UFO

Scientific Evidence: UFOs and the Argument from Ignorance

grrlscientist — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 03:59:53 +0000

Scientific Evidence: UFOs and the Argument from Ignorance

tags: Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, UFO, space aliens, argumentum ad ignorantiam, appeal to ignorance, AMNH, streaming video

The argument from ignorance, also known as argumentum ad ignorantiam ("appeal to ignorance"), argument by lack of imagination, or negative evidence, is a logical fallacy in which it is claimed that a premise is true only because it has not been proven false, or is false only because it has not been proven true.

The argument from personal incredulity, also known as argument from personal belief or argument from personal conviction, refers to an assertion that because one personally finds a premise unlikely or unbelievable, the premise can be assumed to be false, or alternatively that another preferred but unproven premise is true instead.

Both arguments commonly share this structure: a person regards the lack of evidence for one view as constituting proof that another view is true. The types of fallacies discussed in this article should not be confused with the reductio ad absurdum method of argument, in which a valid logical contradiction of the form "A and not A" is used to disprove a premise.

grrlscientist Sun, 09/13/2009 - 23:59

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argumentum ad ignorantiam

Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson

Oh joy - this is the perfect excuse for me to urge you to investigate these unexplained (well, to me) phenomena, should you happen to be in the neighborhood...

I would go a bit further.

The argument from personal incredulity is, at it's base, a statement of "I can't (or won't) believe X." However, cognitively, it is much more often applied to an active bias for a specific outcome rather than a lack of comprehension - the exact opposite order from which you list them. The difference is that the bias takes the form of X=(my preference being false) where comprehension issues have X=(a premise I don't understand as being false).

An easier way to think about it is Evolution. Most people who deny Evolution do so from a position that their religion must be true and Evolution contradicts it. Only some do so because the evidence is genuinely beyond their ability to grasp.

Starting at that end of the equation also leads them to another fallacy - the false dichotomy. Someone who doesn't *understand* Evolution can posit some third, easier for them to grasp, alternative that doesn't invoke religion (for example, Lysenkoism). Someone who doesn't believe it because they've already decided their alternative can leave no room for other alternatives, and in their mind bashing one is by default evidence for the other.

Of course, the example topic I've chosen also gets into a whole quagmire of other issues cataloged as "denialism," but that's a much longer issue.

He could have just said "no".

He sure is right about humans and their belief in what they see.
I just hear Jane Goodall on radio. She'd gone to Greenland and had seen the glaciers melting and the people with tears in their eyes. She didn't say if they were tears of joy that at long last,now that the effects of the little Ice Age were finally coming to an end, they'd be able to grow a few tomatoes and some grass for their sheep, and their fuel bills would shrink a bit.

Great clip - thanks. Funny, if you substitute "god" for "alien" you'd have a pretty good argument against the existence of an omnipotent being as well.

Oh man, I've never heard of this Tyson guy before, and I swear he's now one of my new favorite people EVAR ;)

(The aliens do indeed always do "the sex experiments", which is kind of strange because it sounds almost exactly like the sort of erotic fantasy that Very Strange People would have... exactly the sort of Very Strange People who tend to report alien abduction)

I did not watch the video, but this post touched a personal note since I used to be a big fan of UFOs and kooky stuff way back when I was a teenager. There was not a lack of evidence for it, but to the contrary there was quite a lot of evidence which was no less strong than what was presented to support ideas taught in the classroom and in the news. Lots of people said they saw UFOs and aliens, including trustworthy people like pilots and police officers! There was physical evidence, including scraps of metal and fields cleared in a circular pattern! I did not know how to weigh this evidence, which was very flimsy in retrospect, until college with a few more years of life behind me. At the time, it seemed to be as well grounded and well argued as anything.

I credit Kenneth Feder's "Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries" with straightening me out. I forget whether it was required or only recommended reading for an introductory anthro course, but apparently the anthro department got so many people like me that they told students to read it. I figure that most people never took that anthro course or any courses in logical reasoning, if they went to college at all, so a lot of people are probably as gullible as I used to be.

It is just such an argument-from-ignorance to make the claim that no one can say UFOs are extra-terrestrial beings. It is impossible to say they are not extra-terrestrial, for there is far, far too much evidence that inexplicable things have been seen by tens of thousands of persons. Even more, what are we to do with the hundreds, if not thousands of accounts of persons who have literally seen, and in some cases come into close physical contact with non-human beings? You cannot in good faith just dismiss all such accounts out of hand.

Bottom line? There is something happening, something being seen, something being actually experienced by countless persons; and it defies belief that all such occurrences have an earthly explanation. I don't claim to know what is happening. But it is dishonest to mock every occurrence.

"I did not watch the video, but this post touched a personal note since I used to be a big fan of UFOs and kooky stuff way back when I was a teenager."

As was I, somewhat. I'm still a big FAN of it... it made for some great episodes of The X-files, not to mention one of Will Smith's better comedies. And it's a lot of fun to learn about people's weird and extreme ideas. I just don't find it credible.

'The argument from ignorance' could also be called the 'argument from arrogance'. "I know what an airplane looks like and that doesn't look like an airplane, so it is a UFO, which is a spaceship......yadda, yadda, yadda."
Same with CR/ID'ers. "I know enough about Evolution to dismiss it"........but usually they know almost nothing.
#8 jum1801 "SIGH" Go back & re-watch the video. Science cannot make any progress at investigating a phenomena until it gets the evidence to work with. Until it does, it is just wild speculation & spinning your wheels.
Whenever someone says that thousands of people claim to see UFO's, I recall that thousands of people also claimed to be or see witches in the Middle Ages. Something was going on then, too, but it wasn't covens popping up in every village like a Middle Age version of Starbucks.

Isn't this the same as the frequent Bush administration claim that because we weren't attacked again after 9/11/01 that they kept us safe. The fact that an attack hasn't happened is not evidence that it would have happened.

Happy Birthday Maria Reiche

gregladen — Fri, 15 May 2009 03:34:55 +0000

Happy Birthday Maria Reiche

Maria Reiche was an archaeologist and mathematician who worked on the Nazca lines in Peru. Originally, she worked with Paul Kosok, who discovered the remarkable drawings, and starting in the mid 1940s, Reiche mapped in the drawings. She believed that the lines represented a calendar and a sort of observatory. She is probably single handedly responsible for the preservation of these important archaeological features.

She died in Lima in 1998.

Several crackpots have suggested that the Nazca lines, since they can only be taken in visually from a height achievable only with flying machines such as airplanes, helicopters, hot air balloons or ... whatever ... must have been drawn for the benefit of aliens in their UFOs.

gregladen Thu, 05/14/2009 - 23:34

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Thanks for the information. The Nazca lines are the most amazing drawings. They are considered as one of the greatest riddles in the world. I agree they have drawn so that the aliens may greatly benefit.

No Skepticism Policy

cevans — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 19:00:00 +0000

No Skepticism Policy

Universe has a firm "No Skepticism" policy.

Don't get me wrong, I dig empirical knowledge. And I like the ancient, Pyrrhonian school of Skepticism founded by Pyrrho of Elis (365-275 B.C.); Pyrrhonian skeptics believed that nothing could be known, not even "this" (i.e the very statement that nothing could be known) and strived for a constant state of inquiry as a source of pleasure. Since absolute knowledge is unattainable, the Pyrrhonian Skeptics felt that their end was: "In opinionatives, indisturbance; in impulsives, moderation; and in disquietives, suspension," which is essentially agnosticism, as I understand it. From Manly P. Hall's The Secret Teachings of all Ages (deeply recommended): "Those who suppose they have found truth are called Dogmatists; those who think it incomprehensible are the Academics; those who still seek are the Skeptics." Even Socrates adhered to this worldview: I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.

It's contemporary "scientific" or "activist" skepticism that I have a problem with.

Although the foundational epistemology of science is skeptical (prove everything), contemporary "scientific skepticism" has become shorthand for "debunking," namely those claims and theories beyond mainstream science. Unlike scientists, who are primarily concerned with verifying and falsifying hypotheses within their own fields, self-named scientific skeptics focus their criticism on claims they believe to be a priori implausible, which is to say all the great acronyms: UFOs, ESP, etc. While I respect some debunkers (even hard-assed James Randi has saved countless fools from the trappings of psychic surgery), the general conceit bothers me, as it essentially pits the unqualified against the unqualified in a kind of endless boring flame war. Certainly skeptics uncover the "truth" of some matters -- i.e. that there was no ghost, no alien, no demon -- but it brings nothing new to the table. In our heart of hearts, even the most starry-eyed among us know that there are probably no ghosts nor demons, and that we are alone on our giant rock, bitching amongst ourselves. Is pragmatically destroying the imaginative convictions of conspiracy buffs and New-Agers a worthy practice of one's time on this lonely Earth?

Yes, UFOs are probably not real. Yes, a man who claims he was abducted by aliens (or slipped through another dimension, or saw a ghost) probably has other shit going on, lucidity-wise. And yet, does he pose a threat to buttoned-up society? Does he throw the fabric of the everyman's cosmology into whirling disarray? The answer is, of course, a resounding n-o, no. In fact, the everyman has no idea of the astounding breadth, fervor and variety of the UFO-man's idiosyncratic belief system, nor does he have an inkling of the profound multitude of others like the UFO-man. Nor does he care, because he is entirely concerned with his own psycho-social-religious worldview, which might arguably be as bonkers as the rest. And yet, here come the debunkers anyway, to firmly tell everyone that it was all just a glimmer of light, reflected on some swamp gas.

I have a firm "no skepticism" policy not because I don't believe in good science -- which is rooted in a firm tradition of questioning -- but because I love the unloved margins of pseudoscientific thought. This blog has played host to myriad bogus theories, from the inter-dimensional Bigfoot to Unarius and the Omega Point. I've never intended to showcase these things out of fey exoticism, or to belittle them. Rather, I believe we can only truly understand where the wobbly lines between science and the rest of the world lie if we don't intellectually humor all the extremes. The rational mind doesn't exist without the irrational mind, and I believe in learning through difference.

Most of all, however, I consider myself a Skeptic in the old school, which is essentially a hopeful position. We don't know anything, but we can dream.

cevans Sun, 04/12/2009 - 15:00

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Those UFO guys are assholes.

This is fabulous! I'm so glad you're here at ScienceBlogs now, we need a lot less of the calling New Agey people stupid and a lot more creative and thoughtful writing. Welcome, I'm looking forward to reading more of your stuff, and is it lame to say I'm a fan of YACHT and your videos too? Because I am :)

Not lame at all! Thanks so much for the welcome.

Problem: what about the cases where pseudoscience actually causes real harm? Countering the claims of the anti-vaccine movement, cancer quacks, etc. seems like a very useful endeavour to me.

And yet, does he pose a threat to buttoned-up society?

Hey, what's the harm?

Aside from disagreeing with your estimation of the danger of pseudoscience and other fuzzy thinking, I think your definition of "scientific skepticism" or "activist skepticism" is unhelpful. I much prefer Steven Novella's succinct description of the skeptical movement: it's about promoting critical thinking and scientific literacy.

Clearly, simply donning the title of skeptic does not qualify one to respond to every claim, and those who don't realize this risk ending up in the "unqualified against unqualified" situation you describe; however, despite my general lack of faith in the general population, I think it is within the average adult's ability to learn a little critical thinking. It doesn't take extensive formal training to notice basic logical fallacies or to ask whether there are more prosaic explanations for an observation.

Pyrrhonian skeptics believed that nothing could be known, not even "this"

According to your linked Wikipedia article, this was the belief of academic skeptics, not Pyrrhonian skeptics. Pyrrhonians refused to take even that stance, claiming they couldn't make judgements about anything. I also fail to see how the belief that we can't ever know anything is "essentially a hopeful position." It seems to be quite the opposite.

I believe we can only truly understand where the wobbly lines between science and the rest of the world lie if we don't intellectually humor all the extremes.

If you don't want us to intellectually humor them but you also don't want us to debunk their beliefs, what exactly do you want skeptics to do? Just ignore them completely? Besides, what "rest of the world" is there that science can't touch?

he is entirely concerned with his own psycho-social-religious worldview, which might arguably be as bonkers as the rest

No. As Issac Asimov wrote:

...when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.

Philosophically speaking, science may not be able to prove anything, but that type of thinking doesn't apply to the real world. All points of view are not equally valid, and, as commenters have already pointed out, pseudoscience is currently harming all of us, at least financially (not to mention the entire planet).

To begin with, of course I understand that skepticism (however you preface it) protects us from harm -- I did make a parenthetical aside about James Randi saving poor shlubs from psychic surgery, didn't I? I also understand that it's the basis of scientific thinking, and I don't imagine that my wistfulness for UFO kooks and the other victims of traditional "debunking" will do much to upset the balance of the scientific method (they are underdogs, after all).

I concede my definition of Pyrrhonian skepticism was slightly off. Looks like I misread my sources; in any case, I still stand by the idea that an unknowable world in total flux is, indeed, optimistic, simply because it implies that anything might be possible -- not to mention it puts us in our place a little. I think this point is purely personal. And, of course, impractical in this modern world, where the ignorance of many has become a true hazard (although I do see a difference between ancient Skeptical thinking and pure dumbness).

In any case, I'm not speaking to any political form of pseudoscience -- excuse me, in my bubble, I forget this is a charged subject. Anti global warming "science," the dinosaurs-and-humans-together stuff, health quackery: clearly a worthy cause for debunking of all kinds.

No, my defense is for the tinfoil-hat folks, the UFO buffs, the Sasquatch hunters, the cryptozoologists, the abductionists, the New-Agers, the people whose world views can serve to remind us of the wild fecundity of the human imagination, when faced with mystery. I see this form of pseudoscience as being on par with a more ancient human drive: the desire to rationalize the things we don't understand, to articulate the darkness and bend it to our will. No, I see no harm done there. As long as the will is not imposed on others in a harmful way, can you really see harm done? Is a bearded man in the sky much different from a steely reptilian alien with sinister aspirations? Neither fall within the purview of science. And that's my point: why bother to tell someone their God is bogus? Or that they were never abducted by aliens? It's the same, in my view. Of course, the same courtesy is rarely proffered to the debunkers, but my earnest desire is to see conversation and, yes, "intellectual humoring," in these cases -- not the hard-nosed deflating of fetid alien dreams.

Go gently...

No, my defense is for the tinfoil-hat folks, the UFO buffs, the Sasquatch hunters, the cryptozoologists, the abductionists, the New-Agers, the people whose world views can serve to remind us of the wild fecundity of the human imagination, when faced with mystery. I see this form of pseudoscience as being on par with a more ancient human drive: the desire to rationalize the things we don't understand, to articulate the darkness and bend it to our will.

I don't see this as a defense of such people at all. What you're basically saying is that modern ignorance should go unchecked because you have a romantic view of ancient ignorance.

The harm isn't in believing in Bigfoot, per se. What's harmful is the lack of critical thinking skills that leads people to such beliefs.

I propose an alternative way to get those warm fuzzy feelings you get from interacting with fantasy-prone adults: ask a child to explain some natural phenomenon. Then, after you explain what's really going on, you can get some additional warm fuzzies when the explanation clicks in their head and their face lights up. As an added bonus, you've contributed to someone's education.

Is a bearded man in the sky much different from a steely reptilian alien with sinister aspirations? Neither fall within the purview of science.

If either one lands on the White House lawn, would you say that no scientists should be called in?

Temperamentally, I tend to agree with your larger point. F'rinstance, I've had a running quibble with Orac regarding the National Center for Complementary & Alternative Medicine, on the basis that having such processes tested by a friendly agency makes the usually forthcoming disproof that much more convincing, and that the prospect of finding even one successful treatment in a thousand may pay off quite handily.

That said, anyone making specific claims, including having been anally probed by E.T. last Saturday night, needs a series of pointed questions more than a pat on the head.

@Treppenwitz Well...fine, but that happens to not be my point. Whether or not you read my piece as as being a defense of the aforementioned UFO buffs (et al.) doesn't change the fact that it was intended to be one. You're extrapolating the context of my point a little.

In fact, I agree with you wholeheartedly! Critical thinking is essential. But so is a little magic, a little fantasy. Both are fundamental to the human experience, and I don't particularly understand why a willingness to humor the fantasies of others is mutually exclusive to an appreciation for fact.

And, I might add: I'm in no way endorsing pseudoscience, just saying that I'm interested in it, what motivates it, how it propagates, how people around the world use the idea of "science" for different philosophical and ideological reasons, and why. We're not talking about coddling anyone, just listening to their stories with interest. Why not be interested? How do you expect to have a conversation, or be an influence for the change you wish to instill, if you don't know the idiom, if you haven't walked the fabled mile?

I don't see this conversation resolving itself any time soon, because the divide we're talking about is the very divide we're experiencing. To which I say: OK, and thank you for the debate.

Oh, and @Pierce R. Butler: absolutely. Pointed questions -- but asked kindly.

"It's contemporary "scientific" or "activist" skepticism that I have a problem with."

Well if you misconstrue what a skeptic is (hint there are no true Scotsmen) then cherry pick one of the more benign false beliefs you might come to the conclusions you have in this blog post.

You don't have to look far to find imperfect skeptics. In fact, good luck finding anyone with perfectly rational thinking. After all, we are handicapped by the path the human brain has taken in evolution.

But that is not a reason to gripe about a group of people who believe it is worthwhile to promote rational thinking and critical thinking skills. That's the core of what the skeptical community is all about despite the broad spectrum of interests and the occasional flaws which exist within that skeptical community.

As for the harmlessness of irrational thinking, you need to spend a little more time around Mr Randi and our JREF community.

Serious harm is done by the million dollar campaign to put Creationism and Intelligent Design into school science classes. The entire Bush administration's 8 years included numerous assaults on the integrity of science doing long term damage as it undermined the credibility of science. Exxon's campaign against the credibility of climate science has done serious harm.

Then there are the billions of dollars wasted on irrational thinking. It isn't just psychic surgery here. How about the fact the National Health Service in the UK is finally questioning the expense of homeopathy which British taxpayers have been paying for all these years? That is a tiny fraction of the money wasted on fraud and bad medicine beliefs. We could afford excellent health care for everyone in the US if people quit paying billions for junk medicine. And ignorant anti-vaccine beliefs have killed unvaccinated kids.

Then there is the harm done by irrational thinking like that of the 19 idiots who flew planes into the WTC towers. They did so believing they'd be richly rewarded in heaven. Do you know people still burn other people alive fearing they are witches? Albinos have been killed and sliced up because in some areas in Africa it is believed ground up albino has some kind of magic power and just as Rhinos may become extinct over similar false beliefs and some kids might have been given HIV because a rumor went out saying sex with a virgin cured AIDS. How do you get the president of South Africa declaring HIV does not cause AIDS? Apparently all you need is the Internet and a willingness to believe in a fantasy.

These are events which have actually occurred in the 21st century.

These examples are only the tip of the iceberg of harm resulting from irrational thinking. These are the things the skeptical community and the James Randi Educational Foundation are concerned with. To think our interest in promoting rational thinking stemmed from a bunch of nerds who had some urge to correct a few ghost hunters and UFO buffs couldn't be more wrong.

".. contemporary "scientific skepticism" has become shorthand for "debunking," namely those claims and theories beyond mainstream science."

To be clear here, this is not what contemporary skepticism is all about. I think you've erred here in your assessment of the skeptic movement.

Debunking addresses symptoms. The purpose being to enlighten those not already taken in by the irrational thinking. And the second purpose is to reveal the mechanisms involved in being fooled.

Treating the underlying problem is where promoting critical thinking skills and the reliability of the scientific process comes in. As for "knowing we are right", skeptics in principle are science/evidence based believers. Most of us understand the uncertainty of science and embrace it. Rational thinking includes the scientific process and rules of logic. Dogmatic thinking is not rational thinking.

But I take special ire at your description of irrational beliefs as being beyond mainstream science. No they are not. Mainstream science provides the evidence refuting the Irrational beliefs. A better description of this stuff is outright error and sometimes a known phenomena called magical thinking. We can see how the erroneous conclusions were drawn. We can identify the errors in logic or in some basic science that resulted in the irrational beliefs. There's nothing beyond science here at all. You just need to look behind the curtain.

Having now read your further comments, Treppenwitz answered the first reply better than I could have, so I'll move on to the second one:

"In fact, I agree with you wholeheartedly! Critical thinking is essential. But so is a little magic, a little fantasy. Both are fundamental to the human experience, and I don't particularly understand why a willingness to humor the fantasies of others is mutually exclusive to an appreciation for fact."

It's beginning to sound like you have some narrow issue here you posted in much too broad of a way. And now you are backtracking.

Clarification accepted. But you still seem to be under the false impression that skeptics are unimaginative, boring fuddie duddies. To the contrary, most of us just prefer the incredible mysteries of the real Universe to the limited mysteries humans created from misinterpreting the evidence around them.

UFOs and ghosts just aren't any fun once you look a little closer. That doesn't mean one can't have great fun trying to figure out how there could be 11 dimensions or what an enormous (even after collapsed) star in the galaxy would look like rotating 4 times a second. And imagine what real ETs are going to look like when we finally encounter them. Give up the nonsense, there's an incredible Universe out there.

Hey, wait, that's what your blog is about. ;-) So why are you intrigued with unsupportable mysteries when there are so many supportable ones out there?

Claire, I tend to agree with you on this one. The fact is, if nothing else, coming to understand why someone believes something, or wants to believe something gives them a lot more credit for being a worthwhile human being, then simply proving them wrong and demanding they agree with you. The thing is we do need skeptics as has been repeatedly mentioned. But, the world is full of people who simply need answers to the mysteries the see around them. The world is an amazing place, and if all they hear are folks claiming a very mechanistic universe and telling them there is no magic...they lose hope. Honestly, there is a great deal to be said about the things you mentioned. For example: If you wanted to discuss ESP, you can approach it as "brain waves" traveling between people. Something akin to Jungs "collective sub conscious" in which everything thought goes to some collective pool of sorts, it could be that folks who seem to have ESP are fantastic at reading body language, verbal cues, eye movement(like many "psychics" actually perform) or it could be a combination of all of those things and being hyper-sensitive to the interplay of pheremones how different people are reacting as a whole...in short ESP could be seen as a hypersensitivity to many things both seen, unseen and sensed that most folks don't realize. Skepticism is a great thing. But, there really should be room to believe in something as of yet undiscovered or unproven. How many times has some scientist claimed that understanding would never be reached on an issue because of the limits of technology? Or that all things worth inventing have already been invented? Intuition and imagination left unchecked by logic and reality is dangerous. But, it is also essential in making the greatest of scientific discoveries.

@Mike: Here here! Half the fun of being a scientist is dealing with what looks like magic. BTW I had sorely underestimated to this point what a bunch of petty nitpickers some of the folks on Sb are. Who in this modern century cares whether OP misstated the position of the pyrrhonian skeptics?! Get a life. I'd like to draw what I think is an important distinction: there is a difference between voodoo hooey (crystal power, chakras) and empirically challenged but mathematically sound beliefs (cryptozoology, UFOs). People can believe in either for the wrong reasons- I'm thinking here of housewives and awkward teens looking to feel powerful by wielding spells or channelling the dead- but simply keeping an open mind to that which is as yet unproven is not as big a sin as it has been portrayed ITT. I personally would be incredibly surprised if there were NOT intelligent life elsewhere in this multiverse of ours, for example. Similarly with cryptozoology, and following Mike's point, is that time and again we have scoffed at those who were later proven right *coughcoelocanth* and I look forward to the day when we can peer with anticipation through our ghost-scopes.

Point taken, all.

I don't want to seem like I'm backtracking (and I'm very sorry to have typecast Skeptics as fuddy-duddies), but it seems I've made too broad an argument about something specific. Please accept my apologies for offending the Skeptic community, but do understand that my perspective is that of a non-scientist polyvore, someone who's just interested in all kinds of stuff, and I think it's pretty absurd (and, dare I say, irrational) to conflate my desire to poke around in UFO cosmology and Bigfoot mythology with 9/11 and AIDS in Africa. I hate to say that the authoritarian, joyless zeal with which you've taken to shredding my point of view is, in effect, exactly what I'm talking about.

I mean, guys, who endorses a lack of critical thinking? You need only to poke around this blog for five minutes to see I am a pro-science person, a pro-reason person, and a defender of your cause. My only point is open-mindedness, gentleness, and humor. In the end, I'm on your side, but that doesn't mean I'm going to ignore all the interesting, nontraditional ideas in the world, which is really all I meant to say in my above, slightly belletristic, ode to kookery. It doesn't mean I'm going to endorse crystal healing or post fuzzy Bigfoot sighting videos (or ever diss the Skeptics again!) -- only that I will report on those subjects, in a critical and informed way. Without lambasting them.

It appears we in the skeptic community need to do a better job educating the scientific community to what we are all about. Let me introduce myself. While I'm no true Scotsman, I think I represent the skeptical community fairly well as an individual.

I love exploring the interesting things in the world so much I can brag about having gone to see the mysterious moving stones at the Racetrack in the middle of Death Valley. I read about this mystery as a child in the book, "This Baffling World". I hired a car to take me to the Peru-Bolivian border to see the meteorite crater and see for myself what supposedly made people ill when the meteorite hit the ground. I flew in a small plane over the Nazca lines. I went to see the Ica Stones in Peru. I've been to the ET Highway and the Little A'Le'Inn near Area 51. I've been to Roswell New Mexico. I went looking for the face of Jesus on a Tortilla in New Mexico (though it was no longer there).

This is but a tiny sample of the exploring I've done all over the world. I love this kind of stuff. You totally have the wrong idea about what the skeptic community is all about.

I invite you all to get to know us better. Join our efforts to promote critical thinking. We are not out to make the world a dull place. We are all about introducing people to the wonders of science and the real Universe.

This Is Where I Live

cevans — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 23:02:59 +0000

This Is Where I Live

More data as I gather it.

cevans Fri, 01/25/2008 - 18:02

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Pardon my simplicity but ... what am I looking at?

I'm thinking this is footage of the mysterious lights of Marfa, Texas.

jeez! have you seen them yet or what! you should make some vidz

More data!

Book Review: A Cosmic Samizdat

cevans — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 10:29:54 +0000

Book Review: A Cosmic Samizdat

In our increasingly worldaround world, it is a rare, if not obsolete, occurrence for two wildly disparate and equally sophisticated cultures to meet for the first time. That's probably for the best, of course, because when it did happen in spades, during the centuries on Earth before instantaneous global communication, all bets were off, and what went down was almost always marked with catastrophe (as with the indigenous people of North America) or powderkeg-and-a-match mutual distrust (as with the first United States naval expeditions to Japan in the 1850s, a cultural collision that is beautifully explored in Charles and Ray Eames' 1972 film The Black Ships).

There are, of course, exceptions to this grim surmisal. When such a meeting takes place on a smaller scale, and is filtered through the lens of a profound -- and autonomous -- common interest, only good can come of it. This is a roundabout way of getting at the nucleus of my new favorite book, Jacques VallÃ©e's UFO Chronicles of the Soviet Union: A Cosmic Samizdat, which documents the first meetings between Soviet and Western UFO researchers at the dawn of Gorbachev's policy of glasnost, a period of transparency in Soviet politics which effectively lifted the Iron Curtain from decades of underground paranormal research and samizdat dissemination of literature.

This is what happened: In 1990, one of the world's most respected and most rigidly scientific ufologists -- VallÃ©e -- was invited by a Soviet press agency, Novosti, to visit the USSR in the wake of one of the country's most controversial waves of UFO activity, the infamous Voronezh sightings. On arrival, VallÃ©e discovered a rich community of well-organized researchers, the ironic result of censorship itself forcing Soviet ufology into unofficial underground networks, where it flourished. On this unusual result of the Iron Curtain, VallÃ©e is almost nostalgic: "It was obvious that knowledge was revered here to a degree that our information-saturated world had forgotten...Russia has never had a distribution system...ideas percolated among students, scholars, and private groups who created a verifiable cult around the books that influenced them."

Whether or not you buy into UFO research, particularly VallÃ©e's especially tinfoil strain of non-extraterrestrial hypotheses ("I am a heretic among heretics," he is known to lament), this book is a fascinating cultural document. Before glasnost, the broad-reaching and colorful world of Soviet UFO research was completely isolated from the West, forced to depend on non-institutional research bodies, catalogued with a uniquely Russian strain of manic order, and often effectively shut down by the government or by prevailing cultural opinion. At this moment in 1990, however, ufologists were free to pontificate at will to VallÃ©e, a Western scientist, about Tunguska explosion of 1908, the Voronezh incidents, the rampant UFO activity in the Perm region of Russia, and about the widespread Soviet technique of "biolocation," kind of biological-field dowsing -- all this for the first time. Before VallÃ©e's trip to Moscow, no Soviet ufologists had ever compared notes with a Western scientist or researcher. I mean, imagine the mind-fuck that this represents, especially when someone from the West says to you, "yes, we have reports of alien abductions, too." This accidental control group created by Soviet isolation seems, at face value, like a solid corroboration that we are really in the midst of legitimate visitations.

VallÃ©e's speculations about the Soviet scene are intimate and fascinating. He often reflects on the abject cultural misery of the USSR, its inescapable sense of pervading gloom; he is also struck by the tenacity and vibrancy of its paranormal research. After a roundtable conference with Muscovite scientists, he notes, "the Soviets...still regard the future with the somewhat naÃ¯ve passion of a Jules Verne or an H.G. Wells," an observation that resounds strongly when you consider the average Soviet witness'
description of an extraterrestrial being: 10 feet tall, silver boots, three eyes.

This, incidentally, is one of the most interesting aspects of the cross-cultural summit: that the Russians, unbeknownst to the West, have been experiencing the same kinds of crazy unexplainable phenomena as we have, forever, totally isolated from our singular conception of the extraterrestrial or paranormal as being necessarily "grey" or "little green man" in persuasion. The result is a manifestation of the unknown that is perhaps more fantastic than VallÃ©e might have anticipated, and certainly as alien -- pun wholly intended -- to our worldview as these phenomena themselves.

The big question, of course, remains unanswered. While the Soviet data is replete with well-documented sightings, none of them bear any resemblance to the Western data. Instead of saucers, we see glowing spheres; instead of almond-eyed gangly creatures, we encounter robots and headless giants. Does this mean that UFO phenomena are simply irrational experiences heavily filtered through our cultural conceptions? Are we even talking about the same thing? With so many varieties of manifestation, the UFO problem becomes almost semantic, especially in the case of this glasnost-fueled conference, for we lack a common language.

I'm tempted to read this as a version of the kind of cultural catastrophe that usually results from the communication of two formerly isolated groups; with a lack of shared language, and the only common ground being a commitment to the fantastic and conspiratorial, the Soviet-Western ufology conference might have spelled a death knell to the whole movement. VallÃ©e is more hopeful, however, and that is the eternal asset of the UFO movement: "These developments," he concludes, "give us hope that a fruitful, long-term dialogue might be opening at last between researchers in the Soviet Union and their Western counterparts...it is only through such dialogue that the UFO mystery will eventually be solved."

cevans Wed, 12/26/2007 - 05:29

Tags

I hope these stories are not related to each other

gregladen — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 16:00:41 +0000

I hope these stories are not related to each other

Great beasts peppered from space

There is fairly convincing evidence that the explosion of an object not of this earth hit mammoths and other Pleistocene Mega Beasts with shrapnel up in Siberia and Alaska.

Boeing's 12,000lb chemical laser set to fry targets from aircraft

Earthlings have finally developed an effective, large scale, and portable Ray Gun.

Global group aims to return Martian soil to Earth

There is a plan to go to Mars and bring back some dirt. Who knows what is going to be in that dirt?

Who Speaks for Earth? ... From Seed Magazine:

After decades of searching, scientists have found no trace of extraterrestrial intelligence. Now, some of them hope to make contact by broadcasting messages to the stars. Are we prepared for an answer?

Fellow Earthlings, do you need me to connect the dots for you?

gregladen Sat, 12/15/2007 - 11:00

Tags

Cosmos

day the earth stood still

Klaatu!

Gort: No, no, if you don't say the WHOLE THING EXACTLY RIGHT the robot will destroy the entire planet!!!

Travelling to Mars is no big deal. I was just writing on my blog about Switzerland's early space program and the first woman on Mars. Plus Venus and Uranus (feel free to insert your own joke (innuendo?).

Check it out at http://drvitelli.typepad.com/providentia/2007/12/travelling-to-m.html.

Uranus? Innuendo? Never mind............

UFO Maps

cevans — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 09:18:47 +0000

UFO Maps

I'm surprised that I haven't come across this before: a Google-maps rendering of UFO sightings in the US, dynamically updated as-it-happens. Preliminary perusal seems to indicate that UFOs tend to stay away from the landlocked mountains, preferring to pop by the Pacific Northwest, the California coastline, and, in droves, the East Coast and the area immediately around the Great Lakes. For those of us who "believe" that even a fraction of these sightings may be the real deal, this map is an interesting asset and may tell us some valuable things about our visitors; for those of us who don't, this is a powerful illustration of human folly, and that's pretty compelling, too.

cevans Wed, 12/05/2007 - 04:18

Tags

Earth

Maps

UFO

I have to wonder what a global map would look like. Do the aliens think our "Great Lakes" are the communications hub of Life On Earth (L.O.E.)?

We are after all the Water Planet (W.P.)?

Is L.O.E. on the W.P. worth writing (alien) home about??

Such a map begs the question.

global map... mexico city = grand central station

Ooh, awesome.

It would be cool to see an archive. Or a map of Project Blue Book's findings.

I have a poster of that banner ufo on my wall.

have u ever noticed they only go by water strange huh

steve reich had interesting theories on why UFOs might be associated with water bodies. the literature on catalina island with USO's is captivating enough, but not nearly as strange as Kenneth arnolds visit to puget sound after the sightings and happenings there. but of course theres plenty of history in places like the southwest too.

if anyone is ever in upstate new york, on your way from the city to come visit me in albany, stop in the pine bush area and check out the stone chambers,mega old structures and monoliths constructed in a medium the indigenous cultures here have no history of working with..that area has a rich history of sightings for this region, also located near an airforce base, hmm..http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread497643/pg1
and eat at the saucer diner!