The Ariel School, Zimbabwe UFO sighting - has it ever been debunked?

[Giddierone]

Since I've fought all my life with sleep terrors and other disturbances, I have deep empathy to people who experience frightening mental imagery. It may not be real, but it can be really distressing.
I just mean that there are different kinds of "experiencers", not all just want to believe in UFOs and be in the club.
I don't think Mack was totally off with that one.
He was, however, wrong to assume any of that was real in a physical way and also wrong to consider hypnotic regression a reliable method for treating memories and trauma.

I recently listened to a really good podcast (it was recent, say within the past couple of week, but which I cannot seem to now find) about Exploding Head Syndrome and it's similarity with various "anomalous/alien experiences".

 

[Todd Feinman]

Since I've fought all my life with sleep terrors and other disturbances, I have deep empathy to people who experience frightening mental imagery. It may not be real, but it can be really distressing.

I'm sorry to hear that; it sounds miserable.
As I've gotten older I've inherited what my mother calls "panic attacks". No fear or imagery, just waking up with profound feelings of loss and hopelessness. I think regular life and worries can generate long-term PSD for some people. It's not fun either.

 

[Ann K]

I recently listened to a really good podcast (it was recent, say within the past couple of week, but which I cannot seem to now find) about Exploding Head Syndrome and it's similarity with various "anomalous/alien experiences".

About 35 years ago I suffered a concussion when I was halfway up a cliff and some idiot kid threw a large rock off the top. Since then I get lots of auditory effects, including what I think they refer to as exploding head syndrome. Another thing that really bothered me is when the TV commentators had volume equalizers at large sporting events, so that the crowd noise was hushed somewhat when the announcer said something, but then when he stopped the full crowd roar came back, and it felt like a physical blow in my ear.

I wonder if things like a head injury, perhaps even a relatively mild one, might be responsible for people reporting the syndrome. But so far I've had no "alien" experiences!

 

[Fritzkquzerk]

I recently listened to a really good podcast (it was recent, say within the past couple of week, but which I cannot seem to now find) about Exploding Head Syndrome and it's similarity with various "anomalous/alien experiences".

Yeah that happened to me as well, during more stressing period.
Most of the time is just insomnia treated with meds and bad dreams.
I've had paralysis but with no aliens!
Maybe Mack was in good faith, maybe he thought about helping these people in a very unscientific way, and potentially dangerous too.
But I wouldn't say there's evidence he convinced them to have been abducted if they reported sexual abuse trauma.

 

[Fin]

To be totally honest, if I had an experience like that, such as a hallucination or a memory of an abduction, I wouldn't tell anyone except a psychologist.
I'd just hope not to encounter someone who would convince me I was actually abducted by space aliens.
Those "experiencers" online, who can be as dogmatic as Raëlians, usually share their stories anonymously anyway.
I simply wouldn't expect most rational people who undergo such weird psychological events to actually want to belong to that kind of club.

I had not one but 3 "close encounters" with the classic "black triangle" ufos between 2007 and 2008. I don't want to go off-topic with the details of those here in this thread. I'm just trying to offer a bit of insight/speculation regarding your final two sentences.

I think many people who have these sorts of ufo (and abduction) experiences really do not want to belong to the ufo club, for obvious reasons. So why do they talk about it publicly? I think in some cases there is an instinctive urge to tell our stories publicly despite the firm knowledge that it will attract ridicule and other unwanted reactions. I've compared it to when a rabbit notices a potential threat it thumps its hind feet on the ground to warn other nearby rabbits to pay attention. If the rabbit is wrong, (and if rabbits ridiculed each other) it might get ridiculed, but it was worth that risk, because if the rabbit is right it may save fellow rabbits from the sharp claws of an approaching bird of prey. After my sightings I was well aware that I didn't want to join the "ridicule me, I've seen aliens" club. Regardless, I initially reported my final sighting to a local newspaper but did so anonymously. Years later I plucked up the courage to tell my story more publicly & with my name attached to it - first on a small tv show & later in a YouTube interview.

In recent years I've pretty much left the ufo scene altogether and I'm happy I did so. But I've done plenty of thinking about why I felt the urge to eventually go public. I think, in my case and for some other ufo witnesses I've worked with, it boils down to the rabbit behaviour. I think, as tribal creatures we humans naturally want to warn others when we see something unknown and/or something which may represent a potential threat. The fact that UFOs are generally, widely thought to not actually be real, meant that after my experiences I felt a deep instinctive desire to "wake people up" to the fact that some witness accounts are unambiguous in nature and do indeed represent real structured "craft" of unknown origin. This also motivated me, eventually, to learn how to animate other people's ufo sightings for them, so I could help tell their stories as accurately as possible. I made 19 such animations which remain on my YouTube channel, during which time I met and worked closely with several ufo witnesses whose desire to share their stories echoed my own. Interestingly, I now feel like I've got this desire to tell these stories "out of my system" so to speak. It's a relief. After much introspection I really do feel that the almost obsessive desire to learn more about UFOs and keep telling not only my own story but also those of other witnesses I found compelling, came from a truly instinctive need to "warn the tribe", just like the aforementioned rabbit. All of this despite the firm knowledge that it could make me somewhat of an outcast from said tribe, due to the nature of the claims I have made. Claims which I have consistently felt uncomfortable sharing.

So yes, I certainly didn't want to belong to the UFO club and these days (unlike in previous years where I'd tell just about anyone and everyone) I rarely even mention my ufo-addled past when I meet new people. But I think my initial reaction to my sightings was a very rational one. If I'd only told a psychologist I don't think I'd have got the feeling of "I need to tell the rest of the tribe about this" out of my system. I don't think I would have been able to move on from it all in the way that I now finally have managed to.

Obviously, some people just do it for attention. Some people want to make money & are just lying, etc. Many people are just misidentifying prosaic things. In fact most of them are - I've done plenty of debunking as some of you may know. But I do think that some people who feel their UFO & abduction experiences were completely unambiguous (whether or not they were just mistaken, hallucinating, etc), are telling their story out of a completely rational instinct; an (albeit probably futile) desire to help the tribe better understand the world around it, for the sake of the survival of the tribe. I believe this is encoded into our behaviour due to evolution and makes complete logical sense once we accept that some of these people, like myself, completely believe that what they saw was indeed "real", but is largely being ignored/missed by the rest of the tribe.

 

[Todd Feinman]

I had not one but 3 "close encounters" with the classic "black triangle" ufos between 2007 and 2008. I don't want to go off-topic with the details of those here in this thread. I'm just trying to offer a bit of insight/speculation regarding your final two sentences.

I think many people who have these sorts of ufo (and abduction) experiences really do not want to belong to the ufo club, for obvious reasons. So why do they talk about it publicly? I think in some cases there is an instinctive urge to tell our stories publicly despite the firm knowledge that it will attract ridicule and other unwanted reactions. I've compared it to when a rabbit notices a potential threat it thumps its hind feet on the ground to warn other nearby rabbits to pay attention. If the rabbit is wrong, (and if rabbits ridiculed each other) it might get ridiculed, but it was worth that risk, because if the rabbit is right it may save fellow rabbits from the sharp claws of an approaching bird of prey. After my sightings I was well aware that I didn't want to join the "ridicule me, I've seen aliens" club. Regardless, I initially reported my final sighting to a local newspaper but did so anonymously. Years later I plucked up the courage to tell my story more publicly & with my name attached to it - first on a small tv show & later in a YouTube interview.

In recent years I've pretty much left the ufo scene altogether and I'm happy I did so. But I've done plenty of thinking about why I felt the urge to eventually go public. I think, in my case and for some other ufo witnesses I've worked with, it boils down to the rabbit behaviour. I think, as tribal creatures we humans naturally want to warn others when we see something unknown and/or something which may represent a potential threat. The fact that UFOs are generally, widely thought to not actually be real, meant that after my experiences I felt a deep instinctive desire to "wake people up" to the fact that some witness accounts are unambiguous in nature and do indeed represent real structured "craft" of unknown origin. This also motivated me, eventually, to learn how to animate other people's ufo sightings for them, so I could help tell their stories as accurately as possible. I made 19 such animations which remain on my YouTube channel, during which time I met and worked closely with several ufo witnesses whose desire to share their stories echoed my own. Interestingly, I now feel like I've got this desire to tell these stories "out of my system" so to speak. It's a relief. After much introspection I really do feel that the almost obsessive desire to learn more about UFOs and keep telling not only my own story but also those of other witnesses I found compelling, came from a truly instinctive need to "warn the tribe", just like the aforementioned rabbit. All of this despite the firm knowledge that it could make me somewhat of an outcast from said tribe, due to the nature of the claims I have made. Claims which I have consistently felt uncomfortable sharing.

So yes, I certainly didn't want to belong to the UFO club and these days (unlike in previous years where I'd tell just about anyone and everyone) I rarely even mention my ufo-addled past when I meet new people. But I think my initial reaction to my sightings was a very rational one. If I'd only told a psychologist I don't think I'd have got the feeling of "I need to tell the rest of the tribe about this" out of my system. I don't think I would have been able to move on from it all in the way that I now finally have managed to.

Obviously, some people just do it for attention. Some people want to make money & are just lying, etc. Many people are just misidentifying prosaic things. In fact most of them are - I've done plenty of debunking as some of you may know. But I do think that some people who feel their UFO & abduction experiences were completely unambiguous (whether or not they were just mistaken, hallucinating, etc), are telling their story out of a completely rational instinct; an (albeit probably futile) desire to help the tribe better understand the world around it, for the sake of the survival of the tribe. I believe this is encoded into our behaviour due to evolution and makes complete logical sense once we accept that some of these people, like myself, completely believe that what they saw was indeed "real", but is largely being ignored/missed by the rest of the tribe.

I've seen UFOs for real a couple of times too. Totally agree.

 

[John J.]

I believe this is encoded into our behaviour due to evolution and makes complete logical sense once we accept that some of these people, like myself, completely believe that what they saw was indeed "real", but is largely being ignored/missed by the rest of the tribe.

I have no doubt at all that many UFO witnesses believe what they saw was real, and most are as bright, reliable and responsible as anyone else.
I'd guess most other people with sceptical views about UFO reports feel the same.
The question isn't really (for me) are people being honest in their accounts, it's what the likely explanation for those accounts might be.
What the observer believes about what they saw is important, but in other areas of science we don't go by what an observer believes but what can be shown to be the case.
This doesn't have to be laboratory-based, astronomy (and e.g. some wildlife research) relies on observational data, sometimes of fleeting and rare events, but the difference with studying UFOs is that compelling evidence is captured and available for others to review.

 

[Todd Feinman]

Let's say Mick is on a trip and happens to be in Ann K's neck of the woods and they decide to meet up and go for a nature hike. While they are sitting up on a hill talking about UFO fans, five objects drop out of the sky at speed and stop in the air and hover about .25 miles from where they are. The objects are capsule shaped, and glowing, and circle the hill they are on, before flying off in formation and then shooting off into space, instantly. Neither Mick or Ann thought to whip out their phones and take a pic, because they were so engrossed by the shocking sight. On a hike later in the year the same objects come up close to Mick, before once again shooting off into space. A year later, Mick and Ann find out that others had reported identical objects flying around a bit later, fifty miles away from where they saw them.
So, it's "too bad" we can't test anything, but neat story!

 

[John J.]

So, it's "too bad" we can't test anything, but neat story!

From a scientific viewpoint, yes. I think many people here would find it more interesting if Mick and Ann both reported seeing the same remarkable thing than if some other people reported seeing the same thing. But many bright, competent, likeable highly-qualified people report seeing or experiencing remarkable things. Ghosts, telepathy, precognition, unlikely creatures.

It's understood that people can be mistaken. If someone we like or admire makes an extraordinary claim, that isn't a reason to be less sceptical.
I once posted "I've seen UFOs", and got a rather dismissive response

 

[Fritzkquzerk]

I had not one but 3 "close encounters" with the classic "black triangle" ufos between 2007 and 2008. I don't want to go off-topic with the details of those here in this thread. I'm just trying to offer a bit of insight/speculation regarding your final two sentences.

I think many people who have these sorts of ufo (and abduction) experiences really do not want to belong to the ufo club, for obvious reasons. So why do they talk about it publicly? I think in some cases there is an instinctive urge to tell our stories publicly despite the firm knowledge that it will attract ridicule and other unwanted reactions. I've compared it to when a rabbit notices a potential threat it thumps its hind feet on the ground to warn other nearby rabbits to pay attention. If the rabbit is wrong, (and if rabbits ridiculed each other) it might get ridiculed, but it was worth that risk, because if the rabbit is right it may save fellow rabbits from the sharp claws of an approaching bird of prey. After my sightings I was well aware that I didn't want to join the "ridicule me, I've seen aliens" club. Regardless, I initially reported my final sighting to a local newspaper but did so anonymously. Years later I plucked up the courage to tell my story more publicly & with my name attached to it - first on a small tv show & later in a YouTube interview.

In recent years I've pretty much left the ufo scene altogether and I'm happy I did so. But I've done plenty of thinking about why I felt the urge to eventually go public. I think, in my case and for some other ufo witnesses I've worked with, it boils down to the rabbit behaviour. I think, as tribal creatures we humans naturally want to warn others when we see something unknown and/or something which may represent a potential threat. The fact that UFOs are generally, widely thought to not actually be real, meant that after my experiences I felt a deep instinctive desire to "wake people up" to the fact that some witness accounts are unambiguous in nature and do indeed represent real structured "craft" of unknown origin. This also motivated me, eventually, to learn how to animate other people's ufo sightings for them, so I could help tell their stories as accurately as possible. I made 19 such animations which remain on my YouTube channel, during which time I met and worked closely with several ufo witnesses whose desire to share their stories echoed my own. Interestingly, I now feel like I've got this desire to tell these stories "out of my system" so to speak. It's a relief. After much introspection I really do feel that the almost obsessive desire to learn more about UFOs and keep telling not only my own story but also those of other witnesses I found compelling, came from a truly instinctive need to "warn the tribe", just like the aforementioned rabbit. All of this despite the firm knowledge that it could make me somewhat of an outcast from said tribe, due to the nature of the claims I have made. Claims which I have consistently felt uncomfortable sharing.

So yes, I certainly didn't want to belong to the UFO club and these days (unlike in previous years where I'd tell just about anyone and everyone) I rarely even mention my ufo-addled past when I meet new people. But I think my initial reaction to my sightings was a very rational one. If I'd only told a psychologist I don't think I'd have got the feeling of "I need to tell the rest of the tribe about this" out of my system. I don't think I would have been able to move on from it all in the way that I now finally have managed to.

Obviously, some people just do it for attention. Some people want to make money & are just lying, etc. Many people are just misidentifying prosaic things. In fact most of them are - I've done plenty of debunking as some of you may know. But I do think that some people who feel their UFO & abduction experiences were completely unambiguous (whether or not they were just mistaken, hallucinating, etc), are telling their story out of a completely rational instinct; an (albeit probably futile) desire to help the tribe better understand the world around it, for the sake of the survival of the tribe. I believe this is encoded into our behaviour due to evolution and makes complete logical sense once we accept that some of these people, like myself, completely believe that what they saw was indeed "real", but is largely being ignored/missed by the rest of the tribe.

Interesting experience.
If you were to go to a psychologist to talk about this, what would you think if they told you that really saw aliens or alien ships? Kinda like Mack did in Zimbabwe.
Honest question.

 

[Fritzkquzerk]

From a scientific viewpoint, yes. I think many people here would find it more interesting if Mick and Ann both reported seeing the same remarkable thing than if some other people reported seeing the same thing. But many bright, competent, likeable highly-qualified people report seeing or experiencing remarkable things. Ghosts, telepathy, precognition, unlikely creatures.

It's understood that people can be mistaken. If someone we like or admire makes an extraordinary claim, that isn't a reason to be less sceptical.
I once posted "I've seen UFOs", and got a rather dismissive response

I think we can all agree that even scientists can see UFOs or other unproven stuff.
We cannot apply the trained or informed observer UFO principle because it has been shown to be very fallible.
But I agree a bit with Todd here. If a random UFO dude on the internet says to have been visited by Pleiadians, I would still differentiate that account from that of a known skeptic like Sagan.
But neither me, you or Todd were there, can we base these descriptions accuracy only on how rational the testimony is? Probably not.

 

[Giddierone]

If you were to go to a psychologist to talk about this, what would you think if they told you that really saw aliens or alien ships? Kinda like Mack did in Zimbabwe

I don't think that's what Mack did. This goes back to the "persuaded" (not my word) and "allowed" (my word) distinction in the posts above.

 

[Ann K]

Let's say Mick is on a trip and happens to be in Ann K's neck of the woods and they decide to meet up and go for a nature hike. While they are sitting up on a hill talking about UFO fans, five objects drop out of the sky at speed and stop in the air and hover about .25 miles from where they are. The objects are capsule shaped, and glowing, and circle the hill they are on, before flying off in formation and then shooting off into space, instantly. Neither Mick or Ann thought to whip out their phones and take a pic, because they were so engrossed by the shocking sight. On a hike later in the year the same objects come up close to Mick, before once again shooting off into space. A year later, Mick and Ann find out that others had reported identical objects flying around a bit later, fifty miles away from where they saw them.
So, it's "too bad" we can't test anything, but neat story!

Lets not. Let's say Mick and Ann don't have a tendency to make up wild speculation and "neat stories", but just have a walk in the woods without seeing anything more spectacular than a couple of owls and a coyote.

Now stop this silly nonsense please. Go out and find evidence for your UFO. The time to believe something is AFTER the evidence is found, not before.

 

[Todd Feinman]

Lets not. Let's say Mick and Ann don't have a tendency to make up wild speculation and "neat stories", but just have a walk in the woods without seeing anything more spectacular than a couple of owls and a coyote.

Now stop this silly nonsense please. Go out and find evidence for your UFO. The time to believe something is AFTER the evidence is found, not before.

Ann, I wouldn't even know where to begin arguing with you on that one. Readers can decide for themselves. That's the value of public forums. Enjoy the owls and coyotes. I enjoy open-minded scientists, with enquiring minds.

 

[Todd Feinman]

Let's say Mick is on a trip and happens to be in Ann K's neck of the woods and they decide to meet up and go for a nature hike. While they are sitting up on a hill talking about UFO fans, five objects drop out of the sky at speed and stop in the air and hover about .25 miles from where they are. The objects are capsule shaped, and glowing, and circle the hill they are on, before flying off in formation and then shooting off into space, instantly. Neither Mick or Ann thought to whip out their phones and take a pic, because they were so engrossed by the shocking sight. On a hike later in the year the same objects come up close to Mick, before once again shooting off into space. A year later, Mick and Ann find out that others had reported identical objects flying around a bit later, fifty miles away from where they saw them.
So, it's "too bad" we can't test anything, but neat story!

Seems to have struck a nerve with those whose minds are already made up. They know….

 

[Ann K]

@Todd Feinman
To you, and to others who have experienced strange phenomena for yourselves, this may sound rather harsh, but it is not intended to be, believe me. But I'm sorry, some facts need to be laid on the table. Personal experiences, such as those you and some others have had, are of necessity compelling only to the ones who experienced them. The rest of us were not there, and did not see what you saw. The fact that we "know" you, insofar as correspondence on this site allows us to know a person, does not change that simple, unequivocal fact: we were not there, and know these events only by your verbal accounts. Your stories are not evidence, then, but merely anecdotes. Verbal accounts have very little evidentiary value, I'm afraid, as there is nothing for any other party to examine, and nothing that another person can add to the story.

As the old phrase goes, the plural of "anecdotes" is not data. We are, for the most part, scientists, and will haggle over data until the cows come home, but your personal memories are a closed book to us, locked in your own minds and completely inaccessible to us. It's not so much that we disbelieve you as the fact that we simply cannot examine your minds. Your accounts cannot provide us with facts or data, only stories. We cannot in good conscience treat your memories any differently from the memories of strangers with whom we are not in correspondence. There is no data to be added to our knowledge from your accounts. They're your memories, and yours alone.

 

[Fin]

Interesting experience.
If you were to go to a psychologist to talk about this, what would you think if they told you that really saw aliens or alien ships? Kinda like Mack did in Zimbabwe.
Honest question.

I've told 3 medical professionals: My GP & two therapists. All of them just listened and showed a genuine interest but didn't offer any advice or hot takes, which I think is absolutely the most sensible way to greet such info in such a setting. Had any of them said "it was probably aliens" or anything similar, I'd consider that to be unprofessional, cocky, potentially damaging. I've always been very uncomfortable with the blatant leading questions Mack asked some of the Ariel school kids in the publicly available video clips. His bias was obvious.

 

[Giddierone]

I'm always intrigued by the unambiguous reports, where people say they saw enormous unmistakable physical things. Think that needs it's own thread (thinking Guillermo del toro, Ray Bowyer, Peter Farrelly etc.).

 

[Fin]

I'm always intrigued by the unambiguous reports, where people say they saw enormous unmistakable physical things. Think that needs it's own thread (thinking Guillermo del toro, Ray Bowyer, Peter Farrelly etc.).

In my case and that of some I animated for others the options are pretty limited, as far as I see it. Its either lies, pretty incredible & unlikely misidentifications, wild hallucinations happening to otherwise sober people, or something truly unknown. "Secret military testing" just doesn't hold water when its two black triangular craft hovering just meters above the treetops by the side of the road. That just isn't how the military test secret aircraft. I've become very familiar with all types of misidentifications in the years since my sightings. I've debunked hundreds. I've never found anything that comes anywhere close to explaining what I saw. If I had found something, sure, I'd be embarrassed, but I'd admit it.

 

[Todd Feinman]

In my case and that of some I animated for others the options are pretty limited, as far as I see it. Its either lies, pretty incredible & unlikely misidentifications, wild hallucinations happening to otherwise sober people, or something truly unknown. "Secret military testing" just doesn't hold water when its two black triangular craft hovering just meters above the treetops by the side of the road. That just isn't how the military test secret aircraft. I've become very familiar with all types of misidentifications in the years since my sightings. I've debunked hundreds. I've never found anything that comes anywhere close to explaining what I saw. If I had found something, sure, I'd be embarrassed, but I'd admit it.

But you'd be wasting your time here. Ann and others just said stories like that are locked away in your head; no way for scientists to test it. I have corroboration for my first sighting; doesn't matter.
Better to debunk lousy cell phone videos…

 

[JMartJr]

If I had found something, sure, I'd be embarrassed, but I'd admit it.

No need to be embarrassed, we're all running roughly the same software/hardware, which is prone to bugs and glitches and read/write errors sometimes! ^_^

 

[Todd Feinman]

No need to be embarrassed, we're all running roughly the same software/hardware, which is prone to bugs and glitches and read/write errors sometimes! ^_^

They could have been distant planes or Venus! You know how faulty human observations and memory can be.

 

[Todd Feinman]

Personal experiences, such as those you and some others have had, are of necessity compelling only to the ones who experienced them. The rest of us were not there, and did not see what you saw.

I don't think you can always say that. There would be far fewer court cases if that was the case.

Your stories are not evidence, then, but merely anecdotes. Verbal accounts have very little evidentiary value, I'm afraid, as there is nothing for any other party to examine, and nothing that another person can add to the story.

In courts it's considered "direct evidence"; witness testimony. If corroborated it would hold more weight. We have mass UFO sightings, regardless of the nature of the objects being seen.

As the old phrase goes, the plural of "anecdotes" is not data. We are, for the most part, scientists, and will haggle over data until the cows come home, but your personal memories are a closed book to us, locked in your own minds and completely inaccessible to us.

Eyewitness testimony is data or their would be no police crime lines, legal cases. No sighting databases, or AARO using them to correlate with sensor data.

 

[Todd Feinman]

To you, and to others who have experienced strange phenomena for yourselves, this may sound rather harsh, but it is not intended to be, believe me. But I'm sorry, some facts need to be laid on the table.

There were skeptics about the existence of red sprites; experts knew better than the witnesses. Same with the Coelecanth too. I'm sure there are other examples.
I get it. There is a long a noble history of skepticism. You just have to be prepared that you might be wrong.

 

[John J.]

There were skeptics about the existence of red sprites... ...Same with the Coelecanth too.

Many things are reportedly seen or are theorized before their existence is confirmed or broadly accepted by science, this is undoubtedly true.
But many things are reported whose existence cannot be confirmed, or which are later shown to not be real.
The Higgs boson was theorized to exist, but I feel scientists were right to await experimental confirmation of its existence.
They weren't necessarily skeptical of the existence of the Higgs boson, but they awaited evidence.

Was there skepticism about the coelacanth? It's discovery (by Western academics, not local fishermen) was completely unexpected AFAIK.
I'm not aware of prior claims that coelacanths existed which were dismissed by skeptics. The first identified specimen was preserved by a man who recognised its significance and telegrammed a Rhodes University ichthyologist, Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coelacanth.
If there was any skepticism it didn't last long.
Piltdown man, a (claimed) fossil of an early human ancestor in England, was widely accepted but was much later exposed as a fairly crude hoax. The evidence hadn't been rigorously tested- it seems likely that its proponents accepted it because they wanted to believe in it. They were insufficiently sceptical.

I'm not sure there was skepticism about sprites in the same as, say , there might be skepticism about Bigfoot or Pleiadean beamships amongst some members of this forum.

There wasn't testable instrumental evidence of sprites before 1989, but was there [skepticism] about claimants?
Part of the reason that we know there were possible sightings of sprites is that they were documented, not least by Bernard Vonnegut of SUNY at Albany and O.H. Vaughan Jr. of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center ("Upward Electrical Discharges from Thunderstorm Tops", Lyons, Nelson et al., 2003, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 84 (4), PDF below).
I'm not sure sprites fit the "they mocked Galileo too" narrative.

With some possible parameters of the phenomenon established, and thanks to the availability of ultra-fast low-light cameras like those used by the Minnesota Uni guys, confirmatory evidence was soon found. Thousands of sprites have been photographed and filmed since.
We don't see this with UFOs (at least not as a class of objects with physical characteristics in common and plausible- if partial- explanations).

Large slow-flying exotic craft at relatively low altitudes would be much easier to photograph than sprites. The University of Minnesota team who first captured a sprite on camera weren't looking for sprites, it was an accidental finding. We haven't got convincing footage or photos of large, low flying UFOs. There are many accounts, but we have many accounts of other strange things that might be incorrect, e.g. it's unlikely that there's a large unidentified creature in Loch Ness or a large (non-homo sapiens) hominid native to the USA.

 

[Todd Feinman]

I think the number of truly anomalous cases are among those very few cases that don't sift out; the "unresolved" that always persist through different studies, and probably many more that weren't reported, for fear of stigma.
So, one shouldn't expect UFOs to show up in footage regularly. Instead, a tremendous amount of noise has been generated by the fact that everyone does have a cell phone and takes pictures of every light in the sky they see. This, and hoaxers immensely inflate the number of crap cases that are easily debunked. Then you have the government which I've always maintained will not release tipping point evidence; just some interesting documents and the worst cards in their deck as far as video and photographic evidence goes.

I think part of the problem is that we are trying to use a weed whacker to carve marble. Many skeptics here are physical scientists or technicians, I think. So, there has been no real physical evidence brought forward for you to test. As some have suggested, perhaps it should be studied by social scientists, etc. But many people who claim to have seen them explicitly state that they are a physical phenomenon.
So, wheels are spinning, but the marble persists.
The first change would be skeptics acknowledging that there is some kind of unknown objects; anomalous. Then we can talk about whether or not they are guided, where they might be from, are they a natural phenomenon we haven't discovered yet. So we are not even there, yet.in the court of public opinion it seems that most people believe the government knows more than it is admitting about UFOs, implying to me that they do value witness testimony.
It is a great benefit to have the crap videos and hoaxes debunked, absolutely. But if you only choose to look at one kind of evidence, it's kind of like asking a foot doctor to give a cardiac diagnosis..

 

[Fin]

The problem is, as has been pointed out many times here and elsewhere, things like sprites are eventually captured on camera. There's a thread on here all about rare things caught on camera. UFOs are seen, therefore its safe to assume they are reflecting photons like everything else, and yet nobody has ever caught on camera anything close to what is so often described by unambiguous ufo claimants. This is a serious problem!

There are ALWAYS frustrating, nonsensical caveats. In my case, I grabbed my phone.. and called my girlfriend! Many people claim they were in too much shock to even think about taking a photo/video. In one case I animated; the 2016 Arizona case of a HUGE flying saucer covered in flashing blue lights, the witness had 15 minutes to get over the shock, grab his phone & try to film it. He says he did, and he took photos. But to his great frustration all the videos and photos showed was black fuzz, except for one photo which showed what looked like Venus against an otherwise black sky. So he deleted them and decided to text his mom instead.

For the sceptically-minded these caveats are all very convenient. Maybe that's true for the aliens! For the genuine witness, it's the opposite. I have no idea why it all plays out like this. I completely understand why sceptics think the most likely answer is: its all confabulation & bs. This is part of the reason why I've become completely fatigued with the whole subject and my part within it.

 

[Todd Feinman]

To you, and to others who have experienced strange phenomena for yourselves, this may sound rather harsh, but it is not intended to be, believe me. But I'm sorry, some facts need to be laid on the table. Personal experiences, such as those you and some others have had, are of necessity compelling only to the ones who experienced them.

That attitude from established academia and brushing off witnesses' experiences as silly stories is a big part of the stigma that had historically surrounded witnesses coming forward.

 

[Todd Feinman]

For the sceptically-minded these caveats are all very convenient. Maybe that's true for the aliens! For the genuine witness, it's the opposite. I have no idea why this is the case. I completely understand why sceptics think the most likely answer is: its all confabulation & bs. This is part of the reason why I've become completely fatigued with the whole subject and my part within it.

It is the duty of the skeptic in good standing to fly through any chink in the armor; any breach in the dam; any hole possible to slither through. That's the game.

 

[Todd Feinman]

This is part of the reason why I've become completely fatigued with the whole subject and my part within it.

It's an endless ordeal. They are lucky we keep trying to wake them up and pull them off the tracks. Worse than debunking Starlink sightings, for sure.

 

[John J.]

I completely understand why sceptics think the most likely answer is: its all confabulation & bs.

But I don't think that is what many sceptics think. It is a characterisation repeated by some UFO enthusiasts, implying that sceptics think claimants are lying.
Most sceptics who have any familiarity with UFO reports probably believe (in fairness I can't quote figures) that the majority are honest misidentifications made by essentially honest, reliable people. A small number may be due to other factors (e.g. the 1979 Dechmont Woods UFO) but nonetheless the claimants are honestly reporting what they experienced or remember.
With Ariel school, I suspect that a number of factors were important, but reported sightings were largely due to social/ behavioral factors in the context of the preceding fireball over southern Africa and the chance classroom discussion about UFOs earlier in the week, and the way teachers reacted to some of the younger children (who are not recorded as seeing anything themselves) being upset after a period of unsupervised play.

 

[Fin]

But I don't think that is what many sceptics think. It is a characterisation repeated by some UFO enthusiasts, implying that sceptics think claimants are lying.
Most sceptics who have any familiarity with UFO reports probably believe (in fairness I can't quote figures) that the majority are honest misidentifications made by essentially honest, reliable people. A small number may be due to other factors (e.g. the 1979 Dechmont Woods UFO) but nonetheless the claimants are honestly reporting what they experienced or remember.
With Ariel school, I suspect that a number of factors were important, but reported sightings were largely due to social/ behavioral factors in the context of the preceding fireball over southern Africa and the chance classroom discussion about UFOs earlier in the week, and the way teachers reacted to some of the younger children (who are not recorded as seeing anything themselves) being upset after a period of unsupervised play.

I should clarify: I was referring to the subset of unambiguous ufo reports where (a) there's plenty of opportunity to get photo/video but the witness doesn't, and (b) the witness does claim they got footage but something happened, eg. their camera suddenly died.. the footage just didn't show anything.. the footage mysteriously disappeared, etc.

I 100% agree that most sensible sceptics likely think most ufo reports are just honest misidentifications.