UFOs (UAPs): Explanations?

Unfortunately for Q-reeus, there's also no good evidence for any confirmed "unerringly accurate details" of anybody ever actually having a "past life".

If you believe in one conspiracy theory, chances are very good that you'll believe in a whole bunch of different conspiracy theories.

If you believe in one form of woo (pseudoscience), chances are very good that you'll believe in a whole bunch of different kinds of woo.

One key commonality in these sets of beliefs is a lack of ability, know-how or will to think critically about the purported "evidence".

In other words, Q-reeus maybe can't quite bring himself to believe in actual demons ... at least not yet. But since the evidence for demons is about as good as the evidence for alien visitations and ghosts, that leaves Q-reeus in a difficult quandry: either he rejects the existence of demons - which would be inconsistent with his generally conspiratorial/credulous mindset - or he embraces one more form of woo, adding to a long list that he has already accepted. But wait! Maybe there's a loophole. Maybe he can find a way to pigeonhole all of the woo under one all-encompassing umbrella. If he does that, maybe he can sound just a bit more level headed, and disguise the actual disorganisation of his own belief systems.

 

Hint: They are mostly weather balloons, mistaken sightings of the planet Venus and similar.

Sure. It's especially easy to believe in something that is only very vaguely defined. It can be whatever you want it to be.

I would ask how you managed to rule out all natural, manmade and mundane explanations, but I know that would be a complete waste of time because, of course, you have never actually tried to rule anything out.

You can blame the scientific method for my skeptical bias, if you like. Bad science! Out damned spot!

At least I have an analysis.

Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. You're like the sleazy prosecution attorney who hopes he can get a conviction even though the evidence doesn't add up.

Wrong. For instance, I pwned you on that case where all those police officers chased the planet Venus. Remember? Of course, you're still in denial on that one, just like all the other times.

Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. I'm very happy to take your word that you ate wheaties for breakfast this morning. Nothing much turns on it if you're actually telling me lies, after all.

But when you claim that Earth is being visited by aliens (or whatever), that would actually matter if it were true. It's also inconsistent with lots of other things a sensible person like myself would expect to see if we actually were being visited by aliens. So, you'd better have good evidence for it if you're hoping to convince me.

People "experience" all kinds of things. "Experience" is something that happens in people's heads.

So, there are two separate investigations here. One is the investigation of whether alien spaceships (or whatever) also exist outside people's heads. The other is to investigate why people believe they had powerful and unusual experiences if, in fact, there is no basis for that outside their heads.

The number of available "raw" (unbiased) eyewitness accounts of UFOs would be vanishingly small these days, I'd venture, especially in the United States (where the UFOs predominantly choose to appear, for plausible reasons you might be able to deduce if you turned on your brain for a moment).

Then you've identified them, and they are no longer UFOs. Congratulations!

 

wegs:

Personally, I love a good mystery, but at the same time I don't need to pretend that every fictional mystery is real in order to get enjoyment out of it.

I stand with many skeptics in saying that in my own life I want to believe as many true things as I can, while not believing in as many false things as I can.

I have real trouble understanding the mindset that just wants to believe in stuff, without having any particular reason for the belief. It seems like those people are going to waste a whole lot of their time. It's a shame, because we only get a limited time to live our lives, and there's so much fascinating and beautiful real stuff out in the world.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a huge fan of science fiction and fantasy, and other fictional artforms more generally. But I don't feel any need to pretend that Middle Earth is real, or that ghosts exist, or that Harry Potter is a documentary.

Nobody, least of all me, is saying that eyewitness testimony is worthless. The story told by an eyewitness is one data point in the constellation of data points that go together to establish or refute a claim. The issue is in the weight given to the testimony of one or more supposed eyewitnesses.

In the case of UFO sightings, eyewitnesses testimony has a historically horrendous track record. Eyewitnesses just get it wrong over and over again, in case after case when we're talking about UFOs. So, a sensible person approaches anecdotal evidence from purported eyewitnesses to UFOs with caution.

Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. The earnest testimony of Farmer Bill from Hicksville who says a light in the sky flew down and sucked up one of his cows is, in most cases, probably not going to cut the mustard in proving that what Bill said actually happened. (And, before Q-reeus chimes in again, I might add that Navy pilot Fravor's testimony about seeing a "tic tac" is likely to be only marginally more reliable that Farmer Bill's, and even that's not guaranteed.)

Studies suggest otherwise.

UFO enthusiasts, these days at least, tend to be fearful people who tend towards conspiratorial thinking. They tend to be deeply distrustful of "authority" figures and institutions of all types. The "science community" is certainly not to be trusted, since it is deeply embedded in the the "elitist establishment".

An exception to this, of course, is in a small minority of enthusiasts who maintain an active interest in the UFO "scene" for the challenge of applying their investigative skills and critical thinking to the latest "craze" cases.

It's worth pointing out, perhaps, that there is never a "smoking gun" remotely like the one in that cartoon, when it comes to real Air Forces investigations. Typically, all the UFO conspiracy theories have to work with is speculation and joining the dots between random factoids regarding the "official" explanations.

That's an excellent question.

The truth is, very probably, that US military has a very good idea about what all these recent"military grade" UFOs probably were. It is possible that the military is happy to let the UFO nuts have their fun, because it distracts from real undercover military operations. But, I should add, that's pure speculation on my part. I don't believe it. (See the difference?)

 

The truth is, you're a bit of baby.

You don't like having your opinions challenged. You like to think of yourself as the smartest person in the room, most of the time.

You've got angry because you hold a large corpus of beliefs that you can't adequately defend. And because you're a bit of baby, you express that anger (which, rightly, ought to be channelled towards self-reflection) by lashing out at the people who pointed out an uncomfortable truth.

I hate you about as much as I hate the child in the supermarket who is throwing a tantrum on the floor and kicking his legs because Mom won't buy him a Kinder Surprise.