newspaper, which had a long-standing $100,000 prize offered for proof that UFOs were extraterrestrial. The Enquirer advised the Waltons that if they could pass a lie detector test, they might qualify for a large payment. Travis and Duane were not very keen on this idea, so the Enquirer agreed to keep the results secret should they not pass. The Waltons agreed. The Enquirer engaged an examiner named McCarthy, who, unfortunately, described Travis and Duane's results as "the plainest case of lying he had seen in 20 years." Duane was heard shouting that "he'd kill the son of a (bleep)." As agreed, the Enquirer did not publish the failed examination.

The local UFO investigators were not convinced it was a deception, however, and so they arranged a third polygraph, this time by an examiner named Pfeifer. Pfeifer reported the results as inconclusive, but the UFO group announced to the press that the results were positive and confirmed that the Waltons' story was true. This is also the examination that Travis states that he passed in his book. In later years, both of the other examiners (Gilson and McCarthy) studied the results and agreed with Pfeifer that they were inconclusive.

And that's about the point where the story fizzled out. Travis got a book deal out of it, called The Walton Experience, and made some money. This book is widely believed, but never proven, to have actually been ghostwritten by Jerome Clark, the editor of the International UFO Reporter. It's not clear whatever happened with Mike's forest service contract or whether Duane ever got any money out of the National Enquirer.

A lot of the information about the case, including the police suspicions and the Enquirer's suppressed polygraph test, was uncovered by Phillip Klass, the late full-time UFO investigator from CSICOP, now known as the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Apparently feeling the heat, Mike Rogers proposed a new round of polygraphs for everyone to settle the matter, under an arrangement in which if they passed, Phillip Klass would pay for the exams; and if they failed, the UFO group would pay for them. But the offer wasn't as fair as it appeared. It was only valid if Klass agreed to one particular examiner: A guy from San Diego who gave polygraph tests to plants to prove that they have feelings too.

Some 18 years later Travis' book was made into a movie called Fire in the Sky, which was greatly fictionalized because the studio felt Travis' own account wasn't deemed interesting enough. As part of the publicity for the movie, the studio arranged for Cy Gilson — the polygraph examiner who had originally passed Mike Rogers and the crew — to test Travis, Mike, and one of the crew again. Not surprisingly, they all passed with flying colors. But then a new face appeared on the scene, whose identity has never been known but whom Klass called simply X. Mr. X telephoned Travis and claimed to be a military intelligence operative who happened to be hunting nearby on that day in 1975. The studio had Cy Gilson test Mr. X. The only report of Mr. X's polygraph results come from the most recent edition of Travis' book, wherein he claims that Mr. X was found to be truthful about what he had seen that day, but that he was lying about being a military intelligence operative. Travis opined that Mr. X may have been hired by Phillip Klass to gain popular credibility and then publicly announce that the whole thing was a hoax, a baseless charge denied by Klass. Another possibility is that Mr. X was simply some kook looking for publicity.

So that's about the size of it. What does a skeptical analysis of the Travis Walton episode tell us? Jerome Clark, the UFO editor, has said "After more than two decades, Walton's credibility survives intact. No shred of evidence yet brought forth against it withstands skeptical scrutiny." Well, this would be true, except that there simply isn't any evidence either way. Instead, there is a gaping lack of evidence. There were no injuries to Travis' shoulder from his violent throw in the blue light beam, there were no disturbances to the pine needles on the forest floor where it all happened, and the medical exams revealed nothing to indicate any trauma or malnutrition from his missing five days. Travis and his crew have had to rely only on polygraph tests, and then only on the cherrypicked positive results, ignoring the negative results. There is just as much polygraph evidence against the Walton case as there is supporting it. This self-contradictory nature is the reason why polygraph evidence is not legally admissible in court: Speaking strictly scientifically, it doesn't tell us anything.

The few bits and pieces of physical, testable evidence that Travis' story would have produced, if true, were never present. To summarize, there is, and never has been, any proof that anything ever happened. The far more plausible explanation, that of a youthful moneymaking or attention-getting scheme by a couple of UFO enthusiasts, has worked out well. To critically analyze a far-out, incredible story like an extraterrestrial abduction, the first request we make is to show us any evidence. And, at this first hurdle, the Travis Walton story has failed completely.
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2018 3:42 pm    Post subject:

And just to close the loop on what I mentioned before -- that we've hashed this out before to no effect -- here's some of the previous conversation:

LarryCoon wrote:

unleasHell wrote:

What BS? You see there are UFO Skeptics, these are people who are skeptical about UFO reports but ask questions to find out more information. There is another group called Debunkers these are people (like you) who do not really know anything about the subject, do not ask any questions and argue for the sake of arguing, and are NOT interested in any facts or evidence, they just want to push their point.

I am not saying shut up (this is actually fun!) you can post anything you like, but just know that ignoring research and jumping right to a conclusion is the basis of the word ignorant.


This is why these discussions are pointless to have. You immediately jumped into a false dichotomy (a logical fallacy). Someone is either asking questions and finding out more (in which case, clearly, they would be persuaded by the evidence), or they're an ignorant denier.

Unfortunately, UFOlogy is way more of a religion than a science. It's replete with a lack of critical thinking skills (and don't take that as an insult -- it takes years of dedicated effort to develop this skill), filled with logical fallacies (the two most prevalent being special pleading and the false dichotomy) which render their conclusions logically invalid, and have zero true quality evidence -- but lacking an independent, objective standard for evidence, that last point doesn't matter to them. These things are all interwoven, of course. Their lack of quality of evidence is dismissed using the logical fallacy of special pleading -- "What are they expecting, a UFO to land on the White House lawn and pose for pictures with tourists?" Therefore the argument morphs to, "There is no high grade evidence, so accept all this low grade evidence," which is another appearance of the special pleading fallacy.

The difference between science and pseudoscience is that science tries to hone in on what IS true, while pseudoscience tries to validate what the practitioner WANTS to be true. There's a difference -- a HUGE difference -- but it's nearly impossible to convince someone who is already invested in the pseudoscience of that difference. It really takes knowledge and skill to be able to correctly apply critical thinking skills, and it's tough to take a perspective of objectivity and detachment when you're already emotionally invested in a topic.

So again -- the discussion is pointless. We're simply not speaking the same language, or looking at things in the same way. You could show me something and say, "Aha! See?" and I'd look at the same thing and think, "THIS is what you show me?" I could point out the patterns and flaws of human cognition, show how they contribute, and show how the phenomenon is far more parsimonious with the known parameters of human psychology than actual alien visitation, and you'd dismiss that as irrelevant. We simply don't have the same standards, because we don't think in the same way.

But what do I know? Apparently I've never had an intelligent conversation on the topic.

Let me add one more thing that I forgot to include before. You're painting one side as being interested in facts and evidence, and the other side essentially ignoring all of this. Jumping right to conclusions. Having "intelligent" discussions (as you phrased it). Etc.

I'd submit that this is true, but the arrow points in the opposite direction that you think it does. As evidence of this, I'd bring up the very characterizations you posted here. It's impossible to have an INTELLIGENT conversation here. The other side just is ignorant on the subject, doesn't look at the facts and evidence, etc.

Can you really take an objective look at your own statements and not see how they are just dismissing what doesn't agree with your conclusion? If not, then I'll take you back to the earlier discussion's that have been had here, and ask you to substantiate that they lack intelligence.

What's pretty clear to me is that you're engaging in a pretty common pseudoscientific tactic of simply brushing away anything disconfirming, and using the fallacious reasoning tactics I described above to do so.

I'd also ask why you think that progress hasn't been made in this area. Fifty years ago it was iffy witness reports, blurry photos, and a few instances of blatant fakery mixed in. Can you show me the progress that has been made by the "research" into this topic over the last 50 years? If you ask me to show you the actual progress made in any legitimate area of science over the last 50 years, I can give you a litany of results.

So if there's something there, if it's something for which there's actual evidence, workable hypotheses, and can withstand even minimum critical analysis, then why isn't, say, one legitimate university program devoted to development of the topic? I'd really like to see what the progress is, know why it hasn't become legitimate, and would REALLY like answers to those questions that don't involve special pleading, false dichotomies, or other invoke other fallacious reasoning.
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2018 3:46 pm    Post subject:

And finally:

LarryCoon wrote:

unleasHell wrote:
Thanks Larry that was great, but it really just helps define my original statement of NOT being able to have an intelligent UFO conversation (over here).



Because apparently you have your own definition of "intelligent." And I will stick by my earlier assertion that a discussion like this is pointless. The very issues that are at the heart of the problem are casually dismissed by UFO proponents -- and your dismissal (now twice) of there never having been an "intelligent" conversation here is a perfect example of that. All you're doing is validating MY earlier statements, which proves my earlier assertion -- it's a pointless discussion to have.

unleasHell wrote:
Now, I will readily admit that your ridicule and put-downs were very masterfully done with extreme intelligence (and lots of big words too!). I have never had any run-ins with you and always liked hearing you on the TV & radio, so I have no idea, why you feel the need to pile-on, although it does seem like some others here really enjoy it.


Stop. Seriously. YOU decided to comment on a topic, and YOU are the one who first threw in the reference to intelligence and tried to paint anyone who disagrees with you into a corner of "NOT interested in facts or evidence," and "...the basis of the word ignorant." So you don't get to act like you strolled in innocently, and everyone all the sudden just started picking on you.

Second, I take issue with your characterization. "Ridicule," "put-downs," "piling-on" -- again, please, stop. None of this was directed at you as a person. That said, if you jump in with an argument that is hopelessly weak -- be it on basketball, politics, science, pseudoscience, or whatever other topic -- it's not piling-on the "ridicule" and "put-downs" to point out the problems.

Third, this is one of the things that are at the heart of the problem -- the essential difference between how you and I would evaluate a truth claim. I subscribe to the methods that are subscribed to by all of science. To quote Richard Feynman, "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself -- and you are the easiest person to fool." Any legitimate investigator tries to prove himself wrong, not just to weave a narrative supporting that he is right. And after he's done that, he opens up his work for others to look at, with the intent that they will try their hardest to thoroughly demolish it. THAT'S how we cull what is true from what we merely want to be true. As I said, the difference is huge. I understand that you don't appreciate that, and likely WON'T appreciate that, which is why I keep saying this is pointless.

unleasHell wrote:
I was simply trying to discuss any specific cases and the best I got was Chariots of the Gods. And all you have done is twisted and dissected my words into one big attack.


First of all, again, stop with characterizing it as an attack. See above for a partial explanation why. But in addition to that, you have a viewpoint to put forward. I have a different viewpoint. My viewpoint is not that your CONCLUSIONS are wrong -- it's more fundamental than that. It's that you're not even approaching the problem in the right was so as to be able to differentiate being right from being wrong.

You keep trying to paint the discussion into one using YOUR parameters (which I'll address next), and characterizing it as a pejorative when the opposite side of the discussion doesn't do that. Again, please stop doing that.

unleasHell wrote:
You are obviously well read on the UFO subject, would you care to disclose any of the authors or books that you have read?


Here's where you keep trying to frame it using your parameters. You even stated it directly in your earlier post -- if someone hasn't read all the materials, they're ignorant on the topic, or worse, "...are not interested in any facts or evidence, and want to push their point." (Which also appears to me to be setting up another logical fallacy, known as the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. You can always paint someone as not having read enough, or done enough research, and use that as a means for dismissal.)

It opens up a more basic question -- is reading X (where X is an amount of UFO material that you define to be sufficient to understand the "facts or evidence") the best way of evaluating the proposition?

Let me put it another way. Pick a topic that you're not already emotionally invested in -- one that you don't believe in, and are pretty sure is bogus. It could be astrology, flat-earth, scientology, reincarnation, moon landing hoax, anti-vaccine, 9/11 conspiracy, whatever. Let's use flat-Earth as an example, but it could be anything that you're not invested in, believe is false, and believe the science has a good handle on the truth.

Are there people out there who fervently believe that the Earth is flat? Yes. Are there forums, books, films, etc. devoted to it? Yes.

Would the best answer for evaluating the truth claim of a flat Earth be to keep reading more and more of the flat Earth material?

Or at some point, do you just say, "You're not looking at the problem in the right way." ESPECIALLY when the way in which they are looking at the problem is an easily, demonstrably bad way to investigate problems?

When can you say, you're using bad methods, and as a result you're coming to bad conclusion, and it's not necessary to read everything you say I have to read in order to do that?

I hope the above sinks in, but based on what you have posted here and how you reacted to my post, I'm afraid it won't. I should say that more strongly -- I have seen over and over and over that it doesn't.

If we could agree on a more fundamental question -- namely, how does one reliably evaluate a truth claim, then we could move on to the next step of looking at actual cases -- but we're not there, we have a long way to go to get there, and frankly, I doubt we ever will.

At that point, my response would be to ask you to show me what you would consider to be the BEST case. The most compelling case you have ever seen, the "smoking gun," as it were, to prove your point. I have done this many times. ALL of them, when an objective methodology for evaluating truth claims is applied, fail miserably.

Now, maybe I just haven't looked at the right cases. While that is possible, it makes me wonder -- as many times as I have done this, and as many times as people have put forth what they purport to be the BEST case, the REAL smoking-gun cases never came up.

And as a separate point, to your "how much have you read?" gambit, I could also respond, how much have you read on human psychological factors, cognition biases and errors, flaws in perception and memory, motivated reasoning and pattern seeking behavior, and the accumulation of sociological and cultural effects, to vet your approach and ensure that your claims are not better explained by mundane aspects of human psychology and behavior? And if you have not thoroughly vested yourself in these topics, then why do you think it's reasonable to ask me how much I've read, and (assumedly this is what comes next), dismissing me for not having looked into it to your satisfaction? Wouldn't that be a double standard?

unleasHell wrote:
I was a Mod on Real GM (in the Laker room) for several years and I am presently a Mod on UFO casebook dot-com and I always approach the Mod position as an Ambassador for the Website, I don't go out of my way to intimidate and attack the users.


Wrong approach again.

1. With all due respect to the way you have approached moderation at other sites, please don't tell me how to be a moderator.

2. I am not participating in this thread in the role of moderator. I have said nothing here that even hints of moderation.

3. The point of discussion forums is to discuss topics, and people having differing viewpoints is standard, and arguing those viewpoints is also standard, expected, and normal. You don't get to re-cast an opposing viewpoint as intimidation and attack in order to cast me as a bad guy, and therefore not being an ambassador for the site. Again, stop.

unleasHell wrote:
If you would like to discuss any specific UFO cases, please feel free to stop by, I guarantee, I would show you much more respect than you have given me. Otherwise you have more than convinced me to stick to basketball related talk over here.


I respectfully submit that you prefer discussing UFO-related topics in a UFO forum (and even invited me there to discuss it) because it's an insulated environment where everyone approaches the topic in the way that you do (or at least, opposing viewpoints are universally regarded as "unintelligent" and "ignorant"). An "echo chamber," if you will. I would further submit that you no longer want to do it here because your approach shrinks at the first sight of open scrutiny. Otherwise, I don't see why you'd have a problem discussing it here. This is neutral territory. This isn't a pro-UFO site. This isn't an anti-UFO site. This is a basketball site. It's orthogonal.

So yeah, if you can't have a discussion without the virtue of being in an echo chamber, then perhaps you're right -- perhaps you shouldn't talk about it here.

Second, there you go, casting it as "disrespect." Let me finish up by addressing this comment in a different way, since I already addressed it the other way --

I have precious little free time. I have now spent about an hour on this reply, on top of the time I spent on my previous replies. To you. To address your comments, and your ideas. Despite your continual attempts to paint it as "disrespectful," an "attack," etc., I am really doing nothing of the sort. I'm taking a LOT of time to address what I see as a fundamental difference in thinking which is at the heart of an issue.

I didn't casually (and easily) brush off what you said with pejoratives. I carefully addressed exactly what you were saying. And that takes a lot of time. And a lot of effort.

And you think that's disrespect.
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2018 4:04 pm    Post subject:

JerryMagicKobe wrote:
unleasHell wrote:
To repeat the X-Files theme: The Truth is out there

Sitting behind a computer will never provide anyone with the evidence they need, try attending a local MUFON meeting, where abductees discuss their experiences.

I'm not here to convince anyone of anything, the fact is, I don't a horse in this race, so I don't care one way or the other.

What I find both funny and sad, is the the vast numbers of people who claim there is no evidence of anything, which couldn't be farther from the truth, there is a myriad of evidence out there for anyone who chooses to look and investigate, don't expect to be hand fed evidence, you are going to need to apply logic and deductive reasoning as well.

Anyway, there are a number of classic cases, which have never been disproven that might be a fun place to start, but you're gonna have to do some internet searches:

1) The Barney & Betty Hill Abduction
2) The Lonnie Zamora UFO sighting is often cited as one of the most compelling on record by leading UFO researchers.
3) The Rendlesham Forest Case
4) The Travis Walton Abduction
5) 1973-Pascagoula, Mississippi Abduction

And here's a Link: https://www.thoughtco.com/the-best-documented-ufo-cases-3293399

cheers...
1973 abduction? Zamora was in 1964. The Hills in 1961. Rendelsham Forrest was 1980. Walton was 1975. Today there are billions of people with cell phones with cameras. Can you offer a link to any conclusive UFO video?


I have some from a camping trip to Lake Casitas last summer. Four different color lights coming at us in formation, then they split up 4 different ways only to go back to formation. Do I think it was aliens? No, but I couldn't identify them.
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2018 5:04 pm    Post subject:

venturalakersfan wrote:
JerryMagicKobe wrote:
unleasHell wrote:
To repeat the X-Files theme: The Truth is out there

Sitting behind a computer will never provide anyone with the evidence they need, try attending a local MUFON meeting, where abductees discuss their experiences.

I'm not here to convince anyone of anything, the fact is, I don't a horse in this race, so I don't care one way or the other.

What I find both funny and sad, is the the vast numbers of people who claim there is no evidence of anything, which couldn't be farther from the truth, there is a myriad of evidence out there for anyone who chooses to look and investigate, don't expect to be hand fed evidence, you are going to need to apply logic and deductive reasoning as well.

Anyway, there are a number of classic cases, which have never been disproven that might be a fun place to start, but you're gonna have to do some internet searches:

1) The Barney & Betty Hill Abduction
2) The Lonnie Zamora UFO sighting is often cited as one of the most compelling on record by leading UFO researchers.
3) The Rendlesham Forest Case
4) The Travis Walton Abduction
5) 1973-Pascagoula, Mississippi Abduction

And here's a Link: https://www.thoughtco.com/the-best-documented-ufo-cases-3293399

cheers...
1973 abduction? Zamora was in 1964. The Hills in 1961. Rendelsham Forrest was 1980. Walton was 1975. Today there are billions of people with cell phones with cameras. Can you offer a link to any conclusive UFO video?


I have some from a camping trip to Lake Casitas last summer. Four different color lights coming at us in formation, then they split up 4 different ways only to go back to formation. Do I think it was aliens? No, but I couldn't identify them.


1. Observation is the first step
2. Next, one could research what was observed for possible explanations
3. From the pool of possibilities, one could form a hypothesis
4. That hypothesis could then be tested
5. The results of the test could be analyzed
6. A conclusion could be drawn from the analysis
7. And the entire process could then be reported so others may support or disprove the conclusion

It seems UFO believers observe something (Step 1), call it a UFO (Step 6) and then defend their faulty conclusions unquestioningly against all logic and reason while ignoring other possible explanations. People are uncomfortable with not knowing an answer so they fill in the blanks with whatever gives them comfort, remaining happy until someone questions what they think they know.
But it isn't knowledge, so they call it a belief.
And a belief is rarely correct, almost always an impediment and never something to be proud of, despite how vigorously they defend it.
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2018 6:01 pm    Post subject:

We speculated that it was probably military since Pt. Mugu is so close and they were headed in that direction. But we weren’t as interested in it to spend time investigating, just something fun to talk about around the campfire.
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2018 6:28 pm    Post subject:

Omar Little wrote:
You do realize that uncorroborated eyewitness testimony is the lowest form of evidence that exists? People believe things that aren’t true, make things up, exaggerate them, etc. hard evidence is in short supply for alien abductions, and by short I’m being charitable.


Great points Omar, now just what would "corroborating" evidence be?

A video? that would be nice, but people would claim it was fake!

A photo? there are thousands of UFO photos and many/most of those are accused of being fake. How about photos that were taken on film? So the negatives could be examined? There are cases like that.

How about a UFO witness who passes a Poly Graph test? Ok, I'll help on this one, Lie Detectors can be fooled. But it is much, much harder than you might think. How about SIX witnesses, who barely know each other?

Has anybody here fooled a Lie Detector test?

I mean we all kinda know how they work right? A bunch of wires are attached to parts of the body to measure heart rate, blood pressure and other things, with the presumption that if you tell a lie, the machine measures differences in your body. They ask a bunch of control questions and even have the subject answer falsely to establish a baseline for positive & negative responses.

Next let's assume you all have or had a job, and let's say you and six other co-workers all go out into the forest to party.

During the party, everyone spots a UFO and run away. And one guy does not make it back, so you all go to the police and report that you think a UFO took your co-worker!

Now, the police think like the majority of the people here and have a theory that you guys MURDERED the missing guy and convince you all to take Poly Graph tests.

Now lets say 5 of the 6 pass the test with NO SIGNS OF DECEPTION and the one guy that doesn't quite pass, does not quite fail it either, but does shows signs of deception. After digger deeper into the guy, it is revealed that he owed a bunch of child support money and was worried about being arrested.

Then, let's say that (approx.) 20 years later ALL six of you take another polygraph test. This time from one of the leading poly graph administrators in the US and this time ALL six people pass! These six are just average Joes, blue color workers with no motive to lie, they weren't getting rich, they weren't invited to the Oprah show, they didn't get a book deal.

So here is a question, without time to prepare (Remember there was no internet back in 1975) Do you think that you could get together with six co-workers and come up with an outrageous lie and all of you pass a poly graph twice?

This happened in the Travis Walton case: https://www.thoughtco.com/the-travis-walton-abduction-3293372

cheers...
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2018 6:29 pm    Post subject:

venturalakersfan wrote:
I have some from a camping trip to Lake Casitas last summer. Four different color lights coming at us in formation, then they split up 4 different ways only to go back to formation. Do I think it was aliens? No, but I couldn't identify them.


The most obvious explanation is a winged aircraft with multiple landing and navigation lights on. If you are viewing it an angle, it would appear to be a group of lights in formation coming in your direction. Then said aircraft trans to a direct approach towards you, thus the lights seems to "break formation" and separate. And then the aircraft completes its turn and you are seeing it from an oblique angle again and the lights would "return to formation".

One sees that kind of thing all the time, it just doesn't register when one is day to day living in the city with bright lights everywhere. But suddenly, out in the woods while camping (notice how many "I saw a UFO" stories occur under such circumstance?), such a thing appears to be much more unusual than it really is.

I saw a UFO under similar circumstances. I was returning from a camping trip in the Los Padres and my friend and I saw a bright light hovering in the sky through the trees. At first it just looked like a helicopter with a search light hovering. But after a minute it was clear that it was a bright light that wasn't searching around. It was kind of floating in the sky doing a slow, wavering dance in one general occasion with no discernible pattern. So we stopped to look at it. It also appeared to change in size and intensity as it did its little dance wavering in one general spot. It grew much larger quite quickly before growing dimmer and shrinking in place.

It was very cool to see and we were stumped because it was like no other craft we had seen. Then we got home and I saw the late news. It was a rocket from Vandenberg. We must have been viewing from down range and directly behind. So rather than seeing it move up or across the sky, we saw it receding away and the "hovering" was the directional adjustments as it moved directly away from us. The sudden change in size was when it reached the outer atmosphere and the disappearance was it moving into space and the rocket burn becoming unseen as it flared out.

Point being, there are UFO sightings all the time that are legit "Unidentified Flying Objects" and the people involved are well meaning, reasonable people.

The problem arises when it makes the leap from "unidentified" to it must be extra-terrestrial in nature. In such situations you go from the most logical possibility and work away from there, not the other way around.
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2018 6:31 pm    Post subject:

venturalakersfan wrote:
We speculated that it was probably military since Pt. Mugu is so close and they were headed in that direction. But we weren’t as interested in it to spend time investigating, just something fun to talk about around the campfire.


That's right, we have to remember what UFO stands for - it is Unidentified Flying Object.

If I take my glasses off, I can see hundreds of UFOs!



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PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2018 6:39 pm    Post subject:

unleasHell wrote:
Omar Little wrote:
You do realize that uncorroborated eyewitness testimony is the lowest form of evidence that exists? People believe things that aren’t true, make things up, exaggerate them, etc. hard evidence is in short supply for alien abductions, and by short I’m being charitable.


Great points Omar, now just what would "corroborating" evidence be?

A video? that would be nice, but people would claim it was fake!

A photo? there are thousands of UFO photos and many/most of those are accused of being fake. How about photos that were taken on film? So the negatives could be examined? There are cases like that.

How about a UFO witness who passes a Poly Graph test? Ok, I'll help on this one, Lie Detectors can be fooled. But it is much, much harder than you might think. How about SIX witnesses, who barely know each other?

Has anybody here fooled a Lie Detector test?

I mean we all kinda know how they work right? A bunch of wires are attached to parts of the body to measure heart rate, blood pressure and other things, with the presumption that if you tell a lie, the machine measures differences in your body. They ask a bunch of control questions and even have the subject answer falsely to establish a baseline for positive & negative responses.

Next let's assume you all have or had a job, and let's say you and six other co-workers all go out into the forest to party.

During the party, everyone spots a UFO and run away. And one guy does not make it back, so you all go to the police and report that you think a UFO took your co-worker!

Now, the police think like the majority of the people here and have a theory that you guys MURDERED the missing guy and convince you all to take Poly Graph tests.

Now lets say 5 of the 6 pass the test with NO SIGNS OF DECEPTION and the one guy that doesn't quite pass, does not quite fail it either, but does shows signs of deception. After digger deeper into the guy, it is revealed that he owed a bunch of child support money and was worried about being arrested.

Then, let's say that (approx.) 20 years later ALL six of you take another polygraph test. This time from one of the leading poly graph administrators in the US and this time ALL six people pass! These six are just average Joes, blue color workers with no motive to lie, they weren't getting rich, they weren't invited to the Oprah show, they didn't get a book deal.

So here is a question, without time to prepare (Remember there was no internet back in 1975) Do you think that you could get together with six co-workers and come up with an outrageous lie and all of you pass a poly graph twice?

This happened in the Travis Walton case: https://www.thoughtco.com/the-travis-walton-abduction-3293372

cheers...


Remember that thing that Larry said about ignoring evidence that doesn't help your narrative? That's exactly what you just did in perfect fashion here. You describe this group of guys as a bunch of co-workers who should have been scared to report that their buddy disappeared and you COMPLETELY eliminated the part where the two key guys in that group were UFO ENTHUSIASTS who had discussions about what they would do if abducted!!!! And that's just one example of such behavior.

Your own words and actions prove the core point of everything LC has said regards to the UFO diehards.
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2018 6:46 pm    Post subject:

LarryCoon wrote:
Lonnie Zamora. Also cited by unleasHell has one of the best documented cases:

Quote:

In any tome on UFOs worth its salt, the name of Lonnie Zamora always looms large. He is that species of eyewitness held in the highest regard by UFOlogists: a police officer. Police officers, so it is said, are never mistaken. They always know exactly what they're looking at. They cannot be fooled, they are experts at identifying anything they see, and their memories are faultless; all necessary requirements of their job. So when Lonnie Zamora saw an egg-shaped UFO in Socorro, New Mexico in 1964, it quickly became regarded as one of the most reliable. To this day, his sighting is cited by some as proof of alien visitation; and it is one of the legendary "unknown" cases listed in Project Blue Book. Today we're going to look at Zamora's report, the theories suggested to explain it, and see what lessons there are to be learned.

Socorro, New Mexico is not renowned as a great metropolis. It is home to the modest campus of New Mexico Tech (New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology) and enough infrastructure to support a small local mining industry. Its population has never managed to crack ten thousand, yet its siting on the banks of the Rio Grande allow it to be a spot of green in an otherwise bleak desert landscape.

In 1964 Officer Zamora was chasing a reckless speeding driver when he heard what he thought might be a dynamite storage shack exploding, so he abandoned the chase and turned up toward a perlite mine. Here's what he described two days later to radio interviewer Walter Shrode:

Quote:
ZAMORA: I went up that little road, for about half a mile, I guess, came up to this little parking (?) there on the side of the road, and I thought I'd glance out of the window, looked to my left and seen this white object on the ground. Thought that it might be a car that had turned over. Crossed the (?) to go out there to investigate, thought maybe somebody might be hurt. At that time, I saw this white, egg, like egg-shaped looking object...

SHRODE: That it looked something like an egg, you mean?

ZAMORA: Yeah, from that distance I was it looked like an egg to me...

SHRODE: About the size of a car, I think someone said.

ZAMORA: Yes sir, it looked like a car that had turned over, therefore I would say about the size of a car.


As he got closer, he saw something like two people near the object.

Quote:
SHRODE: Did they have helmets on like spacemen or anything?

ZAMORA: No sir, I wouldn't say they were people, I just... I saw something white, white coveralls, that's all I can say.

SHRODE: But you couldn't identify them as actually being an actual human being, like you or I are?

ZAMORA: No sir, I couldn't.


It blasted off with a loud rocket-like sound, and Zamora saw flames.

Quote:
ZAMORA: It was very low to the ground, at the time I was seeing it, it was very low to the ground up to the perlite mill there, and then it started gaining in altitude.


Nobody doubted Zamora's remarkable report. The FBI came out and verified burn marks in the desert scrub from the object's rockets. Air Force investigators recorded a detailed account from Zamora for Project Blue Book. Their version was more explicit: the figures were definitely humanlike in white suits, and the vehicle was smooth and white, with no windows or doors, shaped either like a football or an oval. Its only feature was an insignia in red, about two feet high: an inverted V with three lines beneath it.

For some time, there has been an interesting candidate explanation floating around. At that time in 1964, NASA was testing an early engineering model of Surveyor, the lunar probe that went to the moon in 1966. This testing was done out of Holloman AFB in New Mexico at the White Sands Missile Range, and researchers have found records showing that the model was being carried by helicopter on the same day[1] — although earlier in the morning — as Lonnie Zamora's sighting. Some have even pointed to early logos of various Hughes subsidiaries (Surveyor was built by Hughes Aircraft) as possible matches for the insignia drawn by Zamora. Surveyor landed with rockets, the same loud rockets that Zamora heard. And what would Hughes technicians be wearing besides white coveralls? In some articles describing this theory, it appears to be a virtual lock.

Maybe I'm just a skeptic, but I find it to be a terrible explanation. For one thing, Holloman is directly adjacent to the White Sands Missile Range where the Surveyor testing was done, yet Socorro is a full 150km away. It can hardly be argued that the engineers strayed slightly outside their boundaries. For another, never once in the recorded history of NASA or the Air Force have they transported their experimental craft far from their remote desert test facilities and directly into populated towns to test them, and it strains credibility to conclude they might have felt that doing so was the best course in this case.

Surveyor it was a tripod of aluminum trusses with a couple boxes at its base. By no remote description can it be said to look like an egg, an oval, a football, or an overturned car. It doesn't even have a flat surface on which an insignia could appear. And if it did, it would — like every piece of hardware NASA had ever flown — have had the NASA logo displayed, not some obscure Hughes subsidiary logo.

Surveyor had never been designed with any takeoff ability. Its retros slowed its descent, then it fell the final 3 meters to the surface, where it stayed. Zamora's description of a craft taking off and flying away had nothing to do with anything related to Surveyor. Anyway the engineering model had to be transported by helicopter, and Zamora probably would have noticed that. If the claim is that the oval-shaped craft that Zamora saw take off was the Air Force helicopter, then he was the most monumental ignoramus in the history of ignoramuses, and I don't hear anyone saying that.

So I'm going to go out on a limb and say no, whatever Lonnie Zamora saw was most definitely not the Surveyor engineering model from Holloman.

A more persuasive explanation came from the unlikely source of Linus Pauling, the famous chemist who is as well known for his two Nobel prizes as he is for having descended into crankery in his later years, both with the promotion of Vitamin C as miracle cure-all, and less well known, for his interest in UFOs. After his death, a letter was found in Pauling's files[2] from 1968, which he'd sent to Stirling Colgate, then President of New Mexico Tech, and received a handwritten reply on the bottom. As a postscript to his letter, Pauling had asked Colgate what the people at New Mexico Tech thought about the Lonnie Zamora incident, and Colgate scrawled back:

Quote:
I have good indication of student who engineered hoax. Student has left.
Cheers, Stirling.


Students at tech universities have a long and time-honored tradition of pranking, and it turns out that Lonnie Zamora had worked on campus for several years, where he had developed a reputation for being somewhat rigid and impatient with the students. Consequently he was not overlooked by those with mischief on their minds when he became a police officer. UFO researcher Tony Bragalia corresponded with Dr. Colgate by email several times in 2012, as well as with two others from New Mexico Tech, to get some more of the story — although no former students' names were forthcoming. What it came down to was this.

The Energetics Lab on campus stocked all kinds of pyrotechnics, more than enough to make all the audio and visual rocket and explosion sounds that Zamora saw and heard, as well as the burned scrub. White lab suits were conveniently available. And in the exact words of the university president himself, the craft itself consisted of:

Quote:
A candle in a balloon. Not sophisticated.


With one driver to possibly lure Zamora to the scene by speeding, perhaps another to tow the big white balloon off into the distance at high speed when it took off:

Quote:
ZAMORA: It flew low to the perlite mine, and then from there on it did go faster than you could barely view.


It's also noteworthy that in the Air Force report, when Zamora radioed in and was asked what it looked like, his exact words were "It looks like a balloon."

One criticism of the hoax explanation is that these alleged students were never named or came forward. But I'm not surprised. In this case especially, there's no way I'd expect any real hoaxers to ever reveal themselves. Why not? Because when you're a college student, and your little afternoon prank on the local constabulary turns out to mobilize not only the Feds but half the branches of the armed services, some of whom work with your professors, and you'd rather graduate than spend the rest of your life at Fort Leavenworth, you tend to zip your lip. No, I'm not at all surprised that these students — assuming they existed — never went public with their involvement.

The faculty of New Mexico Tech certainly seemed satisfied that their little rapscallions were responsible, and that those same rapscallions had the means and a motivating lack of other diversions. It's the only complete explanation anyone has proposed that neatly checks all the boxes, fits all the descriptions, and requires no alien intervention. No doubt this will not be a popular explanation among those UFOlogists whose preferred conclusion is an alien spacecraft, but that's going to be the case no matter what.

As for Lonnie Zamora, he stayed in Socorro, had a good full career as a police officer, and was buried there in town when he died in 2009. Not a word written about him by anyone cast the slightest doubt on his sincerity, his honesty, or the integrity with which he conducted himself in all the official interviews that were thrust upon him. Moreover, he was said to be friendly and well liked, a good patriot and family man. He just didn't want to talk to you about UFOs anymore. He'd been there and done that.


SOURCE: https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4582

[1] http://www.nmsr.org/socorro.htm

[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20111214150713/http://ufos.homestead.com/colgate-letter.jpg


Larry takes this stuff very seriously and has no problem insulting and being a Mod, I can't give any type of response other than to say that his debunking evidence is extremely biased, flawed, and leaves things out. I invite anyone interested to visit the Wikipedia site and read what they have to say about this case and you will see how the above was twisted to fit his agenda.

Here is a quote from the last sentence: However, in a secret report prepared for the CIA, Project Blue Book's director, Major Hector Quintanilla, offered further details regarding the Zamora case, "There is no doubt that Lonnie Zamora saw an object which left quite an impression on him. There is also no question about Zamora's reliability. He is a serious police officer, a pillar of his church, and a man well versed in recognizing airborne vehicles in his area. He is puzzled by what he saw and frankly, so are we. This is the best-documented case on record, and still we have been unable, in spite of thorough investigation, to find the vehicle or other stimulus that scared Zamora to the point of panic.

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonnie_Zamora_incident
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2018 6:47 pm    Post subject:

unleasHell wrote:

So here is a question, without time to prepare (Remember there was no internet back in 1975) Do you think that you could get together with six co-workers and come up with an outrageous lie and all of you pass a poly graph twice?

This happened in the Travis Walton case: https://www.thoughtco.com/the-travis-walton-abduction-3293372

cheers...


What does the internet have to do with coming up with a lie? People have been collectively coming up with lies for eons, and doing so doesn't take this inordinate amount of time you claim.

"Dude, let's say that there was this UFO that attacked me. You guys panicked and ran off but decided to come back only to find me gone. I'll hide out for 5 days and then I'll make a phone call for you to come get me".

"OK, what does the ship look like and what does it do".

"You know, it's like the typical flying saucer and we'll say some blue light knocked me back".

"Sounds good . . . let's do it" . . .

Wow. That took about 15 seconds. Spend an evening planning it and it's even easier.
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2018 6:54 pm    Post subject:

unleasHell wrote:

Larry takes this stuff very seriously and has no problem insulting and being a Mod,


Nope. not at all. And as he correctly pointed out, the only one doing the insulting is you when you say that people who disagree with you are incapable of having an "intelligent" discussion.

Quote:
I can't give any type of response other than to say that his debunking evidence is extremely biased, flawed, and leaves things out.


The irony in you saying that reaches preposterous levels. He was very thorough, accurate and pointedly unbiased.

Quote:
I invite anyone interested to visit the Wikipedia site


Yes, Wikipedia, the user controlled "encyclopedia" where anyone can make any false entry they wish.
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2018 7:07 pm    Post subject:

unleasHell wrote:
Omar Little wrote:
You do realize that uncorroborated eyewitness testimony is the lowest form of evidence that exists? People believe things that aren’t true, make things up, exaggerate them, etc. hard evidence is in short supply for alien abductions, and by short I’m being charitable.


Great points Omar, now just what would "corroborating" evidence be?

A video? that would be nice, but people would claim it was fake!

A photo? there are thousands of UFO photos and many/most of those are accused of being fake. How about photos that were taken on film? So the negatives could be examined? There are cases like that.

How about a UFO witness who passes a Poly Graph test? Ok, I'll help on this one, Lie Detectors can be fooled. But it is much, much harder than you might think. How about SIX witnesses, who barely know each other?

Has anybody here fooled a Lie Detector test?

I mean we all kinda know how they work right? A bunch of wires are attached to parts of the body to measure heart rate, blood pressure and other things, with the presumption that if you tell a lie, the machine measures differences in your body. They ask a bunch of control questions and even have the subject answer falsely to establish a baseline for positive & negative responses.

Next let's assume you all have or had a job, and let's say you and six other co-workers all go out into the forest to party.

During the party, everyone spots a UFO and run away. And one guy does not make it back, so you all go to the police and report that you think a UFO took your co-worker!

Now, the police think like the majority of the people here and have a theory that you guys MURDERED the missing guy and convince you all to take Poly Graph tests.

Now lets say 5 of the 6 pass the test with NO SIGNS OF DECEPTION and the one guy that doesn't quite pass, does not quite fail it either, but does shows signs of deception. After digger deeper into the guy, it is revealed that he owed a bunch of child support money and was worried about being arrested.

Then, let's say that (approx.) 20 years later ALL six of you take another polygraph test. This time from one of the leading poly graph administrators in the US and this time ALL six people pass! These six are just average Joes, blue color workers with no motive to lie, they weren't getting rich, they weren't invited to the Oprah show, they didn't get a book deal.

So here is a question, without time to prepare (Remember there was no internet back in 1975) Do you think that you could get together with six co-workers and come up with an outrageous lie and all of you pass a poly graph twice?

This happened in the Travis Walton case: https://www.thoughtco.com/the-travis-walton-abduction-3293372

cheers...


How much money did Walton make from his story? I'm of a mind Paramount paid him something for rights.

Travis Walton UFO incident


LINK

Quote:
Skeptical reception

Skeptics consider the case to be a hoax, describing it as "sensationalizing on the part of the media" and "a put-up job to make money." UFO researcher Philip J. Klass considered Walton's story to be a hoax perpetrated for financial gain, and discovered many "discrepancies" in the accounts of Walton and his co-workers. After investigating the case, Klass reported that the polygraph tests were "poorly administered", that Walton used "polygraph countermeasures" such as holding his breath, and uncovered an earlier failed test administered by an examiner who concluded the case involved "gross deception".[9][10][11][2][12]

Skeptic writer Michael Shermer criticized Walton's claims, saying, "I think the polygraph is not a reliable determiner of truth. I think Travis Walton was not abducted by aliens. In both cases, the power of deception and self-deception is all we need to understand what really happened in 1975 and after."[7] Cognitive psychologist Susan Clancy argues that alien abduction reports began only after stories of extraterrestrials appeared in films and on TV, and that Walton was likely influenced by the NBC television movie The UFO Incident that aired two weeks before his own claimed abduction and dramatized the alien abduction claims of Betty and Barney Hill. Clancy noted the rise in alien abduction claims following the movie and cites Klass's conclusions that "after viewing this movie, any person with a little imagination could now become an instant celebrity", concluding that "one of those instant celebrities was Travis Walton."[3]


Quote:
Media and publicity

In 1978, Walton wrote the book The Walton Experience detailing his claims, which became the basis for the 1993 film Fire in the Sky. Paramount Pictures decided Walton’s account was "too fuzzy and too similar to other televised close encounters," so they ordered screenwriter Tracy Tormé to write a "flashier, more provocative" abduction story.[13] Walton has occasionally appeared at UFO conventions or on television. He sponsors his own UFO conference in Arizona, called the "Skyfire Summit."[8]

Thirty years after the book's release, Walton appeared on the Fox game show The Moment of Truth and was asked if he in fact was abducted by a UFO on November 5, 1975, to which he replied with "Yes". The polygraph test determined he was lying.[14][15] In 2016, Walton appeared in the twelfth season of the Travel Channel's Ghost Adventures, where he was interviewed by Zak Bagans.[16] He also appeared in an episode of the Canadian series Evil Encounters, titled "Terror From The Sky."


Why did you leave out the above inserts of the Walton case? Seems like he made a decent living with his story.
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2018 7:53 pm    Post subject:

unleasHell wrote:
Omar Little wrote:
You do realize that uncorroborated eyewitness testimony is the lowest form of evidence that exists? People believe things that aren’t true, make things up, exaggerate them, etc. hard evidence is in short supply for alien abductions, and by short I’m being charitable.


Great points Omar, now just what would "corroborating" evidence be?

A video? that would be nice, but people would claim it was fake!

A photo? there are thousands of UFO photos and many/most of those are accused of being fake. How about photos that were taken on film? So the negatives could be examined? There are cases like that.

How about a UFO witness who passes a Poly Graph test? Ok, I'll help on this one, Lie Detectors can be fooled. But it is much, much harder than you might think. How about SIX witnesses, who barely know each other?

Has anybody here fooled a Lie Detector test?

I mean we all kinda know how they work right? A bunch of wires are attached to parts of the body to measure heart rate, blood pressure and other things, with the presumption that if you tell a lie, the machine measures differences in your body. They ask a bunch of control questions and even have the subject answer falsely to establish a baseline for positive & negative responses.

Next let's assume you all have or had a job, and let's say you and six other co-workers all go out into the forest to party.

During the party, everyone spots a UFO and run away. And one guy does not make it back, so you all go to the police and report that you think a UFO took your co-worker!

Now, the police think like the majority of the people here and have a theory that you guys MURDERED the missing guy and convince you all to take Poly Graph tests.

Now lets say 5 of the 6 pass the test with NO SIGNS OF DECEPTION and the one guy that doesn't quite pass, does not quite fail it either, but does shows signs of deception. After digger deeper into the guy, it is revealed that he owed a bunch of child support money and was worried about being arrested.

Then, let's say that (approx.) 20 years later ALL six of you take another polygraph test. This time from one of the leading poly graph administrators in the US and this time ALL six people pass! These six are just average Joes, blue color workers with no motive to lie, they weren't getting rich, they weren't invited to the Oprah show, they didn't get a book deal.

So here is a question, without time to prepare (Remember there was no internet back in 1975) Do you think that you could get together with six co-workers and come up with an outrageous lie and all of you pass a poly graph twice?

This happened in the Travis Walton case: https://www.thoughtco.com/the-travis-walton-abduction-3293372

cheers...


Remember that thing that Larry said about ignoring evidence that doesn't help your narrative? That's exactly what you just did in perfect fashion here. You describe this group of guys as a bunch of co-workers who should have been scared to report that their buddy disappeared and you COMPLETELY eliminated the part where the two key guys in that group were UFO ENTHUSIASTS who had discussions about what they would do if abducted!!!! That's a text book example of LC's point. You ask "why would they lie when such a lie could put them at risk?" and completely ignore the obvious motivation they would have to lie. You also ignore that they were never at risk of the fear that you say they should have had about the lie in the first place, that the cops would think they killed him. And that's just one example of you proving LC's points correct.

Your own words and actions prove the core point of everything LC has said regards to the UFO diehards.
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2018 8:13 pm    Post subject:

This is almost identical to debating JFK assassination conspiracy theorists. Used to do that for a while. Finally had one guy who not only kept bringing back stuff that was categorically debunked (the magic bullet, which, ironically, would be a better name for the supposed head shot from the grassy knoll, that had to make an almost 90 degree turn, but I digress), but just kitchen sinked me with every shred and scintilla of “evidence” he could remember from multiple books, and offered me “proof” that one of over a dozen suspects, many mutually exclusive, did it. No sense that the fact that any one of them being guilty would render tons of his evidence for the others faulty, and when he was apprised of that fact, merely pointed out that it was up to me to figure it out. He also ended up calling me uninterested in a real and intelligent look at it. Because in his mind, it’s a fact, he just doesn’t know which part. But he knows it’s true.
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2018 8:16 pm    Post subject:

unleasHell wrote:
Omar Little wrote:
You do realize that uncorroborated eyewitness testimony is the lowest form of evidence that exists? People believe things that aren’t true, make things up, exaggerate them, etc. hard evidence is in short supply for alien abductions, and by short I’m being charitable.


Great points Omar, now just what would "corroborating" evidence be?

A video? that would be nice, but people would claim it was fake!

A photo? there are thousands of UFO photos and many/most of those are accused of being fake. How about photos that were taken on film? So the negatives could be examined? There are cases like that.

How about a UFO witness who passes a Poly Graph test? Ok, I'll help on this one, Lie Detectors can be fooled. But it is much, much harder than you might think. How about SIX witnesses, who barely know each other?

Has anybody here fooled a Lie Detector test?

I mean we all kinda know how they work right? A bunch of wires are attached to parts of the body to measure heart rate, blood pressure and other things, with the presumption that if you tell a lie, the machine measures differences in your body. They ask a bunch of control questions and even have the subject answer falsely to establish a baseline for positive & negative responses.

Next let's assume you all have or had a job, and let's say you and six other co-workers all go out into the forest to party.

During the party, everyone spots a UFO and run away. And one guy does not make it back, so you all go to the police and report that you think a UFO took your co-worker!

Now, the police think like the majority of the people here and have a theory that you guys MURDERED the missing guy and convince you all to take Poly Graph tests.

Now lets say 5 of the 6 pass the test with NO SIGNS OF DECEPTION and the one guy that doesn't quite pass, does not quite fail it either, but does shows signs of deception. After digger deeper into the guy, it is revealed that he owed a bunch of child support money and was worried about being arrested.

Then, let's say that (approx.) 20 years later ALL six of you take another polygraph test. This time from one of the leading poly graph administrators in the US and this time ALL six people pass! These six are just average Joes, blue color workers with no motive to lie, they weren't getting rich, they weren't invited to the Oprah show, they didn't get a book deal.

So here is a question, without time to prepare (Remember there was no internet back in 1975) Do you think that you could get together with six co-workers and come up with an outrageous lie and all of you pass a poly graph twice?

This happened in the Travis Walton case: https://www.thoughtco.com/the-travis-walton-abduction-3293372

cheers...


Leaving aside that your crowning summation was... uh... Wikipedia, I’m still waiting for your answer to my earlier question: where is the physical evidence of Bigfoot? Not footprints, grainy pics, or accounts. The physical remains of one, or parts thereof.
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 5:21 am    Post subject:

YIKES .
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 8:35 am    Post subject:

Hello Omar, I'll start a Bigfoot thread (soon) and we can let Art Bell rest in peace (LOL). I would really enjoy discussing it further. This will be my last post in this thread:

Let’s create a scale, based on the top half of a clock. At 12 o’clock you have the “Skeptics” and we’ll define them as people who don’t have an opinion one way or the other, but have an open mind to hearing both sides. At 9 o’clock there are the “True Believers” and we’ll define them as people who wholeheartedly believe UFO’s are real and include UFO witnesses, abductees, researchers, authors, etc. Lastly, over at 3 o’clock are the “Debunkers”. These people typically do not conduct any investigations or interviews they simply read the reports, looking to poke holes in it. Because of this they have zero objectivity.

I started out as a Skeptic (12 o’clock), but my research, reading, attending symposiums, and looking witnesses in the eye as they discussed their encounters, I moved to somewhere between 10 and 11 o’clock. Another fact is: I don’t believe every UFO case is real, I can pick and choose which I believe, while a Debunker does not have any flexibility as they believe that everyone who makes a UFO claim is either lying or mistaken - there are no other choices!

I think it is blatantly obvious where Larry stands. He is sitting there firmly at 3 o’clock, and ready willing and able to attack anyone who does not agree with him. I think he has read some UFO books, I don’t recall if he has ever personally interviewed witnesses, but if he did, I guess it didn’t matter.

Where do you guys stand? At 12 o’clock? Maybe 1 o’clock? Are you willing to look into the subject objectively and make your own decisions?

Like I said before, I really don’t care one way or the other, someone asked me about some UFO cases, which I recommended and Larry was quick to do internet searches on everyone of them – with the word “hoax” after them (I suspect) and found sites debunking everyone of them! He didn’t bother to read the dozens of other sites that have supporting information for those cases because they do not support his point of view. Meaning he is great at searching, copying and pasting, but not so much on investigating, and researching.

If you don’t mind being TOLD what to think, then by all means jump on board Larry’s Debunker Bus and grab yourself some of his Kool-Aid. I mean he is a quasi-celeb, on Sports-talk tv/radio, because of his expertise on NBA Salary Caps and a Mod here, so I’m sure there is a huge contingent here that always has to agree with him. The fact is, I used to like the guy, but after his previous attacks, I change the channel whenever he come on and never read his posts. I mean, look at the work he put into trying to disparage me, taking the time to do all those hoax searches and then making huge posts, then going back 2 or 3 years and copying posts to further build himself up and try and make me look bad, it’s boarder line psychotic behavior, but typical for a Debunker! I’m not the only person in the world that believes UFO are of extraterrestrial origin, but I seem to be his main target here.

So if you are a free-thinker and want to look into this on your own, then by all means do so, I promise I won’t tell Larry! Tonight there is monthly OC MUFON Meeting: http://www.mufonoc.org/ I’m sure it would be an eye-opening experience for you.

Final thoughts:
It’s estimated that there are 100 Octillion (a 1 with 29 zeros) in the sky, if 1% of those had planets around them and 1% of those had life on them and 1% of those had life that was more advanced than us on Earth, that would potentially leave hundreds of millions of possibilities. And if these beings were so much further advanced than us, they would not feel the need to contact us anymore than an Earth Scientist studying an anthill in Africa!
So to vehemently fight that we MUST be the only ones in space, makes no sense at all...

Also World-wide there are 6k – 12k thousand UFO reports made per year, that is nearly 500k made going back to the late 1940’s, that’s a lot of people to suspect of lying or being mistaken and if only 1% of them were real, that would leave 5k…hmm
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 8:44 am    Post subject:

unleasHell wrote:
Hello Omar, I'll start a Bigfoot thread (soon) and we can let Art Bell rest in peace (LOL). I would really enjoy discussing it further. This will be my last post in this thread:

Let’s create a scale, based on the top half of a clock. At 12 o’clock you have the “Skeptics” and we’ll define them as people who don’t have an opinion one way or the other, but have an open mind to hearing both sides. At 9 o’clock there are the “True Believers” and we’ll define them as people who wholeheartedly believe UFO’s are real and include UFO witnesses, abductees, researchers, authors, etc. Lastly, over at 3 o’clock are the “Debunkers”. These people typically do not conduct any investigations or interviews they simply read the reports, looking to poke holes in it. Because of this they have zero objectivity.

I started out as a Skeptic (12 o’clock), but my research, reading, attending symposiums, and looking witnesses in the eye as they discussed their encounters, I moved to somewhere between 10 and 11 o’clock. Another fact is: I don’t believe every UFO case is real, I can pick and choose which I believe, while a Debunker does not have any flexibility as they believe that everyone who makes a UFO claim is either lying or mistaken - there are no other choices!

I think it is blatantly obvious where Larry stands. He is sitting there firmly at 3 o’clock, and ready willing and able to attack anyone who does not agree with him. I think he has read some UFO books, I don’t recall if he has ever personally interviewed witnesses, but if he did, I guess it didn’t matter.

Where do you guys stand? At 12 o’clock? Maybe 1 o’clock? Are you willing to look into the subject objectively and make your own decisions?

Like I said before, I really don’t care one way or the other, someone asked me about some UFO cases, which I recommended and Larry was quick to do internet searches on everyone of them – with the word “hoax” after them (I suspect) and found sites debunking everyone of them! He didn’t bother to read the dozens of other sites that have supporting information for those cases because they do not support his point of view. Meaning he is great at searching, copying and pasting, but not so much on investigating, and researching.

If you don’t mind being TOLD what to think, then by all means jump on board Larry’s Debunker Bus and grab yourself some of his Kool-Aid. I mean he is a quasi-celeb, on Sports-talk tv/radio, because of his expertise on NBA Salary Caps and a Mod here, so I’m sure there is a huge contingent here that always has to agree with him. The fact is, I used to like the guy, but after his previous attacks, I change the channel whenever he come on and never read his posts. I mean, look at the work he put into trying to disparage me, taking the time to do all those hoax searches and then making huge posts, then going back 2 or 3 years and copying posts to further build himself up and try and make me look bad, it’s boarder line psychotic behavior, but typical for a Debunker! I’m not the only person in the world that believes UFO are of extraterrestrial origin, but I seem to be his main target here.

So if you are a free-thinker and want to look into this on your own, then by all means do so, I promise I won’t tell Larry! Tonight there is monthly OC MUFON Meeting: http://www.mufonoc.org/ I’m sure it would be an eye-opening experience for you.

Final thoughts:
It’s estimated that there are 100 Octillion (a 1 with 29 zeros) in the sky, if 1% of those had planets around them and 1% of those had life on them and 1% of those had life that was more advanced than us on Earth, that would potentially leave hundreds of millions of possibilities. And if these beings were so much further advanced than us, they would not feel the need to contact us anymore than an Earth Scientist studying an anthill in Africa!
So to vehemently fight that we MUST be the only ones in space, makes no sense at all...

Also World-wide there are 6k – 12k thousand UFO reports made per year, that is nearly 500k made going back to the late 1940’s, that’s a lot of people to suspect of lying or being mistaken and if only 1% of them were real, that would leave 5k…hmm

Why did you omit the two quotes on the Travis Walton story I had in my post above? Second request for a answer.


Quote:
Skeptical reception

Skeptics consider the case to be a hoax, describing it as "sensationalizing on the part of the media" and "a put-up job to make money." UFO researcher Philip J. Klass considered Walton's story to be a hoax perpetrated for financial gain, and discovered many "discrepancies" in the accounts of Walton and his co-workers. After investigating the case, Klass reported that the polygraph tests were "poorly administered", that Walton used "polygraph countermeasures" such as holding his breath, and uncovered an earlier failed test administered by an examiner who concluded the case involved "gross deception".[9][10][11][2][12]

Skeptic writer Michael Shermer criticized Walton's claims, saying, "I think the polygraph is not a reliable determiner of truth. I think Travis Walton was not abducted by aliens. In both cases, the power of deception and self-deception is all we need to understand what really happened in 1975 and after."[7] Cognitive psychologist Susan Clancy argues that alien abduction reports began only after stories of extraterrestrials appeared in films and on TV, and that Walton was likely influenced by the NBC television movie The UFO Incident that aired two weeks before his own claimed abduction and dramatized the alien abduction claims of Betty and Barney Hill. Clancy noted the rise in alien abduction claims following the movie and cites Klass's conclusions that "after viewing this movie, any person with a little imagination could now become an instant celebrity", concluding that "one of those instant celebrities was Travis Walton."[3]



Quote:
Media and publicity

In 1978, Walton wrote the book The Walton Experience detailing his claims, which became the basis for the 1993 film Fire in the Sky. Paramount Pictures decided Walton’s account was "too fuzzy and too similar to other televised close encounters," so they ordered screenwriter Tracy Tormé to write a "flashier, more provocative" abduction story.[13] Walton has occasionally appeared at UFO conventions or on television. He sponsors his own UFO conference in Arizona, called the "Skyfire Summit."[8]

Thirty years after the book's release, Walton appeared on the Fox game show The Moment of Truth and was asked if he in fact was abducted by a UFO on November 5, 1975, to which he replied with "Yes". The polygraph test determined he was lying.[14][15] In 2016, Walton appeared in the twelfth season of the Travel Channel's Ghost Adventures, where he was interviewed by Zak Bagans.[16] He also appeared in an episode of the Canadian series Evil Encounters, titled "Terror From The Sky."


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PostPosted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 9:41 am    Post subject:

unleasHell wrote:
Hello Omar, I'll start a Bigfoot thread (soon) and we can let Art Bell rest in peace (LOL). I would really enjoy discussing it further. This will be my last post in this thread:


I hope you do.

unleasHell wrote:
Let’s create a scale, based on the top half of a clock. At 12 o’clock you have the “Skeptics” . . . At 9 o’clock there are the “True Believers” . . . Lastly, over at 3 o’clock are the “Debunkers”. These people typically do not conduct any investigations or interviews they simply read the reports, looking to poke holes in it. Because of this they have zero objectivity.

I think it is blatantly obvious where Larry stands. He is sitting there firmly at 3 o’clock, and ready willing and able to attack anyone who does not agree with him. I think he has read some UFO books, I don’t recall if he has ever personally interviewed witnesses, but if he did, I guess it didn’t matter.


Larry is more than capable of defending himself, so I won't delve into this too much other than s=to say that anyone who has read the exchange knows this is blatantly inaccurate. He has not attacked, he has asked for evidence and pointed out where it is flawed. That's not an attack, that's the "integrity;ligent discussion" you claim you want to have.

It's also quite clear that Larry has and does do investigation into the matter, and quite extensively.

unleasHell wrote:
Where do you guys stand? At 12 o’clock? Maybe 1 o’clock? Are you willing to look into the subject objectively and make your own decisions?


My stand is that I am open to the possibility of extra terrestrial visitation. In a universe as vast and diverse as it is, there is bound to be intelligent and advanced life out there somewhere.

But the conclusion that it has occurred needs to be based on evidence that is incontrovertible. A collection of "evidence", no matter how vast it is, is really evidence of nothing without the element of ubdeniability.

In other words, possibility is not reality. And that is where my comments about the "Truth is out there" approach to UFO investigation, because it is based on the premise that Alien visitation is a truth that just has yet to be proven. It doesn't work that way.


unleasHell wrote:
If you don’t mind being TOLD what to think, then by all means jump on board Larry’s Debunker Bus and grab yourself some of his Kool-Aid.


This is easily the most ironic thing you have said in the whole discussion, and that is saying a lot.

The Kool-aid is being served by people on your end of the spectrum - the "I want to believe" group. Larry isn't serving Kool-aid. He is providing additional, and sometimes contradictory evidence. That's not Kool-aid, it's reason and responsibility.

The accusation that you constantly make that anyone who disagrees with the value of your evidence is somehow being manipulated and told how to think is incorrect, unreasonable and as has been said, incredibly ironic.

unleasHell wrote:
I mean he is a quasi-celeb, on Sports-talk tv/radio, because of his expertise on NBA Salary Caps and a Mod here, so I’m sure there is a huge contingent here that always has to agree with him. The fact is, I used to like the guy, but after his previous attacks, I change the channel whenever he come on and never read his posts. I mean, look at the work he put into trying to disparage me, taking the time to do all those hoax searches and then making huge posts, then going back 2 or 3 years and copying posts to further build himself up and try and make me look bad, it’s boarder line psychotic behavior, but typical for a Debunker! I’m not the only person in the world that believes UFO are of extraterrestrial origin, but I seem to be his main target here.

So if you are a free-thinker and want to look into this on your own, then by all means do so, I promise I won’t tell Larry!


For someone who claims (incorrectly) to be a victim of attacks, you sure do a whole ton of attacking of your own.


unleasHell wrote:
So to vehemently fight that we MUST be the only ones in space, makes no sense at all...


Now you're just arguing against something that no one said.

unleasHell wrote:
Also World-wide there are 6k – 12k thousand UFO reports made per year, that is nearly 500k made going back to the late 1940’s, that’s a lot of people to suspect of lying or being mistaken and if only 1% of them were real, that would leave 5k…hmm


You know what also makes one go "hmmmm"? The fact that despite all those incidents, there has never been one that provides distinct and indisputable evidence of alien visitation. That's not to say that no where in all those reports is there one that may have been an actual alien encounter. But one must consider the complete lack of verifiable events just as much as one considers the plethora of reports.
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 9:55 am    Post subject:

I've always been fascinated by stories about Area 51
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