Aliens from space (split from Time to talk about UFO's or now as the military calls them UAP's?)

[TheVat]

20 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

Really? A UAP landing near a school was debri from a satellite reentry? 

No.  There is a case made that the lightshow stimulated ideas of aliens landing in the minds of imaginative children, which led to games of make-believe and an imagined encounter a day or two later.

Read an objective report on the procedural errors in how "witnesses" were later interviewed (and how some of the pupils, oddly, reported seeing nothing).  Maybe this link has some primary sources at the bottom of the entry:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_School_UFO_incident

My impression is that it's all a little too neat - a silvery craft, telepathic and wise aliens, an environmental message.  Fits pop culture a little too well.

Edited June 9, 2022 by TheVat
Thpo

[Alex_Krycek]

9 hours ago, TheVat said:

I think the Ariel (ha!) sighting came up in the other recent UAP thread -  I may have mentioned there that it seemed to be largely debunked, given some procedural problems with the interviews (and possible coaching from a psychologist who favored the ET hypothesis) and that it followed shortly after the impressive aerial lightshow across that part of Africa put on by a Russian satellite breaking up on reentry.

No, it hasn't been debunked.  The witnesses, of which there are dozens, stand by their description of events even today and are entirely credible in my view.  And that psychologist was Dr. John Mack, head of the department of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

It would be better to suspend your belief and watch the documentary before rushing to conclusions.

Edited June 10, 2022 by Alex_Krycek

[TheVat]

I don't go in for beliefs on the whole question, just healthy skepticism.  If this case is a group delusion, that doesn't invalidate the ET hypothesis.  It just means this case is not relevant evidence for it.  I found Brian Dunning's analysis, and scrutiny of the data, to be useful in uncovering some procedural problems.

https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4760

I recommend reading all of it, to get at some of the key difficulties.

John Mack's interviews, for example, seemed to be influenced by his strongly expressed beliefs in the veracity of abduction reports and other contact stories.  

Also punctured is the myth of the students as simple rural folk who were unfamiliar with modern media representation of UFOs and aliens.  An actual look at the student demographics provided quite a contrasting picture.

Again, it's a worthwhile read, if only in terms of understanding how interview data can be skewed when a researcher is looking for a certain narrative.  

I will be glad to see the documentary if I can find it somewhere accessible.

I only ask readers here to bear in mind that bad data, no matter how tempting, has to be discarded.  

 

[Moontanman]

It's true that one sighting debunked does not make for all sightings debunked. There are plenty of sightings that were "debunked" and that debunking was bumbled so badly that anyone with an ounce of skepticism would see the problems. Still doesn't make it ET but it does suggest a pattern of debunking that is deceptive at best and at worst a planned cover up of something extraordinary.  

[Alex_Krycek]

@Moontanman  Did you get a chance to watch James Fox's latest documentary?  Since you enjoyed Phenomenon, you might like this one also: Moment of Contact (2022). 

It investigates a case in Varginha, Brazil that happened in 1996, where a tic-tac shaped UFO was shot down (or crashed) on the outskirts of the city, and two living bipedal creatures of an unidentifiable species were sighted by the residents of Varginha hours later. 

Attached a clip from youtube where one of the witnesses, who was in the Brazilian army at the time, shares his story.

   

[Moontanman]

2 hours ago, Alex_Krycek said:

@Moontanman  Did you get a chance to watch James Fox's latest documentary?  Since you enjoyed Phenomenon, you might like this one also: Moment of Contact (2022). 

It investigates a case in Varginha, Brazil that happened in 1996, where a tic-tac shaped UFO was shot down (or crashed) on the outskirts of the city, and two living bipedal creatures of an unidentifiable species were sighted by the residents of Varginha hours later. 

Attached a clip from youtube where one of the witnesses, who was in the Brazilian army at the time, shares his story.

   

I haven't seen that video but I have read of that report, it was pretty much poo pooed because it happened in a poor superstitious part of Brazil... evidently even UFOs can be racist. I thought the report was interesting, I'll try and watch it soon. 

Brazil and other parts of South America have long been known as hot spots of UFO activity but were pretty much ignored by mainstream media but lots of accounts have made it to UFO journals and other sources.  

Edited February 18, 2023 by Moontanman

[TheVat]

On 6/9/2022 at 7:00 PM, Alex_Krycek said:

No, it hasn't been debunked.  The witnesses, of which there are dozens, stand by their description of events even today and are entirely credible in my view.  And that psychologist was Dr. John Mack, head of the department of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

It would be better to suspend your belief and watch the documentary before rushing to conclusions.

Immediately following this post, I replied as to why one might not find the witnesses entirely credible.   I was hoping to keep the discussion going on that matter, but there was no reply.  In a science forum when someone posts a critique (see the linked information in that post) of scientific methodology, especially where data collection is concerned, that seems like a fruitful path towards learning and further research.  So that was disappointing.  

And as I posted I had no settled beliefs or firm conclusions, just a sense that the data was compromised.  

4 hours ago, Alex_Krycek said:

It investigates a case in Varginha, Brazil that happened in 1996, where a tic-tac shaped UFO was shot down (or crashed) on the outskirts of the city, and two living bipedal creatures of an unidentifiable species were sighted by the residents of Varginha hours later. 

Attached a clip from youtube where one of the witnesses, who was in the Brazilian army at the time, shares his story.

I share this reviewer's reaction....

https://rogersmovienation.com/2022/10/15/documentary-review-more-proof-of-a-ufo-encounter-thats-nothing-of-the-sort-moment-of-contact/

There is no “concrete” evidence that what happened in January of 1996 in the city of Varginha, Brazil was caused by an alien spacecraft, well, none that’s presented in director James Fox‘s latest UFO documentary, “Moment of Contact.”

There are no photographs, no “crash” debris, not even local TV coverage at the time provided much more than what some folks told interviewers then who repeat their stories for Fox and crew 26 years later, about what they saw.

Fox has an eyewitness take us to a non-descript piece of land, where, after some hunting around, he shouts (in Portuguese with English subtitles) “It was here! HERE!”

Fox interviews the current mayor of Varginha, and asks him the same loaded and pointless question he peppers young people on the street with — “Do you believe” that a UFO crashed here, that there were survivors, that the military perhaps with US help, spirited them away?

Absolutely, the mayor of a city with a UFO monument and saucer-shaped museum says, I mean, his nephew’s girlfriend saw things. She did....

Edited February 18, 2023 by TheVat
pyto

[Moontanman]

6 hours ago, TheVat said:

Immediately following this post, I replied as to why one might not find the witnesses entirely credible.   I was hoping to keep the discussion going on that matter, but there was no reply.  In a science forum when someone posts a critique (see the linked information in that post) of scientific methodology, especially where data collection is concerned, that seems like a fruitful path towards learning and further research.  So that was disappointing.  

And as I posted I had no settled beliefs or firm conclusions, just a sense that the data was compromised.  

I share this reviewer's reaction....

https://rogersmovienation.com/2022/10/15/documentary-review-more-proof-of-a-ufo-encounter-thats-nothing-of-the-sort-moment-of-contact/

There is no “concrete” evidence that what happened in January of 1996 in the city of Varginha, Brazil was caused by an alien spacecraft, well, none that’s presented in director James Fox‘s latest UFO documentary, “Moment of Contact.”

There are no photographs, no “crash” debris, not even local TV coverage at the time provided much more than what some folks told interviewers then who repeat their stories for Fox and crew 26 years later, about what they saw.

Fox has an eyewitness take us to a non-descript piece of land, where, after some hunting around, he shouts (in Portuguese with English subtitles) “It was here! HERE!”

Fox interviews the current mayor of Varginha, and asks him the same loaded and pointless question he peppers young people on the street with — “Do you believe” that a UFO crashed here, that there were survivors, that the military perhaps with US help, spirited them away?

Absolutely, the mayor of a city with a UFO monument and saucer-shaped museum says, I mean, his nephew’s girlfriend saw things. She did....

No to be disrespectful... but no concrete evidence? What would constitute "concrete evidence"? I often wonder about this, it's like people refuse to consider a report unless they have a crashed object or a body.

Does anyone really expect "concrete" evidence from an advanced alien spacecraft? There are pictures, radar conformations, physical traces on the ground of something unusual at the very least. Can we really expect "concrete" evidence to be left behind by anything so advanced?

I know I know, what someone said happened isn't enough, but at what point do we stand back and realize that the shear number of sightings by relatively competent observers  suggest something... if not extraordinary then at least highly unusual?

Maybe it's like the bigfoot phenomena where prolonged study has at least pointed us in the direction that suggests black bears might be what is prompting a great many sightings. Did that real possibility come from simply dismissing the idea of bigfoot? No it came from investigating the sightings, not by dismissing them because we didn't have a bigfoot corpse. 

[swansont]

3 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

No to be disrespectful... but no concrete evidence? What would constitute "concrete evidence"? I often wonder about this, it's like people refuse to consider a report unless they have a crashed object or a body.

Does anyone really expect "concrete" evidence from an advanced alien spacecraft? There are pictures, radar conformations, physical traces on the ground of something unusual at the very least. Can we really expect "concrete" evidence to be left behind by anything so advanced?

In a word, yes. The same standard, at least, as any scientific endeavor. Possibly higher, since extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but certainly not a lower standard of evidence.

Is there a scientific field where “something unusual” is sufficient to draw a definite conclusion?

3 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

I know I know, what someone said happened isn't enough, but at what point do we stand back and realize that the shear number of sightings by relatively competent observers  suggest something... if not extraordinary then at least highly unusual?

How do you determine the competence?

The recent balloon adventures uncovered a story related to this

“When the USS New York was sailing towards Iwo Jima in 1945, the crew spotted a silver sphere flying high overhead that seemed to follow the battleship for hours. Concerned that the shiny orb might be a Japanese balloon weapon, the captain ordered it shot down. After the guns failed to score a hit, a navigator realized that they were attacking Venus.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2023/02/03/japanese-balloon-bombs-world-war/

 

3 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

Maybe it's like the bigfoot phenomena where prolonged study has at least pointed us in the direction that suggests black bears might be what is prompting a great many sightings. Did that real possibility come from simply dismissing the idea of bigfoot? No it came from investigating the sightings, not by dismissing them because we didn't have a bigfoot corpse. 

Flawed analogy. You and others keep doing the equivalent of insisting that bigfoot exists, and additionally, is anybody saying not to investigate?

[TheVat]

 

https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4853

 

If you want the entire story as told by the UFOlogists, you have a great source. The 2022 documentary Moment of Contact interviews a number of the people who were involved, and presents it as a true case of alien visitation. It also offers a stark example of how these stories grow and change enormously over the years. Original eyewitnesses tend to add story elements, often bridging their own recollections to those of others; new people intrigued at the prospect of some notoriety always "come forward" and claim to have been there; and imaginative authors always, always, always add no end of creative enhancements that, over time, blend in and come to be accepted as part of the standard narrative. The inevitable result is a story full of incredible events, all supported by amazingly trustworthy eyewitnesses, all inexplicable as anything Earthly. Such a tapestry offers fertile soil for any documentary filmmaker. One thing such filmmakers hope you never do is go back and read the original newspaper accounts, because what you tend to discover is that almost nothing particularly interesting happened — until later years festooned the facts with embellishments....

[Alex_Krycek]

7 minutes ago, TheVat said:

One thing such filmmakers hope you never do is go back and read the original newspaper accounts, because what you tend to discover is that almost nothing particularly interesting happened — until later years festooned the facts with embellishments....

What I like about Fox's approach is how thorough his investigations are.  So for example he will find the original news interviews of the eye-witnesses from 1996, and then locate that exact same witnesses for his documentary in 2022. 

Their stories haven't changed.  Nor are they seeking publicity or fame; quite the contrary.  Many witnesses in MOC did not want their identity revealed, due to the inevitable mockery and derision that is so often directed towards people who dare to speak of encounters with aliens.  For example, the three girls, who saw the being in 1996, and then came forward again for MOC, were the brunt of years of such ostracism. 

Regarding the veracity of the witnesses, the argument from so called skeptics seems to be:  "If it's just one person, the witness isn't trustworthy, because that person is obviously a lying opportunist.  If dozens of people who don't know each other come forward and report the same thing, it's mass hysteria or the result of gossip."  The latter argument is a bit far-fetched.

For me there have been too many credible witnesses, not only with this case but with numerous other cases, involving people who have no interest in lying, or fabricating stories, or tarnishing their own professional reputations.  

Finally there's the view that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but should alien visitations really be considered "extraordinary"?   Such a dialogue would loop back into a conversation about the Fermi Paradox, but ultimately I don't think such visitations are really extraordinary, given the nature of our universe.  It's only extraordinary within the confines of a very narrow minded, anthropocentric perspective of the universe. 

 

[Moontanman]

4 hours ago, swansont said:

In a word, yes. The same standard, at least, as any scientific endeavor. Possibly higher, since extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but certainly not a lower standard of evidence.

Is there a scientific field where “something unusual” is sufficient to draw a definite conclusion?

No one is saying a conclusion must be drawn but outright dismissal, which is what "no concrete evidence" really means, is not science or at least not how I was taught. 

4 hours ago, swansont said:

How do you determine the competence?

The recent balloon adventures uncovered a story related to this

“When the USS New York was sailing towards Iwo Jima in 1945, the crew spotted a silver sphere flying high overhead that seemed to follow the battleship for hours. Concerned that the shiny orb might be a Japanese balloon weapon, the captain ordered it shot down. After the guns failed to score a hit, a navigator realized that they were attacking Venus.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2023/02/03/japanese-balloon-bombs-world-war/

Good point and justifiable as well but what about those reports that cannot be explained by conventional objects despite a huge amount of evidence? The fact that sighting was so easily explained doesn't have any bearing on the ones that are not.  

4 hours ago, swansont said:

 

Flawed analogy. You and others keep doing the equivalent of insisting that bigfoot exists, and additionally, is anybody saying not to investigate?

Yes, in fact up until recently that is exactly what was being said, for many decades anyone who wanted to investigate was written off as a crazy, careers were destroyed, people in places of trust were told not to report sightings for fear of being labeled as unstable. There is a reason why pilots who were thoughtless enough to say they had seen something extraordinary were often drummed out of the profession or given desk jobs. These things really happened, people were delegated to the crazy pile for just reporting. This was and is wrong, if you can explain them then fine explain them but to discourage people from even looking ito it was simply unconscionable.

The US gov's so called investigations became nothing but an attempt to explain away any sighting by any means. This was why Dr. J. Allen Hynek, who started out working for the air force changed sides and became convinced there was something serious to be studied. 

BTW, I've seen Venus dance around the sky in an early morning temperature inversion, it was an astounding sight. But I was expecting Venus in that area of the sky and i was familiar with the local tendency for temperature inversions so I knew what it was immediately.

Yes it looked very strange but that is no reason to explain away everything as a balloon or Venus in a temperature inversion. Quite often no such explanation exists for even something as mundane as a light in the sky. Very frustrating but no reason to dismiss it out of hand. And sometimes the sighting is so extraordinary that nothing can explain it and yet that is quite often dismissed just as confidently as something that can be explained. 

Just because something can be explained does not mean everything can. 

   

2 hours ago, TheVat said:

 

https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4853

 

If you want the entire story as told by the UFOlogists, you have a great source. The 2022 documentary Moment of Contact interviews a number of the people who were involved, and presents it as a true case of alien visitation. It also offers a stark example of how these stories grow and change enormously over the years. Original eyewitnesses tend to add story elements, often bridging their own recollections to those of others; new people intrigued at the prospect of some notoriety always "come forward" and claim to have been there; and imaginative authors always, always, always add no end of creative enhancements that, over time, blend in and come to be accepted as part of the standard narrative. The inevitable result is a story full of incredible events, all supported by amazingly trustworthy eyewitnesses, all inexplicable as anything Earthly. Such a tapestry offers fertile soil for any documentary filmmaker. One thing such filmmakers hope you never do is go back and read the original newspaper accounts, because what you tend to discover is that almost nothing particularly interesting happened — until later years festooned the facts with embellishments....

You do make good points and the film maker is in the business of making money off views but you cannot simply place all sightings in the same bag. Sometimes you have to do some independent study to see how accurate the film maker was being. Sometimes it turns out to be bs, sometimes is turns out to be lack of enough evidence to really say but more often than some want to think it turns out ot be inexplicable despite an embarrassing wealth of evidence. Those are called unexplained and the number of the unexplained only grows larger.

[TheVat]

12 hours ago, Alex_Krycek said:

What I like about Fox's approach is how thorough his investigations are.  So for example he will find the original news interviews of the eye-witnesses from 1996, and then locate that exact same witnesses for his documentary in 2022. 

Their stories haven't changed.  Nor are they seeking publicity or fame; quite the contrary.  Many witnesses in MOC did not want their identity revealed, due to the inevitable mockery and derision that is so often directed towards people who dare to speak of encounters with aliens.  For example, the three girls, who saw the being in 1996, and then came forward again for MOC, were the brunt of years of such ostracism. 

Regarding the veracity of the witnesses, the argument from so called skeptics seems to be:  "If it's just one person, the witness isn't trustworthy, because that person is obviously a lying opportunist.  If dozens of people who don't know each other come forward and report the same thing, it's mass hysteria or the result of gossip."  The latter argument is a bit far-fetched.

For me there have been too many credible witnesses, not only with this case but with numerous other cases, involving people who have no interest in lying, or fabricating stories, or tarnishing their own professional reputations.  

Finally there's the view that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but should alien visitations really be considered "extraordinary"?   Such a dialogue would loop back into a conversation about the Fermi Paradox, but ultimately I don't think such visitations are really extraordinary, given the nature of our universe.  It's only extraordinary within the confines of a very narrow minded, anthropocentric perspective of the universe. 

 

The IPM report even successfully identified the creature seen by the three young women. The place where the creature was spotted was the home of Luiz Antônio de Paula, about 30 years old and intellectually disabled, who lived there with his parents and family. As de Paula was nonverbal, locals had nicknamed him Mudinho, which means "little mute." Mudinho was known to the neighbors to spend his time crouching and examining small objects he found, like cigarette butts and sticks. There are photographs of him floating around the Portuguese language Internet — very skinny, hunched over, squatting as he studies a twig, and apparently wearing a diaper. At last report, Mudinho still lives there to this day, and still continues his favorite activity. The lead author of the IPM report, Lt. Col. Lúcio Carlos Pereira, wrote:

The more probable hypothesis is that this citizen, probably dirty due to the rains and crouching next to a wall, was mistaken by three terrified girls for a 'space creature'.

As Mudinho did live there, and that was his typical behavior, then for the young women to have seen a space creature there would have to have been two such beings — the known one, Mudinho, and the hypothetical one, an alien — but as they reported only one skinny humanoid crouching in the mud, and not two, we are left with no rational support for there having been any beings present other than Mudinho.

Today, the three women do still give interviews about their experience. There is one very important detail that has changed since their original story: Today, they say they knew Mudinho well, and had even given him cigarettes in the past; so of course they would not have mistaken him for an alien. However, in their original reports from 1996, they said they didn't know him, and took him for a devil when they saw him. It's one more example of stories changing and growing to fit a changing and growing narrative that gains mass traction in pop culture. Everyone wants to be in on it, and everyone wants to be seen as credible and correct.

I agree with @Moontanman that there is a body of cases that do appear to represent truly anomalous and unexplained aerial events, and these may at some point turn out to be some fascinating atmospheric phenomenon that expands our view of things.  They should not be dismissed, and should be studied.  But these Stanton Friedman generated narratives are mostly self-promoting flapdoodle and just piss poor science.  As Dunning notes:

 Friedman's whole career, in fact, consisted of compiling bits and pieces of poor-quality evidence, mainly unverified eyewitness testimony usually taken years or decades after an event; and then composing an original alien visitation story that incorporates all those bits and is presented as the factual account of what happened. He's best known as the original author of the Roswell mythology, in which he worked with a retired mortician named Glenn Dennis. In 1989 — more than four decades after the 1947 Roswell crash was alleged to have happened — Friedman carefully wove together a string of snippets of Dennis' assorted memories of having worked in that town, and created the story we know today of a spaceship crash and small alien bodies being recovered. It was published in 1991, the first time that story even existed. Friedman couldn't have cared less that the things Dennis thought he remembered actually took place over a span of twelve years and had nothing to do with each other; his goal was to craft an original UFO narrative. That was Friedman's thing. That was what he did professionally...

[Moontanman]

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

The IPM report even successfully identified the creature seen by the three young women. The place where the creature was spotted was the home of Luiz Antônio de Paula, about 30 years old and intellectually disabled, who lived there with his parents and family. As de Paula was nonverbal, locals had nicknamed him Mudinho, which means "little mute." Mudinho was known to the neighbors to spend his time crouching and examining small objects he found, like cigarette butts and sticks. There are photographs of him floating around the Portuguese language Internet — very skinny, hunched over, squatting as he studies a twig, and apparently wearing a diaper. At last report, Mudinho still lives there to this day, and still continues his favorite activity. The lead author of the IPM report, Lt. Col. Lúcio Carlos Pereira, wrote:

The more probable hypothesis is that this citizen, probably dirty due to the rains and crouching next to a wall, was mistaken by three terrified girls for a 'space creature'.

As Mudinho did live there, and that was his typical behavior, then for the young women to have seen a space creature there would have to have been two such beings — the known one, Mudinho, and the hypothetical one, an alien — but as they reported only one skinny humanoid crouching in the mud, and not two, we are left with no rational support for there having been any beings present other than Mudinho.

Today, the three women do still give interviews about their experience. There is one very important detail that has changed since their original story: Today, they say they knew Mudinho well, and had even given him cigarettes in the past; so of course they would not have mistaken him for an alien. However, in their original reports from 1996, they said they didn't know him, and took him for a devil when they saw him. It's one more example of stories changing and growing to fit a changing and growing narrative that gains mass traction in pop culture. Everyone wants to be in on it, and everyone wants to be seen as credible and correct.

I agree with @Moontanman that there is a body of cases that do appear to represent truly anomalous and unexplained aerial events, and these may at some point turn out to be some fascinating atmospheric phenomenon that expands our view of things.  They should not be dismissed, and should be studied.  But these Stanton Friedman generated narratives are mostly self-promoting flapdoodle and just piss poor science.  As Dunning notes:

 Friedman's whole career, in fact, consisted of compiling bits and pieces of poor-quality evidence, mainly unverified eyewitness testimony usually taken years or decades after an event; and then composing an original alien visitation story that incorporates all those bits and is presented as the factual account of what happened. He's best known as the original author of the Roswell mythology, in which he worked with a retired mortician named Glenn Dennis. In 1989 — more than four decades after the 1947 Roswell crash was alleged to have happened — Friedman carefully wove together a string of snippets of Dennis' assorted memories of having worked in that town, and created the story we know today of a spaceship crash and small alien bodies being recovered. It was published in 1991, the first time that story even existed. Friedman couldn't have cared less that the things Dennis thought he remembered actually took place over a span of twelve years and had nothing to do with each other; his goal was to craft an original UFO narrative. That was Friedman's thing. That was what he did professionally...

I all fairness i have to say this sighting appears to be a retelling of an event that happened back in the late 50s or early 60s. I'd have to do some digging to be sure but I am pretty sure of it. I read about it in the late 60s when I was in highschool. 

This is an example of the inexplicability of some UFO sightings. Occurring in 1896 this report is simply outrageous! An alien craft 20 feet in diameter and 150 feet in length, three 7 foot tall aliens, attempting to abduct a man riding in a horse and buggy. It reads so matter of fact but it's more like a guy detailing his experiences while drinking shroom tea. 

 https://www.recordnet.com/story/news/2015/03/27/fitzgerald-day-space-aliens-visited/34895899007/

Quote

“We were jogging along quietly when the horse stopped suddenly and gave a snort of terror," Shaw said.

"Looking up we beheld three strange beings. They resembled humans in many respects, but still they were not like anything I had ever seen. They were nearly or quite seven feet high and very slender. ”

These ‘beings’ wore no clothing, Shaw reported. Instead, they were “covered with a natural growth hard to describe. It was not hair, neither was it like feathers, but it was as soft as silk to the touch.”

Shaw sensed the silken strangers meant no harm. “They seemed to take great interest in ourselves, the horse and buggy, and scrutinized everything very carefully."

Shaw approached them.

“Their faces and heads were without hair, the ears were very small, and the nose had the appearance of polished ivory,” Shaw said. Their mouths were tiny, “while the eyes were large and lustrous.”

Shaw added: “They were possessed of a strange and indescribable beauty.”

Ever the newsman, Shaw asked the aliens where they were from. “They seemed not to understand me, but began — well, "warbling" expresses it better than talking.”

Shaw touched one.

“Placing my hand under his elbow (I) pressed gently upward, and lo and behold I lifted him from the ground with scarcely an effort. I should judge that the specific gravity of the creature was less than an ounce.”

Each alien carried a shoulder bag attached to a nozzle. “Every little while one or the other would place the nozzle on his mouth, at which time I heard a sound of escaping gas.”

The guy should have been writing novels, this is HG Wells type stuff! 

These "sightings" are not exactly a modern phenomena! 

https://www.ultius.com/ultius-blog/entry/short-essay-on-the-history-of-ufos-in-the-united-states.html

Edited February 19, 2023 by Moontanman

[swansont]

12 hours ago, Moontanman said:

No one is saying a conclusion must be drawn but outright dismissal, which is what "no concrete evidence" really means, is not science or at least not how I was taught. 

No concrete evidence means just that - there is no concrete evidence, and you can’t draw the conclusion that it’s aliens.

 

12 hours ago, Moontanman said:

Good point and justifiable as well but what about those reports that cannot be explained by conventional objects despite a huge amount of evidence? The fact that sighting was so easily explained doesn't have any bearing on the ones that are not.  

You seem to have admitted that there isn’t any conclusive evidence. 

 

12 hours ago, Moontanman said:

BTW, I've seen Venus dance around the sky in an early morning temperature inversion, it was an astounding sight. But I was expecting Venus in that area of the sky and i was familiar with the local tendency for temperature inversions so I knew what it was immediately.

Since not everyone is familiar with that, they might arrive at a different explanation.

 

 

14 hours ago, Alex_Krycek said:

Finally there's the view that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but should alien visitations really be considered "extraordinary"?   Such a dialogue would loop back into a conversation about the Fermi Paradox, but ultimately I don't think such visitations are really extraordinary, given the nature of our universe.  It's only extraordinary within the confines of a very narrow minded, anthropocentric perspective of the universe. 

Nothing anthropocentric about the limitations of relativity, and the vast distances of interstellar space.

[Moontanman]

6 hours ago, swansont said:

No concrete evidence means just that - there is no concrete evidence, and you can’t draw the conclusion that it’s aliens.

I do not suggest drawing a conclusion, I suggest not dismissing the data we have out of hand and further study.

6 hours ago, swansont said:

 

You seem to have admitted that there isn’t any conclusive evidence.

I honestly wonder what conclusive evidence would be, At one time there was no conclusive evidence that lighting wasn't caused by gods or that rocks fell from the sky. Did dismissing those things give us better understanding?  

6 hours ago, swansont said:

Since not everyone is familiar with that, they might arrive at a different explanation.

This is true but it doesn't justify saying all sightings are probably those things either. I have seen this "explanation" used to dismiss sightings that were obviously not "Venus" in a temperature inversion as that very thing just because the people involved didn't know better. 

6 hours ago, swansont said:

Nothing anthropocentric about the limitations of relativity, and the vast distances of interstellar space.

Neither relativity or the vast distances of space preclude interstellar travel.  

[TheVat]

8 hours ago, Moontanman said:

In all fairness i have to say this sighting appears to be a retelling of an event that happened back in the late 50s or early 60s. I'd have to do some digging to be sure but I am pretty sure of it. I read about it in the late 60s when I was in highschool. 

Yes, I recall some famous sighting in either Brazil or Argentina which was mentioned in UFO literature back then.  Similar elements.  

Thanks for the links - the 1896 account does sound Wellsian.  The extremely low density of the ETs was a nice touch.  

[Ken Fabian]

As it happens I have seen things that I have no explanation for - a smallish globe of light that appeared to be low altitude, moving slowly in a straight line, then veering in another direction, well before drones were a thing. I could not even guess what but there was enough twilight that any balloon should have been visible. I didn't know anyone else who saw it but a mention of unexplained lights in the sky in a local paper followed. If it was an object it appeared less than 0.5m diameter. There were clouds beyond it.

Another time - horizontal grouped rows of coloured lights towards or over the ocean, some "dripping" white lights. It was an area off the coast used for naval exercises. Very strange.

In neither case did I think I was seeing alien vehicles.

I didn't for a moment think aliens or hallucination - these were things that were visible - but possibly the latter were some kind of mirage-like reflection off stratified atmosphere, reflections of something on the water shooting flares? The former may have been some kind of extremely rare but natural phenomena.

Hallucination still seems more credible than ailen craft, as does secret human technology but extra terrestrial aliens with physics defying technology buzzing about with no clear purpose seems even less credible than that.

On 2/19/2023 at 10:00 AM, Moontanman said:

but at what point do we stand back and realize that the shear number of sightings by relatively competent observers  suggest something... if not extraordinary then at least highly unusual?

How many people - otherwise competent - have claimed direct communication with God, including visions? A lot more than have seen unexplained things in the sky I would expect.

But yes, it seems worthwhile undertaking some kinds of investigation to explain what people are seeing - and being alarmed by.

Edited February 20, 2023 by Ken Fabian

[Alex_Krycek]

12 hours ago, TheVat said:

The IPM report even successfully identified the creature seen by the three young women. The place where the creature was spotted was the home of Luiz Antônio de Paula, about 30 years old and intellectually disabled, who lived there with his parents and family. As de Paula was nonverbal, locals had nicknamed him Mudinho, which means "little mute." Mudinho was known to the neighbors to spend his time crouching and examining small objects he found, like cigarette butts and sticks. There are photographs of him floating around the Portuguese language Internet — very skinny, hunched over, squatting as he studies a twig, and apparently wearing a diaper. At last report, Mudinho still lives there to this day, and still continues his favorite activity. The lead author of the IPM report, Lt. Col. Lúcio Carlos Pereira, wrote:

The more probable hypothesis is that this citizen, probably dirty due to the rains and crouching next to a wall, was mistaken by three terrified girls for a 'space creature'.

As Mudinho did live there, and that was his typical behavior, then for the young women to have seen a space creature there would have to have been two such beings — the known one, Mudinho, and the hypothetical one, an alien — but as they reported only one skinny humanoid crouching in the mud, and not two, we are left with no rational support for there having been any beings present other than Mudinho.

Today, the three women do still give interviews about their experience. There is one very important detail that has changed since their original story: Today, they say they knew Mudinho well, and had even given him cigarettes in the past; so of course they would not have mistaken him for an alien. However, in their original reports from 1996, they said they didn't know him, and took him for a devil when they saw him. It's one more example of stories changing and growing to fit a changing and growing narrative that gains mass traction in pop culture. Everyone wants to be in on it, and everyone wants to be seen as credible and correct.

I agree with @Moontanman that there is a body of cases that do appear to represent truly anomalous and unexplained aerial events, and these may at some point turn out to be some fascinating atmospheric phenomenon that expands our view of things.  They should not be dismissed, and should be studied.  But these Stanton Friedman generated narratives are mostly self-promoting flapdoodle and just piss poor science.  As Dunning notes:

 Friedman's whole career, in fact, consisted of compiling bits and pieces of poor-quality evidence, mainly unverified eyewitness testimony usually taken years or decades after an event; and then composing an original alien visitation story that incorporates all those bits and is presented as the factual account of what happened. He's best known as the original author of the Roswell mythology, in which he worked with a retired mortician named Glenn Dennis. In 1989 — more than four decades after the 1947 Roswell crash was alleged to have happened — Friedman carefully wove together a string of snippets of Dennis' assorted memories of having worked in that town, and created the story we know today of a spaceship crash and small alien bodies being recovered. It was published in 1991, the first time that story even existed. Friedman couldn't have cared less that the things Dennis thought he remembered actually took place over a span of twelve years and had nothing to do with each other; his goal was to craft an original UFO narrative. That was Friedman's thing. That was what he did professionally...

Would Mudinho have necessitated the Brazilian military arriving to Varginha en masse, blocking off roads and pointing rifles at people?  I don't think so.  

Also, I think three teenage girls are able to discern the difference between a human and non-human creature in broad daylight at 3:00 pm.  

 

[Moontanman]

2 hours ago, Ken Fabian said:

As it happens I have seen things that I have no explanation for - a smallish globe of light that appeared to be low altitude, moving slowly in a straight line, then veering in another direction, well before drones were a thing. I could not even guess what but there was enough twilight that any balloon should have been visible. I didn't know anyone else who saw it but a mention of unexplained lights in the sky in a local paper followed. If it was an object it appeared less than 0.5m diameter. There were clouds beyond it.

Another time - horizontal grouped rows of coloured lights towards or over the ocean, some "dripping" white lights. It was an area off the coast used for naval exercises. Very strange.

In neither case did I think I was seeing alien vehicles.

I didn't for a moment think aliens or hallucination - these were things that were visible - but possibly the latter were some kind of mirage-like reflection off stratified atmosphere, reflections of something on the water shooting flares? The former may have been some kind of extremely rare but natural phenomena.

Hallucination still seems more credible than ailen craft, as does secret human technology but extra terrestrial aliens with physics defying technology buzzing about with no clear purpose seems even less credible than that.

How many people - otherwise competent - have claimed direct communication with God, including visions? A lot more than have seen unexplained things in the sky I would expect.

But yes, it seems worthwhile undertaking some kinds of investigation to explain what people are seeing - and being alarmed by.

You do realize that there are sighting that include multiple independent radars, multiple independent witnesses, photos, videos, physical effects, interactions with both civilian and military aircraft, active influence of nuclear missile silos, lights or hallucination do not even come close to covering them. Suggesting that UFOs are just what some folks claim... like gods and angels, is somewhat less than an accurate appraisal of the situation.  

Yet... I guess until one crashes into the white house no concrete evidence exists. In other words, until aliens decide to let us know we cannot know.   

These discussions are very frustrating, some people would not consider any data short of a alien spacecraft crashing into times square sufficient evidence while others seem to think any odd flashing light is an alien spacecraft. The reality is there is a huge volume of data that needs to be looked at in a way that manages to consider what we have and apply some sort of analysis that manages to ride the line somewhere between the extremes.  

[DanMP]

21 hours ago, swansont said:

On 2/19/2023 at 5:37 AM, Moontanman said:

BTW, I've seen Venus dance around the sky in an early morning temperature inversion, it was an astounding sight. But I was expecting Venus in that area of the sky and i was familiar with the local tendency for temperature inversions so I knew what it was immediately.

Since not everyone is familiar with that, they might arrive at a different explanation.

Same with Iridescent Pileus Clouds.

[TheVat]

11 hours ago, Alex_Krycek said:

Would Mudinho have necessitated the Brazilian military arriving to Varginha en masse, blocking off roads and pointing rifles at people?  I don't think so.  

Also, I think three teenage girls are able to discern the difference between a human and non-human creature in broad daylight at 3:00 pm.  

 

Again, the military arrival is easily fact checked.  

The convoy of military trucks going through town was nothing more than a convoy of military trucks going through town to be dropped off for scheduled maintenance, which was exactly what happened to them. The trucks dropping off strange mechanisms at the hospital were delivering new cardiovascular equipment. The ambulance was dropping off a corpse that had been exhumed as part of an ongoing criminal investigation. The pair of small aliens at the hospital were expectant parents having their baby delivered — and they were little people.

All of this information is widely available and pops right up during the most cursory search.  I find it laughable the way completely unrelated events are cobbled together into this Roswellian tale, and we now have a town who economic health undoubtedly now depends on its UFO museum and its flying saucer water tank.  

If you want to pursue real scientific evaluation of evidence, then don't allow your own desires to render you gullible, letting hucksters connect the dots for you in exploitative YouTube videos.  

As for teenage girls, their reliability as witnesses should be questioned.  Especially given other details and the weather being described as a "blustery rainstorm".  I used to have teenage girls in my house and I can well recall their departures from objective observation of odd events.  And the way 90% of their vocal communication consisted of giggling.  

[Alex_Krycek]

47 minutes ago, TheVat said:

Again, the military arrival is easily fact checked.  

Yet you didn't post your source.

47 minutes ago, TheVat said:

The convoy of military trucks going through town was nothing more than a convoy of military trucks going through town to be dropped off for scheduled maintenance, which was exactly what happened to them. The trucks dropping off strange mechanisms at the hospital were delivering new cardiovascular equipment. The ambulance was dropping off a corpse that had been exhumed as part of an ongoing criminal investigation. The pair of small aliens at the hospital were expectant parents having their baby delivered — and they were little people.

Interesting how you have a convenient explanation for everything at the ready.

47 minutes ago, TheVat said:

All of this information is widely available and pops right up during the most cursory search. 

Perhaps you should do more than just a "cursory search" when looking into matters such as this.

47 minutes ago, TheVat said:

I find it laughable the way completely unrelated events are cobbled together into this Roswellian tale, and we now have a town who economic health undoubtedly now depends on its UFO museum and its flying saucer water tank.

I find it equally laughable how you find yourself unable to objectively consider this event as it is reported by the actual eye witnesses.  I wonder why that is.  And yes, I'm sure the town makes millions off of that UFO museum.    

47 minutes ago, TheVat said:

If you want to pursue real scientific evaluation of evidence, then don't allow your own desires to render you gullible, letting hucksters connect the dots for you in exploitative YouTube videos.  

Right back at you.  Don't allow your confirmation bias and self-ordained skepticism to get in the way of objective observation.  And it's not a youtube video, it's a feature length documentary; one that you won't watch, of course, because you already know you're correct.

Edited February 20, 2023 by Alex_Krycek

[swansont]

11 hours ago, Moontanman said:

These discussions are very frustrating

Indeed. The lack of rigor is frustrating to people who are used to it in scientific inquiry.

21 minutes ago, Alex_Krycek said:

I find it equally laughable how you find yourself unable to objectively consider this event as it is reported by the actual eye witnesses.

Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable in legal circles, which is a lower standard than science has. “Objective” in science means measurements and recorded data.

16 hours ago, Moontanman said:

I do not suggest drawing a conclusion, I suggest not dismissing the data we have out of hand and further study.

I don’t think the data are being dismissed. The conclusions are.

16 hours ago, Moontanman said:

I honestly wonder what conclusive evidence would be, At one time there was no conclusive evidence that lighting wasn't caused by gods or that rocks fell from the sky. Did dismissing those things give us better understanding?  

Apply the same standard. We didn’t “dismiss” lightning - the phenomenon was observed. It was studied under somewhat controlled circumstances.

Show me the scientific experiments that show UFO phenomena must be aliens.

 

 

[Alex_Krycek]

7 minutes ago, swansont said:

Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable in legal circles, which is a lower standard than science has. 

On the other hand, in legal circles, our society places enough trust in eye witness testimony to allow the rendering of a verdict capable of either exonerating or convicting those accused of a crime, however serious it may be.  Eyewitness testimony cannot and should not be so casually dismissed.  

In the Varginha case we have physicians, former soldiers, those from the local news media, as well as normal citizens who all reported experiencing something unexplainable that day.  I for one find it compelling; those like TheVat do not.  We can each cast our own votes as to the veracity of such an event, ideally after taking all the evidence from both sides into consideration.