We've gone back to square one when it comes to the Solid Citizen Fallacy, the Trained Observer Fallacy, the Anecdotal Report Fallacy, The Witness Variability Fallacy and The Selection Effect.
Solid Citizen Fallacy - These aren't just kooks, drunks and Beatniks reporting in this case (or many cases). These reports come from Solid Citizens.
1. Solid citizens have the same biological limitations as anyone else. This aspect of The Solid Citizen Fallacy ignores the well known issues surrounding perception and misperception.
2. Solid Citizens don't misremember details.
3. Solid Citizens don't just make up things, embellish stories or pull hoaxes. Heh.
4. Social status makes one immune to criticism. If you question the story of a cop, a pilot, a member of the military (or a special education teacher?) you're a
bad person.
Trained Observer Fallacy - See post 133.
Anecdotal Report Fallacy.
Anecdotal reports taken as fact, gathered together and presented as over-whelming evidence.
-It was as big as a house a few thousand feet away moving with no wings or visible means of propulsion. (Venus)
-Objects at the altitude of aircraft, moving in circular pattern. (Star Link flares)
-It was hovering and then accelerated at tremendous speed. (Airplane moving along witness' line of sight)
-It was hovering and then accelerated at tremendous speed. (Venus covered by unseen moving cloud. Witness made cause and effect error. Mistook disappearance as huge acceleration.)
-It was hovering, rotating and followed me home. Here's my detailed sketch of it's structure. (Scintillating star.)
-A gigantic craft hovering in the sky above a military base. (Illuminating flares.)
But these stories are all woven into one big narrative.
The Witness Variability Fallacy.
If eyewitness reports describing the same object are wildly different, that's evidence for something very mysterious or fishy.
-It really was changing shape, speed, luminance, color. Maybe it's alien tech. Maybe it's an inter-dimensional being, or a time traveling human from a a future Earth.
-Someone's lying. probably the government or those darned skeptics spreading misinformation to muddy the waters.
No man. Wide variability in reported details is a normal aspect of
all eyewitness testimony; not specific to UFO sightings.
If we restrict this issue to UFO sightings, we have ample evidence of the Wide Variability Effect. Sometimes there are many UFO reports linked to a known object. But we get a many different reported details.
See:
https://satobs.org/seesat_ref/Oberg/680304-Eastern-US.pdf
An early example: The Zond IV reentry case - March 1968
Witnesses reported:
-A fleet of objects flying in formation
-Two separate objects. (One was chasing the other.)
-One single object with rows of illuminated windows - Cigar shaped, saucer shaped, long and narrow with a light in front
and in back and a streaming tail,
The Selection Effect - Misperceptions generate mysterious UFO reports. More common accurate perceptions generate fewer reports. Thus a bias toward a truly mysterious event.
People who recognize what they are seeing don't make reports or make short accurate reports. People who misperceive what they are seeing make reports and tend to make detailed, wild reports. The wildest reports get the most attention. This causes a bias toward a mysterious narrative.
Example: Venus and Jupiter in conjunction. Just in one city: A million people don't look at all. Thousands of people see it as two stars (uninteresting), a few hundred eccentrics correctly identify Venus and Jupiter in conjunction. A handful of people stare at the mysterious UFO and report it. The UFO event hits the local news.
The Condon Report included this in connection to the same Zond IV case: