Aruging with a friend about UFO's

[lazerus]

I need some help convincing a friend of mine that UFO's and aliens are not real. He claims to be rational and unbiased, and on some issues he is, but with this it's just beating my head against a wall.

It all started when he linked me to this: http://cbs11tv.com/local/ufo.texas.step ... 36217.html

[14:39] ShadowDragon8685: http://cbs11tv.com/local/ufo.texas.step ... 36217.html
[14:39] ShadowDragon8685: A training flight. riiiiiight.
[14:39] Jtuxyan: huh?
[14:40] Jtuxyan: you don't seriously believe in UFO's?
[14:40] ShadowDragon8685: Yes. I do. Frankly, there's far too much evidence and anecdotal tales for there not to be real UFOs. Of course, wading through the massive quantities of bullshit makes it hard to tell what's what.
[14:41] Jtuxyan: your an idiot
[14:41] Jtuxyan: anecdotal evidence is one, but not the other
[14:41] ShadowDragon8685: A lot of evidence isen't anecdotal.
[14:41] Jtuxyan: like?
[14:42] ShadowDragon8685: When you have multiple cameras recording the same UFO from multiple vantage points in the same city in clear daylight, there's really not much to say.
[14:42] ShadowDragon8685: Occam's razor, after all.
[14:42] Jtuxyan: All that proves is that there was somthing there.
[14:42] Jtuxyan: You have yet to prove it's anything unusual or even abnormal.
[14:42] ShadowDragon8685: Or that one I remember where five different eyewitnesses, four of them police officers, none of whom had any contact before or after the event with one another, working with a crime-scene recreation CGI team to recreate what they saw, demonstrates a disturbingly similar image each time...
[14:43] Jtuxyan: links or it didn't happen
[14:43] ShadowDragon8685: Triangular objects the size of office buildings floating in the sky are not usual occurances.
[14:43] ShadowDragon8685: Bah. I watched it on the Hitler channel.
[14:43] Jtuxyan: The hitler channel is infamous for not double-checking their sources.
[14:44] ShadowDragon8685: Given that they interviewed four of the witnesses, seperately from one another...
[14:44] Jtuxyan: Who you can't prove didn't have contact beforehand, try again.
[14:44] ShadowDragon8685: I'm sorry. It was five witnesses. Over a peroid from about 3 AM to dawn.
[14:44] ShadowDragon8685: six, not five.
[14:45] Jtuxyan: Besides, even if that's true (which I doubt), which is more likely?:
A) It's an elaborate prank.
B) An advanced alien civilization that must be far beyond the technological signularity uses their FTL drive to traverse the cosmos and descend into earths amosphere with a powerfull cloaking shield that hides them from all reliable sensors, only to appear to five schmucks during a time of night when vision is fuzzy at best, and then vanish into thin air.
[14:45] Jtuxyan: If you say B, I will fucking kill you.
[14:45] ShadowDragon8685: A construction worker called the police station, which put out an all-points. Then an officer on the other side of the jurisdiction said he saw it. Then it moved off. The next officer was on patrol and saw it out his windshield, and radio'd it in. The third officer was alerted by the radio dispatch from the second, but had no description, just a "Look over there, tell me what you see" The fourth went out looking for the thing on his own, and the last witness was an english teacher.
[14:45] Jtuxyan: Is it A or B?
[14:46] Jtuxyan: wait
[14:46] Jtuxyan: I s hould amend that
[14:46] Jtuxyan: A_ It's an elaborate prank/freak-accident.
[14:46] ShadowDragon8685: B. Why not? We go sightseeing in stupid places while acting all ignoring the locals.
[14:46] Jtuxyan: B) Your a dumbass.
[14:46] ShadowDragon8685: *immunity to fucking killing*
[14:46] Jtuxyan: do you believe in the Loch Ness Monster too
[14:46] Jtuxyan: ?
[14:46] Jtuxyan: There's lots of independent groups who have reported seeing that
[14:46] ShadowDragon8685: Look, Occam's razor. It's not an accident, definately not a hoax, because it's the kind of thing that people get fired and arrested for - you know, filing false police reports.
[14:47] Jtuxyan: ah ah
[14:47] Jtuxyan: First of all, Occam's razor is not a hard and fast rule. Second, it says that the simplest explination is usually the best.
[14:47] ShadowDragon8685: Nobody's ever come up with a multiple-verification, same-day-same-time multi-point witnessing.
[14:47] Jtuxyan: In this case "It's a hoax" or "Though sheer mass of sightings, a few happened to perfectly line up" is far simpler then a fast alien conspiracy
[14:48] ShadowDragon8685: Yes, and the simplest explaination is that six people who had no prior contact with one another are not lieing, nor that they are seeing anything other than what they say they saw: a giant moving object in the sky with lights on the ass-end.
[14:48] Jtuxyan: Prove they had no prior contact.
[14:48] Jtuxyan: Prove they wern't mistaken.
[14:48] ShadowDragon8685: Not just a few. Six points of independant verification, from people across a goddamned state, all of which report seeing the same thing, but not exactly the same thing.
[14:48] Jtuxyan: Oh wait, you can't! Because all of the "proof" comes from a channel that's notorious for not doing it's research to make a better story.
[14:48] Jtuxyan: Yeah, that's what we call the
[14:48] Jtuxyan: "Selection Fallacy"
[14:48] ShadowDragon8685: That's what I call eyewitnesses.
[14:49] Jtuxyan: Look, lets say, over 10 years
[14:49] Jtuxyan: there's about 500 group-UFO sightings
[14:49] Jtuxyan: which is a bit high, but the number is on t hat scale
[14:49] Jtuxyan: 499 of them are contradictory, blatently BS, or later proven to be a hoax.
[14:49] ShadowDragon8685: This wasen't a group-sighting
[14:49] Jtuxyan: But nobody talks about those. They talk about the 1 that, though sheer statistical odds, worked out.
[14:49] ShadowDragon8685: Six distributed points of view.
[14:50] Jtuxyan: can you prove they didn't run into eachother a few nights ago?
[14:50] Jtuxyan: Or just call eachother on a cellphone?
[14:50] ShadowDragon8685: Now you're reaching.
[14:50] ShadowDragon8685: Again, Occam's Razor. You're inventing all sorts of caveats to do your best to discredit people who have no reason to lie.
[14:50] Jtuxyan: Am not, but fine.
[14:50] Jtuxyan: Here's a better question.
[14:50] Jtuxyan: If they had no prior contact, how did they all find eachother afterwards?
[14:51] ShadowDragon8685: They didn't. That's just it. It wasen't until one of the departments commissioned an investigation team to do the recreation that the other departments started contacting them and handing over their files and reports from that night, and the officers and witnesses who had reported in.
[14:51] Jtuxyan: Exactly
[14:51] ShadowDragon8685: It was the department, not an individual, who comissioned the crime-scene recreation team.
[14:51] Jtuxyan: stop
[14:51] Jtuxyan: stop
[14:52] ShadowDragon8685: Then the other departments started contacting them about that night.
[14:52] Jtuxyan: Lets say I have a machine that spits out marbles of a random color
[14:52] Jtuxyan: a few every night
[14:52] ShadowDragon8685: No, Jax. No.
[14:52] ShadowDragon8685: You're not pulling an "infinate monkeys/infinate time" argument. It's bullshit.
[14:52] Jtuxyan: and one day, I, d uring a rigerous investigation, found it spat out 5 red-margles of exactly the same shade every night
[14:52] Jtuxyan: is it reasonable fo rme to go "Huh! I guess something happened that night"
[14:53] ShadowDragon8685: Over any sort of reasonable timeframe, it's simply impossible to work. Something like this is not an accident, it's not a hoax.
[14:53] Jtuxyan: Shadow, it's happened.
[14:53] ShadowDragon8685: It's not random chance that six people saw and reported the same damn thing. The same damn thing, independantly of one another
[14:53] ShadowDragon8685: Independantly of one another.
[14:53] Jtuxyan: yes, it is
[14:53] ShadowDragon8685: It's not random chance.
[14:53] Jtuxyan: prove it
[14:53] ShadowDragon8685: Jax, they played the radio transcriptions.
[14:54] Jtuxyan: so what?
[14:54] ShadowDragon8685: There was no "Do you see an <insert description here>
[14:54] Jtuxyan: I'm not saying there was
[14:54] ShadowDragon8685: It was "Look, uh, your north-east, do you see something?"
[14:54] Jtuxyan: again
[14:54] Jtuxyan: ...wait
[14:54] Jtuxyan: what?
[14:54] Jtuxyan: Who was asking th is question?
[14:54] ShadowDragon8685: The Dispatchers.
[14:54] ShadowDragon8685: okay, here's how it goes.
[14:54] ShadowDragon8685: Construction Worker A spots it from the office of his construction site, calls his P.D.
[14:55] ShadowDragon8685: They say "Does anybody see anything funny? Someone reported something unusual in the sky." They did not pass on the description.
[14:55] Jtuxyan: wait
[14:55] Jtuxyan: what dispatchers?
[14:55] ShadowDragon8685: POLICE DISPATCHERS, NUMBNUTS!. Those guys who sit in front of computers and radios and make calls out to the on-duty unit(s).
[14:56] ShadowDragon8685: They field the calls from people who call the PD, and radio to units as appropriate.
[14:56] ShadowDragon8685: Officer A calls back, returns with a description that is strikingly similar to what Construction Worker A reports.
[14:57] Jtuxyan: Until I get some statistical analysis
[14:57] Jtuxyan: That means jack and squat
[14:58] Jtuxyan: there's a reason, in science, you run experiments multiple times. Because it can be freak chance. If, in bio lab, I put a drop off acid in the tank and all the crayfish die, I cannot conclude "Altered pH kills Crayfish"
[14:58] ShadowDragon8685: Dispatcher A calls dispatcher B, in the neighboring county, tells dispatcher B what Construction Worker A and Officer A have reported seeing, and the direction in which it was moving. Dispatcher B puts out an APB for peopl to have a heads-up. Dispatcher B does not give a description beyond "something in the sky". Police Officer B and C calls back with a similar object. Police Officer B and C are on oblique angles to one another.
[14:58] Jtuxyan: When I do it again in a different tank, with different fish.
[14:58] Jtuxyan: And get a statisticaly like result, then I can go
[14:58] Jtuxyan: "Okay, within (blank) margin of error, c hanges in pH kill crayfish."
[14:59] Jtuxyan: If you can get every incident where someone called the dispatcher to say "Hey, I see a UFO!" and show that confirmed sightings are statisticaly non-negligible, you would have something
[14:59] Jtuxyan: but one case proves nothing
[14:59] ShadowDragon8685: And again, Dispatcher B calls dispatcher C, who is in the object's projected path, and gives a description.
[15:00] ShadowDragon8685: Dispatcher C again puts out an APB, gets an officer from an entirely different direction, who reports seeing something moving in the sky, gives back a similar description.
[15:00] ShadowDragon8685: Dispatcher C calls D, who likewise asks for any sightings, and also gets one from a school-teacher who phones it in.
[15:00] ShadowDragon8685: Who was on his way to work
[15:00] Jtuxyan: your not listening
[15:00] ShadowDragon8685: This was a long, long sighting, took place over several hours.
[15:00] ShadowDragon8685: Independantly witnessed by several people.
[15:00] *** Jtuxyan wants to directly connect.
[15:00] *** ShadowDragon8685 is now directly connected.
[15:00] Jtuxyan:
[15:01] ShadowDragon8685: UFOs are NOT repeatable, asshole. That's their nature.
[15:01] ShadowDragon8685: It's like applying the scientific method to a sighting of Osama.
[15:01] Jtuxyan: Those are repeatable
[15:01] ShadowDragon8685: "We have a possible sighting of Osama in a pickup truck heading north. Let's wait and see if he goes back that direction again, and again."
[15:01] Jtuxyan: Then, like miracles, magic, psionic powers, and elves, which all "totally exist" but can't be proven.
[15:01] *** ShadowDragon8685 direct connection is closed (couldn't send packet!).
[15:01] Jtuxyan: I'm calling BS.
[15:01] ShadowDragon8685: There IS no contradicting evidence, you fucktard!
[15:02] ShadowDragon8685: There's only people sticking their fingers in their ears and shouting "LaLALA ALIENS AREN'T REAL LULZ!"
[15:02] Jtuxyan: Because you can't perofmr an experiment
[15:02] Jtuxyan: fine
[15:02] Jtuxyan: let me put this another way
[15:02] ShadowDragon8685: No! You CAN'T perform a goddamned experiment in order to WITNESS AN EVENT THAT IS MOTIVATED BY SENTIENT THOUGHT!
[15:02] Jtuxyan: Hundreds of people have, simultanously, claimed to see an clearly visible angel descend out of heaven and stand on the roof of the church they were surrounding
[15:03] ShadowDragon8685: It's a unique event, not a scientific phenomena.
[15:03] Jtuxyan: there is no experiment that can be done to confirm or deny this
[15:03] Jtuxyan: but lots of anecdotal evidence
[15:03] Jtuxyan: Why should I believe in UFO's and not that the archangel gabriel visited the earth in the early 1960's?
[15:03] ShadowDragon8685: Documented evidence, Jax. You can't apply the scientific method to police work, either.
[15:03] Jtuxyan: the law says otherwise
[15:03] Jtuxyan: "But I'm totally sure he did it" is a great way to get the guy to go free
[15:04] ShadowDragon8685: You can't say "Okay, person X is seen to have stabbed person Y. Person X may be a murderer. Let's wait and see if he murders again!"
[15:04] ShadowDragon8685: Six people saying "I am totally sure he did it" is a great way to convict, asshole
[15:04] Jtuxyan: What part of "Experiment" do you not understand.
[15:04] Jtuxyan: Like with Osama
[15:04] Jtuxyan: I would say
[15:05] Jtuxyan: "Given that he is a dangerous terrorist who has, in the past, made many speaches over Al'Gezira after a terrorist attack, I predict that sometime in the next six months, there will be a terrorist attack and Osama Bin Ladin will speak after it."
[15:05] Jtuxyan: This is a repeatable experiment.
[15:05] Jtuxyan: There are others you could do, like finding him and poking him with a spoon, or finding other records that confirm his existance.
[15:05] Jtuxyan: UFO's have no such experiment.
[15:06] ShadowDragon8685: That's because they're unique events. That's the whole frigging point.
[15:06] Jtuxyan: yeah
[15:06] ShadowDragon8685: What do you want to do, shoot one down so you can scoop it's remains up and prod them?
[15:06] Jtuxyan: In the Scientific Method?
[15:06] Jtuxyan: "Unique Event" and "bullshit" are synonimous.
[15:06] ShadowDragon8685: No. They're not.
[15:06] Jtuxyan: The moment you utter the words "Unique" or "Nonrepeatable event" at a scientific convention or event.
[15:06] Jtuxyan: You just got on the fast-track to the curb.
[15:06] ShadowDragon8685: You fucktard.
[15:07] Jtuxyan: and yes, actually
[15:07] ShadowDragon8685: Unique events are driven by intelligent thought.
[15:07] ShadowDragon8685: That's why they're frigging unique!
[15:07] Jtuxyan: Miracles are driven by intellegent thought.
[15:07] Jtuxyan: That's why demanding proof for god is silly.
[15:07] ShadowDragon8685: It's not a natural phenomena you're trying to study, it's a decidedly unnatural one.
[15:07] Jtuxyan: So! I'll see you in church next sunday?
[15:07] ShadowDragon8685: Yet there's more proof, a lot more proof, and credible proof at that, for UFO sightings, than there are for God.

At that point, my patience ran out, and the argument broke down. He's a regular viewer of SD.net, and so I"m hoping he'll be open to reasoned debate. Is there any way I can convince him to see the error of his ways?

[Sarevok]

Ask him to disprove the scientifically established theory UFOs are actually holograms generated by dead spirits of flying pigs. An Unidentified Object could be anything. After all if someone knew for sure it would not be unidentified anymore right ?

But science believes they are really caused by dead flying pigs. There is almost as much proof for this as the slightly less accepted hypothesis that UFOs are alien spacecraft.

[Darth Wong]

It's a slight oversimplification to say that faith simply declares itself true and ignores evidence. What really happens, at least in the smarter advocates, is that the propositions of faith are treated as if they are evidence.

When faced with two seemingly contradictory yet equally reliable pieces of evidence, a logical person is required to come up with a theory which, no matter how outlandish on its face, can successfully explain both pieces of evidence simultaneously. That's why light is both a wave and a particle: a seemingly bizarre and self-contradictory theory which was necessitated by our observations to this effect, and which is now accepted in physics.

So what a faith-based ideology does is to elevate its assumptions to the point of treating them as evidence, thus forcing the creation of silly-ass theories like "flood geology" or "God made everything but he's a practical joker" to re-interpret the real evidence in light of this faith-based "evidence".

It's like saying that your massive credit-card debt is not a problem because you have faith that you will win the lottery tomorrow. You're not technically ignoring the debt, but you are using your faith to re-interpret the situation in a manner advantageous to you.

[Kodiak]

While I believe that SOME of these "UFO" sightings are military aircraft, I find it hard to believe that 200 UFO sightings per month represents anything based on reality. There were some recent sightings in Dublin, TX, (correct me if that's the wrong one) where dozens of people saw the same UFO. In an instance like this, I'm inclined to cry "aircraft test flight". When 5 people see "something" on the same night in blurry detail, I cry Shennanigans. I don't believe aliens visit the earth to gawk at humanity, and people who see UFOs all the time are mostly just wishing for excitement in their lives.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

People who believe that UFOs are actually spacecraft piloted by little green men share a lot in common with the average religious fundamentalist. Arguing with them tends to produce identical results, only instead of the mindless quoting of the Gospel of Saint Paul, you get mindless quoting of the Gospel of Random Crackpot Guest of Coast to Coast AM.

The field of "ufology" is rife with fakers, hoaxers, charlatans, and folk who are appallingly ignorant of the scientific process, such as your friend. Let's take, as an example, the incident described by your friend. We're presented with a TV documentary which seems to show that X number of people all saw the same thing. The first question one should ask is "are there recorded statements made by these people immediately after the alleged event?" The second question is "How many other times have they been interviewed before they were interviewed for this documentary? Also, who interviewed them, and for what reason?"

Some interviewers and "investigators" will color an interview with their own expectations, and the more uncertain about an experience the interviewee is, the more likely that their recollections will be contaminated and reshaped by leading questions or emotional cues displayed by the interviewer. And if they're not contaminated, they may still feel pressured to give answers that satisfy the interviewer. Maybe the person being interviewed feels that if they give a juicier answer, they might get their 15 minutes of fame. Or perhaps the interviewer leads them to believe their friends and co-workers are telling a given story, and the interviewee feels compelled to give answers he or she thinks will fit that framework.

This is just an example of how one could inadvertently (or intentionally) take something mundane, twist it into something it isn't.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

The only 'UFO' sightings that even vaguely interest me are those occasional ones that are confirmed by military radar, such as the Black Triangles in Belgium. The only ones that really interest me are those confirmed by military radar as possessing flight capabilities beyond what is currently possible, or radar-confirmed ones with multiple witnesses to testify to the outlandish shape of the things.

Otherwise? Fuck off, I don't care what some hicks saw driving around in the backwoods at night.

[Darth Wong]

The funny thing about non-empirical evidence is that the average irrational person can't see what's wrong with it ... until he sees the non-empirical evidence of somebody else's irrational worldview. I'm reminded of the Christian fundamentalists who laugh at the silly ideas in Scientology like alien spirits flying in DC-8 spacecraft. As if someone who believes in talking shrubbery and snakes, demonically possessed pigs, or an all-powerful deity who will only forgive you if you murder his son has any right to laugh.

[Adrian Laguna]

The only 'UFO' sightings that even vaguely interest me are those occasional ones that are confirmed by military radar, such as the Black Triangles in Belgium. The only ones that really interest me are those confirmed by military radar as possessing flight capabilities beyond what is currently possible, or radar-confirmed ones with multiple witnesses to testify to the outlandish shape of the things.

That still doesn't rule out classified military aircraft or things that aren't really aircraft, like missiles. After all, anyone seeing a U-2 Spy Plane in the early 60s would be seeing something "possessing flight capabilities beyond what's currently possible" as far as they were concerned.

[wjs7744]

That still doesn't rule out classified military aircraft or things that aren't really aircraft, like missiles. After all, anyone seeing a U-2 Spy Plane in the early 60s would be seeing something "possessing flight capabilities beyond what's currently possible" as far as they were concerned.

Isn't that why they are interesting? Because the government is playing with it's new toys.

[Darth Smiley]

It's fine to believe in UFOs - though the 'science' of Ufology is filled with fakes, from what I have heard now and then you'll find something backed up with fairly credible witnesses, or even better, radar - since I haven't examined the evidence, I withhold judgment for now. What is NOT fine is assuming that those UFOs are hyper-advanced spacecraft piloted by aliens. Regardless of what evidence turns up from radar contacts and sightings, there is no evidence of aliens at all.

[Lagmonster]

UFO nuts and ghost seekers are mirror images of each other, and often the same. Eventually you realise that they both have only one form of evidence: anecdotal reports made by people who 'know' what they saw.

[OmegaGuy]

Putting aside the subject of UFOs for a minute, who's to say that aliens aren't real? There are 100 billion galaxies in just the visible universe, each with 100 billion or more stars, so if life evolved on Earth, why not somewhere else?

[Zablorg]

People are more referring to aliens here, I think.

[OmegaGuy]

Well the OP said he was trying to convince his friend that "UFOs and Aliens aren't real"

[Patrick Degan]

Putting aside the subject of UFOs for a minute, who's to say that aliens aren't real? There are 100 billion galaxies in just the visible universe, each with 100 billion or more stars, so if life evolved on Earth, why not somewhere else?

Until evidence for aliens is discovered, the assumption of their existence must remain that —an assumption. We have no way to verify this short of their either coming here, our finding artefacts on Earth which could not possibly have originated from here, or receiving some form of communication from deep space.

[Gullible Jones]

OmegaGuy: consider for a moment that a) stars are fucking far apart, b) galaxies are really fucking far apart, and c) as far as we can tell, we're the only civilization in our galaxy that's discovered radio, if there's even any other civilization - or macroscopic life - out there.

[Darth Wong]

Putting aside the subject of UFOs for a minute, who's to say that aliens aren't real? There are 100 billion galaxies in just the visible universe, each with 100 billion or more stars, so if life evolved on Earth, why not somewhere else?

There's probably life elsewhere in the universe; people are simply saying that the UFO stuff is bullshit. There could be millions of inhabited planets elsewhere in the universe, but that wouldn't justify stories of naked grey bipeds coming to Kansas so they can kidnap and anally probe guys who drive pickup trucks drunk.

[Surlethe]

In fact, given the laws of physics, it costs so much to go from star to star that any aliens from another star system who come here to kidnap and anally probe drunk Kansans are simply retarded.

[Darth Ruinus]

In fact, given the laws of physics, it costs so much to go from star to star that any aliens from another star system who come here to kidnap and anally probe drunk Kansans are simply retarded.

Or drunk.

Anyways, UFOs are real. I once saw something in the sky that I didnt recognize, I couldnt identify it, and it was a flying object. Like others have said, it could be military, it could be a waste basket that fell from an airplane, it could be a balloon falling back down here. Whatever, UFOs are real, since all they are is something that flies and you dont know what it is.

Doesnt mean that aliens are behind it.

Whats this I hear about dead pigs?

[Stuart]

That still doesn't rule out classified military aircraft or things that aren't really aircraft, like missiles.

Quite a few sightings have been UAVs. The catch with a UAV is that its very small but looks like an aircraft so people who see one assume that its a normal-sized aircraft a long way away, not a very small aircraft close-up. So when it whizzes over their heads a few seconds later, they jump to the conclusion it was moving very fast. We had the same problem in reverse when the Boeing 747 entered service; it looks superficially like a Boeing 707 but is a lot larger so people seeing one thought they were seeing a Boeing 707 close up, not a 747 at normal distances - the result was a lot of "low flying" complaints.

Pre-formed perceptions have a very high impact on people's interpretation of events. Tell people to expect something and that's what they experience. Tell them that mysterious lights are seen in a given location and every set of car headlights becomes a UFO. I had a case on another board where somebody claimed that they had seen mysterious lights in the sky. I looked up their location on a map and found there were three reasonable-sized airports withing 15 miles of their position including one that was on the direct bearing of their claimed sighting

After all, anyone seeing a U-2 Spy Plane in the early 60s would be seeing something "possessing flight capabilities beyond what's currently possible" as far as they were concerned.

True, but if we put together what the claimed performance would require, very long wings, very light airframe etc, we get what a U-2 looked like. In other words, we can explain why a U-2 looks the way it does by reference to the known state of the art. The problem with UFOs is that we can't do that; to get the performance claimed with the appearance stated, we have to invent completely unknown art.

[Zixinus]

At that point, my patience ran out, and the argument broke down. He's a regular viewer of SD.net, and so I"m hoping he'll be open to reasoned debate. Is there any way I can convince him to see the error of his ways?

Six eyewitnesses saw something strange, with all familiar descriptions.

That is not coincidence. That's called "all six eyewitnesses saw the same thing". Thing is, that that does not automatically make it an UFO. Or even an object.

Human perception for such thing is limited. Our eyes evolved to see in the bushes and landscape, not to spot alien spaceships.

The guy is grasping for straws.

Like all UFO nuts, he finds a strange case and immediately concludes that its a UFO, while the connection is vague at best. Nothing new.

Are we done?

From retrospect, I would have pushed that argument, rather then dismiss the sighting entirely. He's right that IF (repeat, IF) this was an unique event, then trying to compare it with other sightings might be way too hard or even futile.

Also, he saw a documentary. You can also argue that the documentary is edited and biased in favour to show facts that seamlessly support the alien theory, while hiding and editing away titbits that undermine it.

Putting aside the subject of UFOs for a minute, who's to say that aliens aren't real? There are 100 billion galaxies in just the visible universe, each with 100 billion or more stars, so if life evolved on Earth, why not somewhere else?

Sure, why not? The problem isn't the argument of the very existence of sentient alien life. The problem is the assumption that these average UFO are them, which is ridiculous for a variety of reasons.

Why? Well, its pretty reasonable you don't cross several light years to quickly and mysteriously do anal probes on random people and then disappear.

It is far more likely by any means that radio communications would start from beyond our reach to harm them. We would see them on radars, telescopes and the like. Proven and documented properly by several independent entities. And why would they pop up randomly? Why not land on the lawn of the White House and use the line "Take me to your leader"? If there is nothing they can want from us, why bother with us? If there is something they want from us, why don't they either ask for it or take it?

So far, all sightings has been explained more-or-less and of terrestrial origin. There is no reason why to assume the next one is different. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

[Twoyboy]

Or that one I remember where five different eyewitnesses, four of them police officers, none of whom had any contact before or after the event with one another, working with a crime-scene recreation CGI team to recreate what they saw, demonstrates a disturbingly similar image each time...

Does anyone else find it odd that 4 cops in the same area had no prior contact with one another? My brother's a cop and I have mentioned him to other cops in the metro area of Perth most of whom know him immediately.

I think four policemen working in the same area who had never met before is more amazing than UFOs! What are the odds?!

Seriously though, give this guy a copy of "Demon Haunted World" by Carl Sagan. That's the book that convinced me that there was not a big alien conspiracy.

[Burak Gazan]

** Highlight the chapter ' The Invisible Dragon in my Garage ' which describes the mindset of most UFO nutjobs perfectly --- the invisible dragon which is completely impervious to any detection methods, and no matter how you try, it magically somehow adapts to your method

But it's there, I tell you !!

[Zablorg]

I wonder how many UFO's sighted are regular stuff and how many are... unidentifiable. I mean, there's probably a shitload of haxorz phenomena that happens from time to time that we don't know about, and it strikes me as a little naive to think that the only possible unidentifiable shit is aliens.

[Wyrm]

Remember, alien spacecraft is usually indistinguishable from one or more of the following: drug/alcohol induced delusions, waking nightmares, mass hysteria, lying, or natural (if ill-understood) phenomena. At least we know everything on this list exists.