--------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 221 UFO Ref: F2L00000 Date: 02/16/98 From: DAVID BLOOMBERG Time: 06:00pm \/To: JACK SARGEANT (Read 2 times) Subj: My stand on UFOs In a msg to David Bloomberg on , Jack Sargeant of 1:379/12@fidonet writes: >> JS> Of these thousands, I also believe that those with a high degree of >> JS> technology probably are humanoid in appearence. >> Why? JS> Your asking a question that I already answered below. Yes, I know. Notice how it has TWO ">"s behind it? That's because it was originally asked in my FIRST reply to you, and just requoted now. Don't tell me you still don't understand simple Fido quoting? > JS> It's hard to explain, but it's best chalked up to vanity and my own > JS> religious beliefs. > Not really a good basis for rational scientific discussion. JS> Atheists and agnostics may tend to agree with you. Others may not. I don't care if others do or don't. The fact remains that no matter what your RELIGIOUS beliefs may be, they are not a good basis for a SCIENTIFIC discussion. > JS> They could be reptilian, and still be humanoid. > Sure they could. They could also look nothing like a human. We > have no basis to say one way or another. JS> This echo permits speculation. I'm thrilled. Does it also permit others to point out that we have no basis to say one way or another? > JS> If dinosaurs can evolve into birds as some believe, then my > JS> speculations concerning other races is just as viable. > One has _nothing_ to do with the other. In one case, you're talking about > the evolution of one group of animals into another (and, I might add, birds > can look VERY different from one another, depending on the type). In the > other you're talking about evolution occurring on a different PLANET, > possibly starting from a different point than our evolution started, and > certainly facing different obstacles to overcome. JS> That's just your opinion. No, it's fact. If you disagree, please point out EXACTLY which part you believe to be just my opinion. >> JS> I do not believe we have been visited by aliens from outside our >> JS> solar system because of the distances involved. I don't think this >> JS> will ever happen. >> Then what do you consider "the UFO phenomenon"? > JS> Nowhere in the UFO phenomenon is it assumed that UFOs are alien aft. > Not to me, but certainly to some people. > Anyway, the point was that, in the rules for this echo, it says you > must accept the existence of "the UFO phenomenon." So that's why > I'm trying to find out what you consider to be "the UFO phenomenon." > What is it that people on this echo are supposed to be accepting? JS> The portion of the UFO echo rules to which you are referring was JS> written by Don Allen, the previous moderator for which you hold a JS> similar fondness as you do of me. I don't care if it was written by Genghis Khan. It's still in the rules after all the rewrites you did, so it must still mean something to you. JS> However, since you apparently do not follow UFO reports, the UFO JS> phenomenon is the accumilation of millions of reports over the years JS> of unknown objects seen in the skies and sometimes at rest on the JS> ground that have no explanation to the observers. ...Many of who are JS> well versed on aircraft and astronomical objects. So then how can one not accept the existence of this definition of the UFO phenomenon? It just doesn't make sense. I've never met anybody who said to me, "Unidentified Flying Objects don't exist." Have you? JS> The fact is, it exists. Yes, I know. That's why I don't understand why that statement is part of the rules. > JS> However, some do speculate, etc. > Understatement of the year award candidate. JS> Huh? Your statement that "some do speculate" is an incredible understatement. So I was nominating it for the "Understatement of the year" award. It was humor, Jack. > JS> I'm simply not prepared to accept the presence of aliens without > JS> stronger evidence than has yet been provided--same as you. As to > JS> why I "spend my time" speculating, I do it because it's fun. > Did it ever occur to you that your "fun" could hurt somebody else? > Think Heaven's Gate, for one example. JS> I think you are full of it if you think that. Hmmmm. Well, those people died, Jack. In part, they died because of their UFO beliefs. You appear to not want to consider the possibility that such beliefs can hurt or kill. JS> You never worry about hurting me or mine with your rantings, do you? If I answered this, I suspect I'd just get in trouble. So I won't. > JS> And at the risk of second-guessing you telling me you think it's all > JS> waste of time, I would then ask why you bother with us in this echo > JS> at all? > Depends on what you define the "it" as when you say "it's all a > waste of time." JS> The alleged speculation and opinions that are shared and related upon JS> in this echo. The speculation? Yes, I think most of that is a waste of time. The opinions may or may not be, depending on whether or not they are based in fact. > JS> ...To bring the "truth" to us like some fundamentalist knocking on my > JS> door? That is the impression I get from some skeptics. > Then, as you often do, you have gotten the wrong impression. JS> No! No I didn't! Yes! Yes you did! JS> ...And that is the reason certain people don't post here anymore. Their JS> "presentation" was not consistant with the way I interpret the rules of JS> the echo. ...And that is the law here... ...Not the way you interpret the JS> rules, but how >I< interpret them. I'm not arguing the rules with you here, Jack -- after all, that would be against the rules. I was just saying that your impression of skeptics is wrong. Nothing more, nothing less. > Skeptics don't bring "The Truth." Indeed, we QUESTION claims to The > Truth. We bring rationality, critical thinking, and science -- some > things that are sorely lacking in the UFO arena. JS> Do so with a degree of cordiality, and you'll get no argument from me. Cordiality may have something to do with the way skeptics are received, and may have something to do with the rules of this echo, but it has nothing to do with whether or not somebody is a skeptic. --- msgedsq 2.0.5 * Origin: The Temples of Syrinx! (1:2430/2112) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 221 UFO Ref: F2L00001 Date: 02/16/98 From: DAVID BLOOMBERG Time: 06:11pm \/To: JACK SARGEANT (Read 2 times) Subj: Skeptics are usually right In a msg to David Bloomberg on , Jack Sargeant of 1:379/12@fidonet writes: > JS> Galileo was persecuted by the skepics in the church. > Call them skeptics, but they are nothing like the skeptics you will > find challenging UFO beliefs. The word has different meanings to > different people, and you are trying to misuse it here to prove a > point. Sorry, but that doesn't hold water. JS> You brand yourself as a skeptic, yet refuse to take the responsibility JS> of fellow skeptics that were wrong? Man, my point just went flying over your head, didn't it? YOU are labeling those people as skeptics. You are wrong in using that label for those people -- at least according to current usage of the term. Skeptics encourage critical thinking and the use of the scientific method. Obviously, neither of these applied to the folks persecuting Galileo. JS> Which are you, a part-time skeptic? No, Jack, it's a full-time job (unfortunately, I haven't found anybody to PAY me for it yet ). JS> ...Or just someone who enjoys imposing your own beliefs on others? Skeptics don't "impose" their beliefs on others, Jack. You keep insinuating that we do, so I challenge you to show examples of that actually occurring. > JS> 400 years after he was tormented, kept under house arrest, and > JS> otherwise ruined, he was eventually vindicated, and his beliefs > JS> upheld. > Yes, people with closed-minded religious beliefs were the ones who > did this all to him. That has nothing to do with the skeptics that > challenge claims about UFOs=aliens. JS> A skeptic by any other name still smells the same... ...Or was that JS> a rose? Some skeptics are pretty nice people. Some are not. Which, again, has nothing to do with determining who is a skeptic. Those people were not. Why not deal with the present, Jack? Why do you insist upon attacking skeptics whenever you get the chance, even going so far here as to compare modern day skeptics to historical NON-skeptics? > JS> The moral of the story is, apply your skeptism with care and sincerity. > Actually, the moral is that one should be careful about how they > apply labels such as "skeptics." JS> Oh? What label would you prefer to be tagged with, if not skeptic? Again, you missed the point. Are you doing so on purpose? I am a skeptic. I proclaim it loud and clear. However, you misused the term by applying it to the non-skeptics who persecuted Galileo. JS> Is there suddenly something derogatory with the term? Only in this echo, and other believer-oriented echos. But that really doesn't bother me. JS> There are skeptics beside you who get along just fine in this echo, and JS> don't carry a chip on their shoulder such as you obviously do. ROFL! Jack, what's obvious here is the chip YOU have against skeptics. You showed it with this message, and indeed often show it in your messages. You show it in other ways as well, but I'd probably get in trouble if I went into those here. > A true-life example: > When the recent Air Force report on Roswell came out, CNN online > headlined its report something to the effect, "Skeptics Doubt Air > Force Report." Problem was that in this case, they were calling the > people who BELIEVED there was an alien spacecraft crash at Roswell > "skeptics." Were they skeptical of the Air Force report? Sure. > Does that make them "skeptics" in the sense that we all use the term > around here? Not at all. JS> I think you may have "read" the story with a persecution complex. JS> It is your concept of "believer" that is wrong. In the above, it JS> was indeed the believers who were skeptical of the report. Yes, I know they were skeptical of the report. However, that doesn't make them overall skeptics, as people in this echo and other paranormal-related ones know and use the term. JS> You seem to hold both words (believer and skeptic) to a higher, yet JS> mysterious meaning. Nothing mysterious about using proper terminology. It keeps things clear. JS> Since you have been asking me for definitions, why don't you tell me what JS> your definitions of the words skeptic and believer are, in the context JS> they are generally used in UFO? I've already explained what a skeptic is. I'm sure you know what a believer is, as well. However, if I had to define the term, I'd say it's somebody who believes that UFOs are alien craft (or some other craft -- some believe they aren't aliens, but humans from the future, for example), despite the lack of good evidence to back such a claim. That definition is probably lacking a bit, but since you're just trying to steer the conversation away from your misuse of the term "skeptic," I'm not terribly concerned. --- msgedsq 2.0.5 * Origin: The Temples of Syrinx! (1:2430/2112) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 221 UFO Ref: F2L00002 Date: 02/16/98 From: IVY IVERSON Time: 08:07pm \/To: DAVID BLOOMBERG (Read 2 times) Subj: Occam -=> On 02-14-98 16:22, David Bloomberg said to Ivy Iverson,<=- -=>"About Occam...,"<=- -=> In a msg to Paul Andinach on , Ivy Iverson of 1:154/170 -=> writes: Hi, David; ... DB> You're forgetting the part about explaining the evidence. There is DB> more evidence dealing with the moon than just "It looks like a circle DB> from here." For instance, (on topic here), UFO's: Many can be explained by everything from weather balloons to birds to temperature inversions to the planet Venus, but not ALL! _ONE_ possability is that there COULD be someone from "somewhere else," but this is not the *SIMPLEST POSSIBLE* explaination, so some people, feeling that it would be *IMPOSSIBLE* for some other race from some other place to have developed interstellar travel, will latch onto *ANYTHING* which does *NOT* involve "Someone else from somewhere else." Therefore, according to *THEIR* interpretation, it HAS to be (pick one): Earthly aircraft (military?); weather balloon; birds; shooting stars; satellites; swamp gas; temperature inversions; the planet Venus; mass hysteria; hoax; [Add a few dozen more]... ANYTHING except someone else from somewhere else. Is THIS using Occam's Razor, or is it just denial of a POSSIBLE fact because "it just can't be!"? After all, MOST sightings CAN be explained by "something else." Does this mean that they are ALL "something else?" So even if the same thing CAN be explained as EITHER a craft from "somewhere else" OR one of the above alternatives, is it using Occum's razor to say that it HAS to be the something else JUST BECAUSE THERE CAN'T BE ANY EXTRA-TERRESTRIALS HERE? I think not. What is YOUR explaination? DB> But, yes, you're right, the simplest explanation is NOT always the DB> correct one. That's why you keep looking for evidence. But when you DB> are faced with two possible explanations for the same set of DB> information, your best bet is to go with the simpler one. Nobody is DB> saying that Occam's Razor PROVES anything, because it doesn't (the DB> movie _Contact_, for example, screwed up on this point at the end). As I pointed out above, the "simplest" explaination is NOT necessarily always the correct one! Therefore I will state once and for all, that people use the term "Occum's Razor" to shave off what they cannot bring themselves to agree is POSSIBLE, which is _NOT_ the correct use of "the razor." THAT is what I mean when I say that Occum's razor is rusty, though perhaps I should say that it is dull from overuse. (You wouldn't use your last razor blade to whittle oak, would you?) Now HOPEFULLY this will end the subject and the thread. Catch you later... Keep l00king up! Ivy ... Beware SESR (Self-Embellishing Sighting Report) - UFOlogists' Curse. -- -=[ Ivy's WALL BBS <-KB9QPM/AE-> Hi, Jack! <-> Happy New Year to All! ]=- ___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.20 [NR] --- TriToss (tm) 1.03 - (Unregistered) * Origin: Ivy's WALL BBS - Sheboygan, WI 920-457-9255 (1:154/170) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 221 UFO Ref: F2L00003 Date: 02/16/98 From: IVY IVERSON Time: 09:15pm \/To: DAVID BLOOMBERG (Read 2 times) Subj: Skeptics are sometimes wr -=> On 02-15-98 07:58, David Bloomberg said to Ivy Iverson,<=- -=>"About Skeptics are sometimes wr...,"<=- -=> In a msg to Jack Sargeant on , Ivy Iverson of 1:154/170 DB> writes: Hi, David; Re: Galileo... II> ... Patch is telling me as I type this that he said, "Do not take on II> faith, anything without a solid basis of evidence." DB> Wow. That would pretty much decimate ufology! II> So the question begs, "What is `solid evidence?'" DB> Something that ufology is missing. I will agree to a point, HOWEVER a tru-blu SKEPTIC will refuse to believe what little evidence does exist, simply because it COULD have been faked! Yes, pictures have been faked for years, and can now be faked in minutes using a computer, so pictures by themselves are automatically suspect, EVEN THOUGHT THERE _MAY_ BE SOME GENUINE UFO PHOTOGRAPHS! _IF_ there are any GENUINE UFO pictures, (stills, movies or videotape), how would/could they be verified as not faked? Then _IF_ they are genuine, how can we tell if they are something which IS explainable as natural and native to this planet OR verify it as "something else from somewhere else"? So the question now becomes, _IF_ a picture, (still or moving), can be validated as genuine, how is anyone going to determine if the object(s) originate on Earth or have another source? So, if you can't come up with a physical object which is VERIFYABLY not of Earth origin, (and since there are only so many elements - all available on this planet, BTW), the final question, I guess, is, "WHAT IS ACCEPTABLE EVIDENCE?" If I were to witness a UFO 50 feet over my head, and I saw it drop some small object, which turned out to be made of, say, a titanium and aluminum alloy, and it had "strange markings" on it, would THAT constitute "evidence" which you would accept? Probably not, because I _COULD_ have gone to a machine shop and had such a piece made. No, the majority of what _I_ have accepted as evidence is when personal friends, people who are NOT prone to spinning yarns, and who do NOT discuss their experiences with strangers for fear of ridicule, describe to me, in private, stories of their abductions and other ET/UFO experiences. Add to that, the statements of EX-military people who _claim_ to have been involved with such matters on a highly-classified military level, who state that they believe that this information should be made public. Ok, the latter is NOT any kind of proof/evidence by itself, however when you listen to and CONSIDER what many different people have independantly stated, the pieces start fitting together, and you can sort them into two groups: the ones where the pieces fit, and the ones that don't... And Bob Lazar just does NOT fit!!! (BTW, this is how the military intelligence works: They take one piece of evidence from here, another piece from there, and another piece from somewhere else, and they come up with a picture of the facts, just like a jigsaw puzzle!) So I do _NOT_ believe everything that I see/hear, as much as you might like to believe otherwise. As far as the "There is no way that someone else from somewhere else can get here" school of thought: We basicaly know what _OUR_ technology can do, however we don't have the foggiest idea of what the technology of some other race that developed maybe 10 or 100 or 1,000 light years from here - a race which may be 10,000 years ahead of us - can do. Stop and think how much OUR technology has lept foreward in the last 100 years: A hundred years ago man had never flown in a heavier-than-air aircraft, and now we have walked on the Moon. 100 years ago the nearest things to a computer were the abacus and the slide rule, (which may only have been invented a century ago for all I know), now you have a computer on the desk in front of you that can do more calculations in one second than you could do in a lifetime with a slide rule and paper! A hundred years ago our main transportation was powered by horses, now we have hundreds of horsepower under the hood, and we can travel all day at a mile a minute instead of 20 miles an hour with rest periods every so often for the horses. If this illustrates the progress we have made in a short century - an eyeblink in history - how much more could be done by our technology in another thousand years? Or ten thousand years? Is it just POSSIBLE that another technology has broken the light barrier? Our theoriticians say it MIGHT be done. I won't discount the POSSABILITY. So I PERSONALLY consider the "They're too far away" school of though to be an invalid issue. OUR technology AT THIS TIME can't take us to Alpha Proxima or Galaxy Center AT THIS TIME, but that does not mean that they - if they exist - can't get here! (Sorry, Jack, we'll have to disagree on this point.) Catch you later... Keep l00king up! Ivy ... The SysOp of this BBS is from Alpha Centuri, The CoSysOp is from Mars. -- -=[ Ivy's WALL BBS <-KB9QPM/AE-> Hi, Jack! <-> Happy New Year to All! ]=- ___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.20 [NR] --- TriToss (tm) 1.03 - (Unregistered) * Origin: Ivy's WALL BBS - Sheboygan, WI 920-457-9255 (1:154/170) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 221 UFO Ref: F2L00004 Date: 02/16/98 From: HEIKO DIEKMANN Time: 10:09pm \/To: JACK SARGEANT (Read 2 times) Subj: Re: Skeptics are sometimes wrong Jack Sargeant@1:379/12 wrote on the 12.02.98 about "Skeptics are sometimes wrong": JS>Galileo was persecuted by the skepics in the church. 400 years after JS>he was tormented, kept under house arrest, and otherwise ruined, he JS>was eventually vindicated, and his beliefs upheld. What kind of skeptics were there in the church? They were no skeptics but believers. If they had been skeptics, they would have tested his evidence, tried out his experiments with the pendulum, looked through his telescope to see the moons of Jupiter, the rings of saturn, they would have tested the evidence and made their conclusions. They ignored the evidence, and didnt test it. Thats no skepticism but exactly the opposite. JS>The moral of the story is, apply your skeptism with care and sincerity. Of course skeptics are sometimes wrong. Who on earth could be always right? The question is: What is more reasonable: testing or believing? Till then, Heiko P.S. Keep watching the skirts. ;-) --- CrossPoint v3.11 R * Origin: Nobody is perfect. My Name is Nobody. (2:240/5202.19) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 221 UFO Ref: F2L00005 Date: 02/12/98 From: MICHAEL TAUSON Time: 08:51pm \/To: JACK SARGEANT (Read 2 times) Subj: Re: Speculations -=> Quoting Jack Sargeant to Troy H. Cheek <=- > aren't alone in the universe, because odds are that the > civilization that sent the signal is long, long gone. JS> Have you thought this one out? Just what to you recon the lifetime of JS> a civilization is? How far back does recorded history go? (not JS> counting early development stages before we could walk erect.) Without JS> looking in an encyclopedia, we can start with the early Sumarian or JS> Egyptian eras and say about 10,000 years to date as written records go. Hmmm ... here we may be getting into semantics, Jack. Neither the Sumerian nor the early Egyptian civilizations (in the context of cultures) exist anymore, however civilization (such as it is) still goes on, building on the foundations layed by earlier ... er, cultures. Using "civilization" in this context, Troy's comment may well be accurate. Using it the context of an ongoing process, that depends on their ability to not destroy themselves - or be destroyed by some natural catastrophy. Does any of this make sense, or are my meds et al making hash of my communications skills as well? Michael ... I always like the morning well aired before I get up -bb ___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12 --- Maximus 3.01 * Origin: SoundingBoard, Pittsburgh PA (1:129/26) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 221 UFO Ref: F2L00006 Date: 02/13/98 From: MICHAEL TAUSON Time: 07:29pm \/To: CHARLES DANIELS (Read 2 times) Subj: Re: My stand on UFOs -=> Quoting Charles Daniels to Jack Sargeant <=- > ...But are the stars of a group that could have planets capable of > supporting life as we know it? They would have to be of the G-2 > class. CD> As I recall Sol is a G-4 star. Jack's right. It's a G-2. CD> I don't see why a class M or K star CD> couldn't support life if the planets were closer, or why a B star CD> couldn't if the planet was further away. Each star would have it's CD> own "life zone" where a planet could exist that could provide it CD> with earth-like conditions. Kinda sorta almost but not quite. A number of factors come into play here - total radiation, age, orbital parameters, etc - but the most likely candidates are the F and G class stars ... maybe K-0 as well. For each class, there is a band in which a LAWKI (Life As We Know It for the abbreviation-impaired ) world may exist, and that world would have to exhibit parameters (size, mass, orbital diameter, material content percentages, et al) which fall within a narrow range. This has the rather nice effect of reducing the size of the haystack in which we would have to look for a LAWKI-bearing world. However, life is a rather persistent bugger, and LAWKI may not be a universal constant but rather a local ordinance. While our knowledge of biology is a good first best guess, it may not be the only game in town, which opens up other possibilities and makes the haystack big again. Michael ... "Earth. Mostly harmless." - Douglas Adams ___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12 --- Maximus 3.01 * Origin: SoundingBoard, Pittsburgh PA (1:129/26) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 221 UFO Ref: F2L00007 Date: 02/16/98 From: MICHAEL HOLT Time: 10:32am \/To: MATTHEW SCRUGGS (Read 2 times) Subj: Little greys -=> Quoting MATTHEW SCRUGGS to MICHAEL HOLT <=- Welcome back. I'd wondered what had happened to you. MS> That and a large proportion of abduction cases are investigated by MS> hypnosis, a shaky tool at best. Some of the contradictions might be MS> explained by inexperienced investigators using a highly subjective MS> methodology. I hear more contradictions about hypnosis than I hear about anything else. I can't imagine using a tool that controversial, at least, not using it as the sole instrument. MS> For what its worth, I think there is something to this abduction MS> business. However not in the numbers talked & speculated about! That MS> is a logical absurdity. I'm not sure that term "logical absurdity," however apparently accurate, can be used in any discussion of this sort without making some broad assumptions without the favor of solid information. However, the simple numbers involved do cry out for some explanation. If it is real, there's a lot going on. If abductions are not real, we are still faced with a phenomenon of mind-boggling proportions. MS> I do believe however if it resembles an eye & is located in the MS> general are it is an eye or an eye analog. It's my assumption that the eye is not a real eye as we know it. The point I was making was that we really know very little and what we do know can be contradictory. Michael ... I'd love to, but I'm still recovering from the last time I did. --- FMail 0.98 * Origin: BIG DEAL BBS, Adoptees in Search! 804-754-0189 (1:264/232) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 221 UFO Ref: F2LD3203 Date: 02/17/98 From: KEN KUBOS Time: 09:53am \/To: JARROD MOLDRICH (Read 2 times) Subj: R: Re: evidence URL's You can check into the following URL sites: Stardrive: http://www.stardrive.org/title.html C-Ship: http://www.fourmilab.ch/cship/cship.html Antigravity: http://www.math.iupui.edu/marc/antigravity.html http://cspar.uah.edu/www/research/gravity.htmlx American Computer: http://www.american-computer.com/roswell.htm ... Jarrod Moldrich Copyright (C)1998 The Jim Henson Creature Workshop ___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12 --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 221 UFO Ref: F2LD3206 Date: 02/17/98 From: KEN KUBOS Time: 09:53am \/To: MATTHEW SCRUGGS (Read 2 times) Subj: R: Re: Little greys URL's You can check into the following URL sites: Stardrive: http://www.stardrive.org/title.html C-Ship: http://www.fourmilab.ch/cship/cship.html Antigravity: http://www.math.iupui.edu/marc/antigravity.html http://cspar.uah.edu/www/research/gravity.htmlx American Computer: http://www.american-computer.com/roswell.htm ... We are Pentium of Borg. Division is useless. You will be approximated. ___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12