That there are many cases of misindentifcation, hoaxes, and easily explainable sightings in UFO Reports, is well known in UFOlogy, especially to Serious UFO Researchers. What you don't seem to be dealing with are the harder cases, where simple explanations do not fit the facts at all.
There are many impressive cases of UFOs that interest me. The main types are...
* Cases with witnesses of reputable authority who are trained observers. Air Force Pilots, Astronomers, Police Officers, Government Officials, Military, Astronauts (such as Gordon Cooper), Etc.
* Cases with mass witness sightings where the overall accounts of what occurred and the description of the craft or crafts match one another to a great degree and are inexplicable with any known air craft or aerial phenomenon.
* Cases where UFOs have been caught on Radar going impossible speeds, doing impossible maneuvers, being of ridiculous size, and anything else suggesting that we don't know what the hell it is, but it was there. And cases where they were chased down by pilots who couldn't catch them. (Often they play cat and mouse with the pilots.)
* Cases of Trace Evidence of UFO Landings. Where a purported landing spot of a UFO is later examined by experts. Radiation is discovered there, indentions on the ground are documented, other anomalies in the grass and soil are recorded, Etc.
* Cases where the witnessed structured craft was 800 to 1000 foot long (and in some cases reported to be thousands of feet long), cases where the witnessed craft goes from zero to full speed instantly, and cases where the witnessed craft contains no audible sound. Sometimes multiple of these factors at once. I don't know of any known aircraft that resembles these.
* CERTAIN Cases of excellent Photography and Video that DOES stand up to scrutiny when examined by photograph, video, and photoshop experts (such as David Biedny, who has examined many, and accepted few as truly unexplainable and untouched). And there are SOME good examples of clear Photographs and Videos, not all of the best stuff are blurry or out of focus.
Those are the best types of cases that impress me.
UFO Researcher Paul Kimball has done an excellent series of Documentary Videos known as "Best Evidence" on the Top Ten Best UFO Cases...
Of course, what UFOs are, no one ultimately knows. The "Extraterrestrial Hypothesis" is merely one of many. Some could be top secret government craft, others could be craft from another dimension, the crypto-terrestrial theory (which suggests these might be craft from another advanced civilization residing on this planet we don't know about, such as under the vast ocean, or under the earth, or in some secluded place) might be correct, or time travelers from an alternate history or alternate future, or some local or non-local phenomenon we don't know what the hell it is. Ultimately, we don't know. Therefore, Unidentified Flying Objects.
Debunkers seem to strawman everything as:
* "Only rednecks and drunks and trailer park folks see "lights in the sky" and claim it's UFOs". (Ignoring the highly reputable, trained observers, who have witnessed and experienced them, such as government officials, military, pilots, astronomers, astronauts, etc.)
* "No pilot, military official, astronomer, or trained observer has ever witnessed a UFO and deemed it unexplainable!" (Complete and total lie.)
* Claims it's all in people's heads, mass hysteria, or people misremembering or misidentifying everything in *every single last case*, despite undeniable Radar evidence and physical trace evidence in many cases independent from people's experiences and photographs / videos.
* Focus on the many many many fraudulent, suspicious, woo woo aspects of UFOlogy, such as the New Age stuff that has crept in, "researchers" in the field that are pure woo and have a total woo audience, the UFO Cults that have sprang up, and the dime a dozen very poor quality Alien Abduction stories (some are very convincing and very good quality and well documented, many many many are not), basically all of the poor quality stuff, while ignoring all of the good quality stuff, using a poisoning the well, "best of us, worst of you" type of fallacy.
* Focus entirely on the extraterrestrial hypothesis and ignore all others.
I'd say, overall, there's something there, but we don't ultimately know what.Statistics: Posted by Eteponge — 31 Aug 2009, 17:32
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