it's just a question of time for the scientific community to support or falsify what's been alleged for at least seventy years by UFO researchers and UFOlogists alike. And no wonder you'll have to wait no longer than half an year or less for their conclusions to be made public
It's very difficult to falsify a negative.
If we hypothesize that the Earth has never been visited by extraterrestrials- and I don't believe that there is any compelling, testable evidence that it has been- then how could we
prove that hypothesis? We can't.
If the Earth
has been visited by extraterrestrials, and strong evidence of such a visit (i.e. something unambiguous that couldn't be faked) was collected and shared, and not falsified or found to be ambiguous after examination by multiple,
credible scientific teams (preferably from more than one nation*) then it would be sensible to at least consider that the evidence might be of something real.
Not everyone would be convinced; there are always contrarians who will deny all evidence (like Flat Earthers, anti-vaccine agitators, Young Earth Creationists) and others who will be wary because of the numerous claims of "proof" made by UFO enthusiasts over the years.
But I think it very unlikely that convincing evidence of an ETI visit will be found in "...half a year or less..."
(is that a tie-in with Mr Elizondo's timeline?)
Posted today to Lue Elizondo's Facebook page. It smells like more conspiracy theory to me.
Equally, no-one in the next six months will be able to
disprove that such an event has ever taken place- but that is not evidence by default for ET visitation.
I think I broadly agree with some earlier posters- a visit by ETI which left identifiable, verifiable evidence would be front-page news, comprehensively covered by the larger traditional news organisations, while social media would continue to bubble and froth with speculation, misinformation and opportunistic grandstanding much as it does now.
The opinions of notable "mainstream" astronomers, physicists, biologists etc. would be sought, which might be an unpleasant surprise for the vocal minority of scientists who believe- on the very questionable basis of past accounts- that we have already been visited. Material samples and/ or footage would be examined by teams from universities and establishments most of us have heard of, even if preservation and securing of the evidence were undertaken by a specific government agency.
Any bar for accepting claimed evidence of alien visitation would have to be set high.
Multiple eyewitness accounts are insufficient (think the Fatima "apparitions", 13 October 1917; or "the Washington Invasion"- which no-one photographed AFAIK, or the Farmington UFO reports of March 1950). Similarly, signed testimony, no matter by whom, is essentially worthless without corroborating physical evidence. People- and groups of people- make mistakes, sincerely hold false beliefs, or just downright lie, regardless of any oaths they are asked to take, all the time.
Footage shot by multiple cell phones from multiple standpoints might have been convincing just a few years ago; now it's conceivable that a shared app of sufficient (but achievable) sophistication could "paste in" footage of the same CGI craft or alien in a way consistent with each filming person's POV.
A worked metal artefact with isotope ratios different from terrestrial, or even solar system, norms would in itself be insufficient (although of great scientific interest); we know ancient cultures worked meteoric iron, and if Avi Loeb is correct then there are likely a few extra-solar meteorites dotted around the planet.
If a piece of (non-functional) hardware, say a section of material claimed to be from the skin of an alien craft were found in some dark corner of (e.g.) a USAF facility, it would be necessary to independently demonstrate that it was indeed extraterrestrial, not the product of a long-forgotten project to deceive Soviet intelligence, or even a training aid for a (hypothetically) real UFO recovery team which was never actually called upon.
Personally, I feel that
if Earth were visited by an extraterrestrial intelligence and it didn't want to be detected, it wouldn't be detected. I think it's unlikely that their technology would be just a century or two ahead of ours. Extremely advanced, G-force defying, highly-manoeuvrable crewed craft with orbital capability but a tendency to fatally crash make no sense.
Conversely, if an ETI wanted to announce its presence, a brief analysis of Earth's broadcast media would demonstrate that there are better opportunities than George Adamski, a Canadian moonshiner, half the kids in a Zimbabwe schoolyard, people with sleep disorders or Whitley Streiber in a holiday cabin. Or an Australian with a hair wrapped around his didgeridoo:
An abduction case from Australia resulted in what may be the world's first DNA test of abduction-related biological material.
If we were visited, and the ETI wanted us to know, I think we'd know. It'd be common knowledge fairly quickly.
I don't think that intelligent alien visitors would put themselves in a position where they might crash (such a dreadful waste of resources used in travelling all those light-years) or where they could be held involuntarily by anyone for any length of time.
So here's my rather blurred "red line": When it happens, and is covered like the major news story that it would be, with a consensus among the majority of relevant scientists (who have reviewed physical evidence) that we are being visited by an ETI and
in the absence of concerted disagreement by significant numbers of other scientists who also reviewed the physical evidence.
But I think this is unlikely.
It hasn't happened yet.
We do know that people have deliberately faked evidence of alien visitation, or have embellished their original accounts of a strange sighting or occurrence over the years into more detailed stories of involvement with UFOs/ aliens.
Should an ETI unambiguously make its presence known on Earth (or from somewhere in the solar system) I would be very,
very surprised, but it would be totally fascinating. It would be hard to peel me away from the telly.
I'm guessing that something similar would apply to most Metabunkers.
The scepticism that many of us have about aliens visiting Earth isn't an article of faith (or perhaps what we want to believe), it's a conclusion we draw from the available evidence.
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* I don't think all nations or groups of nations are equally credible in this regard.
Ideally the USA would be involved due to its technological pre-eminence in many fields. If evidence were in US custody, hopefully access would be given to teams from "acceptable" foreign nations (a European consortium? Japan? "Five Eyes"?) to rule out an elaborate unilateral hoax for whatever reason. Maybe I'm being optimistic about this, though.
Not sure I'd be comfortable with evidence that had only been reviewed by experts from Russia, Belarus and Venezuela, for instance.
