What is your "red line" that would make you unambiguously and sincerely say with full belief, "Aliens are real and are or have been on Earth"?

[Bob Jase]

I used to believe it too. Then I hit puberty...

I came pretty close to believing but in '66 I wrote Hynek & he wrote back telling me ufos were nonsense along with a cool little book on astronomy which started a decades long hobby. Unfortunately both were lost ling ago.

 

[Scaramanga]

'thousands of credible witnesses'

Or the one I hate most of all...Nick Pope's 'trained observers'. Which he somehow extends to police officers and commercial pilots or other such who are not 'trained' to recognize every single type of military aircraft as military pilots are. And even where a person is a 'trained observer', that only qualifies the person to say what an object isn't. It does not qualify them to say ' yup...this was aliens from Beta Reticuli'. Not only that, but 'trained observers' are as fallible as anyone else and can and do make mistakes. Yet it is a phrase that pops up again and again with Nick Pope and some other 'UFO experts' ( another phrase I hate ).

 

[FatPhil]

'UFO experts' ( another phrase I hate ).

I quite like it - it tells you immediately exactly how much expertise they have.

 

[steviemac]

I realize in my limited posting here I may come off as a "believer", but if on a 0-100 scale, that a hard zero (I will say unapologetically) is a clown like Phillip Klass who even left it in his last will and testament that no one should ever have confirmation of aliens out of his virulent spite, and a 100 is the sort of person who will literally believe anything that implies "alien", no matter how wildly crazy or improbably... I'm somewhere in the 50-75 range.

Sort of like:

• 0: "I'm Phillip Klass, and you're an idiot."
• 1-25: we're alone in all the totality of space/time. There's just us.
• 25-50: obviously we're not alone today or previously, or in the future, but they sure ain't here.
• 51-75: obviously we're not alone, and there sure is a reasonable amount of circumstantial evidence of Earth and human alien contact... I want to believe in it.
• 76-99: I think they're probably here and at least some of these persistent reports/leaks are 100% true, such as a Grusch or Ariel.
• 100: "By the end of 2027, you'll be seeing things like I do. It's all true. All of it."

I think it's absurd statistically to assume "Earth" is some magical place in all the infinite number of galaxies in space that we are the only intelligent life to ever appear some 16 billion years after the Big Bang. I certainly can't prove they've been to Earth, but something is out there somewhere. I believe the evidence is fairly overwhelming that the US government at minimum aggressively classifies anything that overtly could prove or disprove any such topic to totally obtuse ends, and has for generations. I don't believe the hundreds upon hundreds of leakers and whistleblowers, and multiple witnesses of notable mass sightings like Stephenville are wrong or crazy: we can't today prove they saw a space ship, or NHI controlled space ships, but it seems fairly inane to deluded to say thousands upon thousands or more people over the past century all are wrong, from regular people to various otherwise trustworthy people in their government roles.

On that scale, I'd put myself somewhere around 60-70, and some days I'd say I bump up around 76~. I'm very keen, for instance, to especially read Colonel Carl Knells remarks at the Sol Foundation this coming Saturday.

My soft red line is the US government from the Executive Branch/White House simply saying so, especially if it comes from POTUS. There is basically no walking it back or a "do over" if the President sat at the Resolute Desk says "We are not alone." If and when that happens, it can only happen once, ever.

My hard red line is literally seeing them on standard "TV news" such as live cameras, on something like CNN or MSNBC, with "flying saucers" or equivalent in plain sight in daylight over somewhere like DC, NYC or London, up to seeing occupants get out and enter the White House. I don't need peer reviewed academic journals if we have starships and aliens literally running humanitarian missions, for an example hypothetical, with human media doing a "ride along", or Anderson Cooper doing a "live report" from orbit on a giant ship. It'll be fun to read the rapidly expanding Wikipedia articles (plus seeing the schadenfreude devour the fairly obnoxious and rude "anti-ufology" crowd on Wikipedia) and scientific papers, but that would come later.

So I'm a firm "I want to believe" but want proof, and those are my broad red lines.

What are your red lines, and where are you on the 0-100 scale?

I had to chuckle at this one.

Posting in metabunk, what would convince them that Alien life could be visiting earth, is akin to asking the Westboro Baptist Church if they think there might not be a god. lol .

I'm somewhere around 60. I'm not convinced yet, but with all the UAP accounts going back decades, I lean towards something is happening around us, that we just don't understand. And in our arrogance, we just assume it couldn't possibly be non-human.

However I don't honestly think anything, would ever convince many members here of the existance of alien life. Not even an orb dropping from 80,000 feet in 2 secs and hovering over Mick's head, would even move the needle that way. lol

 

[FatPhil]

Posting in metabunk, what would convince them that Alien life could be visiting earth, is akin to asking the Westboro Baptist Church if they think there might not be a god. lol .

Careful with your wording: one is a "what" question, and the other is an "if" question, there's no exact analogue. And this difference slightly destroys the point you were trying to make. Pretty much every metabunker that has responded herein has detailed phenomena (things that would be experienced, evidence that could be gathered) from which the visitation of aliens to earth could be deduced. This contrasts against the implication of the wording of your second part, namely that nothing would get them to change their mind. So these two groups are not alike at all - all the evidence that we have currently is that they are quite distinct from each other.

 

[Mendel]

The unstated attitude here is that Skeptics are in the class of doctors in the 19th century who resisted the germ theory of disease despite accruing evidence.

Except that @AllTheQuestionsToday is making up his evidence at this point, while the germ theory proponents actually saw something in their microscopes, and had success with their hygiene procedures.

Flat Earth: over 100 years since Rowbotham and no map
UFOlogy: over 50 years since Roswell and no hard evidence

Not even an orb dropping from 80,000 feet in 2 secs

...otherwise called a radar glitch, i.e. two unrelated spurious returns.

The main difference, I guess, is that mainstream UFO belief is now committed to say that anything anomalous is a flying saucer, even if (or "because"!) the supporting data is crap, while we skeptics would like to see a "normal" visit: a craft that is tracked on approach to Earth, manoeuvering into orbit, opening communications, and then sending a probe down.
It would gleefully not meet any of TTSA's "5 observables": no "sudden" acceleration, if it's hypersonic it has an engine, and its atmosoheric probe/craft has obvious vertical lift, we'd have clear data from the official sky-watchers as well as every amateur astronomer, and having come from space, it wouldn't bother going underwater or anything silly like that.

It would be 100% explainable.

UFO believers, on the other hand, would like to join us in the belief that one of the many unexplained reports must've been a flying saucer, even if it would've had to suspend several laws of physics to be one. That's not going to happen, and for good reason.

For more than 50 years, none of the anomalies have ever been corroborated. They've never been followed by aliens who were simply here. These unexplained reports don't portend aliens.

 

[Eburacum]

"Aliens" is everyone not from here or not from now, so that includes dimension and time travellers.
ETs, now, they can't be from here.

This is true. I've noticed another trend; calling them 'Non-Human Intelligences'. This would include robots and AI in general.

Robots wouldn't have DNA, so my preferred test (DNA analysis) wouldn't work.
Future humans would have human DNA, possibly with a few genetic enhancements, so my preferred test might or might not work.
Extradimensional beings may or may not be humans (they might come from a timeline similar to our own, or they might not). In which case my preferred test might or might not work.
Extraterrestrials would have a completely different evolutionary path to humans, so my preferred test should work, unless the aliens use artificial human-based bodies or something.

Hmm. I'm less confident about using DNA as a slam-dunk test now.

 

[JMartJr]

Hmm. I'm less confident about using DNA as a slam-dunk test now.

It ewould still be a good psoitive test -- IF you find ET DNA, you probably have an ET alien within your and Wnedel's wider community of "aliens." If you have human DNA, you might possibly have time travelers or beings from a paraellel universe -- with the note that we KNOW Earth-type humans exist, and there are a lot of them here, so human DNA most likely means that one of us somehow shed a little DNA where you later found it.

 

[Scaramanga]

Robots wouldn't have DNA, so my preferred test (DNA analysis) wouldn't work.
Future humans would have human DNA, possibly with a few genetic enhancements, so my preferred test might or might not work.
Extradimensional beings may or may not be humans (they might come from a timeline similar to our own, or they might not). In which case my preferred test might or might not work.
Extraterrestrials would have a completely different evolutionary path to humans, so my preferred test should work, unless the aliens use artificial human-based bodies or something.

'Future humans' would have the infamous grandfather paradox. In fact the mere act of going back in time alters the past even if grandad is not bumped off. There is good reason to believe that time travel to the past is impossible.

Many worlds/multiple timelines variants run into just as many problems....not least the violation of quantum decoherence. For example some hypothesize the dinosaurs rectifying their demise at the hands of an asteroid. But that could only happen in timelines where the dinosaurs did not get wiped out and were still around 66 million years later. As they'd have no knowledge that their compatriots were wiped out in another timeline, they'd have no reason to want to rectify anything.....and for the exact same reasons as the grandfather paradox they'd be unable to anyway.

Extraterrestrials. Yeah...like some race of beings spends 100 years at light speed ( I think faster than light warp drives are almost certainly impossible ) just to do proctology on some hapless Arizonan logger. Grandad being shot is probably more likely.

 

[Mauro]

Except that @AllTheQuestionsToday is making up his evidence at this point, while the germ theory proponents actually saw something in their microscopes, and had success with their hygiene procedures.

Flat Earth: over 100 years since Rowbotham and no map
UFOlogy: over 50 years since Roswell and no hard evidence

...otherwise called a radar glitch, i.e. two unrelated spurious returns.

The main difference, I guess, is that mainstream UFO belief is now committed to say that anything anomalous is a flying saucer, even if (or "because"!) the supporting data is crap, while we skeptics would like to see a "normal" visit: a craft that is tracked on approach to Earth, manoeuvering into orbit, opening communications, and then sending a probe down.
It would gleefully not meet any of TTSA's "5 observables": no "sudden" acceleration, if it's hypersonic it has an engine, and its atmosoheric probe/craft has obvious vertical lift, we'd have clear data from the official sky-watchers as well as every amateur astronomer, and having come from space, it wouldn't bother going underwater or anything silly like that.

It would be 100% explainable.

UFO believers, on the other hand, would like to join us in the belief that one of the many unexplained reports must've been a flying saucer, even if it would've had to suspend several laws of physics to be one. That's not going to happen, and for good reason.

For more than 50 years, none of the anomalies have ever been corroborated. They've never been followed by aliens who were simply here. These unexplained reports don't portend aliens.

Excellent post @Mendel, thank you.

 

[Keith Beachy]

... but it seems fairly inane to deluded to say thousands upon thousands or more people over the past century all are wrong, from regular people to various otherwise trustworthy people in their government roles. ...

So... I am silly, and foolish, with respect to ET visits to earth... they are all wrong (Thousands upon thousands with no evidence).

 

[Alexandria Nick]

pirate treasure on Oak Island

Never! This is my personal "I will never, ever, let go of hoping this one pans out." It is just so fun. I want it to be something so bad. I've even hitched my wagon to a fairly plausible one (undocumented French military operation during the Seven Years War to stash payroll coinage).

 

[Scaramanga]

but it seems fairly inane to deluded to say thousands upon thousands or more people over the past century all are wrong, from regular people to various otherwise trustworthy people in their government roles.

Thousands of people once believed Zeus lived on top of Mount Olympus. They were all wrong. The number of people who believe in something is no guarantee of its validity.

 

[FatPhil]

Hmm. I'm less confident about using DNA as a slam-dunk test now.

As scientifically-minded people there's no need for us to specify what tests we would apply and in what order when a hypothetical mysterious substance or object appears before us. We'd preferably apply whichever tests would non-destructively tell us the most new information first, based on what we already know from mere observation. One of our skills is being adaptive. And sensible.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

I had to chuckle at this one.

Posting in metabunk, what would convince them that Alien life could be visiting earth, is akin to asking the Westboro Baptist Church if they think there might not be a god. lol .

I'm somewhere around 60. I'm not convinced yet, but with all the UAP accounts going back decades, I lean towards something is happening around us, that we just don't understand. And in our arrogance, we just assume it couldn't possibly be non-human.

However I don't honestly think anything, would ever convince many members here of the existance of alien life. Not even an orb dropping from 80,000 feet in 2 secs and hovering over Mick's head, would even move the needle that way. lol

Same old strawman argument. Skeptics are reactionary conservatives. You'd hear much the same from Spiritualists in 1890 in regard to non-believers in spooks. As a matter of fact, I think much UFO folklore has a connection to Spiritualism; whether a direct historical connection or a purely psychological connection.

I think UFO folklore belief is trivial. Go ahead and believe.

 

[JWrightBrain]

So... I am silly, and foolish, with respect to ET visits to earth... they are all wrong (Thousands upon thousands with no evidence).

I have a more nuanced take. We definitely have reason to believe that alien life exists. We do not have definitive proof it has visited earth. Worse there have been cases proven as hoaxes and misidentified phenomena. So we can’t automatically believe each reported sighting is true. They are null until proven or disproven, so they count for nothing.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

It's a mistake to think that MB is UFO Skeptic Central. Four or five years ago the hot subject on MB was Flat Earth, and before that it was Chemtrails. Now it's UFOs. Just following the trends, really.

Personally, my number one interest has always been figuring out what people believe and why they believe it.

Second interest has been in solving puzzles. A chew toy for an overactive brain. There have always been threads on simple non-woo subjects. For example:

Was It Possible For Trump To Take The Wheel?
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/was-it-possible-for-trump-to-take-the-wheel.12492/#post-272873

On a more serious subject:

Kramatorsk Railway Station Attack
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/kr...-denials-of-responsibility.12376/#post-268788

These two things have always been my motivation for my interest in UFO lore: Psychology and puzzle solving. I used to take UFO folklore more solemnly. Now I think it's trivial.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

This was a UFO flap that was never connected to Alien visitation:

Mysterious drone swarms over Colorado and Nebraska - Chasing Venus?
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/my...er-colorado-and-nebraska-chasing-venus.11048/

"Drone" Photo over Colorado - Actually a Boeing 737
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/drone-photo-over-colorado-actually-a-boeing-737.11055/#post-235834

I believe in drones, but this was clearly an example of mass delusion. Just as interesting to me as an Alien visitation UFO flap.

 

[Mendel]

A chew toy for an overactive brain.

Fidgetbunk?

 

[NoParty]

Unfortunately the power of a computer graphics chip now means that any photo can be faked with only a little time and skill and less of those every year. A single unsupported photo regardless of quality can no longer suffice. You need the sort of evidence that proponents never have in order to tie it to a physical event. Independently verifiable evidence is what we should be asking for.

Of course, photo manipulation is extremely well known to all of us in 2023...
which, for me at least, raises the bar for what would qualify as "quality still photos" (plural).

And now we need to consider "deep fakes" for video, as well...
but the press has been warning us about these, too, for years now.

And, as others have mentioned, even if an amazing set of high quality photos emerged
that supposedly "proved" spaceships from outer space, my response would largely depend
on the backstory: Is someone I trust offering them, with a convincing backstory?
Or did they just magically mysteriously pop up, in the blog of a known faker?

I tried to keep my post short by not addressing every conceivable combination of
degrees of quality of the evidence, what exactly was being claimed, and who was
vouching for the evidence.

That said, I definitely am convincible: The fact that I weigh decades of "evidence"
to be absolute rubbish (hence I see no reason to believe we've spotted visiting aliens)
does not mean that I view the possibility of a visit tomorrow to be so astronomically
high that my bar for accepting it would be absurdly high. Since I have no idea how
much intelligent life is out there, I have no way of knowing how unlikely a future visit is...

 

[Ann K]

That said, I definitely am convincible: The fact that I weigh decades of "evidence"
to be absolute rubbish (hence I see no reason to believe we've spotted visiting aliens)
does not mean that I view the possibility of a visit tomorrow to be so astronomically
high that my bar for accepting it would be absurdly high. Since I have no idea how
much intelligent life is out there, I have no way of knowing how unlikely a future visit is...

I agree, but I'd like to point out that we DO have a grasp of physics and the upper boundary of interstellar speed, as well as an understanding of the enormous distances involved. So "how much intelligent life is out there" is perhaps better phrased as "how much intelligent life is within a reasonable* distance of us", with the likelihood of an earth visit diminishing rapidly with distance.

* "reasonable" is yet to be defined.

 

[Slow Joe]

Considering what people seem capable of denying, I could be sat next to an alien but still troll people online that aliens don't exist and probably make a good living out of it.

The people making a living out of UFOs are the AUP industrial complex, which keep making documentaries and shows with the same old evidence (which is no evidence), promising disclosure next year.

It’s like a new age religion. People want to believe in something meaningful and bigger than themselves, damn the evidence. There is so much money to be made, that they are never going to stop peddling the lies that they have evidence of alien contact, while showing none.

 

[captancourgette]

And, as others have mentioned, even if an amazing set of high quality photos emerged
that supposedly "proved" spaceships from outer space, my response would largely depend
on the backstory: Is someone I trust offering them, with a convincing backstory?
Or did they just magically mysteriously pop up, in the blog of a known faker?

Everything will most likely change in the upcoming years with greater powered AI generated videos

But for now just getting an aliens smartphone and watching all the videos on it would be enuf proof for me.
Hell even hollywood with budgets of millions can't even do a decent alien film of ~2 hours, I'm not sure what the current benchmark is? avatar 2? Does anyone think that looks real, OK I suppose perhaps some ppl do (I haven't seen it)
But on this aliens phone with Exabytes of storage there will be 1000s of hours of all documentaries/films from all manner of Comedies, horror films, action films, homemade videos etc, their version of Wikipedia will be there etc. i.e. There would be so much Data that it will be nigh impossible to fake

 

[Mendel]

all documentaries/films from all manner of Comedies, horror films, action films, homemade videos etc

that's the TV signal SETI has been secretly hoping for

 

[Scaramanga]

It’s like a new age religion. People want to believe in something meaningful and bigger than themselves, damn the evidence.

Actually I tend to disagree on that. When I was a 'believer' in UFOs it was because I thought there was evidence. Not because I was overly keen to reach cosmic ascendance with our 'space brothers' and all that.

I was raised on UFOs from an early age. My Dad had George Adamski's books....and those were later the start of my skepticism and he has long since been debunked. But I still held on to cases like the Japan Airlines case in Alaska, or the infamous Yukon UFO and others. Later, though, I became one of the actual debunkers of the Alaska case. I think I was one of the first to point out the conjunction of Jupiter and Mars at the exact spot the 'UFO' was first seen. And the Yukon UFO also had a prosaic explanation as the re-entry of a Russian satellite.

And so the dominoes fell. George Knapp produced a 'Best Ever UFO Cases' documentary some time back. And not a single one of those cases now stands as valid. And clearly, if the 'best' cases are all falling apart...where does that leave UFOlogy ? I, for one, cannot believe something in the absence of any evidence.

 

[JMartJr]

George Knapp produced a 'Best Ever UFO Cases' documentary some time back. And not a single one of those cases now stands as valid.

Is it viewable anywhere, that you know of? Googling is turning up a lot of noise but no signal, as it were! ^_^

 

[NoParty]

The people making a living out of UFOs are the AUP industrial complex, which keep making documentaries and shows with the same old evidence (which is no evidence), promising disclosure next year.

It’s like a new age religion. People want to believe in something meaningful and bigger than themselves, damn the evidence. There is so much money to be made, that they are never going to stop peddling the lies that they have evidence of alien contact, while showing none.

As one who too often decried the "Indisputable proof is coming in 2 weeks!"
bs claims of the "chemtrail" hucksters, your first sentence really resonates with me.

In the second passage, I did do a bit of a double-take, to see the the possibly unnecessary phrase "new age."

 

[Ann K]

Is it viewable anywhere, that you know of? Googling is turning up a lot of noise but no signal, as it were! ^_^

I found this. No, I haven't watched it yet. It's an hour and a half long. If you start your search with his name, there are other interviews etc with him.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Bhx0nNvSVs

 

[Scaramanga]

Is it viewable anywhere, that you know of? Googling is turning up a lot of noise but no signal, as it were!

It's actually even worse than I originally remember it being. Very little actual evidence is presented. If you want to waste an hour of your life....here's part 1....with parts 2 to 4 showing up on the right hand display. Let me know if you actually find any 'best evidence' in it !....


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npD12KK_RiQ

 

[Arthur 33]

I think there are a two main scenarios that could convince the most die hard skeptics that we are being visited by ET.

1. Video of a flying saucer in a hanger taken by a well know press team. Tour of the inside, video of it hovering, discussion with the scientists that have been studying it.

2. ET bodies that have provenance and could be independently analyzed by top universities.

But really the goal is not to convince the most avid skeptics. It is simply to convince enough of the general public that the ridicule factor diminishes to a level that well known respected scientist don't feel like analyzing the existing mountains of evidence is a career ending move. A critical amount of high status scientists saying UFOs are real and the best explanation is ET would see all the "trust the science" cult members immediately change their tune IMHO. It is basic herd mentality.

 

[Ashley Pomeroy]

The problem is that the question is loaded. Alien life is almost certain. But we'll never meet them and they will never visit Earth.

I'm also reminded of an old book, A Hundred Authors Against Einstein, which was published in 1931 and contained a bunch of essays that tried to refute Einstein's theories. Einstein's response was that if his theories were wrong, just one author would be enough. Gravity will continue to function even if no-one believes in it. In fact it functioned for billions of years before people even existed.

In my opinion the question would make more sense if it was simpler. I think it's overwhelmingly likely that life exists on other planets in the universe. It's hard to argue otherwise. I already believe that there are alien cows grazing alien grass on a far-distant planet many light-years away. We'll never see them, but they exist. We might possibly detect their methane emissions, but we'll never run our hands over their alien fetlocks. We'll never milk their alien teats or drink their alien milk. We'll never fertilise our trees with alien dung. I could go on.

The bit about methane emissions is only half-joking. At some point in the near future there's going to be a news story about the detection of an alien planet with a powerful telescope, and it'll have a slightly unusual spectral signature. The atmosphere will have an unusual ratio of carbon, or methane, or some other sign that life exists. Or the planet's night side will be slightly brighter than it should be, suggesting the presence of artificial light. In that case it would take an awful lot of convincing before I believe that the planet harbours life, because there's a lot of wiggling at the bleeding edge of astronomy.

Alternatively, there are quite possibly alien microbes clinging to life in the waters of Europa. Or perhaps some chunks of ice floating around Saturn harbour primitive bacterial. In that case it would take widespread coverage in the mainstream media and preferably microscopic photographs to convince me that there are alien microbes living in the solar system, but I'm more willing to believe it than spectral methane lines etc. The microbes would have to be completely novel, so that there's no possibility of contamination.

As for the classic flying saucer with an alien stepping out of it, again I suppose widespread media coverage plus a statement from King Charles III would do the trick. I'm more willing to listen to King Charles III because he is descended from lizard-like ancestors of humanity, so he will be receptive to alien life. He will welcome them, and with their technology Britain will be great again. It will be glorious, and I will speak highly of you all.

In practice however that's never going to happen. Our own planet only ever produced one species that could build a radio, and only after hundreds of millions of years of false starts and a fluke asteroid impact. Our sun only has a finite lifespan, and the physical laws of the universe are universal, so aliens are operating under the same constraints as us. On top of that I can't imagine how difficult it must be to build a machine that can travel light-years through space, over a period of tens of thousands of years, that would still work and be able to navigate to a target at the end of it. A giant, brightly-painted, mirrored cube filled with DNA strands and plant seeds might survive the journey, but it would be a long shot and we would never know if it worked. And to what end? We all have the same constraints.

 

[Mendel]

analyzing the existing mountains of evidence

these mountains are not in evidence
they do not exist

 

[Arthur 33]

these mountains are not in evidence
they do not exist

Well this is a good place to start...

Project Blue Book Special Report #14
https://archive.org/details/ProjectBlueBookSpecialReport14

But I think the whole point of this thread is the above type of evidence is not considered evidence by the skeptics here. So we are at a impasse re. "is there any evidence".

It would be more accurate to say there is no incontrovertible physical evidence that is publicly available that ETs are visiting earth.

 

[Ann K]

1. Video of a flying saucer in a hanger taken by a well know press team. Tour of the inside, video of it hovering, discussion with the scientists that have been studying it.

Useless to prove the premise. All it would probably show is that humans can build a saucer-shaped craft that flies, or more probably that Hollywood special-effects people can do it.

2. ET bodies that have provenance and could be independently analyzed by top universities.

And a discussion with the scientists is an appeal to an authority which most of the public has no way to verify. C'mon now, "scientists" tell us that the bean-paste mummies with the backwards bones are genuine aliens, and that god created the world and Adam and Eve and all the animals in six literal days six thousand years ago, and that Ivermectin will cure Covid.
Myths and legends abound, and people with academic degrees can be found who espouse even the most crack-pot of them.

But really the goal is not to convince the most avid skeptics. It is simply to convince enough of the general public that the ridicule factor diminishes to a level that well known respected scientist don't feel like analyzing the existing mountains of evidence is a career ending move.

...aaaaand there we have it, your real intention. You don't just want scientists to analyze the so-far non-existent "evidence": you want to see the ones who choose not to go along with it get booted out. "Convincing the general public" means that you place the expertise of genuine experts somewhere below the beliefs of those without specialized training. But science is NEVER settled by a consensus. The sheer number of people who believe something does not make it true.

You have no understanding of the work of scientists. For the most part it is to research areas where some productive insights could be found, or to invent or improve products for use. Some are paid by universities, some by manufacturers. There are not great numbers of roving scientists free-lancing work on fringe hypotheses for hire. Your statement sounds as if you'd be fine with ending the careers of scientists that will not drop every other project and rush to examine the next blurry photo. What's next, that they all be required to ghost-hunt on their spare time?

We do this on Metabunk. We do it for free, in our spare time. We bring together people with many different fields of expertise from all scientific disciplines, and we try to do it with as much genuine evidence as we can gather. Unless you can fund your own multi-million-dollar "think tank", we are as good as you are likely to get.

 

[Mendel]

All it would probably show is that humans can build a saucer-shaped craft that flies, or more probably that Hollywood special-effects people can do it.

I'd ask a stage magician. They know how to levitate things.

We do this on Metabunk. We do it for free, in our spare time. We bring together people with many different fields of expertise from all scientific disciplines, and we try to do it with as much genuine evidence as we can gather. Unless you can fund your own multi-million-dollar "think tank", we are as good as you are likely to get.

I like AARO. Their fishing net debunk was as good as it gets.

 

[Mendel]

Well this is a good place to start...

Project Blue Book Special Report #14
https://archive.org/details/ProjectBlueBookSpecialReport14

But I think the whole point of this thread is the above type of evidence is not considered evidence by the skeptics here. So we are at a impasse re. "is there any evidence".

It's not evidence of alien visitation. It could only be that if it was explained.

It would be more accurate to say there is no incontrovertible physical evidence that is publicly available that ETs are visiting earth.

There isn't any controvertible physical evidence either.

Article:

Ruppelt, Hynek, and others presented the best evidence, including movie footage, that had been collected by Blue Book. After spending 12 hours reviewing 6 years of data, the Robertson Panel concluded that most UFO reports had prosaic explanations and that all could be explained with further investigation, which they deemed not worth the effort.
In their final report, they stressed that low-grade, unverifiable UFO reports were overloading intelligence channels, with the risk of missing a genuine conventional threat to the U.S. Therefore, they recommended the Air Force de-emphasize the subject of UFOs and embark on a debunking campaign to lessen public interest.
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Ruppelt later came to embrace the Blue Book perspective that there was nothing extraordinary about UFOs; he even labeled the subject a "Space Age Myth."
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According to Secretary Harold Brown of the Air Force, Blue Book consisted of three steps: investigation, analysis, and the distribution of information gathered to interested parties.[25]​ After Brown gave permission, the press were invited into the hearing.[26]​ By the time of the hearing, Blue Book had identified and explained 95% of the reported UFO sightings. None of these were extraterrestrial or a threat to national security.[27]​ Brown himself proclaimed, "I know of no one of scientific standing or executive standing with a detailed knowledge of this, in our organization who believes that they came from extraterrestrial sources."[27]​ J. Allen Hynek, a science consultant to Blue Book, suggested in an unedited statement that a "civilian panel of physical and social scientists" be formed "for the express purpose of determining whether a major problem really exist" in regards to UFOs.[28]​ Hynek remarked that he has "not seen any evidence to confirm" extraterrestrials, "nor do I know any competent scientist who has, or who believes that any kind of extraterrestrial intelligence is involved."[29]​
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In the end, the Condon Committee suggested that there was nothing extraordinary about UFOs, and while it left a minority of cases unexplained, the report also argued that further research would not be likely to yield significant results.

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Blue_Book

And back then, like now, the UFO believers screamed "coverup".

 

[Dan Burt]

When 3 or 4 posters I most respect on Metabunk post about evidence they believe is proof, that will be my "oh sh*t" moment and go a long way to making me believe.

 

[JMartJr]

C'mon now, "scientists" tell us that the bean-paste mummies with the backwards bones are genuine aliens

The phrase was:

ET bodies that have provenance and could be independently analyzed by top universities.

If you Maussan made the "mummies" available for such study, and top universities were willing to waste time on them, I do not for one minute believe that the result would be

"Looks legit!"

Myths and legends abound, and people with academic degrees can be found who espouse even the most crack-pot of them.

Sure, but the PROCESS of science is designed to weed that stuff out -- independent top universities freely researching and coming to a consensus is not a guaranteed "True Answer," but it would carry weight, and it is not what happened with the couple of guys Maussan found to gush over his "mummies," or the Ivermectin as a COVID cure huxsters.

 

[Arthur 33]

You have no understanding of the work of scientists

I mean I have 2 degrees in science. But ok.

Science is far less about data and objective truth, and far more about consensus and group think than most want to admit. I agree that appeals to authority is one of the lowest forms of argument. But we are not in a battle over objective facts, we are in a battle of persuasion. Maybe that is just me being cynical though.

I deeply believe in the scientific method, but that method often only prevails after decades of denial and gnashing of teeth when the "establishment" gets challenged with data that does not conform to their current world view. Germ theory being the perfect example mentioned above.

 

[Scaramanga]

But really the goal is not to convince the most avid skeptics. It is simply to convince enough of the general public that the ridicule factor diminishes to a level that well known respected scientist don't feel like analyzing the existing mountains of evidence is a career ending move. A critical amount of high status scientists saying UFOs are real and the best explanation is ET would see all the "trust the science" cult members immediately change their tune IMHO. It is basic herd mentality.

Well, yes, the goal is to convince the most avid skeptics....because that is precisely what good scientists are supposed to be.

I've followed UFOs for over 50 years now, and the 'existing mountains of evidence' really don't amount to a great deal. There is some evidence for earthquake lights, and that phenomenon and others akin to it may explain a number of sightings. But again and again the 'best ever' sightings keep falling by the wayside. Not even the 'best' UFO photos such as the infamous Trindade Island case have stood the test of time and analysis...and I tend to favour the theory that that case was just an aircraft viewed from an odd angle. Even the famous McMinnville UFO photos...the poster boy for all UFO photos...have had serious doubts raised after an analysis appeared to show the craft hanging from a thread.

That's the real problem with UFOs. Most believers are blissfully unaware that most of the well known cases have been resoundingly debunked. There really aren't any mountains of evidence left....just a few mole hills.

Here is the most telling thing of all about UFOs. Every single time there is a news item on UFOs and they show some sample UFO videos or photos while some 'UFO expert' is waffling away..........every single sample case they show has been debunked !