BBC Focus Magazine

[...]

such a cynic MPL .... you'll never make a scientist

[Shadowwolf]

Oddities and the unknown are often reflected in the popular fictions of the day and the over active imaginations of those observing them. The mysterious lights observed blinking in and out of existence, today it's car coming down a distant mountain road, yesteryear it was a horse drawn coach and Venus, well that's always been with us. If people these days being fully aware of commercial jet liners can nonetheless stand right beneath a runway approach path and mistake the damn things for the world's most regular UFO service, well, we have no reason to expect that this heroic level of credulity is in any way peculiar to humans today.

[M Paul Lloyd]

such a cynic MPL .... you'll never make a scientist

Can't get the parts these days.

[MikeG]

...If people these days being fully aware of commercial jet liners can nonetheless stand right beneath a runway approach path and mistake the damn things for the world's most regular UFO service, well, we have no reason to expect that this heroic level of credulity is in any way peculiar to humans today.

Very true there SW. What I want to know about though, are the sightings called in by pilots themselves

[Shadowwolf]

Indeed, however, I think far more credence is placed in pilot sightings than is truly warranted. Due to the complexity and length of training followed by the complexity of successfully operating a commercial jet liner, it is often assumed that pilots are far more capable and observant than normal folks.

This is way overstated. For starters pilots are people same as the rest of us and thus their visual ability is as open to fooling as anyone else; Kenneth Arnold likely saw geese. Despite the prodigious training they still manage to crash perfectly serviceable aircraft, for example through carelessness and disorientation coupled to over analysing one issue to the exclusion of paying any attention to what else is happening as appears to have happened to Air-France 447.

They also don't always know what they're looking at as one chap took his sky-bus on an unscheduled dive to avoid Venus because he mistook the planet for a nearby plane that was actually well below him and a fact verified by the planes captain.

Remember, a lot get trained, the classes always have someone at the bottom

[Jamie]

IMHO, studying UFO sightings is like studying bath water once you've emptied it. Study a UFO when there's one there to study.

[MikeG]

IMHO, studying UFO sightings is like studying bath water once you've emptied it. Study a UFO when there's one there to study.

The whole point though, is that we supposedly ARE studying UFOs secretly, while the public at large is kept in the dark. This link is Leads to the deathbed confession of CIA officer R. Cotner, as reported by CNN.

http://cnn-ufos.blogspot.gr/

An interesting quote from this link is an extract from Newsweek, which puzzled me back when I saw it too.

Here's the curious thing about the head of the Vatican's astronomical observatory saying there's a strong likelihood that extraterrestrial beings exist and that they are part of God's plan: not the "what," but the "when," as in "why now?"
Newsweek,
May 15, 2008

This link is to another recent claim from ex-CIA agent Chase Brandon.

Certainly makes for entertaining reading though, no matter your opinion on the matter. Or maybe the CIA just had more than its fair share of loonies


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/0 ... 57077.html

[M Paul Lloyd]

Some time ago someone of note (but sadly I cannot recall who) suggested that if only a small percentage of all the stars had planets and only a small percentage of those had planets orbiting them and so on the chances of life having evolved elsewhere was very likely. Of course that doesn't mean to say that such life would evolve into sentient space-faring types capable of crossing the vast distances involved, but then again I suppose it is possible that such beings may not be confined to any particular part of the galaxy but are rather more nomadic in nature?
It's certainly a possibility, I just don't think it they have visited us.

Actually I think we can revise that old equation a bit as it now seems likely that of the 400 or so billion stars in our galaxy their may be at least as many planets, with possibly some 10 billion of those orbiting in the habitable Goldilocks zone of their parent stars.

So if only 1% of those planets are Earth-like and 1% of those produced a space faring species and 1% of those happens to be around right now, well that's still about a million different possible races out there.

[MikeG]

Some time ago someone of note (but sadly I cannot recall who) suggested that if only a small percentage of all the stars had planets and only a small percentage of those had planets orbiting them and so on the chances of life having evolved elsewhere was very likely.

That would be the Drake equation.

The Drake equation states that:

N=R*.fp.ne.fℓ.fi.fc.L

where:
N = the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible;
and
R* = the average rate of star formation per year in our galaxy
fp = the fraction of those stars that have planets
ne = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets
fℓ = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point
fi = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life
fc = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space
L = the length of time for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation

[Shadowwolf]

The deathbed confession of CIA officer R. Cotner

A man who had evidently parted company with sanity, wouldn't fess up to his fictions preferring an alien legacy as opposed to a duplicitous liar or screwing with the credulous because his fictions will live on without his personal rebuke. How else would one read: "information that combined with some creative remote viewing;" "I believe CIA/NSA covert extraterrestrial operations have become a lynchpin to worldwide shadow government resulting in a very dangerous and flawed extraterrestrial policy;" "U.S. Senators who have been in Congress more than 4 years are directly or indirectly involved in a conspiracy." Tis fictions weaving psychic foolery, grand global conspiracy and a panoply of alien warring, conniving races.

Then this, "I started stealing copies of top secret files and records on many different subjects including UFOs and those stolen files are still hidden where I put them." Of course you did sir, and then you plumbed for the ever more convincing option of pontificating sans the evidence you possessed because that always works. Why scientific discovery always consists of revealing the discovery and then assuring everyone that the credible supporting data is safely buried somewhere, hey, would we lie to you? One wonders why he even bothered going to the effort and danger of stealing it just to conveniently bury it never to be seen and verify those claims. So where's it buried, next to the Golden Plates perhaps?

I think we can dismiss the confession wholesale.

As to the Huffpo piece, anyone who now mentions Roswell as having anything to do with ET is clearly delusional or willfully making s**t up for their current career in the UFO world, and you may suspect it's the latter whenever they say cryptic twaddle like, "Some written material and some photographs, and that's all I will ever say to anybody about the contents of that box." All they'll ever say because the contents much like the box don't physically exist. We know what happened there and that version accords with the well known history of the era far better than crashing spaceships does.

Move to dismiss.

It's all just more of the same drivel that constitutes much of what is laughably referred to as evidence by UFO enthusiasts, empty claim after claim, allusions to actual evidence but never any evidence. These ex-CIA are folks likely just looking to make money in some other field and the UFO lot just lap up everything "rebel" ex-gov folks dole out so it's a perfect environment for them and not one worry about being sanctioned because they're not revealing anything. Besides, maybe the agents miss some element of the clandestine work and recreate it vicariously through the invented ET conspiracy. This, this is why we don't waste time researching UFOs, there's nothing there, just people on a fools errand and those who see opportunity to make a little money from the former. Decades of "investigation" and it's still just an ephemeral framework of stories and unsubstantiated claims, thus we are probably entitled to dismiss it as we do for psychic phenomena, the supernatural etc.

[M Paul Lloyd]

Some time ago someone of note (but sadly I cannot recall who) suggested that if only a small percentage of all the stars had planets and only a small percentage of those had planets orbiting them and so on the chances of life having evolved elsewhere was very likely.

That would be the Drake equation.

Ah, I fear I was a little off beam.... but I stand by my own revised version of his famous equation.

[M Paul Lloyd]

I think we can dismiss the confession wholesale.

I am inclined to agree with the above, but then I am well known for being rather cynical...

[MikeG]

Ah, I fear I was a little off beam.... but I stand by my own revised version of his famous equation.

Not really. Your assertion was that life existed elsewhere. Drakes equation just gives a more refined result, which is civilizations advanced enough to broadcast their presence to the universe. The difference is that you allow for a larger subset of planets. Good enough for me.

[MikeG]

I think we can dismiss the confession wholesale...Move to dismiss.

This brings us back to the title of the post. That is, create a panel to investigate all these assertions. It will all probably pan out to be various people deluding gullible "believers" for monetary gain, but then, why should the church have a monopoly on that?

[M Paul Lloyd]

I suppose what they are saying is that it is time for the professionals to take over and subject it a proper scientific study thus answering the question once and for all?

I don't think it will convince many believers though.

[Shadowwolf]

That is, create a panel to investigate all these assertions.

But like Mr Jamie mentioned, there's simply nothing to investigate, it's almost all stories, after decades of incessant alien visitation there is not one single scrap of solid evidence. It would be like researching splitting the atom without any evidence such a thing exists. We've already done enough to know that most of em are terrestrial in nature from hoax to misidentification and what's left are probably just due to insufficient information. There's been investigations and they've found nothing, in fact it's become so pointless that outfits like the MOD shut down their office on it. We also know that the believers simply won't accept anything less than confirmation, they're still trotting out Roswell, and most other rational folks already know the answer given the evidence that is to hand.

Any scientific research and analysis would simply be wasting money just as it would be wasted if we inserted psychics, Bigfoot or ghosts instead of UFOs. Nor would I expect that any serious researcher be willing to waste time in producing the obvious answer all but the dedicated already know; it's not as if there is any scope for groundbreaking discovery.

The only attention paid should be analysing credible claims and debunking where applicable in whomever's spare time, and in shuffling folks like yer man back into their echo-chamber.

[MikeG]

I consider myself as being on the fence on this topic. I agree that there is no solid evidence (at least not publicly available), to support UFOs. But various statements by presidents, astronauts, pilots, church bodies, ex-CIA, are enough for me to accept the role of devils advocate.

...there is not one single scrap of solid evidence.

But the whole point of all this is that we are assuming that any solid evidence is being routinely covered up.

Any scientific research and analysis would simply be wasting money just as it would be wasted if we inserted psychics, Bigfoot or ghosts instead of UFOs.

I don't think this is a field for scientific research, as there is nothing at hand to research. A panel here should have the ability to look into existing claims, with access to all folders, archives, etc mentioned in the most persistent claims. The difference between UFOs and ghosts (or other mythological creatures), is that a UFO can at least be assumed to be theoretically possible. There is no doubt in my mind that one day, mankind will solve the technological barriers we currently face, and travel to the stars. I'm also willing to accept that we may not be the oldest civilization in our galaxy's neighborhood. We have essentially reached our state of advanced technology in little over a hundred years. Where will we be 1000 years from now? How advanced would a civilization be if it's tech age started one million years ago?

If we can identify earth like planets now, why couldn't they have done so ages ago, before we began broadcasting our presence, and came here to investigate?

[M Paul Lloyd]

I agree MikeG I really cannot see what fresh evidence science can shed on this subject.

All so called UFO's have been investigated thoroughly and in every case it has transpired that a perfectly rational explanation was found but the initial and short term media hype surrounding such sightings often prevails long after the events took place and even today people talk of the Pembrokeshire aliens from the late 1970's which was just a hoax http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-18822846 as if it actually was aliens at work!! and yet those who believe in a conspiracy to cover-up UFO sightings will condemn this very article as part of that cover-up.
You just can't win against faith based concepts.

[Shadowwolf]

Probably no surprise but I'm far from the fence by now largely due to there being no solid evidence to support claims of ET craft, contact or visitation. Not even the statements from those groups listed raise the bar to any level deserving of greater attention because we can legitimately doubt the veracity of them all to the point where their profession counts for naught, none are particularly exempt from error or fabrication either. As for caveats like "not publicly available," they shouldn't enter into the equation because that's too much of an ephemeral hidey-hole easily alluded to but never truly knowable. Either we have evidence or we don't, we cannot speculate on what might be hidden and it is simpler to assume it is not there.

Same goes for assuming a cover-up of solid evidence of ET visitation. We've little reason to justify such a thing, no evidence one is taking place and it creates an unfeasibly large conspiracy to which whistle-blowers are mysteriously left untouched and are utterly incapable of delivering anything more substantial than stories. Exactly the level of support we would expect if the entire thing is a complete fiction. The cover-ups and clandestine activity we have had concerned Cold War spy systems and revolutionary new military machines like Project Mogul or the F117 and B2. These political realities mean that there never will be total access and very plausible terrestrial reasons for below the radar activity no aliens required. The claim of cover-up also invokes a continuously successful operation that has operated for decades and without any good reason for covering it all up. I mean the Soviets infiltrated the Manhattan Project and it was only a few years in length, are all the worlds major governments colluding? Worst of all, the 'cover-up' is too much of a convenient escape clause, every failing can be papered over with the cover-up which is why it is such an intrinsic property of every conspiracy theory from Moon landing hoax to 9/11 to Roswell. I think it is an unwarranted assumption and should thus be jettisoned as superfluous complication creating more problems than it solves.

Now you're right in that at least space craft have provenance whereas ghosts and psychics do not, however, what I meant to suggest was that given the decades of no evidence for any of the aforementioned, by this stage further investigation sans new good reason is wasteful and pointless to boot. There are probably other sentient, advanced species out there but we crucially don't actually know. Interstellar travel may be possible but so far it looks less like a restriction of technology and more a restraint of physical laws. But even allowing for both all we get is the possibility of ET being able to visit. No where in that mere possibility is there any reason to suppose that any have or are visiting, we certainly have no explicit evidence of such. As we can knock all claims of visitation down we are left with no justification for supposing any visitation and hence no reason to investigate anything further.

I think that given what information we have we can justifiably dismiss any claim of UFOs as being extra-terrestrial in nature and do so with a confidence that does not require any hedging on the fence. Everything is exactly as we would expect to find it without aliens, ET visiting, crashes, cover-up and conspiracy requires special pleading so much that we simply shouldn't grant it.

[Lateralman]

Agreed, far better to send machines in all directions to look and if something should turn up there will be more of an incentive to send people.

Personally, I think that this should be a global effort as any discovery concerns us all and will be ultimately far more cost effective.