Wednesday, March 28, 2007

The UFO Phenomenon - ETH, CTH, EDH, TDH, NH??

Whenever I do an interview on radio, or when I'm talking to someone about UFOs, the question always comes up - what do I think they are?

Extraterrestrial in origin?

Extradimensional?

Are they time travelers?

How about cryptoterrestrials (i.e. another race that inhabits Earth) as Mac Tonnies speculates?

Or, can they all be explained away in relatively mundane, terrestrial terms (hoaxes, atmospheric phenomena, misidentifications, etc. etc.) - the "null hypothesis"?

I asked that question over at "The Other Side of Truth" discussion area on Facebook, which can be found here. (you have to join Facebook to join the group).

One of the members of the group replied:

Perhaps we should ask ourselves what it is that we know about them. It maybe very little but it would be the place to start. What can we gather from the credible sightings and encounters that have taken place? What are the things these cases have in common?
A good question.

Here is my answer:

Here are a couple of commonalities I have noticed in what I would consider the best cases:

1. The witnesses are usually military, often pilots, and always highly credible (i.e. not likely to be making up a tall tale).

2. The military is made aware of the cases, and the witnesses are always debriefed, usually by people they do not recognize (i.e. not their regular debriefers).

1 & 2 indicates to me that:

a. The military is aware of something strange in the skies

b. They don't know what it is (otherwise they wouldn't be asking so many questions).

Now, as to the UFOs themselves, again, from the minority of excellent cases out there, we almost always see the following reported:

1. The UFO moves in ways that no conventional aircraft can move (at least none that the witnesses are aware of, and considering that in some cases the witnesses are top aerospace engineers and designers, and test pilots, that's good enough for me).

2. It is often observed as a bright light, or series of lights (the 1957 RB47 case, for example, or Rendlesham, or Malmstrom, or Shag Harbour... the list goes on).

3. The UFO often seems to be "playing" (for lack of a better word), i.e. "showing off" (as Mac Tonnies has said) for the witnesses. A display of some sort.

4. There is almost no form of recognizable communication, unless you consider the colours and movements a form of communication (the RB47 case is a notable exception - here some sort of signals were allegedly received from the UFO).

Those are the things that the "best" cases of which I am aware seem to have in common.

What conclusion do I draw from this?

Well, I certainly can't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, but it seems that if 1 - 4 above are true, then there is some sign of intelligence present. That is as far as one can go, I think.

Which leaves us with the original question, although it makes the null hypothesis less likely for at least a few UFO cases, unless they are some sort of psychological experiment being run by someone down here to observe people's reactions to things like this, or to distract attention away from top secret programs, which I don't think we can completely rule out.
I still think that the vast majority of UFO cases have prosaic explanations (whether we have figured them out yet or not is another story). But there remain enough truly anomalous cases that the "null hypothesis" seems untenable as an explanation for the entire UFO phenomenon - which leads me to conclude that at least some cases have a paranormal, i.e. beyond our experience, explanation.

And that's as far as I'll go, because at the moment that's the only conclusion one can make based on the available evidence (and even this conclusion is one I make on the balance of probabilities, not beyond a reasonable doubt).

In the past, some have accused me, and others, of "cowardice" for only going this far.

To them I would say that the real courage lies not in accepting as a proven fact something in which you want to believe, but in having the intellectual honesty to admit that you don't know the answer, and the curiosity to keep looking.

Paul Kimball

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

In the pursuit of truth, one cannot filter the data to just the "best cases" -- one has to consider *ALL* the evidence. If there are any outliers in the data set, those can be eliminated in a mathematically precise way. So if we do not artificially restrict ourselves to just the "best cases", we come up with a different conclusion:

1. Only some of the witnesses are military

2. Only some of the military witnesses are pilots.

3. There is nothing to prevent pilots from making the same mistakes in observation or from outright lying than anybody else. The exception is their judgment on what behaviors a craft can make that are beyond current capabilities or not.

4. Occasionally the military is made aware of the cases but in most cases are not even interested.

5. There is absolutely no physically real evidence that any paranormal craft have visited Earth.

6. There is some claimed evidence that paranormal craft have visited Earth, but it is only indirect evidence and not direct evidence, and it is alleged evidence, not actual evidence.

There are not enough physically substantial cases that the "paranormal hypothesis" seems tenable as an explanation for the entire UFO phenomenon - which leads me to conclude that at least most cases have a psychological, i.e. mass hysterical or popular fad, explanation.

Mac said...

I'm a "coward" too: I think the only things that can be said about the phenomenon with certainty is it's

a.) physical

and

b.) intelligent.

Paul Kimball said...

Anonymous:

You wrote:

In the pursuit of truth, one cannot filter the data to just the "best cases" -- one has to consider *ALL* the evidence. If there are any outliers in the data set, those can be eliminated in a mathematically precise way. So if we do not artificially restrict ourselves to just the "best cases", we come up with a different conclusion

It's not an artificial retriction - it's called separating the wheat from the chaff, and it's what any good researcher or investigator does, in any field.

For example, if there is a murder in a neighbourhood, the police will canvass all potential witnesses. However, by the time of a trial, only those few which actually have something constructive to offer will be called to testify. The rest of the potential witnesses will have been interviewed, found to have no useful information, and discarded.

1. Only some of the witnesses are military

In the best cases, not true.

2. Only some of the military witnesses are pilots.

Yes, this is accurate, but so what?

3. There is nothing to prevent pilots from making the same mistakes in observation or from outright lying than anybody else. The exception is their judgment on what behaviors a craft can make that are beyond current capabilities or not.

The latter part if correct. The former is correct, as far as it goes, but if true, then an awful lot of pilots are either incompetent or are lying. I doubt that. Further, there are cases, like Tehran, or the RB47 case, where there is hard data available to corroborate what the air crews saw. In a case like the 1953 Santa Barbara Channel sighting, there are independent, top-notch witnesses (pilots, aerodynamacists, etc.) who all saw the same thing.

4. Occasionally the military is made aware of the cases but in most cases are not even interested.

Simply not true in the best cases, of which you are clearly unaware if you make a statement like this.

5. There is absolutely no physically real evidence that any paranormal craft have visited Earth.

I agree with this. However, that does not in and of itself mean that this could not or did not happen. Further, it does nothing to explain those cases which remain unsolved.

6. There is some claimed evidence that paranormal craft have visited Earth, but it is only indirect evidence and not direct evidence, and it is alleged evidence, not actual evidence.

There is no such thing as alleged evidence. There is evidence, or there is none. Witness testimony is evidence, whether you like it or not. The question is then the weight that one gives the evidence.

There are not enough physically substantial cases that the "paranormal hypothesis" seems tenable as an explanation for the entire UFO phenomenon

Re-read my post carefully. Nobody said that the paranormal hypothesis is an explanation for the entire UFO phenomenon. This is a straw-man you have set up to lead you to...

- which leads me to conclude that at least most cases have a psychological, i.e. mass hysterical or popular fad, explanation.

That's what you get when your mind is made up, you choose to ignore the facts, or make excuses for things you can't explain or deal with, and then set up straw-men as a last resort to serve as a springboard for an overbroad and unsubstantiated conclusion.

That's not rational though. That's pure disbelief, which is just as bad as pure belief.

Paul

Anonymous said...

Maybe you can find a methodology of "separating the wheat from the chaff" in a court of law, but you will not find that being practiced in a court of science. Facts are always facts -- you cannot throw away or ignore any facts "just because". All the facts have to be explained therefore filtering the facts is NEVER good science and good researchers NEVER do it. In a court of law you can get away with those kinds of things, but that is why the methodologies of a court of law are not acceptable as the methodologies of science. Science requirements are far more stringent than those required in a court of law, because a court of law isn't always reliable or even required to be logical. Remember OJ Simpson? Remember the Salem Witch Trials? Remember the Inquisitions?

Science and a court of law widely diverge on what can be considered as evidence. Whereas mere testimony is acceptable to a court of law, science doesn't consider any testimony as evidence. Testimony is only useful if it provides instructions for finding some actual evidence, otherwise testimony that doesn't lead to actual evidence is called "storytelling". In a court of law, the mere opinions of a jury of (most often uneducated) peers is acceptable, but science is not a democracy. If I want to know what reality is like, I don't consult or mimic a court of law, I consult scientific methodologies.

So getting back to your filtering of the data, as is usually the case, your filters are arbitrary and opinionated. For example, you imply that military personnel make better witnesses than civilians. I doubt even a court of law would find that credible or reasonable, much less pass as a valid scientific precept. Prove they are better, don't assert without evidence that they are better. The person giving the testimony is irrelevant to science, only the testimony is relevant and only if that testimony can provide instructions for finding some actual evidence. This scientific practice does not pass judgments as to whether a person is incompetent or dishonest in their testimonies, as a court of law would do. Rather science accommodates the fact that no one is absolutely perfect and anyone can be subject to illusions, delusions, false memories, mistaken identities, and hallucinations. You have to methodologically eliminate those first before you can even consider accepting the testimony. You would be surprised to know how many top-notch people belong to UFO cults or religious cults.

As I stated before, occasionally the military is made aware of some UFO cases but in most cases are they are not even interested. I'm not talking about the so-called best cases only, as you are, but of ALL cases. See? I'm not filtering.

The absence of evidence where much evidence is expected is proof that something has not occurred as claimed -- and that would include paranormal phenomenon like UFOs. For example, if I tell you I successfully detonated a 100-megaton atomic bomb in my backyard last night, the complete absence of evidence where much evidence is expected (ie -- missing crater, no residual radiation, no blinding flash, no millions of casualties, and the absence of massive destruction of tens of square miles of landscape) is proof I did no such thing. The point is there is absolutely nothing to explain where nothing has been proven to have occurred in the fist place. Unexplained cases of UFOs means nothing more then they are unexplained storytales. But if you look at ALL the ACTUAL evidence, which means not just the cases you consider "the best", one natural conclusion is that at least most cases have a psychological explanation (i.e. -- a mass hysterical or a popular fad). This has nothing to do with belief or disbelief, it has to to with objectively reporting things as they are instead of what one wishes they were.

Paul Kimball said...

Anonymous:

You wrote:

Maybe you can find a methodology of "separating the wheat from the chaff" in a court of law, but you will not find that being practiced in a court of science.

Of course you will. Day in and day out.

Facts are always facts -- you cannot throw away or ignore any facts "just because".

Quite so, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about viewing each case on its own merits, and then focusing on the best cases, i.e. those which remain unexplained. Why in heaven's name would you want to waste time looking at cases that can be explained? That would be like telling scientists to waste valuable time and resources trying to cure a disease that has already been cured, when there are still plenty that have not.

All the facts have to be explained therefore filtering the facts is NEVER good science and good researchers NEVER do it.

Again, I disagree, because it's not about "filtering facts", although I can understand why you would want to present it that way.

In a court of law you can get away with those kinds of things, but that is why the methodologies of a court of law are not acceptable as the methodologies of science.

Actually, they're remarkably similar in many respects. They're also both subject to human error.

Science requirements are far more stringent than those required in a court of law, because a court of law isn't always reliable or even required to be logical. Remember OJ Simpson? Remember the Salem Witch Trials? Remember the Inquisitions?

This is irrelevant. Besides, you really don't want me to start listing all of the times science and scientists have been wrong, do you?

Science and a court of law widely diverge on what can be considered as evidence. Whereas mere testimony is acceptable to a court of law, science doesn't consider any testimony as evidence.

That's not quite true, and you know it (or at least I hope you do). Further, even if "science" (as if "science" is a monolithic entity) rejected witness testimony, that would be a flaw in the scientific method, not in the testimony.

Testimony is only useful if it provides instructions for finding some actual evidence, otherwise testimony that doesn't lead to actual evidence is called "storytelling".

Again, convenient for you to say so, but not true. Also, you fail to mention, or address, the fact that in the case of UFOs, the best incidents are the ones where there is mutually corroborated testimony, as well as other corroborating evidence, like radar tracking.

Brush up on the details of the 1957 RB47 case for a start, and then get back to me with your explanation.

In a court of law, the mere opinions of a jury of (most often uneducated) peers is acceptable, but science is not a democracy.

Of course it is - or haven't you heard of peer review, or are you not familiar with how scientific "facts" today can become "mistakes" tomorrow? But you can maintain your elitist stance if you want - it's the only one that helps to promote your position, so I can see why you use it.

If I want to know what reality is like, I don't consult or mimic a court of law, I consult scientific methodologies.

Hard to believe, because I don't think you fully understand what the scientific method is.

So getting back to your filtering of the data, as is usually the case, your filters are arbitrary and opinionated.

Again, as discussed above, it's not a filtering of data, it's a focus on the best cases. I can understand why you don't want to admit the distinction, but there is one.

For example, you imply that military personnel make better witnesses than civilians.

No... I state outright that they generally make credible witnesses, especially when there is more than one, and especially when their is independent corroboration. Of course there are excellent civilian witnesses as well. Paul Hill. Kelly Johnson. Lincoln LaPaz. And so on.

I doubt even a court of law would find that credible or reasonable, much less pass as a valid scientific precept. Prove they are better, don't assert without evidence that they are better.

Again, I didn't say they were better, just that they were good, especially as many military cases often come with the kind of non-witness corroboration that you claim to want (try the 1976 Tehran case, for example).

The person giving the testimony is irrelevant to science, only the testimony is relevant and only if that testimony can provide instructions for finding some actual evidence. This scientific practice does not pass judgments as to whether a person is incompetent or dishonest in their testimonies, as a court of law would do. Rather science accommodates the fact that no one is absolutely perfect and anyone can be subject to illusions, delusions, false memories, mistaken identities, and hallucinations. You have to methodologically eliminate those first before you can even consider accepting the testimony.

Well, d'uh. Again, go brush up on the RB47 case, and you'll see how those things were eliminated. Then you can explain the case to me. Go ahead.

You would be surprised to know how many top-notch people belong to UFO cults or religious cults.

Now you're just getting desperate.

As I stated before, occasionally the military is made aware of some UFO cases but in most cases are they are not even interested.

To use your argument, don't just assert that - prove it. Go ahead - try. I've got lots and lots of cases that the military - not just the US military - took an active interest in that positively refutes your ridiculous and wholly unfounded assertion.

I'm not talking about the so-called best cases only, as you are, but of ALL cases. See? I'm not filtering.

Of course you aren't, because then things would get difficult for you, and you would have to address real issues, instead of trying to muddy the waters.

The absence of evidence where much evidence is expected is proof that something has not occurred as claimed -- and that would include paranormal phenomenon like UFOs.

Sigh... more trite disbeliever pap.

For example, if I tell you I successfully detonated a 100-megaton atomic bomb in my backyard last night, the complete absence of evidence where much evidence is expected (ie -- missing crater, no residual radiation, no blinding flash, no millions of casualties, and the absence of massive destruction of tens of square miles of landscape) is proof I did no such thing. The point is there is absolutely nothing to explain where nothing has been proven to have occurred in the fist place.

Wholly irrelevant, as there are plenty of good cases where something clearly did occur. I would ignore your claim of detonating a nuclear bomb, and go check, oh, say, North Korea. But you would treat your claim and North Korea's equally, because to do otherwise would be to "filter".

Absurd.

Unexplained cases of UFOs means nothing more then they are unexplained storytales.

If that makes you feel better, you go right on believing it. But that way of looking at things isn't terribly scientific, or objective.

But if you look at ALL the ACTUAL evidence, which means not just the cases you consider "the best", one natural conclusion is that at least most cases have a psychological explanation (i.e. -- a mass hysterical or a popular fad). This has nothing to do with belief or disbelief, it has to to with objectively reporting things as they are instead of what one wishes they were.

As I said, objectivity doesn't seem to be your strong suit.

I don't dispute that the majority of UFO cases can be explained in prosaic terms. Indeed, I cause ufologists considerable consternation when I state that the majority of the unexplained cases can probably be explained that way as well (given better investigation). But that still leaves those nasty little best cases that you would rather not deal with, because they are much more difficult to simply explain away. Perhaps if you knew more about them, you would be able to look at things more objectively, with an open mind. Or perhaps not. I have no idea.

Either way, that's your problem, not mine. I'm interested in the cases that are unsolved, just like any good police officer, investigator, reporter, or - yes - scientist.

Paul Kimball

Anonymous said...

Did I strike a wittle nerve here somewhere Paulie? Obviously you had no actual argument against my position so instead of admitting I'm right and moving on with a lesson learned, you resorted to childish name calling and blind faith assertions instead. For example, your response to my claim that you will not find the methodology of "separating the wheat from the chaff" ever being practiced in a court of science was "Of course you will. Day in and day out" -- just because you say so too, right? Ha! That is so convincing! Not.

Let me make this so simple that even someone like you can understand it: your conclusion of the UFO phenomenon is invalid because you are basing it on only partial data, ie -- only the so-called best cases instead of all the cases. For your information, the vast majority of UFO cases do not involve the military. Arbitrarily restricting your conclusion to only ten "best cases" is not intellectually honest. Why only ten? Why not eleven or hundred? What scientific reason did you come up with to justify ten only? I know why: just because you say so. So what about the second best cases? Where do they fit into your conclusion -- or do you just ignore them because they contradict your pet theory?

Without any actual physical evidence, all UFO cases are equal -- there is no such thing as the "best cases" and all the pontificating in the world over what are the "best cases" will not change the fact that the reality is, all UFO cases are equal when it comes to any actual physical evidence you can hold in the palm of your hands. As my university science textbook says, reports of UFOs are not proof of the existence of the thing reported.

Let's take a quick look at one of your so-called best case examples: the Malmstrom AFB UFO/Missile Incident. Take away the storytale of Robert Salas and what do you have left over? There were some spurious UFO reports in that area, but none on the day in question, so all you have is one report that says rumors of UFOs were disproven. So what if they couldn't exactly determine what caused the extensive shutdown, that doesn't prove UFOs did it anymore then it proves Santa Claus did it. I did notice something very significant and out-of-the-ordinary about the incident though and that is the fact that they were doing maintainence on the sites just before they all crashed. Now imagine that: right in the middle of a maintainence routine on a computer, it suddenly crashed the system. I could never imagine that happening with any computer systems I know of, can you? Haha! Robert Salas reported a UFO but reporting a UFO is not proof of the thing reported. So this whole thing hinges only just on what Robert Salas had to say, but has his mere words ever been confirmed with some actual evidence other than his say so? Absolutely not! I'm sure you're impressed with mere say so because you resort to it so often, but thinking people know better. You guys are so gullible you will disbelieve the very believable and official report, but swallow one man's questionable storytale, hook, line, and sucker.

PS -- You aren't even that good at giving insults so don't resort to them anymore. If you want an insult to be effective, you have to make it at least sound like it could be true. For example, I think I can see why you are a filmmaker...you knew you were going to fail as a lawyer so you quit that to become a "musician". Of course, that isn't doing too well either so you decided to become a filmmaker. What are you going to do when you fail that? Try to become a cowboy or astronaut? Or will you follow in the footsteps of your uncle? He seems to have some kind of grand delusion that he is the "father of Roswell" so maybe you can become the great "son of Roswell"! I'm sure he makes a lot of money spewing forth all that make believe Roswell nonsense. I believe it is because of people like you and him that UFOology has become the laughingstock of the world.

See? That is an insult and an effective one because it hits home. You can't make an insult stick to someone you don't know so to prevent people like you from constantly resorting to insults instead of intelligent debate, I post anon. Imagine how much more your would resort to insulting if you actually knew who I was?

Paul Kimball said...

Anonymous:

Yes, yes... blah blah blah...

RB47.

What's that?

Deafening silence.

I thought so.

When people resort to ad hominems, it usually means they can't get a grip on the issues, or the evidence. You've proven that it spades. Grow up.

As for which one of us has more credibility, I'm not the one hiding his identity. Until you reveal yours, I see no reason to continue this "dialogue".

TTFN.

Paul

Paul Kimball said...

P.S. You call that an insult?

Puh-lease. I've been insulted by experts. You're a rank amateur, even when it comes to that.

Sad.

Horse said...

While I don't disagree with the larger point, isn't saying of best cases "1. The witnesses are usually military, often pilots, and always highly credible" a self-fulfilling prophecy?

What I mean is, isn't one of the key features of what is considered a "best case" in the first place that the witnesses have a military or aviation background? I think it's a bit difficult to then argue that this characteristic of "best cases" is somehow an independent variable, when it's actually part of the selection criteria.

It's like saying "in this list of fast cars I've compiled, I consider it more than an innocent coincidence that they're all capable of very rapid speed."

Paul Kimball said...

Craig:

I wouldn't put it quite like that, but I see what you mean. If it's a best case, it stands to reason that the witnesses (civilian or military) have been vetted, and found to be credible, so stating that as a component of what makes a "best case" is a bit repetitive.

Thanks for popping by!

Paul

Anonymous said...

I know who the aliens are but not where they come from. Think of them as the maintanence engineers of the human race.

They are of no sex and perform work on order of the secret builders of the human race. There existance is multi dimensional as well as supernatural to our time and space.

The entities move freely into and out of our realm with complete mastery of our time. The alien experience is almost unreal when experienced in there realm of time which does not exist as we concieve times property as a moment to moment event.

You will know them and there craft as objects operating out of our reality and law of physics. They have mastered our time and space to do as they please whether maneuvering in flight or removing an aaabductee from there surrounding into the alien s construct of reality.