Corroborated testimony may be evidence in a court of law. Swear on a holy text to a panel of physicists that you’ve seen little green humanoids hovering over your rose bushes and note the reaction, even if you snapped Polaroids of the manifestation. Good luck.
Science requires regularly repeated observations and, preferably, physical objects. Show me the saucer.
No saucer, deal with it. Cognitive dissonance much?
You can’t do science on an unreproductible event (although some could argue that the radar and FLIR are valid scientific data points). Testimony is enough evidence enough to get intelligence agencies panties in a bunch, because they give credence to their officers’ words.
Listen to their testimony long form, research their background - evaluate their credibility - and then tell me why you think armchair debunkers hold more weight than corroborated, first hand, trained witnesses.
one example:
No saucer, no aliens.
And what of the red Mazda RX7 that has frequently been seen peeling away from the reported locations of UFO landings? Are we not to have our many questions about this extraterrestrially-equipped vehicle answered?
It cannot simply be coincidence that, perhaps because we as humans do seek validation from aliens in our endeavours, it cannot be only coincidence that the Mazda RX7 has been observed, and although many other variables of each sighting change, the RX7 is strangely always red, and not some other more outlandish colour.
Skeptic does a pretty good job of putting to rest these wild claims.
https://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/pentagon-ufos-to-the-stars-academy-ttsa-ufo-media-frenzy/
You’re giving me homework; I’ll look into it in good faith and give you my impressions.
But the platform is called “Skeptic” - you have to realize the inherent bias and motivations of the publication.
Be sure to follow corroborating links within the text. There’s a wealth of information here. And yep, Skeptic is a magazine (and a site) devoted to critical thinking, and among its biases is the notion that closely examining evidence is necessary before determining whether it’s evidence at all. This shouldn’t be a controversial stance. When it’s applied to the “TicTac” case, it turns out that confabulation, credulity, fabrication, hyperbole, omission, and the limitations of human perception account for pretty much all of the supposed evidence without the need for exotic explanation.
‘Evidence’ means different things to lawyers and scientists. ‘Proof’ means very different things to lawyers, printers and photographers, mathematicians and logicians, distillers, stamp collectors, and makers of rainwear and protective gear. One dictionary definition does not fit all sizes.
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” is the lodestone of skeptical / critical thinking. Claims of non-human extraterrestrial visitations of Earth, especially that a Galactic Federation likes dealing with particular nation-states, fall in the ‘extraordinary’ category.
Since the popular proliferation of fairly high-resolution imaging devices i.e. digicams and fonecams, we haven’t seen waves of UFO-ET-ghost-etc photos online. True, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but the lack sure supports the contention that there’s no ‘there’ there.
Show me the saucers. Those who can’t, but who claim saucers exist anyway, seem to be sales candidates for monumental bridges.
Investigation of a past event doesn’t use the same tenants as scientific research. Testimony is evidence in the context on an investigation. I haven’t talked about proof.
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” is a purely rhetorical lodestone of sketical / critical thinking. Extraordinary evidence is not required in scientific research nor in an investigation - only in a debate with a skeptic.
It turns out I am also a skeptic : in my view concluding that 8 experienced Navy officers are mistaken or lying, fall in the ‘extraordinary’ category.
Already dealt with the subject of photos. Take a picture of a plane at night with your phone; it will be blurry. If you offer FLIR readings, radar readings, photos or anything else to a skeptic: he will rationalize a way to conclude that it’s not good enough.
Already talked about the saucer, you’re stuck in a dogma and trying to provoke. Investigate the unexplained, don’t explain the uninvestigated. Intelligence agencies seem to think similarly, which is why they created AATIP and now a UFO Task Force.
Listen, there are far too many points discussed in that article for me to possibly address here.
Here’s what I see at first glance : Robert Sheaffer the author is biaised, and he wrote a rhetorical piece in the Skeptic (juxtapose that with Leslie Kean, who is also biaised; but she wrote an investigative piece, in the New York Times).
I want to emphasize that because Sheaffer’s objective is completely different. He doesn’t wish to necessarily get to the truth; he actually wishes to create doubt in the reader’s mind, and convince them that the case is not worth following through.
For instance, I see the following tactics :
These are tactics that we see again and again in political echo chambers, like Fox News.
It’s not a controversial stance. The trouble is that skeptics do not consider first-hand testimony as valid evidence, and I disagree with that stance. In my experience, in all extraordinary cases, that is always the crux of these debates : so called ‘skeptics’ fundamentally disbelieve first-hand witnesses and will find some rationalization to disregard them, while so called ‘believers’ consider testimony as corroborative information.
In the case of this article, there is this gem : "Dr. J. Allen Hynek, […] wrote “Surprisingly, commercial and military pilots appear to make relatively poor witnesses” ". Therefore, the author feels free to disregard any of the multiple first-hand testimonies.
That’s a leap. There are questions, doubts, critical points of view. He should follow through his line of questioning and investigate the evidence. And by evidence, as always, I mean that it should include first-hand witnesses.
Thank you, and good night.
Yup - because you can’t reproduce a past event.
Sheaffer has convincingly pointed out the massive credibility issues with the purveyors of this hyperbolic mystery-mongering (Kean, for example, is convinced that a video of a fly buzzing a camera has an otherworldly explanation, and Elizondo continues to lie about his involvement with the AATIP - he had none).
He has further discussed problems with the eyewitness testimony, namely, that the witnesses can’t agree on important points regarding the events (disagreements confirmed by the star witness, Fravor).
He has also convincingly proffered an explanation for the reported anomalous radar readings: that in both the 2004 and the 2014 cases, newly installed radar systems were undergoing trials, the quirks of which were unfamiliar to the operators (and no radar log or other physical evidence has been produced to corroborate their accounts, so there is no way to independently verify that they occurred as described).
The videos promoted by TTSA all have convincing, similarly mundane explanations.
You seem deeply confused regarding the importance of credibility in reporting, and in the profound unreliability of eyewitness testimony, about which there is large body of knowledge in the psychological literature. It is of course your right to believe nonsense based upon the accounts of charlatans, but those of us who prefer truth to fancy will weight such “evidence” accordingly.
Wow. You REALLY don’t understand how science works.
You can’t help yourself insulting people can’t you?
Not sure what you’re referring to. Staing that you don’t seem to understand important tenets of the investigation of extraordinary claims is not an “insult.” Neither is the implication that the claims made about the TicTac case are nonsense, and a belief in them is a flight of fancy. Both points are germane.
Kean making a mistake on a past unrelated case doesn’t invalidate her information on this case - logical fallacy. Elizondo lying hasn’t been demonstrated; the author not confirming Elizondo’s credentials regarding a hidden project is no supprise, yet Elizondo hasn’t had any retaliations for his ‘lies’, didn’t loose his security clearance over his ‘lies’, and he’s still backed by other respectable former intelligence officers and former industry directors.
Sheaffer points out multiple problems, granted, and they should be followed through - not conclude that the entire case is therefore unfounded - too many corroborating evidence for that. You say they can’t agree on important points, but that’s not true : they agree a UAP was observed, and it presented extraordinary capabilities - that’s the truly important information.
Re radars : he offers a possible explanation, but the explanation considers the operator to be unfamiliar (ie. incompetent) and disregards corroborating evidence points. Should follow through with the actual operator, and other experts of radar systems. Radar log unavailable? Don’t know the Navy’s policy on the front, but could be nothing to do about that.
Re: video; mundane explanations if you ignore corroborating data points.
Profound unreliability of eyewitness testimony? That’s the pill that skeptics want everyone to swallow and that I don’t accept. Unreliable regarding the minute details perhaps; but the testimony was documented right after the event, corroborated with other witnesses, and with instrument readings. The testimony is not profoundly unreliable, I absolutely disagree with you.
“Deeply confused”, “nonsense”, “charlatans”, “fancy” - you just want to insult everyone - relax and discuss
Then you’re simply wrong. The numerous problems of eyewitness testimony are well known, both in law and in science, and to suggest otherwise is bizarre. The clock’s running out on this thread, so I’m going to bow out now. In any case, Sheaffer’s article, and his body of work, speaks for itself, and doesn’t need any defense on my part.
You’ll find that belief or disregard of testimony is the crux of these disagreements every time.
Take care and happy holidays
