What evidence of aliens would convince skeptics?

[Mendel]

If you want to argue that some efforts some people have made were not scientific, or even that most have not been, that is a valid argument I would even agree with.

Thank you!

But you're making an argument not just about those people you don't like, you're making a philosophical statement about science itself. You're making claims about every person trying to demystify UFOs now and in the past, and also everyone that could ever exist in the future.

• "people you don't like" — this is not personal. We're talking about methods potrayed as scientific when they're not. It's not about whom I like.
• "You're making claims about every person trying to demystify UFOs now and in the past" — I'd love to know whete you took that from; quoting me would be helpful here. I made claims about people trying to mystify uncommon observations. Demystification is fine.

Surely you can tell me what you've learned about UFOs from ufologists? or what is less mysterious about them to you than before you started learning from those stigmatized people?
I'll take a simple fact about UFOs, or the name of a single successful UFO believer and what observation they demystified.

What I am observing is Graves mystifying Starlink flares as "threats", Elizondo mystifying a window reflection as "mothership" and a circular crop as UFO, Grusch crafting hearsay into facts and revocation of access into persecution, and Brown mystifying a wargame szenario into an actual project. I see mystifiers at work, not demystifiers.

You claim they exist. Who are they?

 

[Mauro]

Anyone can arbitrarily set the threshold to accept anything as true as high as they want, up to an including infinity. To make use of any information in the real world, we have to practice some kind of epistemics.

We surely have to practice some kind of epistemics, but avoiding logical fallacies surely makes one's epistemology better.

beku-mant said: Either they are all lying, or some of them saw something extraordinary.

Mauro said: This is properly called a false dichotomy

You should revise your premise: being it fallacious, it automatically invalidates all the reasoning which follows. No need to even read it.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

The point I made originally isn't tangential, it's just being lost in the noise and backlash.

We might never know for sure if aliens are observing us, or if some UFOs were alien craft. We can all come up with a threshold in the level of evidence we require before believing it. But unless you're just a simpleton who is uninterested and irrelevant, why just a binary threshold? Will your attitude, interests, and actions flip from 0 to 1 the moment that threshold is crossed? Are we all supposed to agree on the threshold, and then act like its all nonsense up until the point we're all convinced and then suddenly all treat it like a mega big deal? Before that happens, you're insane if you believe it, and after you're fine? Before that scientists are ridiculed for trying to figure it out, after they're legit? Before that no need for transparency about what the government knows, after OK now we should get to see it?

I would like to have a civil conversation about your statement. Would you mind showing me evidence of any negative thing any Skeptic has ever done to you?

 

[Mendel]

The point I made originally isn't tangential, it's just being lost in the noise and backlash.

We might never know for sure if aliens are observing us, or if some UFOs were alien craft. We can all come up with a threshold in the level of evidence we require before believing it. But unless you're just a simpleton who is uninterested and irrelevant, why just a binary threshold? Will your attitude, interests, and actions flip from 0 to 1 the moment that threshold is crossed? Are we all supposed to agree on the threshold, and then act like its all nonsense up until the point we're all convinced and then suddenly all treat it like a mega big deal? Before that happens, you're insane if you believe it, and after you're fine? Before that scientists are ridiculed for trying to figure it out, after they're legit? Before that no need for transparency about what the government knows, after OK now we should get to see it?

That's a fine example of a "slippery slope" fallacy.

You assume that we (or "the government") have evidence of alien visitors that scientists could figure out, if only the conditions were right.
I assume that this kind of evidence does not exist.
That is indeed binary, and there is nothing to flip.
But only one of us is a conspiracy theorist.

 

[beku-mant]

We surely have to practice some kind of epistemics, but avoiding logical fallacies surely makes one's epistemology better.

Depending on how skeptical you are about what, every dichotomy can be claimed to be a false dichotomy. But it is fine, I am asserting that it is not plausible that all of the witnesses are not lying and none of them witnessed anything extraordinary. Technically it is possible, as is anything for all we know, but it's so exceedingly unlikely that we can safely consider the chance negligible for all practical purposes.

 

[Mendel]

Depending on how skeptical you are about what, every dichotomy can be claimed to be a false dichotomy. But it is fine, I am asserting that it is not plausible that all of the witnesses are not lying and none of them witnessed anything extraordinary. Technically it is possible, as is anything for all we know, but it's so exceedingly unlikely that we can safely consider the chance negligible for all practical purposes.

Witchcraft exists, via the same argument. Ask the good citizens of Salem!

Many witnesses experienced something that seemed extraordinary to them. But that does not necessarily mean that the experience was caused by something unknown, or (if unknown) unnatural (e.g. red sprites).

 

[Mauro]

Depending on how skeptical you are about what, every dichotomy can be claimed to be a false dichotomy.

Surely it's true any dichotomy can be claimed as false, but so what? Does it rescue your dichotomy "either they are all lying, or some of them saw something extraordinary" from being false (because, for instance, the rest of them was mistaken)? If you think it does (as your answer above seems to suggest) you should really revise your epistemology.

 

[beku-mant]

Thank you!

• "people you don't like" — this is not personal. We're talking about methods potrayed as scientific when they're not. It's not about whom I like.
• "You're making claims about every person trying to demystify UFOs now and in the past" — I'd love to know whete you took that from; quoting me would be helpful here. I made claims about people trying to mystify uncommon observations. Demystification is fine.

Surely you can tell me what you've learned about UFOs from ufologists? or what is less mysterious about them to you than before you started learning from those stigmatized people?
I'll take a simple fact about UFOs, or the name of a single successful UFO believer and what observation they demystified.

What I am observing is Graves mystifying Starlink flares as "threats", Elizondo mystifying a window reflection as "mothership" and a circular crop as UFO, Grusch crafting hearsay into facts and revocation of access into persecution, and Brown mystifying a wargame szenario into an actual project. I see mystifiers at work, not demystifiers.

You claim they exist. Who are they?

First, you don't really have to be a scientist doing science to contribute something. You can simply be someone gathering information, documenting eyewitness testimony, and making it accessible. You can be someone advocating for transparency, helping to improve our ability to detect things, to reduce the stigma or legal barriers to reporting things. You can be simply pointing instruments in the sky. Happening to capture good data, isn't something you necessarily need scientific training for, or a formal hypothesis to motivate. Of course, if the data is not completely obvious what is shows, then scientists will have a role to play subsequently. Lots of non-scientists have been helpful, including people here who primarily try to analyze videos and photographs and figure out what they actually show or if they are real.

Among all of these people, I think some have questionable motives/agendas, and varying degrees of competency. Undoubtedly some have a lot more influence than they deserve in terms of informing beliefs among the general public. And some people make mistakes.

And then you have some people who are taking a scientific approach. Not nearly as many as there should be. I thought you had argued previously that can't be done, which obviously I think is absurd, but then you seem to have changed your tune, or I misunderstood what you were saying.

The one thing that remains constant, we have not yet demystified the UFO phenomenon. The belief that it must be all nonsense is naive.

 

[beku-mant]

Surely it's true any dichotomy can be claimed as false, but so what? Does it rescue your dichotomy "either they are all lying, or some of them saw something extraordinary" from being false (because, for instance, the rest of them was mistaken)? If you think it does (as your answer above seems to suggest) you should really revise your epistemology.

Or maybe you should revise yours.

 

[Gary C]

They also aren't afraid to talk about these things in spaces where the public can hear them.

It's going to be mainly amateurs speculating about what's going on with UFOS as long as we keep blocking scientists from studying it.

...

As @Ann K pointed out, you have repeatedly used this particular phrase. It might be helpful for you to unpack exactly what you mean by that.

Scientists have to eat making research something someone has to pay for. After ploughing through a Batchelor's, a Master's, and a PhD, you finally get to write your own proposals and strike out in new directions. The sticking point is getting someone to pay for it.

If you are a subject matter expert in quantum field theory, you likely already understand the flaws in contemporary fixations on warp drives, etc. and instead have specific ideas about the mathematical manifolds that underlie controversies surrounding additional dimensions. You have several ideas on how to resolve some of the those controversies, but there is that pesky 'eating' problem.

Your obvious course is to write up what you believe to be the most promising research ideas and start working your way through the many committees throughout global academia that have what you need, money. Those committees will in due course pass on the proposals they find most interesting to subject matter exerts already working at your level to get a sense of the probability of success and simultaneously screen for errors above their own expertise. After enough meetings and emails have been exchanged, you get money. Or not. Despite the difficulties, this is your surest path to a Nobel Prize.

Of course you could try to get funding from DoD which in reality means Congress. The caveat here is that our nation's capital has an excess population of influential people who are fine with spending taxpayer dollars on a new Little League Baseball Museum because, 'the South Eastern corner of our great state does not have this critical learning facility.' The best example of a product this path has yielded to date is (arguably) this https://www.metabunk.org/threads/aaro-2024-annual-report-on-uap.13762/

Your third option (unless you are already a billionaire) is to find a wealthy patron or sufficiently large group of interested amateurs to privately fund your work. To date, those efforts look like this
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/debunk-bigelow-aerospace-is-obsessed-with-ufos-and-ets.974/

So let's be clear. Serious people with serious money and serious backgrounds in cutting edge science are not willing to put time and resources into searches for aliens that cannot be laid out in the manner of other serious research. Hence, SETI, is one scientific approach to the question, your objections notwithstanding.

Calling the unwillingness of the people who pass out limited research funds to allocate them to UFOlogy "blocking" is not advancing your case.

my two cents

 

[Mendel]

First, you don't really have to be a scientist doing science to contribute something.

Agreed. You can contribute to entertainment, or you can contribute to pseudoscience and make the world worse.

Happening to capture good data, isn't something you necessarily need scientific training for,

As the Tedesco fiasco shows, scientific training helps, though.
Though my main argument would be that it helps recognize the difference between science and pseudoscience.

And then you have some people who are taking a scientific approach.

WHO???

I thought you had argued previously that can't be done, which obviously I think is absurd, but then you seem to have changed your tune, or I misunderstood what you were saying.

Yes. I've argued UFO believers cannot "demystify" UFOs given the data that we have. And you agree with me (thank you!) that it has not been done yet:

The one thing that remains constant, we have not yet demystified the UFO phenomenon.

However, the fact that people have, since Roswell, tried to find good evidence for UFOs and failed, passes you by completely, because you then continue:

The belief that it must be all nonsense is naive.

The opposite is true. You continue to believe UFOs can be "demystified", and that it's "naive" to think it's impossible, when over half a century of effort has not produced a single shred of success.

I'd call it naive to simply claim something can be done, when people have tried for half a century with zero progress, and no plan on how to overcome the obstacles except for "the government knows".

You haven't given even a single example of how "demystification" would work.

 

[John J.]

However, one must note that being on nationwide television, and exciting, doesn't impute increased likelyhood that the content is good science, perhaps quite the opposite.

I happily admit that me being excited by a TV science program as a very small child does not mean that program was good science.**
But that is not the point I was trying to make.

Beku-mant has been claiming there is some sort of resistance, obstacle or stigma to scientists discussing / investigating the possibility of extraterrestrial life;

When it comes to aliens, something is very different in how we approach it.

The 1977 Royal Institution* Christmas Lectures by Sagan are evidence (there are many, many other examples) that this just isn't so.
(Not sure how relevant Eric Laithwaite's problematic 1974 RI lectures (The gyroscope, an engineer and the Christmas Lectures) are to this).
The possibility of alien life, and intelligent alien life, was discussed on national TV without being considered bizarre, without attempts to censor or marginalise either the program or its presenter (Sagan). Sagan went on to become more respected and more well-known to the public.

The taxpayer has funded SETI via programs / projects proposed by mainstream academics and approved by government.

There are other examples. Sagan went on to write and host Cosmos, which also discussed the possibility of ET life and ETI:

The series was first broadcast by the Public Broadcasting Service in 1980, and was the most widely watched series in the history of American public television until The Civil War (1990). As of 2009, it was still the most widely watched PBS series in the world.

Nationally and internationally broadcast, with a huge audience. No censorship. No ridicule. No negative career repercussions.

Efforts are underway to use the James Webb space-based telescope to look for biosignatures from exoplanet atmospheres.

Beku-mant's contention, that there is some form of resistance to discussing hypotheses involving aliens is simply incorrect.
Re. Sagan's 1977 RI lectures,

They talked about radio astronomy based SETI, and things like Dyson spheres, but not SETI in general.

Radio astronomy based SETI is the main part of SETI in general.
Looking for things you cannot immediately identify with a small telescope or binos is not generally considered a contribution to SETI, it is UFO-hunting. There is no evidence that there is any connection between sightings/ claims of UFOs and extraterrestrial life.
The connection exists in the beliefs of UFO enthusiasts.

In fairness, @beku-mant is right, there isn't much discussion of SETI per se in the episode I was thinking about (episode 6, Planetary Systems Beyond our Sun), but there very clearly is discussion of hypothetical extraterrestrial intelligence in a sympathetic, non-critical manner, by a mainstream (and increasingly respected) astronomer. There is discussion relating to CETI (communication with ETI) which presupposes that SETI might be successful. Sagan had been invited to talk by one of the oldest (and arguably "mainstream") science societies in the world. The talks were broadcast across the UK on nationwide TV. There was no backlash. No censorship. No ridicule.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X__kbLv25uU&t=1228s


Professional scientists (and engineers) are usually fairly bright people who have received an extended education. The successful ones know how to test hypotheses and assess the results. Their methods are replicable, their conclusions testable (and if correct, repeatable).
It is indisputable that there are scientists and engineers involved in SETI, and they are not professionally hampered or censored.
Use of the James Webb telescope (or the Arecibo dish back in the day) isn't something done covertly during a lunch break.

"We keep blocking them" smacks of pure conspiracy theory.

Agreed.

Obviously the possibility an ETI could have already sent probes here has been, and still is, very heavily stigmatized

By whom? And why is it obvious?
The idea that UFO sightings have anything to do with ETI probes is arguably stigmatised, mainly by the actions and beliefs of UFO enthusiasts who seem (I'm generalising) more interested in collecting- and believing- ever greater numbers of anecdotes and shoddy claims of "evidence" than testing the hypothesis that UFOs are ETI artefacts. They want to believe, not know.

The Fermi paradox (1950) holds it as axiomatic that interstellar travel is possible, and that ETI civilisations would embark on it. Fermi's reputation as a scientist was not harmed.

If many scientists involved in SETI do not think that UFO hunting is a productive activity in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, maybe they're right.
Maybe they've not been intimidated, censored, railroaded or brainwashed; maybe the highly qualified, bright people who spend a portion of their working lives on SETI disagree with UFO enthusiasts for perfectly rational, honestly-held and respectable reasons.

In post #218 @beku-mant quotes American theoretical physicist Sean Carroll;

We've looked for intelligent life, but we've looked in the dumbest way we can, by turning radio telescopes to the sky, and why in the world would a super advanced civilization randomly beam radio signals .. that doesn't make any sense ... if you though that there were other solar systems with with planets around them, where maybe intelligent life didn't yet exist but might someday, you wouldn't try to talk to it with radio waves, you would send a spacecraft there, and you would park it.

I suspect many scientists involved in SETI (and Carroll is not, and never has been AFAIK) would state that using radio telescopes to listen for signals is probably our best bet at present. They probably would not consider themselves as doing something "dumb".

Studying UFO sightings is not a rational alternative, unless you believe randy red-headed spacewomen seducing Brazilian tractor drivers tells us something about life elsewhere in the universe (it might tell us something about life on Earth), or that if we watch enough phone cam footage of airliners over New Jersey, late 2024, we will eventually find unambiguous footage of an exotic flying vehicle.
Carroll:

...why in the world would a super advanced civilization randomly beam radio signals...

(1) No-one's expecting ETI to "randomly" beam radio signals. That would be wasteful, and irrational. If ETI are interested in contacting other intelligent species, they would presumably put some thought into where they would aim their signal, and choose promising candidate systems.

(2) It's relatively cheap. If there are intelligences out there listening, it could be effective.
We are listening. Of all the technological species ever known to have existed, 100% are listening for radio messages from other intelligences.

(3) As well as being cheap, it is a technology that might be available to technological societies from relatively early on (if we are anything to go by). Ergo, if the intention is to contact other civilisations, radio messages would be receivable by the widest range of technological societies- newbies as well as seniors.

Carroll:

...if you though that there were other solar systems with with planets around them, where maybe intelligent life didn't yet exist but might someday, you wouldn't try to talk to it with radio waves, you would send a spacecraft there, and you would park it.

While we cannot know the capabilities of technologies in advance of our own, Sean Carroll might be being a bit optimistic about the abilities of a complex functioning artefact to continue in operation for (presumably) millions of years. It would require a considerable attention span (and societal stability) on the part of ETI.
Delivery of a functioning craft across interstellar distances would presumably be very expensive.
Radio communication is cheap, and easy to repeat.

How many radio signals could be sent, frequencies listened to, in the millions of years while you're waiting for your space probe -if it has survived- to detect the possible evolution of intelligent life? At what miniscule fraction of the cost?
It might be rare for intelligence to arise, even on planets with life (let's assume an ETI has the capability to detect biosignatures in exoplanet atmospheres; we're probably close to that capability). So the ETI might have to send out many very expensive interstellar probes.
And then maybe wait for millions of years. Somehow, using radio telescopes for SETI doesn't seem quite as dumb as Carroll said.

Re. his hypothetical interstellar probe, Carroll says "park it"; he is not suggesting that such a craft would do occasional flits, from its orbital anonymity, to Mount Rainier, Washington D.C. or Pascagoula (using who only knows what propulsion to get back into space).
But it is a tenet of UFO enthusiasts- or at least those who advocate looking for UFOs as some form of SETI- that this is exactly what is happening, and it happens on a regular basis.
And after millions of years waiting for a technological society to arise, the alien craft has a particular interest in lumberjacks, blokes out fishing, an embankment in Council Bluffs and a pair of F/A-18s (which, while formidable by our standards, are by no means the most capable or advanced combat aircraft in general service, and arguably never were).

It would have to be able to communicate its findings back to its originators: By radio? Lasers have been mooted as a possible communication system, but the power required might be prohibitive for a modest, million-year old space probe.

The United States now tracks all objects down to approx. 10cm/ 4 inches in size in near Earth orbit:

This series of visualizations illustrates the population of objects orbiting Earth as of February 2024. The data comes from United States Space Command (USSPACECOM), via space-track.org, which maintains a publicly available catalog of trackable objects in space. These include active satellites, defunct spacecraft, rocket bodies, and debris fragments larger than roughly 10 cm in low Earth orbit.

NASA, "Tracking Satellites and Space Debris in Earth Orbit (Feb 2024)", 16 June 2025 https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/5258

It is likely this coverage will be significantly extended in the near future,

A powerful new radar system designed to detect and track objects in distant orbits above Earth has passed a key initial test.
The "Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability," or DARC, is a multi-site radar system being developed by the U.S. Space Force and its counterparts in the United Kingdom and Australia. Once complete, the system will consist of three separate sites spread out around the globe that will allow these three nations, who make up the the AUKUS security partnership, to keep tabs on what's happening in geosynchronous orbit (GEO), which is found around 22,000 miles (35,500 km) above Earth.

"US Space Force's new deep space radar tracks multiple satellites 22,000 miles away in key test", Space.com website, Brett Tingley 14 August 2025 https://www.space.com/technology/us...iple-satellites-22-000-miles-away-in-key-test

Needless to say, there hasn't been a detection of a possible ETI artefact.
Unless there's been a cover-up.

Another possibility is that the alien craft in orbit, L1 or wherever is stealthed to avoid detection by space-tracking radar (and presumably ballistic missile early warning systems during its forays Earthside), but is strangely observable to UFO fans during its frequent visits.
While it is not meant to be observed, through some design oversight by the ETI, it is more visible than e.g. a contemporary human military reconnaissance drone is to people on the ground.


___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
* Royal Institution, Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Institution, see also https://www.rigb.org/explore-science/explore/video/planets-planetary-systems-beyond-our-sun-1977.
In earlier posts I had carelessly written "Royal Society", which is incorrect.

** I'm not aware of any serious criticism of the content of Carl Sagan's Royal Institution 1977 Christmas Lectures.
I was under the impression that they were very well-received, perhaps anyone knowing otherwise can PM me.
They were aimed primarily at children and young people, as all RI Christmas Lectures in recent decades have been. The aim of the lectures is to educate and to popularise science.

 

[John J.]

The most compelling UFO events were not observed in low information zones. They are claimed to have been viewed up close, by many people, doing unambiguously extraordinary things. Either they are all lying, or some of them saw something extraordinary.

Or they misinterpreted what they were seeing.
Or their recall of the event was not accurate.
Or they hallucinated, for whatever reason.
Or a dreaming state was not identified on waking.

"They are giving an accurate account of something that was exactly as they describe" versus "They are lying" is an unhelpful, and grossly misrepresentative, dichotomy.

We know human perception and recall is imperfect. We know that highly motivated, intelligent, trustworthy people sometimes misidentify things and can make terrible errors of judgement:
In 2004 two F/A-18 pilots saw Tic-Tacs. In 2003 two A-10 pilots saw allied tracked vehicles displaying orange air recognition panels, identified the vehicles as a specific type of truck and the orange panels- whose whole purpose was to identify the vehicles as friendly to close air support aircraft (i.e. the A-10s)- as missiles. They engaged the vehicles, killing one allied soldier and maiming others (this post).

Incidentally, we do know that human beings lie. Regularly. Including police officers, pilots, surgeons, scientists, special forces soldiers etc. etc.
Even otherwise admirable people, and not always for clearly discernible or rational reasons.

...that is largely because I myself have seen something extraordinary.

So have I, or thought I did.
But we can all be mistaken, which is why testable evidence is crucial.

 

[beku-mant]

But we can all be mistaken, which is why testable evidence is crucial.

Requiring testable evidence before believing is one thing, declaring it's all non-sense and vehemently discrediting anyone trying to figure it out is another.

 

[beku-mant]

Or they misinterpreted what they were seeing.
Or their recall of the event was not accurate.
Or they hallucinated, for whatever reason.
Or a dreaming state was not identified on waking.

There are many events for which all of these explanations are just dumb. You can be quick to believe a dumb explanation for something unexplained, and decide there's no more work to be done, but that doesn't make you a skeptic.

 

[Mendel]

Requiring testable evidence before believing is one thing, declaring it's all non-sense and vehemently discrediting anyone trying to figure it out is another.

WHO???
Who did that?
To whom?

Are you trying to stigmatize debunking?

Didn't we just talk about false dichotomies? And here you are, positing another one!

 

[Mendel]

There are many events for which all of these explanations are just dumb.

Then. Cite. Some. Examples.
Please.

Metabunk has many examples of UFO events where the witnesses or the communicators were mistaken.
Do you claim that these people were lying in every case?
We definitely don't.

@John J. has extended your two-item list (genuine experience, lie) by 4 other items (misinterpretrated, misremembered, hallucinated, dream state), changing your dichotomy into a list of 6 options.
You are building a straw man when you argue as if @John J. had struck "genuine experience" off the list, which he did not do. He merely gave examples of the ways in which your dichotomy is insufficient and thereby fallacious. It's a rhetoric technique that leads you to wrong conclusions, and you should abandon it.

 

[beku-mant]

Metabunk has many examples of UFO events where the witnesses or the communicators were mistaken.
Do you claim that these people were lying in every case?
We definitely don't.

@John J. has extended your two-item list (genuine experience, lie) by 4 other items (misinterpretrated, misremembered, hallucinated, dream state), changing your dichotomy into a list of 6 options.
You are building a straw man when you argue as if @John J. had struck "genuine experience" off the list, which he did not do. He merely gave examples of the ways in which your dichotomy is insufficient and thereby fallacious. It's a rhetoric technique that leads you to wrong conclusions, and you should abandon it.

You're right I totally misstated what I meant to say. I meant to say that there is a subset of cases for which the misinterpretation, misremembered, hallucinated, dream state, etc., are all not viable explanations. That subset, I feel, can be reduced to all lying or some of them experienced something extraordinary that we have no conventional explanation for.

 

[Mendel]

You're right I totally misstated what I meant to say. I meant to say that there is a subset of cases for which the misinterpretation, misremembered, hallucinated, dream state, etc., are all not viable explanations. That subset, I feel, can be reduced to all lying or some of them experienced something extraordinary that we have no conventional explanation for.

Agreed, thank you.

If you tell us how to recognize that subset, you will have answered the thread question: What evidence of aliens would convince you?

 

[beku-mant]

Agreed, thank you.

If you tell us how to recognize that subset, you will have answered the thread question: What evidence of aliens would convince you?

I didn't say that subset has to be all lies, or some alien encounters. I said extraordinary. And not in the rare but mundane coincidence sense. Although ETI is the arguably one of the most plausible explanations in the event a technology is assumed to exist that far exceeds the bounds of known technology.

 

[Mendel]

I didn't say that subset has to be all lies, or some alien encounters. I said extraordinary. And not in the rare but mundane coincidence sense. Although ETI is the arguably one of the most plausible explanations in the event a technology is assumed to exist that far exceeds the bounds of known technology.

I notice you did not answer the question.

 

[FatPhil]

I didn't say that subset has to be all lies, or some alien encounters. I said extraordinary. And not in the rare but mundane coincidence sense. Although ETI is the arguably one of the most plausible explanations in the event a technology is assumed to exist that far exceeds the bounds of known technology.

No, *the act of making an assumption being wrong thing to do* is the best explanation in the event that a technology is assumed to exist that far exceeds the bounds of known technology.

You can't legitimately pull out as a conclusion the thing that you're shoving in as a premise.

[EDIT: added "the act of" hopefully to clarify what is wrong]

 

[beku-mant]

No, *making an assumption being wrong thing to do* is the best explanation in the event that a technology is assumed to exist that far exceeds the bounds of known technology.

You can't legitimately pull out as a conclusion the thing that you're shoving in as a premise.

In this case, the assumption is a tool. A complete analysis will be lengthy and difficult, and definitely beyond the scope of a quick comment. In reality, that assumption would represent one possibility you would weigh, and aliens being the best explanation under that assumption can be thought of as short for saying that as the weight for the possibility that it is a technology far beyond the capabilities of known human technology increases, so does the weight for the possibility that it is a non-human technology.

 

[Mendel]

Although ETI is the arguably one of the most plausible explanations in the event a technology is assumed to exist that far exceeds the bounds of known technology.

There hasn't been any evidence to support that assumption. "Metamaterials" have been shown to be aluminum alloys or metal slag or coal ash spherules or resembling a windmill part, all well within the bounds of known technology.
None of the data we have justifies this assumption as "most plausible". Its effect is always to mystify an observation, not to demystify it.

so does the weight for the possibility that it is a non-human technology.

There is no justification to set this weight at anything else than zero, given the evidence that we have.

 

[FatPhil]

Or they misinterpreted what they were seeing.
Or their recall of the event was not accurate.
Or they hallucinated, for whatever reason.
Or a dreaming state was not identified on waking.

And even your first point can be split up into several quite different sub-cases:
- they were simply unaware of the mundane explanation, so had no option to select it as a possibility
- they were unfamiliar enough with the mundane explanation, so that they rejected it as a possibility as it didn't match what they did know.

And the first of those can be broken down into sub-cases:
- there was simply no opportunity for them to become aware of the possibility
- the close environment they were in (family/cult/...) deliberately prevented them from learning about the possibility
- they deliberately chose to not avail themselves of opportunities to broaden their horizons and learn about such things
(These situations can of course leech into the second case too.)

Most of these make the mistake a perfectly innocent one, definitely unconnected with "lying". I like to think most skeptics shy away from the word "lying", and when it is used, it's because the situation does tick all of the necessary boxes. (Note that bullshitting is a weaker claim than lying, we'll use that more.)

 

[JMartJr]

But it is fine, I am asserting that it is not plausible that all of the witnesses are not lying and none of them witnessed anything extraordinary.

I think that is two different things: whether or not they are all lying, and whether or not they saw something extraordinary.

I would absolutely agree with you that it is unlikely they are all lying, especially given the example raised earlier of the Phoenix Lights, in which we see a large number of witnesses who do not seem to have been lying (SOME of them might have been , as the incident got more publicity and some number of people might have made false claims of having witnessed it, to get in on the excitement. But the large number of people GENERATING the reports that THEN led to the excitement, and the fact that what was seen has been identified and was real indicates that many witnesses here were not lying about having seen something that was at least close to what was described.)

However, being honest does not necessarily equal being correct! If I honestly report a mistaken observstion, my honesty does not make my report correct.

On the other hand, the Phoenix Lights case is one of many that illustrate that there is no requirement that something extraordinary has actually been observed to generate an extraordinary report -- in this case, involving a huge triangular flying thing that did not, in fact, exist. The INTERPRETATION put on events by witnesses can be completely wrong, even if everybody involved is being absolutely honest about what they are reporting.

So, while being honest does not necessarily equal being correct, it is also true that being wrong does not equal being dishonest.

So there are at least three possible categories of witnesses in these reports: those who are honest and correct, those who are lying and incorrect, AND those who are honest but incorrect. (Therefore the dichotomy as presented is incomplete.)

I am not aware of ANY mass witness (or other) case where it has been proven that something extraordinary has been observed. Proof being perhaps an unfair standard (if it was proven, after all, it would have ceased being a Metabunk topic!) But I am also unaware of any mass witness (or other) case where there is even strong evidence that something extraordinary has been observed. Even less so that aliens (the topic of this thread, after all) have been observed.

(Note that, just speaking for me, there cannot be a case where I'd consider unsupported eyewitness testimony by itself to be convincing evidence that proves anything -- people are too unreliable as witnesses. People make mistakes in observations, people make mistakes in interpretation of that they witnessed and, sadly, some people some of the time do lie. This is not to assert that any strange report MUST be wrong due to one of those factors; rather that we can't ever rule OUT those factors in cases where eyewitness testimony is not supported by other evidence, and therefore the evidence of eyewitnesses can never, by iteslf, prove UFOs are alien spaceships.)

I did see that you do not think the Phoenix Lights case is a good example to be discussing, I used it as it is the mass-witness case with which I am most familiar. If you have a different case you think ought to be considered, instead (or as well) please bring it into the conversation -- if it has not been discussed here already, it might be best to also start a new thread to discuss it...

 

[Tezcatlipoca]

And even your first point can be split up into several quite different sub-cases:
- they were simply unaware of the mundane explanation, so had no option to select it as a possibility
- they were unfamiliar enough with the mundane explanation, so that they rejected it as a possibility as it didn't match what they did know.

And the first of those can be broken down into sub-cases:
- there was simply no opportunity for them to become aware of the possibility
- the close environment they were in (family/cult/...) deliberately prevented them from learning about the possibility
- they deliberately chose to not avail themselves of opportunities to broaden their horizons and learn about such things
(These situations can of course leech into the second case too.)

Most of these make the mistake a perfectly innocent one, definitely unconnected with "lying". I like to think most skeptics shy away from the word "lying", and when it is used, it's because the situation does tick all of the necessary boxes. (Note that bullshitting is a weaker claim than lying, we'll use that more.)

Spot on. This is one area where we kind of create a snag for ourselves due to how 'bad' we treat these terms, but then also throw them all together as the same type of bad term. A lie seeks to deceive. A lot of these cases instead would be things like misleading, which is not inherently intentional and more often than not does not require a lie (statement made with intent to deceive). You can get something wrong and it result in the other being misled.

 

[John J.]

@beku-mant, may I ask what evidence would convince you of the existence of aliens visiting Earth?

Your criteria of acceptance, not so much a specific case that you have found compelling (though that would be interesting too).

I think it's likely that the majority of regular posters here don't think that the evidence supports the theory that aliens are visiting/ have visited Earth, but objective reality doesn't always conform to majority viewpoints, and if you have a different point of view to many of us it might be helpful for those of us who might disagree with you to try and understand why / how you came to your conclusions.

 

[FatPhil]

A lie seeks to deceive. A lot of these cases instead would be things like misleading, which is not inherently intentional and more often than not does not require a lie (statement made with intent to deceive). You can get something wrong and it result in the other being misled.

I have a weaker/broader definition of "lie" than most. In the same way that "The Three Laws" in /Handbook of Robotics/ add "or through inaction" to agential causing of harm, I like to include the slightly less deliberate lie-like behaviours in the class of "lies" - such as where ignorance itself is deliberate - which it often is. In many cases, you could call these lies by proxy, I guess, and I'm applying group culpability. They *are* intending to do whatever it is their source intended to do - that they don't know it's a deception ain't my fault.

 

[Tezcatlipoca]

I have a weaker/broader definition of "lie" than most. In the same way that "The Three Laws" in /Handbook of Robotics/ add "or through inaction" to agential causing of harm, I like to include the slightly less deliberate lie-like behaviours in the class of "lies" - such as where ignorance itself is deliberate - which it often is. In many cases, you could call these lies by proxy, I guess, and I'm applying group culpability. They *are* intending to do whatever it is their source intended to do - that they don't know it's a deception ain't my fault.

That's understandable, I always note my angle there is a bit odder since there's a broader consideration of specifics there that isn't really relevant to the social application unless you're explicitly viewing it through that frame. I would term the example you gave there through deceive/deceiving/deception (any attempt by words or actions intended to distort another person's or group's perception of reality). This could or could not use a "lie".

I've used the terms before you might've seen, but part of that set of conceptions there's 'projecting the false' and 'obfuscating the real'/'masking the real' - basically the two broadest categorical set of intents & related actions. Projecting the false would always be a lie, obfuscating/masking wouldn't inherently be though. That part gets more into what you're getting at but with a note below about 'why'.
In that context, one thing the social thought and some areas of study get too narrow is presenting it as an absolute either or. Technically you are doing both at the same time, we just may only be thinking of one and not both factors. For example, by feigning ignorance about something, you could debate there are cases where the persons only intent was to say obfuscate their true emotions. Although feigning ignorance itself would be a false projection, and you'd likely make statements aligned to it. You just may not be thinking about that or intending it.
Above-average deceivers, whether or not they know the fancy concepts (think "natural" machiavellian types, etc) generally 'touch' both of these rather than the average form of just intending one. This is also a factor in why we can sometimes have intuitive tells to when someone is potentially deceiving us, because in that average form the behavior is aligned to that one angle and gaps are left in the other that create more "incongruities" for our processing of what they say/do.

 

[Ann K]

Spot on. This is one area where we kind of create a snag for ourselves due to how 'bad' we treat these terms, but then also throw them all together as the same type of bad term. A lie seeks to deceive. A lot of these cases instead would be things like misleading, which is not inherently intentional and more often than not does not require a lie (statement made with intent to deceive). You can get something wrong and it result in the other being misled.

Perhaps there's another factor to be considered, and that is the tendency to give more weight to the opinion of a respected person. If there are several witnesses and a kid in the street says "Wow, did you see how fast that thing was going?", it's just a sort of background noise to the event. If a person of some importance in the community says "That speed is faster than any earthly craft", I think that narrative is more likely to be what other viewers "remember". I'm not sure what to call it; perhaps "memory manipulation", and of course the (perhaps unwitting) manipulator is subject to the same factors we have been considering, such as lying, being mistaken, etc.

 

[Tezcatlipoca]

Perhaps there's another factor to be considered, and that is the tendency to give more weight to the opinion of a respected person. If there are several witnesses and a kid in the street says "Wow, did you see how fast that thing was going?", it's just a sort of background noise to the event. If a person of some importance in the community says "That speed is faster than any earthly craft", I think that narrative is more likely to be what other viewers "remember". I'm not sure what to call it; perhaps "memory manipulation", and of course the (perhaps unwitting) manipulator is subject to the same factors we have been considering, such as lying, being mistaken, etc.

Honestly if we cranked it back a mere 10 years, there'd only be like 20 or so terms for this for different theories and etc across different fields. We now have like 50+ and I'm confident there's more than plenty I've no idea about.
As to the second part, that person would be a deceiver. I wrote a post just as you posted that went into that some and might frame it in a way that's helpful. You can find conceptual and theory terms related to things like "memory manipulation" absolutely, there's a large abundance of these but it's difficult to give a proper one without an actual live example. Even then a lot of those are debatably just competing terms with varying levels of complexity rather than being truly standalone concepts or theories (or very robust ones integrating the full suite of knowledge) - so you'll always be able to find more (doesn't mean no insight can be derived from any either!).

For the cog bias and etc side -
It also depends what angle you take. For example, if you're dealing with anthro, sociology, or sociocultural views on psychology - you may have to consider the relevancy of things like the aesthetic-usability effect which for the individual is heavily developed through sociocultural lenses. This may be a contributing or reinforcing factor to an eventual authority bias based upon whether the individual develops the perception that authority figure is positive and beneficial to what the AEC is centered around.

All of the "biases" and "effects" work like this too, none work alone in a silo and all contribute, reinforce, and/or regulate one another to some extent.
In more direct terms though you're probably thinking more directly of ones like authority bias, "celebrity bias", anchoring bias (debatably can happen with individuals/personalities), group thinking/groupthink, ingroup bias, etc.

 

[beku-mant]

@beku-mant, may I ask what evidence would convince you of the existence of aliens visiting Earth?

Your criteria of acceptance, not so much a specific case that you have found compelling (though that would be interesting too).

I think it's likely that the majority of regular posters here don't think that the evidence supports the theory that aliens are visiting/ have visited Earth, but objective reality doesn't always conform to majority viewpoints, and if you have a different point of view to many of us it might be helpful for those of us who might disagree with you to try and understand why / how you came to your conclusions.

Based on my direct experience, I know with about as much certainty as anyone can know anything at all, that either there is some technology in our skies that cannot be reproduced with known technology, or there is a very sophisticated capability being fielded in residential areas that very convincingly mimics that. I would say I am virtually certain of that.

That it happens to be the case that many credible people have been describing very similar experiences very convincingly for decades, is of course very difficult to ignore. So I am left with a very high likelihood that either there has been a technology operating in our skies for decades that cannot even be replicated now with known technology, or there has been a very sophisticated capability to very convincingly mimic that for decades being fielded all around the world tested on civilians, or none of those other people who claim they saw something just like what I saw actually saw what they said they saw.

If I hadn't had my experience, of course it would be a different case. But frankly after having actually researched the topic, I've come to the opinion, dismissing it, assigning 0-probability or whatever, is very naive. In light of what I know, it's actually a verified epistemic failure. You can come up with all the excuses you want, you can adhere to this principle, or that one, and you can mince words and issue insults and ridicule and use exclamation points, doesn't really make a difference. You want to have an effect on my opinion about it, you need to justify why you think it's sometimes better to accept epistemic failure rather than deal with uncertainty or what have you. If you are not just 100% dismissive, but also derisive, you've got a steeper hill to climb explaining why you think it is sometimes better to accidentally be derisive about something real than some alternative. For people who actually do think its all non-sense (which is definitely false) my best advice is to do more research and think about it harder, because whatever you've done so far has not been successful.

Now, to me, the two competing hypotheses above are both extraordinary. First, an ability to somehow create a multi-angle multi-observer up close illusion in the skies of solid objects hovering and then suddenly accelerating way faster than known technology is capable of. That is difficult to believe and extraordinary. But it being a real technology is also difficult to believe. Still overall, that it is a real technology seems more likely to me all things considered.

I'm not going to pretend like I have some perfect ability to weigh all the possibilities and their branches, or even the patience to try and articulate my position perfectly.

If you assume (as a thought experiment, although I consider it highly likely) that a technology (a very astonishing one) which is still not reproducible by known technology, has been operating for decades, 40's, 50's, 60's (the further back you go the more it becomes hard to accept as human technology), then that would suggest a likelihood of non-human technology.

I believe some Metabunk skeptics have even suggested at one point that the above itself would be enough to convince them. At some point, you have to juggle competing extraordinary or conspiracy oriented possibilities, and I think maybe some skeptics will be more forceful in their disbelief overall, tending to want collapse into some explanation that least violates their principles.

Maybe, when you have an experience that forces you to take it seriously, it might cause a skeptical thinker to open the door to attempting to think more openly and rigorously. The position I hear from some people that you shouldn't even perform a thought experiment or weigh possibilities, through my lens, just seems absurd. But when you assume its all non-sense, then it makes sense. Maybe you're just happening to make a faulty and coincidentally wrong assumption. That's fine, we're all human.

As to what would convince me with certainty that it is aliens, this is a complicated subject, because as someone who has actually thought about it seriously in so much depth, my honest answer could require writing 10 pages, or even a short book. Many of you have simpler point of views, that can be summed up in a sentence or two, and that's fine, you haven't engaged with the topic in much depth, or you think by simple rules unless you find the personal reason not to.

 

[Mendel]

Based on my direct experience, I know with about as much certainty as anyone can know anything at all,

No. You believe with about as much faith as anyone can believe. (That's fine.)

Your belief does not compare with the certainty of knowledge accumulated through science, sorry.

 

[beku-mant]

No. You believe with about as much faith as anyone can believe. (That's fine.)

Your belief does not compare with the certainty of knowledge accumulated through science, sorry.

And you probably believe you know what you ate for breakfast this morning. But I don't go asserting you actually don't and you probably didn't eat what you think you did.

 

[Mendel]

And you probably believe you know what you ate for breakfast this morning. But I don't go asserting you actually don't and you probably didn't eat what you think you did.

I'm sure there are details about my breakfast that I'm not aware of.
But it is a reproducible experience.
The ingredients are printed on the package, and the nutrients have been analysed in the lab.
I know a lot more about my breakfast with certainty than you know about your experience.
So if you were asserting I actually didn't know what I ate for breakfast, you'd have a high bar to clear.

The reason why you don't acknowledge there's a difference is at the heart of our chat.

 

[John J.]

Thank you @beku-mant (post #273) for your detailed reply.

 

[Ann K]

One very important difference is that you're speaking from a position of ignorance. And also happen to be wrong.

We have dealt before with people whose position is a flat "I know what I saw!" Misperceptions and hallucinations and just plain garden-variety dreams are some of the factors known to have caused that same feeling in a person. I make no pretense of knowing the cause of your certainty in what you experienced, but we would not be exercising proper skepticism if we merely took a person's word for an esoteric event without seriously considering the everyday known factors that might cause a person to think they've had an inexplicable experience.

You've dug in your heels on this, and refuse to even consider the common alternative explanations. I would venture a guess that a good many participants on Metabunk (including me) have had things happen in their lives for which they have no good explanation, but most of us don't feel the need to insist that our narrative is the "only possible one". Your mind seems closed to alternatives, which is, I'm sure, the reason that people are becoming exasperated with you. You do not appear to be arguing in good faith, and you have no more evidence that we are wrong than you do for the position that you are right. That was uncalled for.

 

[JMartJr]

That it happens to be the case that many credible people have been describing very similar experiences very convincingly for decades, is of course very difficult to ignore.

Perhaps here it would be appropriate to ask for you to share, not your own experience if you are reluctant to do so, but one or two of these other cases that buttress your interpretation of what you experienced? What sort of cases are we talking about here?

 

[beku-mant]

One very important difference is that you're speaking from a position of ignorance. And also happen to be wrong.

In case this was misinterpreted. You do not know the degree to which my experience and interpretation of it ought to be relied on by me. You are making assumptions about that from a position of ignorance, and recommending interpretations and ways of thinking about it that are contextually absurd.