Welcome Thread - New Members Post Here

Hi everyone. I'm new here. Took me a while to find this site after reading many UAP related posts on Twitter. This is an excellent site, and a necessary resource in today's climate. I'm happy I found it.
 
Hello! I have a friend that have gone down the rabbit hole and it is getting worse by the day it seems. I found this site and have just listened to Mick's audiobook on the topic. I hope to find a way to help.
 
HI, I am a new member, after reading the NewYorker article about UFOs.
I am a retired physics faculty member from Indiana University. Experience in experiment particle
physics at LHC, LEP, SLAC, Fermilab... It will be great to have site where I can hear about and
respond to the many annoying false claims of phenomena reported in public media.
 
Hi, I'm a new member very interested in factual representation of perceived unusual events. Prompted to join by the bizarre effect Mick West has on normally rational people who seem to want to (increasingly) abandon that rationality. Particular interest in UAPs/UFOs, and have followed this topic for decades. Personal interest in the Ariel case and the absolutely astonishing and seemingly purposeful misrepresentation of the events of that day and preceding days.
 
Like others, I ended up here because of the New Yorker article. I looked at the 1971 Lake Cote photo, noted immediately that it looked like a glass artefact I'd seen, and was hooked. Never finished the New Yorker article.

Debunking is delightful to me. When I visited the 5th floor museum/JFK memorial in Dallas, we looked out the window to the street directly next to the one used by Oswald. First words out of my mouth were "My grandma could have made that shot!"

Anyway, I've been a lawyer for over 30 years and have a high sensitivity level for hearsay. This looks like a good crowd.
 
Hey everyone, joining from Germany and happy to be here.

My interest for the subject started pretty early when I read some "high strangeness" book when I was like 10y. It had a chapter about self ignition and it gave me the creeps for quite some time. :) In my teenage years I got interested in the whole conspiracy topic after reading "Illumintus!" and joining the computer security subculture. Then 9/11 happened ... . In the following years it was very interesting to observe what unfolded and ultimately peaked in the whole Trump thing.

After the Nimitz encounters the UFO topic got a little revival and it feels like we get back to the 90ies black triangle wave full circle. Although I am 100% sure life is out there and the possibility that we are visited can not be ruled out, I am also pretty sure what we are seeing atm has a very earthly explanation. Still I would be happy if it was something else. :)

I got to know metabunk through Mick's podcast that I am listening to since some years now. I also like the scientific approach and the calm analytic tone in this forum. Looking forward to talk to you guys!
 
Hi everyone, I am a retired trial lawyer living in Las Vegas. I've got a particular interest in the tactics and mechanics of debate and persuasion and how arguments can be manipulated by controlling burdens of proofs, production, and parameters. I can add some insight into legal issues if they appear and jazz drumming, which probably won't. My debunking claim to fame is to have contributed some information to a Problem in Torpedo Ye Arke from talk.origins.

I've followed metabunk on and off for a long, long time.
 
This thread is for any first time poster to (optionally) post an introductory "hi everyone" post, which will also get you "verified" (meaning you can post without anti-spam restrictions) once that post, and a few posts in another sub-forum, have been approved.

A few words on who you are and how you ended up here would be appreciated. Or just say hi!
upload_2013-11-7_15-17-0.png

It's highly recommended that you first read the Posting Guidelines:
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/posting-guidelines.2064/
Hi All. I'm John Glenn (not THE John Glenn) and I have signed up because I have an explanation of an old and famous UFO photo...
 
Hello everyone. I am a software engineer living in the beautiful pacific northwest!

I have always been interested in conspiracy theories and the people who believe them, ever since I discovered that people believe in flat earth. Since then I have also become interested in Qanon conspiracies, and the right wing media conspiracy echo chamber in general.

I came to this board mostly to discuss UFO debunking, as I have loved UFO sighting stories since childhood.
 
Hey everyone,

Paul Kaup, Captain at Southwest Airlines, owner of an education company (501c3, not for profit), STEM+C.
Love watching Mick debunk videos or at least explain what we are seeing. Keep up the great work Mick West!

Paul Kaup
www.stemplusc.org
 
Good morning! As a 40+ years investigator within the military and federal government national security area, I've grown tired of the rampant "conspiracy theorists" pushing their drivel to satisfy their questionable motives. Rational, thorough scientific research and facts are the way to go. I found your site via Skeptic.com.
 
Hi everyone,

I'm Luis Cayetano. My background is in evolutionary biology. My interest in Metabunk is due to my growing interest in the social and psychological aspects of UFOs after reading David J. Halperin's "Intimate Alien", where I think he demonstrates that this phenomenon tells us something profound about ourselves even if (or because) UFOs are a myth.
 
Hey it's me, your Bloogie.

I've been a huge science and scifi fan for a long time and started getting very heavily into UFO culture recently.

I'm trying to learn a little more about how you folk go about discussing paranormal phenomena because I think it would help me behave a little more effectively when confronting such claims.

Looking forward to talking to you folk!
 
Hi!

I'm just someone who has gotten really caught up in the UAP stuff goin around and wants some clarity about whether or not the world is on it's way to disclosure (or its end or giant change)!

Hoping someone can help me out. Thank you!
 
I'm Gideon. I studied philosophy and later media studies but somehow still managed to have a proper job in between. I think since realising that the book of ghosts, fairies and, the unknown in my primary school library was full of nonsense I've been sure that there's an explanation - if not a repeatable demonstration - for everything.
 
Hey! Long-time reader, I decided to make an account to join in on the fun. I've been interested in UFOs and other weird things since I was a kid, but I've always been the kind of guy that likes hard data and other evidence so I don't do well in most "high strangeness" forums across the internet lol. I believe debunking is a vital skill to have, especially in this day and age, and I look forward to learning from you all!
 
I have always found myself somewhat of a sceptic and am always in search of verifiable facts. I would like to strengthen my sceptic view while not loosing my sense of wonderment in unexplainable phenomenon.
 
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Hello everyone! Like many of the people joining this website recently, I'm here because of the New Yorker article and the CBS 60 Minutes special on UAPs. I was skeptical from the get-go, but so many of my friends have completely bought into the videos as being proof of alien visitors. I'm hoping to find good techniques to debunk these kind of things before my friends go too deep down the rabbit hole.

On that note, I have some family who are deep into the Qanon craziness. I feel like they're so far gone that I don't think much can be done to help at this point. That said, if I can learn anything that will bring them even slightly back towards reality, then I'd consider it time well spent.

I'm looking forward to talking with you all!
 
Hello everyone! Like many of the people joining this website recently, I'm here because of the New Yorker article and the CBS 60 Minutes special on UAPs. I was skeptical from the get-go, but so many of my friends have completely bought into the videos as being proof of alien visitors. I'm hoping to find good techniques to debunk these kind of things before my friends go too deep down the rabbit hole.

On that note, I have some family who are deep into the Qanon craziness. I feel like they're so far gone that I don't think much can be done to help at this point. That said, if I can learn anything that will bring them even slightly back towards reality, then I'd consider it time well spent.

I'm looking forward to talking with you all!
Have you checked out https://www.reddit.com/r/QAnonCasualties/ ?
 
Hi everyone, I'm brand new here. I've been debunking for years though. My main areas are 9/11 truthers, flat earth, moon landing deniers, and ufos. I'm a licensed pilot, skipper, and scuba diver. I Also enjoy astrophotography. I am very science leaning and started college as an Aerospace Engineer so took tons of math classes along with physics, chemistry, and aerospace such as orbital mechanics, fluid dynamics, etc.
 
Hello everyone. Last month, April 2021, I discovered Mick and his metabunk site along with his podcast. I most likely was googling "flat earth debunked" or possibly "UFO debunked". I was so happy to find a debunking community that doesn't waste a lot of hot air with insults, assertions, and other emotionally-charged logical fallacies. YouTube comments are so packed with that kind of boring back-and-forth emptiness.

To say I have a long history in the study of conspiracy theories is putting it lightly. Just so you know, It's all old-hat to me (been there, got the t-shirt), and I'm quite a radical skeptic now. I like to say, "I'm skeptical of my own skepticism". But I say that with tongue-in-cheek. I'm nowhere near a nihilist and I think we can assume that we aren't living in a computer simulation. I prefer to believe what is probable, not just what is simply possible because we can imagine it.

I was born in 1953 and when I was around 9 years old, my grandma would babysit her grandkids without letting that keep her from her weekly John Birch Society meetings. She would bring whatever grandkids she had overnight that day, and we all had tinker toys and dolls to play with on the floor between the folding chairs. Grandma was a prepper way back in the 60s. One real good lesson I learned from her was not to trust a politician just because he has an "R" or a "D" after his name.

As I got older, some of the Bircher ideas sunk into my head enough that I started reading my Grandma's old copies of JBS American Opinion magazine. So, I got an early education into political conspiracy theories involving The Bilderbergers, The CFR, The United Nations, The Rosicrucians, the Rothschilds, The Zionists, Knights Templar, ... you name it. An early idea that sunk in was that although Birchers portrayed a very anti-communist front to the public, their core beliefs went far beyond that. They believed that communism was just one of the tools in the New World Order conspiracy's toolkit.

At the same time, in my very early teens, while I was learning about the worldwide and long-running political conspiracies taught by the JBS, I was interested in UFOs, parapsychology, and New Age religion. I subscribed to a little Ufology newsletter when I was 12, and I spent a lot of time at our local library ordering obscure books like "The Morning Of The Magicians", self-described as "raw material for speculation of the most outlandish order", covering topics like cryptohistory, ufology, occultism in Nazism, alchemy, and spiritual philosophy.

I have a few friends who are 911 Truthers and even a neighbor who seems to believe a lot of the Qanon stuff. I like to look up debunking articles online so I can answer when someone throws an especially far-out claim in my face. I don't wear my beliefs (or lack thereof) on my sleeve, but I gotta say something when someone gets in my face making some bold assertion about this weird stuff that I've known about since I was ten years old. My friends are a bit shocked when I tell them how most of these strange conspiracies that they think are new have been around for decades and longer.
 
This thread is for any first time poster to (optionally) post an introductory "hi everyone" post, which will also get you "verified" (meaning you can post without anti-spam restrictions) once that post, and a few posts in another sub-forum, have been approved.

A few words on who you are and how you ended up here would be appreciated. Or just say hi!
upload_2013-11-7_15-17-0.png

It's highly recommended that you first read the Posting Guidelines:
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/posting-guidelines.2064/
Hello, thanks so much for your work Mick. I’m nearly done with Escaping the Rabbit Hole. I have a family member who shocked me with a statement about 9/11 and some other things. I didn’t know how to respond. I was probably too dismissive. I believe that my reaction may have been harmful to healthy communication. Hoping to learn.
 
Hello,

I'm just joining ahead of the anticipated U.S. Govt. reports coming out next month. I hope they will be full of interesting things!

I find any mystery fascinating whether it turns out to be a hoax, a misinterpretation or something truly unexplainable, and this seems like a great place to keep tabs on those types of things.

I'm an atheist, fully on board with science and I wish we as a society would require more evidence by default, but I do have to admit that it the things we can't explain are usually more interesting. :)
 
Hi, I'm just an everyday person looking to the skies, for signs of life, every day for the past 55 years. Just found this site by accident.
 
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Hey all! I found Mick after having several discussions with friends who think aliens are the most reasonable explanation for several pieces of popular UFO/UAP footage. They often say “the pilots are trained military, so we should trust them when they say they saw something crazy.” To me, taking someone’s word is not good evidence for an extraordinary claim—nor is poor grainy footage. I believe the pilots think they saw something crazy, but that doesn’t mean they actually did. Anyway, I found Mick when trying to explain that there were more likely explanations than advanced tech or aliens. So glad I did! Even without Mick’s excellent work, an argument from ignorance (what else could it be?) still wouldn’t be enough for me to think aliens/advanced tech were likely explanations. But, sharing Mick’s work has made my friends more open to simpler, less sexy explanations.
 
HI, I'm April. I consider myself a truther or skeptic, but others consider me a "stupid bigoted conspiracy theorist". I joined in the hopes that I could meet ex-truthers, and perhaps "see the light" and change my view. I like being exposed to opposite and controversial ideas as I feel it helps me grow as a person. Though I'm not sure any ex truther even exist...

I believe everything from 9/11 being an occult ritual, To the baby eating pedo ring (including our governer Newsom!!), to the saturn moon matrix and the cover up of the revelation of this and Gods true religion (gnosticism). I believe pretty much everything from authorities is a harmful lie pretty much. Just kinda feel like I'm off in my own world, which makes it difficult to have meaningful discussions with people. And given it's started to effect my medical decisions I find it's about time to revisit things.

Hopefully someone like me is welcome here, since I know yall tend to not be big fans of people like me and would prefer to censor than dare be exposed to such heretical ideas. But here I am. We'll see how quick a ban comes :).

On a more personal level I'm just a weeb who loves girly video games and josei manga. I'm also a big techie :).

Hopefully I can "change my ways" or perhaps be more confident in my views and myself.
 
HI, I'm April. I consider myself a truther or skeptic, but others consider me a "stupid bigoted conspiracy theorist". I joined in the hopes that I could meet ex-truthers, and perhaps "see the light" and change my view. I like being exposed to opposite and controversial ideas as I feel it helps me grow as a person. Though I'm not sure any ex truther even exist...

I believe everything from 9/11 being an occult ritual, To the baby eating pedo ring (including our governer Newsom!!), to the saturn moon matrix and the cover up of the revelation of this and Gods true religion (gnosticism). I believe pretty much everything from authorities is a harmful lie pretty much. Just kinda feel like I'm off in my own world, which makes it difficult to have meaningful discussions with people. And given it's started to effect my medical decisions I find it's about time to revisit things.

Hopefully someone like me is welcome here, since I know yall tend to not be big fans of people like me and would prefer to censor than dare be exposed to such heretical ideas. But here I am. We'll see how quick a ban comes :).

On a more personal level I'm just a weeb who loves girly video games and josei manga. I'm also a big techie :).

Hopefully I can "change my ways" or perhaps be more confident in my views and myself.

Welcome to the website and it's cool that you have an open mind! Reality is weird and interesting. IMO finding the truth behind stuff and putting it together so it makes sense, only makes it cooler!
 
Welcome to the website and it's cool that you have an open mind! Reality is weird and interesting. IMO finding the truth behind stuff and putting it together so it makes sense, only makes it cooler!
Thanks. I honestly pride myself on my open mind. I'm always willing to consider other views. It's how we learn and grow. And yeah, truth is stranger than fiction I find in many cases. I'm glad people here are understanding.
 
This thread is for any first time poster to (optionally) post an introductory "hi everyone" post, which will also get you "verified" (meaning you can post without anti-spam restrictions) once that post, and a few posts in another sub-forum, have been approved.

A few words on who you are and how you ended up here would be appreciated. Or just say hi!
upload_2013-11-7_15-17-0.png

It's highly recommended that you first read the Posting Guidelines:
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/posting-guidelines.2064/
Mick West, I would simply like to say how grateful I am to you and how important a public service you provide by placing science and skepticism above all of the other unscientific claims that are swirling around out here. I like to quote Carl Sagan when he said "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" . I am sure that quote probably pops up a lot on your website. I watched a series of UFO documentaries that were highly intriguing. Enough that I thought to myself who besides Carl Sagan would I trust to tell the truth about the likelihood of UFO's being an actual phenomena. Then it occurred to me and googled up Elon Musks opinion of UFO's and he said "maybe they are out there but you're going to give me more proof than a fuzzy black and white image that looks like it was shot with a security camera behind a 7-11". I thought that was pretty funny and was conclusive enough for me. In an age where reason has brought us this far it concerns me that a lack of scientific reasoning is helping explain things to the public most of of whom have a deficient education both in science and sound reasoning. Thanks for doing what you do. Jack Willmore
 
Hey everyone!
Good to be here - i'm a big fan of Mick's output, most recently on the UFO topic.

I'm coming from a legal background and as the DPO for a Public Authority here in the UK.

Can't wait to take part in some of the discussions.
 
Hi there. Fan of Mick's UFO videos. Need more skepticism sans mockery in the world. Love the serious discussion on this forum.

I'm a software engineer hoping to help combat disinformation, even if only a little.
 
Thanks. I honestly pride myself on my open mind. I'm always willing to consider other views. It's how we learn and grow. And yeah, truth is stranger than fiction I find in many cases. I'm glad people here are understanding.

i've only one exposure to "truther" as to what that means (i don't often follow popular press on anything especially when it comes down to politics). what does that mean to you? i witnessed 9/11 by a fairly direct means as it happened so i don't think there was any manipulation going on there by what i saw as it was being transmitted. can you explain your first exposures to these ideas and why you find them compelling and worth believing?

not that i am immune to believing because in the past i have believed some religious things and it took me some years to sort through that and figure out that no i did not actually think those things were the truth.

right now i'm witnessing yet another round of "lack of information leading to speculation" in the case of the virus outbreak and governmental officials saying a lot of dumb things. i don't really have much hope for humanity when things get so twisted. a sick person who went to a lab could have brought the vaccine there from someplace else. there's no evidence that's been kept that is convincing that i can tell. but hey, it all sounds good on the news... the scientists who've done actual visits and studies say "unlikely" so i'll keep thinking they know what they're talking about until some actual information shows up. one thing about actual science is that it does admit mistakes are possible and that further information can improve results. so the big thing to me is to keep asking for better access and better information gathering so it can be determined what happened, where and when. blood samples and viruses being the prime evidence needed in all cases if we want to track this thing via the mutations.
 
Hello everyone. I'm a physicist by training, which means I'm constantly exposed to crackpots emailing me their latest theories. Found this board through the recent brouhaha involving the US mil videos. Spending my falling down the rabbit hole, procrastinating from real work :)
 
Hello hello! As someone whose always been interested in the paranormal and the veracity thereof, it was only a matter of time before I made an account here! Love this forum's previous work
 
Hi everybody! I've been interested in UFOs since I was a kid, but I gave up following UFO news twenty years ago because the continuous cognitive dissonance is crazymaking. Nevertheless, even then I had concluded they're not aliens. Now, with these Navy videos, I'm back in the murk. I had forgotten the fun side of the research, so thanks for this great site!
 
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