UFOs (UAPs): Explanations?

It's strange that you're still confused after years of me patiently explaining things to you. Or maybe it's not so strange. Maybe you're just knowingly telling lies.

As you are aware, you've never got anywhere near establishing that your fuzzy objects in photos and videos have "occupants". You haven't even got as far as establishing that they are "craft". Both of those are assumptions you make, not based on evidence but on an ideology.

I have told you many times that I don't care a jot what you believe the "occupants" are. Since you never got to first base in showing there are any occupants, the rest is irrelevant. You can believe the occupants are all from My Little Pony world as far as I care. I'm going to call these hypothetical occupants "aliens" because, traditionally, aliens are the beings that are supposed to fly around in flying saucers. I'm certainly not going to bow to your insistence that every time I write "aliens" I have to qualify it with "aliens/interdimensional beings/time travellers/ghosts/non-material entities with whimsical agendas" etc. etc.

You know what I mean. I know what you mean. So stop pouting.

It follows that I am totally correct when I "accuse" you of believing that the "occupants" of "ufos" are space aliens. You believe that UFOs have occupants. You believe UFOs are craft. You're on the record with your list of things that you believe the "occupants" might be, including one or more of the things I mentioned.

Bottom line: you believe that UFOs are "craft" that have "occupants" that might be space aliens, or might be something equally exciting and non-evidenced.

Why don't you own your beliefs rather than playing this game where you pretend to be all offended when somebody talks about your faith in straightforward terms?

Why is it so rare to find people with a moral backbone?

 

Yazata,

Here's what you wrote:

Of course, assuming that UFO's in the unknown phenomenon sense don't exist unless they can be shown to be space aliens prejudges the nature of the phenomenon inexcusably in my opinion.
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Now you're claiming that you can find "many examples" of people denying that UFOs as an "unknown phenomenon" don't exist.

The "U" in "UFO" means "unidentified", as you're well aware.

It would be obtuse for anybody to claim that an unidentified thing cannot amount to an "unknown phenomenon" unless it is shown to be space aliens.

Certainly, I have never made any such claim, and I also think you're well aware of this.

Your complaint is that I (along with my fellow skeptical posters) am prejudging UFOs by assuming that if they exist they must be space aliens. But you have the wrong end of the stick. I am not the one prejudging anything here. It is the UFO True Believers who are doing the prejudging around here. Can you really not see that?

Tell me that Q-reeus is not prejudging at least a proportion of UFO cases to involve "non-material entities who have their own at best whimsical agendas and zero compulsion to comply with ridiculous demands of willfully ignorant, narrow-minded scoffers." Go on, see if you can do that in the face of the quote from the man himself.

Tell me also that Magical Realist is not prejudging virtually every UFO case to be a "compelling" report of an encounter with extraordinary beings in magical "craft". It really doesn't matter if he imagines them to be space aliens or Bigfoot clones or magical pixies from Planet Zoombah.

All I have ever said is: if you have good evidence for "craft" or "occupants" of whatever type, bring it. How does that amount to me prejudging anything?

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You also quote a line from me out of context, possibly from earlier in this thread and you say:

The man in question is on the record as saying he believes he saw something "not of this world". That makes it alien.

Also, look at what I wrote, again:

What is more likely? That Fravor didn't see what he thought he saw, or that space aliens decided to visit the US military? A priori, the former explanation is more likely.
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Now, the first thing to say is the same thing I've been telling Magical Realist over and over again. You can read "space aliens" in my posts on this topic as a placeholder that includes actual aliens from space but also magical unicorns and interdimensional time travellers and all that.

The second thing to say is that you, Yazata, can't possible be unware of the real dichotomy we're considering here: something explainable in ordinary, everyday terms with reference to what we already know about our world, versus something that is a novel phenomenon of some kind, in the sense that would have earth-shattering implications for us all if it turned out to be true.

So, I ask you again: which is more likely in the Fravor case? What do you think?

The third thing to say is: see those words "a priori" in the quote? In this context they mean something like "before we dig up sufficient evidence for the alternative". Again, it ought to be abundantly clear to you that I am not prejudging the case. All I'm saying it that, given the available evidence, it seems very unlikely that it's aliens (or time travellers or magical unicorns etc.). Some time in the future - who knows? - we might see better evidence relating to the case that raises the likelihood or even confirms that it was space aliens all along. But what we have is unpersuasive.

What I think is that the idea of weird undiscovered phenomena and/or space aliens appeals to you, so you're bending over backwards to make those kinds of explanations sound more reasonable than they are. It's strange, because on most topics you seem like a pretty rational guy. What's different about this one?

I might also mention (again) that, personally, I would be thrilled to discover that space aliens are visiting Earth (provided they turned out to be friendly). I grew up reading fantastical science fiction tales. I love that stuff. But I try very hard not to mistake what I'd like to be true for what is true. Fortunately, I have a set of great methods at my disposal to help me tell the difference.

I really don't know who these UFO skeptics are who supposedly deny the possibility of aliens visiting Earth. Do they actually exist?

Scientists spend their lives looking for the new, interesting and important. Skepticism is an intellectual child of science. The stereotype of the dogmatic scientist that True Believers of various stripes like to hold up has seldom reflected reality.

By the way: look what happened in the case of your meteors. Did scientists keep denying them, dogmatically? Or did science self-correct?

 

Gives you pause for thought, though, doesn't it?

The statement of an eyewitness. Are you saying they are lying?

 

Avoid and distract. Moral backbone? Nowhere to be found.

 

Like I said.

 

No. I've shown the exact opposite and have, in fact, repeatedly stated my position on that point in very clear terms. Most recently was in the post you are ostensibly responding to.

I have never specifically argued against the thesis that they are space aliens. There's no need, since no "they" has been established yet. As I said, you have never got to first base in showing a "they" of any kind, let alone whatever it is you want to substitute for space aliens.

What I have argued against is your claim that UFOs are non-mundane "craft" piloted by bizarre beings of one kind or another. I've argued against it on the basis that you have no good evidence to support that claim.

In fact, though, in a lot of cases I have never said the UFOs are not alien spaceships. I don't claim to have solved every case and identified what the UFOs are. All I'm saying is that there's no good evidence for your claims of unknown beings with powers that seem like magic. If you have good evidence, bring it. On the other hand, I don't hold out high hopes, given your poor showing over all the years you've been a member here. I don't really think you'll change and suddenly work out what evidence is. If you haven't learned by now, you're probably a lost cause.

I have no such premise. See if you can find a single thing I've written where I claim that UFOs must be either mundane or space aliens. If you have evidence of time travellers or interdimensional beings or magical pixies as pilots of "craft", bring it and I'll take a look.

There's no "they" until you can show a "they".

You're content if the supposed pilots of UFOs fit any of your wild fantasies. The only thing that makes you really angry is when UFOs turn out to be pilotless or mundane.