What evidence of aliens would convince skeptics?

[triplekahuna]

That would also be interesting. Using molecular genetics we should be able to tell how long ago this hypothetical alien life diverged from Earth life (or vice versa). Currently, we can make a very good estimate of the date of divergence between any two organisms on Earth; humans and fungi, for example, diverged 1.5 billion years ago. I'd expect any panspermia event to have occurred longer ago than that.

Agree. Getting back to a key topic though -- what would constitute definitive proof of the "extraterrestrial hypothesis" -- it would have to be an analysis that could be independently verifiable by multiple researchers or institutions, withstand scrutiny through a peer-reviewed scientific process, and one in which **all** natural, terrestrial, and human-made explanations were systematically ruled out. (Just to clearly state assumptions.)

In addition to biological samples with non-terrestrial DNA or biochemistry, I'd perhaps add (with the same stipulations of verification above) detection of a repeated, non-random signal in outer space with encoded information, fossilized microorganisms in Martian rocks, or evidence of an active ecosystem in subsurface oceans (e.g., Europa, Enceladus). All would constitute proof of "extraterrestrial life" (if verified as stated) more convincingly (reliably?) than a picture or video of some lights apparently moving around erratically with an unknown speed or distance, and little to no attempt made to find alternative explanations.

 

[Ann K]

Caveat: if some version of panspermia (life can and has spread between planets and star systems) then alians sharing our sort of DNA, and being related to Earth life, would be possible.

Totally unrelated-to-us tissue would be strong evidence of aliens, tissue with similar chemistry to ours and other Earth life would be inconclusive.

We have evidence that some amino acids have been found on meteorites, and have presumably formed there, so it would not be surprising if any life forms found elsewhere use those same simple molecules in some way. But I remain extremely skeptical about panspermia. That would require actual live organisms to do three very difficult and improbable things: travel the vastness of interstellar space, survive the trip, and land in a place where they could survive and multiply. Almost all of the meteorites known to land on earth are from our own solar system, that is, "in our neighborhood", so the existence of amino acids is not much of a problem, but the distance to the nearest system outside our own is (if I've got the math right) about forty trillion km, a long and lonely road for a living thing to travel.

And by the way, panspermia as a concept would answer no questions about the origin of life; it merely changes the venue.

 

[Gary C]

We have evidence that some amino acids have been found on meteorites, and have presumably formed there, so it would not be surprising if any life forms found elsewhere use those same simple molecules in some way. But I remain extremely skeptical about panspermia. That would require actual live organisms to do three very difficult and improbable things: travel the vastness of interstellar space, survive the trip, and land in a place where they could survive and multiply. Almost all of the meteorites known to land on earth are from our own solar system, that is, "in our neighborhood", so the existence of amino acids is not much of a problem, but the distance to the nearest system outside our own is (if I've got the math right) about forty trillion km, a long and lonely road for a living thing to travel.

And by the way, panspermia as a concept would answer no questions about the origin of life; it merely changes the venue.

Something I have followed for years and given your background, many of these papers will mean a lot more to you than they did to me.
Bring up google scholar and do a search on "amino acids detected in interstellar clouds".

My impression is that nascent life takes advantage of the stocks of precursors that form naturally throughout the universe.

 

[Mauro]

My impression is that nascent life takes advantage of the stocks of precursors that form naturally throughout the universe

I agree with @Ann K and you, at most the basic chemical compounds came from outer space, not life itself. But I'd bet the overwhelming majority of them formed here on Earth.

 

[Eburacum]

This may be true, but the wide dispersal of prebiotic molecules is not the same thing as panspermia.

I suspect panspermia may be fairly widespread within individual solar systems; microbes may have dispersed from Earth to the Moon, to Mars or even Europa and Enceladus; but the odds of reaching another solar system are vanishingly rare.

Perhaps the odds are slightly higher within stellar clusters, which are full of closely-packed young stars - but the odds of abiogenesis within young stellar systems may also be too low to be significant.

 

[Ann K]

I suspect panspermia may be fairly widespread within individual solar systems; microbes may have dispersed from Earth to the Moon, to Mars or even Europa and Enceladus; but the odds of reaching another solar system are vanishingly rare.

I've wondered about that, but even if the journey has occurred, none of it seems to have found a receptive landing site. And given the wide variation in our own planets due to their compositional differences as well as their distances from the sun, it seems unlikely that life could develop on more than one planet per system. Hence the search for "Goldilocks" planets of other stars: not too large, not too small, not too near their star nor too far, but "just right", a place where one might expect to find liquid water, and not too much violent upheaval due to gravitational forces, etc.

 

[JMartJr]

I've wondered about that, but even if the journey has occurred, none of it seems to have found a receptive landing site.

Unless we are the receptive landing site, seeded by life that evolved on, say, Mars back when Mars was a nicer place, and has since vanished or becomes rare on the place of origin.

Note I am not arguing that this is the case, but I don't see how it can be confidently ruled out, given the limited info we have at this point.

 

[Eburacum]

Well, we need to examine all of these locations in more detail before confirming that contamination has not yet occurred. Possible refugia for life in our system include; the icy poles of the Moon, the ice-bearing poles and craters of Mars, the subsurface seas of Europa, Enceladus, Ganymede (perhaps) Titan (perhaps) and perhaps even some comets. So far no life has been found in any of these locations, but until we have samples from each of these locations we can't really say one way or the other.

Note, that I'd be very surprised if any microbes found in any of these locations are unrelated to Earth Life; abiogenesis is almost certainly very rare indeed, and I wouldn't expect to find two abiogenesis events in the same solar system. I may be entirely wrong on this point, which would be a very interesting development indeed.

 

[Ann K]

Unless we are the receptive landing site, seeded by life that evolved on, say, Mars back when Mars was a nicer place, and has since vanished or becomes rare on the place of origin.

Note I am not arguing that this is the case, but I don't see how it can be confidently ruled out, given the limited info we have at this point.

"Perseverance" is currently collecting samples on Mars, with the intention to examine them for the biosignatures of life forms of any kind. In about another decade they should be returned to earth for closer study, so stay tuned. Life on Mars can be proven to be true, but of course it can't be definitively "ruled out".

 

[Mauro]

Detecting a radio or optical signal from deep space which repeats a sequence of 2 3 5 7 11 13 17 beeps would convince me.

 

[Andreas]

Well, I guess any type of evidence would be a good start. Haven't seen a single example of this yet…

 

[Eburacum]

Could there be a natural explanation for a transmitted sequence of primes? I can't think of one, so this seems a good option. However this would imply that the entities sending this transmission want to communicate.

What fraction of intelligent extraterrestrials actually want to communicate? Many? Few? None?

 

[JMartJr]

Reading back to the original post, I read the context as being; what evidence in a UFO report or alien visit report would be convincing? That is a bit different than the discussion of what astronomical evidence and the like would convince us that life exists elsewhere in the universe.

I'm down for either discussion, but they are different discussions -- is there life out there vs. has any of it come here! (If it does not exist, of course it can't come here, but if it were proved to exist that would not indicate it has flown some UFOs to Earth for us to take blurry distant pictures!)

I'd be curious then, for those who have not addressed it already above across several pages, what UFO or alien visitation evidence would you find compelling, even if not probative? Can there even be a convincing UFO report, that is limited to just being a report (as opposed to "and I grabbed this piece of tech from the Probing Room," or "...and then I shot one of them, here's the corpse, biologists get in here!") in the current era, when CGI/AI are so widely available to everybody, and the image creation capability is becoming not only more democratized but more able to create realistic image and video?

(Especially given that we don't know how many fingers aliens are supposed to have, so we lose one of the best "tells" of AI imagery! ^_^)

 

[MonkeeSage]

I'd be curious then, for those who have not addressed it already above across several pages, what UFO or alien visitation evidence would you find compelling, even if not probative? Can there even be a convincing UFO report, that is limited to just being a report (as opposed to "and I grabbed this piece of tech from the Probing Room," or "...and then I shot one of them, here's the corpse, biologists get in here!") in the current era, when CGI/AI are so widely available to everybody, and the image creation capability is becoming not only more democratized but more able to create realistic image and video?

I'll give it a go! Sorry if it's a bit long or rambly.

I'm sure folks know about null hypothesis testing, but a quick description just in case: In scientific hypothesis testing, there is a null hypothesis that assumes the effect is not present (for a positive hypothesis; or assumes the effect is present for a negative hypothesis) and then attempts to disprove the null hypothesis. Does this new cancer drug improve remission rates? The null hypothesis is that it has no effect (or maybe a worse effect). Then trials are run to test the positive hypothesis that the drug does work. Only if those trials (properly controlled for confounding factors and repeated) show improved remission rates is the null hypothesis discarded and the new hypothesis is adopted.

It's a little bit harder when we don't have a way to control and repeat experiences like UFO sightings/close encounters for testing (well I guess some psionic summoners can do it but they are not sharing), but we can follow a similar process. We can start with a null hypothesis that all observed events (whether anecdotes or images or videos) have a prosaic explanation, in keeping with our current knowledge, and then attempt to invalidate that hypothesis.

How can we do that? One way is with high quality repeated observations that show some property that cannot be explained with our current knowledge. With the discovery and characterization of sprites and jets and ELVES, for example, that included high quality sensor and image data from multiple different types of sources. Our old understanding of atmospheric electrical discharge could not explain those data, so new hypotheses were formed about how upper atmospheric electrical discharge behaves differently than lower atmospheric discharge ("lightning"). The new hypotheses had the ability to explain the observations and had predictive power, so they were eventually adopted, we updated our knowledge base, and updated the null hypothesis. In our new null hypothesis, those events are now prosaic (even though some aspects may not be completely understand yet).

For something like UFO sightings, we can essentially discard bare eyewitness accounts because there are known cognitive effects like misperception, impairment, memory errors, subconscious priming, ulterior motives, etc. Those effects are all consistent with and predicted for on our null hypothesis (i.e., "all observed events have a prosaic explanation, in keeping with our current knowledge"). So what about sensor data like radar? Well we also know that there can be sensor malfunctions, misidentifications (e.g., detecting birds, meteorites, etc), and operator error (e.g., looking at the wrong area because of miscalculation of distance; looking too close or too far and missing an object that the radar was actually detecting at a different range). What about images and video? We know that those can be hoaxed (physically, CGI/AI), or misinterpreted (e.g., "rods" on low quality IR security cameras, satellite flares, airplanes). What about physical data? We know that can also be hoaxed (e.g., the bracket claimed to be from the Trinity UFO crash but is actually a windmill tailbone), or misidentified (e.g., "angel hair" that was lab-test by UFO-believing technician showing it was actually spider silk [this did not dissuade the technician, who took it to mean the aliens are trying to insert spider DNA into humans]; industrial slag identified as a terahertz waveguide metamaterial).

So it's a pretty high bar to overcome the null hypothesis in this case because there are so many known prosaic causes that are consistent with and predicted for by it. Let's take Cmdr. Fravor's tic tac for example. We have multiple eyewitness accounts, we have radar data (well, technically we only have eyewitness accounts of that data, but let's assume it existed and was reported accurately), and we have eyewitness accounts that the data was removed from the ship by unknown men in black. Assuming all witnesses are telling the truth and not trying to deceive, all of this can still be accounted for on the null hypothesis. If the physics-defying maneuvers of the object reported by eyewitnesses was misperception of a prosaic object (e.g., an object associated with a weapons system test, or experimental aircraft) and it did not actually engage in physics-defying maneuvers, and the radar returns were spurious and unrelated (e.g., the radar system was new and uncalibrated, detecting upper atmospheric ice crystals or micrometeorites), and the MiB were collecting the data that was inadvertently captured of the secret weapons system testing, this is consistent with and predicted for by our null hypothesis. So even with several coincidental lines of evidence, none of them require changing the null hypothesis, so adding them together doesn't either.

(I don't want to re-open discussion of the Fravor case here, I'm just using it as a well-known example.)

So for me I think it would take something like in the case of sprites, with a lot of high quality data from various sources (sensors, cameras, chemical analysis, etc) all agreeing with each other, with subject matter experts coming to a consensus about what they show, and no possible explanation under the null hypothesis. I can't really think of good scenarios that could do that except the tropes of an actual UFO landing on the Whitehouse lawn, or an actual alien rocking up to a respected hospital and saying "study me".

 

[Tezcatlipoca]

I'll give it a go! Sorry if it's a bit long or rambly.

I'm sure folks know about null hypothesis testing, but a quick description just in case: In scientific hypothesis testing, there is a null hypothesis that assumes the effect is not present (for a positive hypothesis; or assumes the effect is present for a negative hypothesis) and then attempts to disprove the null hypothesis. Does this new cancer drug improve remission rates? The null hypothesis is that it has no effect (or maybe a worse effect). Then trials are run to test the positive hypothesis that the drug does work. Only if those trials (properly controlled for confounding factors and repeated) show improved remission rates is the null hypothesis discarded and the new hypothesis is adopted.

It's a little bit harder when we don't have a way to control and repeat experiences like UFO sightings/close encounters for testing (well I guess some psionic summoners can do it but they are not sharing), but we can follow a similar process. We can start with a null hypothesis that all observed events (whether anecdotes or images or videos) have a prosaic explanation, in keeping with our current knowledge, and then attempt to invalidate that hypothesis.

How can we do that? One way is with high quality repeated observations that show some property that cannot be explained with our current knowledge. With the discovery and characterization of sprites and jets and ELVES, for example, that included high quality sensor and image data from multiple different types of sources. Our old understanding of atmospheric electrical discharge could not explain those data, so new hypotheses were formed about how upper atmospheric electrical discharge behaves differently than lower atmospheric discharge ("lightning"). The new hypotheses had the ability to explain the observations and had predictive power, so they were eventually adopted, we updated our knowledge base, and updated the null hypothesis. In our new null hypothesis, those events are now prosaic (even though some aspects may not be completely understand yet).

For something like UFO sightings, we can essentially discard bare eyewitness accounts because there are known cognitive effects like misperception, impairment, memory errors, subconscious priming, ulterior motives, etc. Those effects are all consistent with and predicted for on our null hypothesis (i.e., "all observed events have a prosaic explanation, in keeping with our current knowledge"). So what about sensor data like radar? Well we also know that there can be sensor malfunctions, misidentifications (e.g., detecting birds, meteorites, etc), and operator error (e.g., looking at the wrong area because of miscalculation of distance; looking too close or too far and missing an object that the radar was actually detecting at a different range). What about images and video? We know that those can be hoaxed (physically, CGI/AI), or misinterpreted (e.g., "rods" on low quality IR security cameras, satellite flares, airplanes). What about physical data? We know that can also be hoaxed (e.g., the bracket claimed to be from the Trinity UFO crash but is actually a windmill tailbone), or misidentified (e.g., "angel hair" that was lab-test by UFO-believing technician showing it was actually spider silk [this did not dissuade the technician, who took it to mean the aliens are trying to insert spider DNA into humans]; industrial slag identified as a terahertz waveguide metamaterial).

So it's a pretty high bar to overcome the null hypothesis in this case because there are so many known prosaic causes that are consistent with and predicted for by it. Let's take Cmdr. Fravor's tic tac for example. We have multiple eyewitness accounts, we have radar data (well, technically we only have eyewitness accounts of that data, but let's assume it existed and was reported accurately), and we have eyewitness accounts that the data was removed from the ship by unknown men in black. Assuming all witnesses are telling the truth and not trying to deceive, all of this can still be accounted for on the null hypothesis. If the physics-defying maneuvers of the object reported by eyewitnesses was misperception of a prosaic object (e.g., an object associated with a weapons system test, or experimental aircraft) and it did not actually engage in physics-defying maneuvers, and the radar returns were spurious and unrelated (e.g., the radar system was new and uncalibrated, detecting upper atmospheric ice crystals or micrometeorites), and the MiB were collecting the data that was inadvertently captured of the secret weapons system testing, this is consistent with and predicted for by our null hypothesis. So even with several coincidental lines of evidence, none of them require changing the null hypothesis, so adding them together doesn't either.

(I don't want to re-open discussion of the Fravor case here, I'm just using it as a well-known example.)

So for me I think it would take something like in the case of sprites, with a lot of high quality data from various sources (sensors, cameras, chemical analysis, etc) all agreeing with each other, with subject matter experts coming to a consensus about what they show, and no possible explanation under the null hypothesis. I can't really think of good scenarios that could do that except the tropes of an actual UFO landing on the Whitehouse lawn, or an actual alien rocking up to a respected hospital and saying "study me".

I differ on specifics here but the end framing I mostly agree with. For me I base it off incongruities. All the fancy misalignment issues we point out with information and respective claims are "incongruities" - this indicates some form of incomplete or false information in the conclusion. For a more objectively definable case of a UFO/UAP, we cannot have any incongruities.
This is because of the incongruity rule. Basically, everything that is real makes up 100% of its characteristics. Something that is not real/accurate cannot make up 100% of the characteristics of the real, or else it'd be the real thing.


One part of this discussion I find difficult though, is it's near always based off human experience and the extent to which we can assume or presume from such. Obviously not the more extreme cases when it presents here but just as an example - every way we predicate how ET life may look, think, or work etc, is based upon our experiences and exposure to life development on earth.
There is no way our conclusion here is accurate unless the other environment is a pure copy of earth. Otherwise factors will change that will alter the overall developmental patterns of that potential species - same as happens here on earth already and what leads us to being surprised (due to set expectations) when new species are discovered. As a case in point, the ocean. We still discover new species like every year that do not finely fit into our understanding of aquatic life here on Earth itself. There's still biological anthro that happens all the time that tells us new things about the developmental past of hominids and primates in general, sometimes in ways that adjust commonly held understanding.

 

[Mendel]

So for me I think it would take something like in the case of sprites, with a lot of high quality data from various sources (sensors, cameras, chemical analysis, etc) all agreeing with each other, with subject matter experts coming to a consensus about what they show, and no possible explanation under the null hypothesis. I can't really think of good scenarios that could do that except the tropes of an actual UFO landing on the Whitehouse lawn, or an actual alien rocking up to a respected hospital and saying "study me".

How about an object not launched from Earth, independently tracked by at least two observatories, that maneouvers to enter Earth orbit, any other planetary orbit, or a fairly circular solar orbit (planet-like, not comet-like) that it did not have when first tracked.

 

[MonkeeSage]

How about an object not launched from Earth, independently tracked by at least two observatories, that maneouvers to enter Earth orbit, any other planetary orbit, or a fairly circular solar orbit (planet-like, not comet-like) that it did not have when first tracked.

If there were no discovered properties of the object that could account for unguided/natural maneuvering of the object into the orbit, that would get me pretty close. In order to help confirm it was not some yet unknown natural process that could account for that or not some strange measurement/tracking problem, I think I would still wait for another independent confirmation from a different source, like maybe detecting some kind of technosignature or good satellite images from a fly by that showed it had apparent artificial construction (and not just like "it's kinda rectangular if you squint" but like "it's got windows and thrusters").

 

[Eburacum]

A large, powerful rocket decelerating from interstellar speeds to orbital speeds should be easily detectable, since a rocket-powered craft capable of carrying living, intelligent aliens across light years would be visible from a significant distance. To achieve interstellar speeds a rocket ship would need motors more powerful and more emissive than mere chemical rockets, so the craft would show emissions consistent with fission, fusion or even antimatter propulsion.

Of course if the craft used some other form of propellant-less or reaction-less propulsion, this brilliant approach would not occur. So far no such form of propulsion has been discovered; indeed, some of the greatest enthusiasts for reactionless drive are the same people who are enthusiasts for UAP belief, and the two kind of go hand in hand.

If intelligent extraterrestrials have to use rocket propulsion to get here, they will arrive in a spacecraft that is almost exhausted of fuel and energy, and probably they would be crammed in a capsule that is barely large enough to afford sufficient life support. They would probably need our help more than we need them.

 

[John J.]

My post #150 contained a duff link, too late to edit it but corrected below:

...Betty [Hill] later stated that the "aliens"- often conflated with "Grays" by UFO enthusiasts- looked most like pictures she'd seen of a Mongolian woman, and/ or native people of Tierra Del Fuego (see evidence for the Hills not describing "Grays" in this post).

I did not know that detail, but it occurs to me that the most common source for most Americans to have seen images of individuals from distant lands was (and still is) National Geographic magazine ...and the older magazines were printed largely or entirely in black and white. So, literally, "grey people".

Going off-topic, on the (defunct?) Yankee Skeptic website blogger Kitty posted some useful observations about the Hill's descriptions of their aliens. Most seem to be "informed" by slideshows about anthropology (but see below).

...from a October 20, 1964 letter to "Walter" about a talk given at Phillips Exeter Academy, a private preparatory school in the Concord NH area.

"Last night Barney and I went to Phillips Exeter Academy to hear Dr. Coon, anthropologist, of Harvard, lecture on the 'Races of Man'. He showed several slides, but one of them looked like the people on the space ship. Barney and I both recognized this at the same time! It was the slide of a woman that lives in a very cold climate and showed her physical adaptation to this very cold. I believe she is of Mongolian background, with very distinct slant eyes. Her adaptation is the formation or a fatty substance around her eyes, which causes the appearance of a large eye extending around to the side. Her nose is very small and flat to her face. Her mouth seems distorted by this fatty substance... ... It was surprising to actually see a picture which resembled the men so closely – much better than we could ever begin to do."

Yankee Skeptic webpage hosted at Internet Archive Wayback Machine (here).
Kitty writes that Betty had studied at the University of New Hampshire, to which she left her papers (Milne Special Collections, Special Collections, University of New Hampshire Library, Durham, NH), this is the source Kitty/ Yankee Skeptic uses.

Yankee Sceptic also records Betty's later claim that the aliens looked like the native inhabitants of Tiera del Fuego (archipelago that constitutes the southern extremity of South America), and that they did not look like the beings portrayed in the TV movie "The UFO Incident", which brought the Hills to the attention of a much broader public- along with the film-maker's proto-"gray" aliens.
Betty describes the Tierra del Fuego natives in similarly unflattering (and exaggerated) terms as she used for the Mongolian woman:

We did see some slides of a group of Indians in Antarctic [Sic] who resembled these humanoids very much- both of us were very shocked by this. They had fatty layers of tissues around their features to protect them from the extreme cold of their environment – a warm day is 40 below [Not true; see Tierra del Fuego, Wikipedia- John J.] and they go swimming. [Unlikely; -40 Fahrenheit = -40 Celsius]. In these pictures their hands, fingers, feet, and toes were very thick with layers of fatty tissues, and their fingers and toes were very short and fat: their little fingers and toes were almost impossible to see because of their small size.

The 60s were a different time. Barney was an African American and Betty of European descent, when "mixed race" marriages were less common, and less accepted, than now. They were active in the civil rights movement. And yet the Dr. Coon Betty refers to is Carleton S. Coon (Wikipedia), an anthropologist now remembered for supporting what is now referred to as "scientific racism". Coon believed that "races" were geographically and biologically distinct, and had separately evolved from Homo erectus into H. Sapiens at different times- "whites" first, in Europe. Coon was very much of that discredited school of physical anthropology that would collect photographs of different peoples so that "distinctive" ethnological features could be contrasted and compared.
I feel this context is relevant to understanding the somewhat strange -arguably "othering"- descriptions of Mongolians/ natives of Tierra del Fuego that Betty provides, which might seem puzzling considering her marriage and her involvement in NAACP.
We don't know if Betty's descriptions are from her own observations ("their little fingers... were almost impossible to see"; "Her adaptation is the formation or a fatty substance around her eyes, which causes the appearance of a large eye extending around to the side. ...Her mouth seems distorted by this fatty substance") or were notes based on e.g. Coon's descriptions at his slideshows.

If the Hills- committed to racial equality- were attending lectures from people like Coon, and accepting those teachings as authoritative (or at least informative), they must have experienced some cognitive dissonance at some level.
I don't think it's coincidence that two figures that Barney describes seeing (while under hypnosis by Dr Benjamin Simon,1964) inside the UFO are a Nazi in a shiny black coat and a scarf, and the other

...I think of a red-haired Irishman, I don't know why, but, I think I know why, because, Irish are usually hostile to negroes...

-approx. 15 mins 38 secs into recording, link at the top of this post).
Both are much more likely embodiments of Barney's fears of hostile racists/ racism rather than descriptions of extraterrestrial astronauts.

An alien spacecraft crewed by a scarf-wearing Nazi, a smiling red-haired Irishman* and otherwise crewed by people 5' - 5'4 / 1.52 - 1.62 m tall, strongly resembling Mongolians or certain natives of South America in black (or blue) uniforms and peaked caps**, with black hair and prominent noses, or maybe almost invisible noses, is not the story UFOlogy (or the relevant Wikipedia page) tells us.
But it is the story (which varied, depending on whether it was from supposed waking recall after the event, subsequent dreams, or under hypnosis) that the Hills gave.




*In the context, I think it's probably safe to assume that Barney is thinking/ talking about 1960s Irish American men, not 1960s Irishmen per se.

**Possibly like those widely worn by American policemen at the time- IIRC Betty described the peaked hats as being similar to those worn by policemen or military cadets. She didn't say "like a baseball cap".
(L), NYPD cap; (R), US West Point Military Academy cap.

Somehow - and I don't know why- this seems inherently more ridiculous than the idea that the "aliens" might have been wearing simpler e.g. baseball- style peaked hats.
But I can't think of another style of peaked cap that an average 1961 American civilian might associate specifically with military cadets as specified by Betty (the wider US military used a number of peaked cap designs, as did many other nations).

It's interesting that artist's impressions of the Hill abductors rarely show hats.

 

[Gary C]

How about an object not launched from Earth, independently tracked by at least two observatories, that maneouvers to enter Earth orbit, any other planetary orbit, or a fairly circular solar orbit (planet-like, not comet-like) that it did not have when first tracked.

That would probably work for me but I'm an amateur astronomer, have been a space buff since the 1960s, and follow daily updates in physics, astronomy and cosmology. Like some of our fellow debunkers, I can follow the first order scientific arguments without having to stop and look up the terminology. That background, however, is a factor in my disappointment with Avi Loeb and his hype/statements about Oumuamua and 3i/ATLAS.

It's not clear that detections accessible only to experts, elites, and governments would quell the conspiracy industry at all.

 

[JMartJr]

She also was a "serial UFO experiencer, to an extreme. Retails are in a book I have at home, I am not there today but will pull it out when I get back...

Sorry for the delay -- life has been busy!

About 1977, Betty Hill began talking about a UFO landing spot in southern New Hampshire, where she goes as often as three times a week to watch UFOs. ... Mrs. Hill claims that Close Encounters are such frequent events at this site that she has made up names for some of the more frequently appearing UFOs: one she calls "the military" because of its allegedly hostile behavior, and another is "the working model." Betty Hill explains that "The 'new' UFOs aren't friendly as the 'old' ones were.* Whereas before they would buzz cars, flying over the roofs and behaving almost playfully, now they sometimes shoot beams and dart at cars in a menacing fashion... once they even blistered the paint on my car.**" Mrs. Hill also has asserted that the aliens sometimes get out and do calesthenics before taking off again.
...
She reportedly encountered a "Pumpkin Head" form that glides beside her car as a UFO hovers above. Afterwards she is "filled with electricity," setting off airport security devices and resetting electric clocks.

Sheaffer, Robert, The UFO Verdict: Examining the Evidence (Buffalo, NY, Promeetheus Books, 1980) p. 43

Telling the story of a "secret UFO Symposium" of skeptics and believers held in NH in 2000, which Mrs. Hill attended, Sheaffer writes:

She regaled us with stories of her literally hundreds of UFO sightings occurring after her initial UFO abduction. She claims that she organized an entire "Invisible College"of scientists ... who went out with her to observe and study these UFOs...

Sheaffer, Robert, Bad UFOs: Critical Thinking About UFO Claims (Columbia, SC, CreateSpace Independent Publishing, 2016) p. 133

* This seems a strange observation, given what happened with her first UFO encounter, where she was kidnapped and subjected to medical tests against her will, according to her testimony under hypnosis. The first experience produced sufficient trauma to lead her to seek help from a therapist and hypnotist, it hardly seems "friendly!"

** Ellipsis punctuation in the original

 

[Ann K]

So for me I think it would take something like in the case of sprites, with a lot of high quality data from various sources (sensors, cameras, chemical analysis, etc) all agreeing with each other, with subject matter experts coming to a consensus about what they show, and no possible explanation under the null hypothesis. I can't really think of good scenarios that could do that except the tropes of an actual UFO landing on the Whitehouse lawn, or an actual alien rocking up to a respected hospital and saying "study me".

That's a very good rundown you've given, but I get stuck on this phrase in this summary, "no possible explanation" under the null hypothesis. That's a common notion among people reporting anomalous sightings, "It couldn't have been anything else, so it must be alien", and might also have been given about your own examples, sprites and blue jets, before their existence was explained.

The problem is that we simply don't know what we don't know.

 

[Andreas]

The problem is that we simply don't know what we don't know.

The whole "aliens are the only remaining explanation" thing is where it all goes off the rails. In Sweden, we have a saying: "if you're looking for ghosts, you'll certainly find trolls." In other words, go hunting for the weird and you'll definitely find something weird—just not necessarily what you wanted.

We have zero evidence of aliens visiting Earth, and not even evidence of intelligent life anywhere else in the universe. (Yeah yeah, I know—absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. Got it.) Still, some folks jump straight to ET whenever they see something unexplained.

But "what if" is the absolute worst question in this context. "What if Duckburg is actually real, and Scrooge McDuck is the secret head of the Illuminati?" Well sure, if someone came up with solid scientific proof of that, I'd believe it too. But it's not going to happen. Same goes for UAPs. They aren't linked to aliens, or time travelers, or any other sci-fi flavor of the month. They're just…still unexplained things. That's it.

 

[triplekahuna]

If this is the critera, I think it would be considerate to make it abundantly clear to people looking to post videos/eyewitness accounts of UFOs on this site that Metabunk doesn't even need to review any particular video/account to determine that it isn't proof of aliens.

You could put the disclaimer in the posting guidelines.

I always thought metabunk should say something like this anyways.

Did they say anything about aliens? Because I don't think they ever said anything about aliens

A robust set of goalposts would be intended for the bold few who aren't just asking questions, but who legitimately believe either (1) there is evidence of alien visitation, or (2) no matter what evidence of alien visitation is presented, skeptics will just move the goalposts. It doesn't really apply to folks who just want to know about something mysterious they saw.

But the idea of telling posters, "If you're claiming to have evidence of aliens.." is interesting.

Going back to the beginning of this (now three-year-old) convo, the POV of the defiant poster is predominant whenever a discussion like this happens in public, it seems in my experience. The subsequent argument implies that because others don't simply believe the stories told to them, particularly "extraordinary tales" presented without extraordinary proof (often without any proof at all), and then have the temerity to search for prosaic, reasonable explanations, they must be dismissed as "debunkers" and attributed a whole range of foibles and nefarious motivations.

The real question, though, is why don't they even try to find a prosaic explanation for the UFO report, if only to eliminate it as a cause for what they believe to be such a convincing event of extraterrestrial mucking around? If they're not even willing to entertain the possibility that their case/sighting/w/e falls with the 98% of I.F.O.s, what does that say about the nature of their beliefs?

One could cynically say "they" (person believing in the ET hypothesis as the explanation of apparently any UFO) don't look for prosaic explanations because they would almost certainly find them and that would cut into their earnings/ratings/fame, but I'm convinced it's deeper than that for most (non-hucksters), and more foundational to their sense of self. Forgive me for going a bit meta here....

 

[John J.]

Detecting a radio or optical signal from deep space which repeats a sequence of 2 3 5 7 11 13 17 beeps would convince me.

How about an object not launched from Earth, independently tracked by at least two observatories, that maneouvers to enter Earth orbit...

Both are good examples of possible evidence for ETI technology.

My concern is, most of us here won't be working in a team making such a discovery, or in a team/ establishment (e.g. a radio observatory) that might verify it. Maybe a few of us know people who might be involved in confirming that an anomalous finding was real, but I'd guess not many of us.
We would be reliant on the reporting of any discovery of ETI (barring, e.g., huge Independence Day/ Skyline-style craft that are directly visible to us and millions of others).
Personally, I don't have a great problem with this- I'd guess many of us rely significantly on our preferred broadcast media, press and internet sites for information about the wider world.
Of course, what people think of as reliable sources varies, which is partly why some people are already convinced that there is evidence of ETI (and many other objectively improbable things). Not all sources of information are equally reliable.

 

[Edward Current]

One could cynically say "they" (person believing in the ET hypothesis as the explanation of apparently any UFO) don't look for prosaic explanations because they would almost certainly find them and that would cut into their earnings/ratings/fame, but I'm convinced it's deeper than that for most (non-hucksters), and more foundational to their sense of self. Forgive me for going a bit meta here....

Psychologically I am most fascinated by the UFO evangelist who defends every. single. blurry. dot.

I can certainly understand the ones who want to preserve their belief in NHI visitation in general. If that belief could be shown to be false (it can't, but still), that would mean they aren't special persons with enlightened, humanity-changing knowledge. They're just regular shnooks.

I can also understand experiencers defending other experiencers.

But the ones who will attack you for calling this "just another blurry dot," and who will attack you for pointing out that on its own, the image cannot possibly be investigated or analyzed?

I'll never understand that.

 

[Gary C]

Psychologically I am most fascinated by the UFO evangelist who defends every. single. blurry. dot.

I can certainly understand the ones who want to preserve their belief in NHI visitation in general. If that belief could be shown to be false (it can't, but still), that would mean they aren't special persons with enlightened, humanity-changing knowledge. They're just regular shnooks.

I can also understand experiencers defending other experiencers.

But the ones who will attack you for calling this "just another blurry dot," and who will attack you for pointing out that on its own, the image cannot possibly be investigated or analyzed?

I'll never understand that.

View attachment 83445

It's that last group that concerns and interests me. They seem to be the cannon fodder for unprovable conspiracies and woo of all stripes. If they could be inoculated with at least minimal skepticism at an early age, a good deal of social, political, and commercial crap might be avoidable on levels significant compared to the population.

 

[Ann K]

Psychologically I am most fascinated by the UFO evangelist who defends every. single. blurry. dot.

UFO proponent: "It's not a 'dot'. It's an ORB!"
...but so are most things when they're completely out of focus.

 

[Tezcatlipoca]

It's that last group that concerns and interests me. They seem to be the cannon fodder for unprovable conspiracies and woo of all stripes. If they could be inoculated with at least minimal skepticism at an early age, a good deal of social, political, and commercial crap might be avoidable on levels significant compared to the population.

Ehh. Innoculation theory only works as far as you define what the issue is, which is wholly subjective. Yes the science there is accurate but how that knowledge is implemented is an entirely different story. Every program I've worked on that has had an "innoculation" goal has had metrics that are an absolute joke and offer no insight into anything, and they contradictorily conclude "successes" that are either not actually evident per the metrics, are just entirely made up declarations of success, or alternatively are misaligned in a way thats nonsense (eg "innoculating" people against UFO theories who are already personally and in audiences unlikely to adopt them, thus making your effort entirely null and a waste of resources).

Tiny further add on, the only times I've seen "innoculation" work, has not been termed that but we can keep it in frame for contextual reference. It's instead things like controlling narratives to prevent the introduction and adoption of adverse narratives to your one of interest. This disrupts the ability for the adverse claims to be propagated amongst the audience and also persist within it. Unfortunately most people are really easy to manipulate (thinking otherwise is actually a vulnerability in this regard, good thing to keep in mind) and we'll never remove the actual things that enable it. What we can do is control and influence surrounding factors. Otherwise we'll just re-enter the jungle of making things up to confirm our beliefs then kinda get confused when it doesn't work, or it ends up being far less impactful than we exaggerate perception of.

The better path here is teaching proper abductive reasoning. That's the type of thinking process a lot of these types employ to come to their conclusion, except they don't know how to do it "properly" and become overly-vulnerable to expressing a large amount of different biases and heuristic errors. In fact, we are all just as vulnerable to this, and it's not helpful this type of reasoning is not promoted in our society so there is less structural support for understanding and applying it correctly. The issue is *we* don't know when we are doing it, same as the others. Which is why we'll equally debate it in the same way the others here do, sometimes even using the same debate points.

Funnily enough, and I've made this point elsewhere on here too. If learned and applied properly (noting proper analysis & assessments are needed for more robust accuracy), this is also the exact thinking process that is best applied for identifying deception from external stimuli. Deductive reasoning, what is usually applied, is actually very poor in this regard despite being commonly applied and rested on for the conclusions. Anyways funny example where something like that can present polar opposites if learned and applied correctly vs not.

 

[Gary C]

The better path here is teaching proper abductive reasoning. That's the type of thinking process a lot of these types employ to come to their conclusion, except they don't know how to do it "properly" and become overly-vulnerable to expressing a large amount of different biases and heuristic errors. In fact, we are all just as vulnerable to this, and it's not helpful this type of reasoning is not promoted in our society so there is less structural support for understanding and applying it correctly. The issue is *we* don't know when we are doing it, same as the others. Which is why we'll equally debate it in the same way the others here do, sometimes even using the same debate points.

IMO it would be easier to start teaching skepticism with things that are easier and more concrete to understand. Many people lack the basic level of consumer skepticism needed to not be ripped off. The vague, un-disprovable claims in half the commercials I see would be a good place for trainee skeptics to cut their teeth and their out of pocket expenses.
(I know, I'm old and paranoid.)

 

[Tezcatlipoca]

IMO it would be easier to start teaching skepticism with things that are easier and more concrete to understand. Many people lack the basic level of consumer skepticism needed to not be ripped off. The vague, un-disprovable claims in half the commercials I see would be a good place for trainee skeptics to cut their teeth and their out of pocket expenses.
(I know, I'm old and paranoid.)

I don't think skepticism should be the teaching point. These folks are skeptical already. They're just not skeptical in the way we want. What'll likely happen if we "teach skepticism" is we'll actually end up scaling up how many folks enter these cycles. Although for those that likely wouldn't enter the cycle, yes they'd be more robust skeptics in other regards eg consumerism. The thing is though this alone would only "work" with people who already aren't likely to go down that path. You would instead introduce more people to that vulnerability, and those who are vulnerable for it, you'd be directly feeding into the thought processing issue that leads to the faulty conclusions.

The "gap" in information I always mention in posts that leads to the theorizing - "skepticism" is a package explainer for a variety of factors that lead us to resisting other explanations and turning our theorizing into the "conspiracy" theorizing. Bob is skeptical that, that plane, is in fact a plane.
"Skepticism" alone is insanely risk too, because "skepticism" is a package, not a thing in itself. If we teach just "skepticism", that is in fact exactly what these types have - they're skeptical of literally everything so they resist every mundane and conventional explanation despite it being the most likely in a majority of cases. I would debate they are more skeptical than us even despite the joke there, the issue is we process that skepticism far more efficiently and accurately, because we are better prepared about how to think through things we're skeptical about.

The issue there partly also, is that we all treat skepticism quite poorly. Yes audiences like here are a cut above the rest but I offer the point that it's not actually as grand as we think. When considering any sort of deception based upon external stimuli, globally accounting for a variety of distinctions like religion and sociocultural factors etc - the average person globally is correct less than 50% of the time. We're likely no more than a couple singular %s above most conspiracy theorists, which isn't as grand as most folks would likely think.

The people with loose "training" in it, such as cops and investigators, just barely cross the 50% line. The cream of the crop, largely being people taught more formal practices surrounding it, barely surrpass 60%. I think the highest cohort ever studied was Secret Service agents and they came in at the lower 60s. They do not reach this from college education or "critical thinkinig" or innoculation or skepticism, it's because they get training in spotting behavioral deception (generally not wider types).

None of these score better than a guess. The only thing that surpasses this is people in analytical fields dedicated to deception, but even in that context you're dealing with teams, large data pools and etc - in that context though you're not really dealing with behavioral deception either gets more into the holistic view of the term.
This angle is better ported for these contexts since it's not just behavioral, BUT with the important note we largely don't do these things/dont do it yet. The abductive reasoning vs deductive is an example, in counterdeception analysis abductive reasoning is the best placed, deductive reinforces and causes more vulnerabilities (abductive also is not an end all, just a better fit since the vulnerabilities are lesser - not, not present).

 

[Mendel]

My concern is, most of us here won't be working in a team making such a discovery, or in a team/ establishment (e.g. a radio observatory) that might verify it. Maybe a few of us know people who might be involved in confirming that an anomalous finding was real, but I'd guess not many of us.
We would be reliant on the reporting of any discovery of ETI (barring, e.g., huge Independence Day/ Skyline-style craft that are directly visible to us and millions of others).

It does make a difference whether the prime number sequence is reported by a reputable observatory (and confirmed by another), or by a "believer" with a handheld radio and it's not reproducible. I would expect that "craft in orbit" to be confirmed by amateur astronomers eventually, there's considerable private interest in space, so I think a deception on that scale would be hard to pull off.

However, this ties in with the topic of how to teach skepticism.
Modern society requires large amounts of trust, and a big part of being skeptical is learning how to recognize trustworthiness. I sometimes point out that the sources conspiracy theorists rely on don't deserve that trust.

The problem here is that many people adopt a kind of shortcut here and assume that anyone who expresses distrust is trustworthy, and that people who express trust are "sheeple" and wrong. And that's not really a reliable heuristic, but once you're caught up in an echo chamber that reinforces the false but trusted information, it's difficult to get to a point where you revoke that trust. Some people do manage, but it's often quite a journey.

That's why I like the media literacy campaigns that stress the importance of looking at sources, and cross-checking them. See e.g. https://www.metabunk.org/threads/media-bias.11554/

 

[FatPhil]

The better path here is teaching proper abductive reasoning. That's the type of thinking process a lot of these types employ to come to their conclusion, except they don't know how to do it "properly" and become overly-vulnerable to expressing a large amount of different biases and heuristic errors. In fact, we are all just as vulnerable to this, and it's not helpful this type of reasoning is not promoted in our society so there is less structural support for understanding and applying it correctly. The issue is *we* don't know when we are doing it, same as the others. Which is why we'll equally debate it in the same way the others here do, sometimes even using the same debate points.

I've never been a fan of pretending there's a *categorical* difference between abductive and inductive reasoning. It's indeed possible to come up with definitions of both such that there are no words in common, but if you unpack those definitions you'll see that cheating has taken place, you're effectively using synonyms or equivalents. Induction's "from an observation" = abduction's "from what you know", because the only things you know have ultimately came from an observation, and all observations are interpreted through a lens of what you know. To me, abduction is just the set of cases where you're more inclined to include the word "probably" in your conclusion.

Being a head-stuck-in-a-hole-in-the-ground(-or-worse) mathmo, I think one of the roots of the problem is an inability to grasp probabilities: not at the numerical level, just at the gut feel level. (Such as the idea that "one-in-a-billion" events will happen to 8 people every day.) Given my perspective, I'm fully prepared to find out I'm horrifically wrong; however, I don't think more statistical literacy can do any harm.

 

[Tezcatlipoca]

I've never been a fan of pretending there's a *categorical* difference between abductive and inductive reasoning. It's indeed possible to come up with definitions of both such that there are no words in common, but if you unpack those definitions you'll see that cheating has taken place, you're effectively using synonyms or equivalents. Induction's "from an observation" = abduction's "from what you know", because the only things you know have ultimately came from an observation, and all observations are interpreted through a lens of what you know. To me, abduction is just the set of cases where you're more inclined to include the word "probably" in your conclusion.

Being a head-stuck-in-a-hole-in-the-ground(-or-worse) mathmo, I think one of the roots of the problem is an inability to grasp probabilities: not at the numerical level, just at the gut feel level. (Such as the idea that "one-in-a-billion" events will happen to 8 people every day.) Given my perspective, I'm fully prepared to find out I'm horrifically wrong; however, I don't think more statistical literacy can do any harm.

I disagree with the first part a bit, although that may come from the directions we're looking at it from. I've shared it quite a few times but folks like Barton Whaley actually did study on this in the context of the analytical fields and did find that to be a distinction impactful during CDA. Technically though it's not like anyone just does one, where I would agree is the frame we technically apply both, although respective to any individual which way is predominate for us differs upon a bunch of factors.

The second I actually agree with! There's an example I've used here a few times of a technique called ACH-CD, it takes the normal ACH (which is vulnerable when weighing deceptive information) and layers it through a Bayesian Belief Network analysis. You might enjoy this study actually it's the big one behind that techniques origination. I do think your conclusion on probability there would track, in fact, I'd even debate a proper "innoculation" metric could include a marked increased ability to grasp statistical concepts in application as such amongst the audience. I'm actually not sure for other cases but at least for the analytical side that is one of the things that leads to errors in processing related information - figure that'd scale similarly in general though.
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA428173.pdf

You can tell here though this is why I note we have to be careful talking about it alongside say how investigators practice other techniques to assess behavioral deception during interviews, very different things.

 

[beku-mant]

I don't think we've yet worked out a very good set of norms in scientific communication and public relations. We heavily guard against unwanted sociological effects, and try to push back against and compensate for what we see as dangerous or undesirable sociocultural trends. But we frame and justify those actions in a misleading, or inconsistent way. We say extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. But we apply that even to hypotheses, or even casual informal suggestion of a possibility, and only for very specific sensative categories. We say, when it comes to those specific categories, a certain kind of hypothesis must be the last resort, and maybe shouldn't even be spokent about until everything else is ruled out.

Meanwhile, theoretical physicists freely propose hypotheses and theories about multiverses, the origin and fate of the universe, retrocausality, quantum consciousness, block-universes, all kinds of different unproven, maybe even unprovable, and very extraordinary things - things that could hardly get more extraordinary. You have dozens and dozens of alternative and conflicting theories, about some of the most extraordinary things possible, being proposed and argued by different people who are nevertheless perceieved as credible scientists.

And this is even considered a good thing. Because the universe is wierd and poorly understood in a lot of ways, and the more people working on these problems from different angles, the less likely we are to have overlooked something. The thing is, it is understood that at the end of the day, what is left unproven is left unproven. Some things scientists are proposing are not even provable, or are unlikely to be, but still welcomed because they are interesting possibilities to think about.

When it comes to aliens, something is very different in how we approach it. A hypothesis about aliens is in truth way less extraordinary than many other claims that scientists make all the time. If the norms prevent people from making hypotheses or even talking about an area of inquiry without risk to their reputation, it effectively closes that area of inquiry off from science.

So why is this one topic treated very differently or inconsistently with how we treat other subjects? Probably for historical and cultural reasons. Maybe a bit to do with human desire to feel like we are at the center of the universe, if not physically, at least spiritually or in terms of intelligence. Maybe it is a byproduct of people being pissed off at fraudsters and hoaxers and pseudo-scientists. Maybe a stigma created and reinforced by bullies.

But, one thing is for sure, it will be an awkward time if it turns out UFOs are real, and especially if it turns out we are being visited by aliens. The inconstency and special rules used to manage public perception about the sensative topic, will shift from something many people accept as some form of responsible scientific communication protocols that were necessary because of how wackadoodle the general public seems, to something considered nefarious, backwards, and stupid.

 

[JMartJr]

So why is this one topic treated very differently or inconsistently with how we treat other subjects?

Is it, though? Requiring proof of claims, especially extraordinary claims, seems to be pretty common! Looking at other claims of a similar paranormal nature, relying on similar sorts and strengths of evidence, I don't see that things like bigfoot, ghosts, ESP and the like are being treated much differently than UFO claims.

 

[FatPhil]

Meanwhile, theoretical physicists freely propose hypotheses and theories about multiverses

Not really. Multiverse are what happens when you remove posulates that would make them impossible. Theoretical physics is basically applied maths (hence the existence of "Department(s) of Applied Maths and Theoretical Physics" such as https://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/ ), and mathematicians are perfectly happy to just remove axioms in order to see what happens with looser restrictions. After all, unless you have a reason to impose that restriction, which you don't (apart from "I don't like it"), then it's a perfectly valid path to follow.

(C.f the Banach–Tarski paradox "a pea can be chopped up and reassembled into the Sun" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banach–Tarski_paradox that arises when you decide that you want the entirely reasonable Zorn's Lemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zorn's_lemma , or the well-ordering theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well-ordering_theorem , to be true - because both of those imply the less-immediately-obvious Axiom of Choice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom_of_choice , which the B-T paradox relies on. Throwing out that axiom removes such paradoxes (though you can argue it's not a real paradox, just definitely something that is superficially uncomfortable in implication), and that's an equally valid system to work within.

But, one thing is for sure, it will be an awkward time if it turns out UFOs are real, and especially if it turns out we are being visited by aliens. The inconstency and special rules used to manage public perception about the sensative topic, will shift from something many people accept as some form of responsible scientific communication protocols that were necessary because of how wackadoodle the general public seems, to something considered nefarious, backwards, and stupid.

What's your payoff matrix? Thence, what's the game-theoretic optimal strategy?

 

[jdog]

But, one thing is for sure, it will be an awkward time if it turns out UFOs are real, and especially if it turns out we are being visited by aliens. The inconstency and special rules used to manage public perception about the sensative topic, will shift from something many people accept as some form of responsible scientific communication protocols that were necessary because of how wackadoodle the general public seems, to something considered nefarious, backwards, and stupid.

I'm sorry, that sounds a bit like telling a football analyst "You're going to look foolish if the Chargers win the Super Bowl this year."

Sure, the Chargers could win and there are always fans who think they will win, but the stats just aren't there to justify picking them over the Ravens.

 

[beku-mant]

Is it, though? Requiring proof of claims, especially extraordinary claims, seems to be pretty common! Looking at other claims of a similar paranormal nature, relying on similar sorts and strengths of evidence, I don't see that things like bigfoot, ghosts, ESP and the like are being treated much differently than UFO claims.

I can point you to a video of David Deutsch claiming there are countless alternative realities coexisting side by side interacting with each other through quantum effects. Or a video from some prestigious physicist claiming there might be an infinite sea of universes that are like bubbles in an endless foam. Or a video where a physicist says there might be infinitely many exact copies of you out there in the vastness of space. Or a physicist who says everything already happened, time is an illusion. Or a physicsit claiming that maybe we live inside of a black hole. Or a physicist claiming time might be 3 dimensional. Or one claiming microtubules in our brains might be causing consciousness by facilitating quantum collapse. And I can go on and on.

If you want some more grounded examples, we have nearly the whole physics community at one time claiming the universe might have started out as an infinitesimal point. Now they just say, well the universe must have been denser. You have physicists saying the universe must be full of dark matter that only interacts gravitationally with normal mass. Now we say, ok, well dark matter actually means any reason for why we can't predict the structure of the universe with just our theory of gravity.

Then you have more mundain science. We see a study that says, neanderthals did this, this dinosaur probably did that. We have scientists saying things like coffee is bad for you, then coffee is good for you. Then we have scientist saying that more than half of all scientific studies are wrong, because we aren't consistently using statistics correctly. We have a seemingly endless supply of papers saying maybe this, maybe that.

Most actively studied scientific subjects are not producing proven results at any given time. Yet the public is treated like they only understand scientist said it so it must be true, as if the scientists are responsible just for telling us what to believe, rather than probing the space of things we don't actually know yet.

When it comes to UFOs, no matter if you compare it to the mundain, or extrarodinary stuff scientists work on, it is treated with radically different norms.

 

[beku-mant]

I'm sorry, that sounds a bit like telling a football analyst "You're going to look foolish if the Chargers win the Super Bowl this year."

Sure, the Chargers could win and there are always fans who think they will win, but the stats just aren't there to justify picking them over the Ravens.

It's not a sensible position in the first place to have such a schizophrenic approach to science and science communication. If we argue it is worth it, to try and manage public beliefs, we still have to justify that. Right now some will agree, some wont. What will happen if it turns out there was something there, is that a whole lot more people will be unhappy with the way things are/were. Regardless if you believe managing public belief through special scientific communication norms is worth it, how about the fact that a much bigger cause of scientific misinformation or misinterpretation stems from your run of the mill news media, which seem consistently incapable of presenting science or scientific results accurately and use misleading click bait, or even worse YouTube, where you get so many AI generated fake science videos that you can hardly search for a real science video and find one unless you already know the YouTuber that created it.

Then we act like scientists are supposed to step in and save us from all of this non-sense. The more we get overwealmed with AI generated fake science, the more they have to jump in and tell us don't beleive this, don't believe that, and we better be careful what we say in case the news hears us and talks about it, and so on. It's not really sustainable. They're already being taken out of context, and there perceived credibility already used by fabricated content. I think we have to bite the bullet and accept it isn't working anyways, and just let scientists be scientists and do science.