btimsah said:You appear to feel that such an investigation would be a waste of time - not because of your own investigation or study - but because of mere proclamation.
Mere proclamation.
You once, in response to one of my posts, said that Stanton Friedman would be proud!
This reminds me of something he said on that website you linked to:
Debunkers seem to employ four major rules:
What the public doesn't know, we certainly won't tell them. The largest official USAF UFO study isn't even mentioned in twelve anti-UFO books, though every one of those books' authors was aware of it.
Don't bother me with the facts, my mind is made up.
If one can't attack the data, attack the people. It is easier.
Do one's research by proclamation rather than investigation. It is much easier, and nobody will know the difference anyway.
Now, I'm sensitive to more skeptical ufologists and their qualms with persons like Mr. Friedman. He is not a man without controversy. But many of the things he said were very sensible.
Does anyone get tired of hearing proclamations, rather than investigations?
Attacking the people? Woo Woo. That about says it for personal, "ad hominem" attacks.
Who was it, Phlogistician? Woo Woos are all underachievers, attention-seeking morons, etc, etc.
From an article by a rather skeptical Susan Blackmore (Skeptical Inquirer):
Another theory is that abductees are mentally ill. This receives little or no support from the literature. Bloecher, Clamar, and Hopkins (1985) found above-average intelligence and no signs of serious pathology among nine abductees, and Parnell (1988) found no evidence of psychopathology among 225 individuals who reported having seen a UFO (although not having been abducted). Most recently, Spanos et al. (1993) compared forty-nine UFO reporters with two control groups and found they were no less intelligent, no more fantasy prone, and no more hypnotizable than the controls. Nor did they show more signs of psychopathology. They did, however, believe more strongly in alien visitations, suggesting that such beliefs allow people to shape ambiguous information, diffuse physical sensations, and vivid imaginings into realistic alien encounters.
Temporal lobe lability has also been implicated. People with relatively labile temporal lobes are more prone to fantasy, and more likely to report mystical and out-of-body experiences, visions, and psychic experiences (Persinger and Makarec 1987). However, Spanos et al. found no difference in a temporal lobe lability scale between their UFO reporters and control groups. Cox (1995) compared a group of twelve British abductees with both a matched control group and a student control group and, again, found no differences on the temporal lobe lability scale. Like Spanos's subjects, the abductees were more often believers in alien visitations than were the controls.
They did, however, believe more strongly in alien visitations, suggesting that such beliefs allow people to shape ambiguous information, diffuse physical sensations, and vivid imaginings into realistic alien encounters.
The question then, is do people who have sightings of UFOs have their beliefs influenced by their sightings? Is this enough to say that they are fantasy prone Woo-Woos that make up their stories for purposes of gaining attention?
These personal attacks on people don't necessarily invalidate their claims.
Both the UFO AND the abduction phenomenon needs to be addressed case by case. You can't say "I've proved one or two cases to be false, so I've PROVED THEM ALL!" Or is that how science works?
Recently, one of the preeminent theoretical physicists, Michio Kaku, said:
"Some people slam the door on the question of other civilizations visiting the Earth because distances are so far away. I say, 'Not so fast.' "
"When you look at this handful, handful of cases that cannot be easily dismissed. This is worthy. This is worthy of a scientific investigation. Maybe there's nothing there. However, on the off chance that there is something there, that could change the course of human history. So I say, ' Let the investigation begin.' "