Refuting Aliens

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Everywhere I go, there are people who believe in aliens, whether they've been watching too much of the X-Files, or they believe the stuff in Weekly World News. They are quite clever. Whenever I ask why they would travel so far for no apparent reason, they say "because they can". Half the time, they bring up "aliens in Area 51", or nonsense like that.

Does anyone have advice for refuting myths of alien landings, and the like?

Also, does anyone think there are people out there that think aliens can travel hundreds, if not thousands of lightyears, but don't belive that we can travel 250,000 miles to the moon?

Oh yeah, and the two most dreaded words to any UFO or alien enthusiast:

Fermi's Paradox

[Darth Wong]

The fact that we currently cannot explain such things is no reason to not try.

Go back and read my post again, since you completely missed the point. There is no substance to warrant or support a serious investigation.

[pecker]

The fact that we currently cannot explain such things is no reason to not try.

Go back and read my post again, since you completely missed the point. There is no substance to warrant or support a serious investigation.

We've got a bunch of reports and sketchy data. We have some recordings of lights, some odd magnetic readings, and strange radiation burns on people. Are these related? Hell if I know. It's in the eye of the beholder as to whether these warrant serious investigation or not. People have spent time and money investigating nothing more than a hunch. Sometimes they're wrong, sometimes they're right.

EDIT: The problem is that there is no such thing as a 'UFO' case. We have cases of people suffering mysterious burns. We have cases of unidentified bogeys entering restricted airspace. we have militayr piltos crashign their planes chasing a UFO some say was Venus. How the hell do four pilots mistake Venus for a bogey? And why did his plane have burns not caused by the crash?

The problem is, we call these UFO cases when we cannot explain them. If it turns out the radiation came from some sort of reactor leak or something, it is no longer a UFO case. However, peopel don't liek the unknown. UFOs are largely written off as silly. So when a case coems alogn that defies explanation, it's easy to jsut say, "Oh, it was a UFO' and leave it at that.

There is no single explanation. There are many strange events that defy explanation. Something happened to your toy TIE Fighter. The fact that we lack evidence to investigate does not change the fact that it disappeared.

I have seriously seen this line of reasoning before:
"We have a radar contact/report/photo of a strange object in the sky."
"Hmm, it's a UFO."
"Let's go see what it was."
"Don't bother."
"Why?"
"UFOs aren't real."

[Enlightenment]

Does anyone have advice for refuting myths of alien landings, and the like?

Burden of proof. Since it's not possible to prove a negative (that aliens aren't here), the burden of proof is on the UFO nuts to demonstrate that aliens are here.

Also, does anyone think there are people out there that think aliens can travel hundreds, if not thousands of lightyears, but don't belive that we can travel 250,000 miles to the moon?

The depths of human stupidity are such that I'd be surprised if people like that didn't exist.

[Peregrin Toker]

While it's probably not true that inter-stellar travel is feasible at all, it's very possible that extraterrestrial civilizations exist - after all, just look at the universe's size.

Would it then be feasible to assume that this solar system is the only one where life has evolved???

I personally believe that there might be life out there in the universe, but that they probably not have reached the starfaring stage yet.

However, I cannot be to sure - but we should not discard all possibilities.

[Darth Wong]

We've got a bunch of reports and sketchy data. We have some recordings of lights, some odd magnetic readings, and strange radiation burns on people. Are these related? Hell if I know.

That is precisely the problem with your logic; you do two things here:

1) You assume that they are related, hence some explanation for this presumed relation must be found. Our failure to look for one is presumably due to some kind of close-mindedness on our part rather than the lack of reason to believe in any connection.

2) You take the poor quality of the evidence ("sketchy", "odd") as proof that further investigation is required, rather than proof that the data is junk and further investigation is a waste of time.

I have seriously seen this line of reasoning before:
"We have a radar contact/report/photo of a strange object in the sky."
"Hmm, it's a UFO."
"Let's go see what it was."
"Don't bother."
"Why?"
"UFOs aren't real."

Ah, so now you're putting words in our mouths? No, the logic goes more like this:
"We have a radar contact/report/photo of a strange object in the sky."
"Can we confirm?"
"No."
"Then what the fuck are you bothering me for?"

[Stormbringer]

2) You take the poor quality of the evidence ("sketchy", "odd") as proof that further investigation is required, rather than proof that the data is junk and further investigation is a waste of time.

Excuse me if I'm wrong but isn't it standard procedure to try and find conclusive data? It seems to me that any phenomenon that can't be explain should be investigated. Of course they're not alien spacecraft but there is something and it makes sense to investigate an unexplain phenomenon.

[Utsanomiko]

:Reads pecker's willingness to investigate crap evidence:

I'll need to go through my old posts and repost my response to that Jonnathan guy about their being significant evidence of a Cockatrice on my parent's roof. It applies here even better.

[Zoink]

"UFOs aren't real."

Who would say that UFOs don't exist?

U.F.O. stands for "Unidentified Flying Object"

*not*

"Unidentified Alien Spacecraft"


Therefore, someone saying UFOs don't exist is saying that there are no "unidentified objects"... which doesn't make sense.

But, using unidentified evidence as proof of something's existance just defies logic.

[pecker]

We've got a bunch of reports and sketchy data. We have some recordings of lights, some odd magnetic readings, and strange radiation burns on people. Are these related? Hell if I know.

That is precisely the problem with your logic; you do two things here:

1) You assume that they are related, hence some explanation for this presumed relation must be found. Our failure to look for one is presumably due to some kind of close-mindedness on our part rather than the lack of reason to believe in any connection.

2) You take the poor quality of the evidence ("sketchy", "odd") as proof that further investigation is required, rather than proof that the data is junk and further investigation is a waste of time.

I have seriously seen this line of reasoning before:
"We have a radar contact/report/photo of a strange object in the sky."
"Hmm, it's a UFO."
"Let's go see what it was."
"Don't bother."
"Why?"
"UFOs aren't real."

Ah, so now you're putting words in our mouths? No, the logic goes more like this:
"We have a radar contact/report/photo of a strange object in the sky."
"Can we confirm?"
"No."
"Then what the fuck are you bothering me for?"

Wrong.
"We have a strange radar signature."
"Have out pilots seen it?"
"Yes."
"What is it?"
"They have no idea."
"Oh, well, then it's a UFO. Ignore it."

They can confirm it's there. What they CANNOT confirm is what it is. And people don't like the unknown. If we don't know what it is, it's much easier to say it doesn't exist at all.

I said that they aren't related. MY entire POINT is that just saying they are UFOs and grouping them together is wrong. The problem is that people WANT to group them together.

They take all of these events, and want to group them together all as UFOs. IF you have an enexplained phenomenon, your brain doesn't like that. But we all 'know' that UFOs are silly and not real and lack evidence. However, if you take each case as just a case and not some supernatural bang, then you'll see that some of them do have enough evidence to make you go "Wait a minute." Yes, many many cases are just some guy with a camcorder. Yet some of them are cases of a burns left on the ground and people being left with severe radiation poisoning. Ignoring ALL other cases, wouldn't you say that this warrants an investigation as to what happened?

I'm not saying an answer can be foudn for evey little sighting. But to assume that ALL sightings should not be investigated because the majority should not is not a good philosophy.

I didn't mean to say that you said that.

[pecker]

"UFOs aren't real."

Who would say that UFOs don't exist?

U.F.O. stands for "Unidentified Flying Object"

*not*

"Unidentified Alien Spacecraft"


Therefore, someone saying UFOs don't exist is saying that there are no "unidentified objects"... which doesn't make sense.

But, using unidentified evidence as proof of something's existance just defies logic.

I didn't say it makes sense, but people do it.

[Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi]

While it's probably not true that inter-stellar travel is feasible at all, it's very possible that extraterrestrial civilizations exist - after all, just look at the universe's size.

Would it then be feasible to assume that this solar system is the only one where life has evolved???

I personally believe that there might be life out there in the universe, but that they probably not have reached the starfaring stage yet.

However, I cannot be to sure - but we should not discard all possibilities.

There might be other intellegent life, but many people think if there is intellegent life in the universe, then they must be little green men in saucer-shaped ships bent on annhilating us.

[Darth Wong]

There might be other intellegent life, but many people think if there is intellegent life in the universe, then they must be little green men in saucer-shaped ships bent on annhilating us.

There is probably other intelligent life out there in the universe, given its sheer size. However, unless there is some physical principle which allows FTL travel, we'll probably never meet them.

[Wicked Pilot]

OK, back in high school, I was piloting a Cessna 152 from my hometown of Baton Rouge, La. to Gonzales, La. Baton Rouge is Class C airspace, which means in order to enter the area, you must have two-way communication with tower, and a altitude incoding transponder. I had already left the airspace, but was still under radar service with departure control, when I recieved a call telling me that there was Unidentified traffic at my one o'clock, 3 miles, altitude unknown. This traffic was heading to the BTR airspace, but had not made any calls, and since it's transponder was off, or had no transponder, no altitude could be determined. I of course volunteered to check it out, afterall, it may me a military jet or some drug smuggler I could bust. Anyhow, departure reported it getting closer, and closer, and closer, but alas I saw nothing. Perhaps it was an alien vessel with a visual cloak. I had almost given up, but then I looked down. There, skimming the ground at about 500ft, was a police helo. I reported back to departure, and continued on my way. From that day forward, when people say "so you're a pilot, have you ever seen a UFO?", I can say "yes I have."

[Peregrin Toker]

I of course volunteered to check it out, afterall, it may me a military jet or some drug smuggler I could bust. Anyhow, departure reported it getting closer, and closer, and closer, but alas I saw nothing. Perhaps it was an alien vessel with a visual cloak.

[irish dialect] 'Twas the Romulans themselves!!! [/irish dialect]


Seriously speaking, I have also occassionally seen mysterious flashing lights which suddenly changed location on the night sky, moving in patterns not those of aircraft.

Asst. Asst. Lt. Commander Shmi:

There might be other intellegent life, but many people think if there is intellegent life in the universe, then they must be little green men in saucer-shaped ships bent on annhilating us

No, they believe they must be little grey men bent on probing our butts and taking over the UN.

[Darth Wong]

No, they believe they must be little grey men bent on probing our butts and taking over the UN.

Goddamned alien visitors. They've given anal probes a bad name.

[Crown]

Goddamned alien visitors. They've given anal probes a bad name.

Chalk up on more thread to have been given the unique Mike touch. Although, I will admit that it was left rather open for you to just - okay I am so not completing that.


*clears throat*

It all depends on how you crunch the numbers of whether or not life could have formed anywhere else. I myslef would like to believe that we are not alone.

[jenat-lai]

I've never seen one. In fact, would it be all that hard to have a picture/film well taken, in the middle of the million ghost appearances the UFOlogists try to convince us with?

[+sarcasm]I just got a great clear photo of an Alien UFO visiting earth... LOOK!




See they really do exist [/sarcasm]

Really, I reccon half of the UFO sightings are something like this. Maybe not even this interesting half the time. A civillian plane, a high altitude atmospheric anomality, and of course the hoaxes...