Craziest Belief Challenge!

Originally posted by VoidSpirit
that's in interesting concept. but who said there is such a universal law among higher intelligence? and what kind of intelligence would you rate humanity at?

50% of humanity is as dumb as a rock, statistical fact.

Originally posted by CLL53
50% of humanity is as dumb as a rock, statistical fact.

which half are you in?

Originally posted by CLL53
50% of humanity is as dumb as a rock, statistical fact.

Ah, an idealist is among us.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I am really not sure what you are saying here. What do you mean by 'primary evidences' and in what way do you think I am dismissing them? What 'earlier studies' are you referring to?

The primary evidence of numerous recorded videos, photographs and personal witness statements of hundreds people of the one prolonged UFO event in Phoenix I have referred to, which you refuse to look at. It is a most remarkable event, leaving little option of other explanations for something of such a large scale. This is not a single blurry photograph or rushed shaky video. You refuse to look at it, because of your previous studies and dismissals.

Originally posted by Taoman
The primary evidence of numerous recorded videos, photographs and personal witness statements of hundreds people of the one prolonged UFO event in Phoenix I have referred to, which you refuse to look at. It is a most remarkable event, leaving little option of other explanations for something of such a large scale. This is not a single blurry photograph or rushed shaky video. You refuse to look at it, because of your previous studies and dismissals.

I refused to look at it because of the reason I gave. If I do look at it, and convince you that it is not good evidence of alien activity, you will simply switch to another incident. As long as you have a few hundred incidents to play with, we can go on for years.
In addition to this, if the evidence was significant, it would be all over the news. This suggests that people with more time than I have already gone over the evidence in question and found it wanting.

But lets have a quick look as it will be interesting to see if your response is as I predict above.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Lights
It clearly states that there were two distinct events with the second event turning out to be flares dropped during an airforce exercise.
The problem now is that your figures for video, photographic evidence and witnesses is clouded by the fact that many of them were witnesses to the second event (which is no longer a UFO as it has been explained). In fact the Wikipedia page says that there is practically no photographic or video evidence for the first event.
So to summarize, it is a case of people blowing out of proportion a currently unexplained but poorly recorded and poorly witnessed event by mischaracterizing it as part of another event at almost the same time and location with a well known explanation and then 'borrowing' the witnesses and photographic/video evidence.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I refused to look at it because of the reason I gave. If I do look at it, and convince you that it is not good evidence of alien activity, you will simply switch to another incident. As long as you have a few hundred incidents to play with, we can go on for years.
In addition to this, if the evidence was significant, it would be all over the news. This s ...[text shortened]... h a well known explanation and then 'borrowing' the witnesses and photographic/video evidence.

You are right in one thing. We will each highlight those elements that support our own view, so it appears nonresolvable.

The Wiki article goes on beyond what you say with the controversy about all sightings being flares, which happen fairly regularly from the nearby airbase. Why did a city used to such flare drops suddenly get very active reporting a strange phenomenon, one that stretched beyond Phoenix itself.

The then Arizona governor, at first ridiculing in an early press conference (why?) later admitted the strange nature of the sightings
The article ends with this:

"...in March 2007, Symington said that he had witnessed one of the "crafts of unknown origin" during the 1997 event, although he did not go public with the information. In an interview with The Daily Courier in Prescott, Arizona, Symington said, "I'm a pilot and I know just about every machine that flies. It was bigger than anything that I've ever seen. It remains a great mystery. Other people saw it, responsible people. I don't know why people would ridicule it". Symington had earlier said, "It was enormous and inexplicable. Who knows where it came from? A lot of people saw it, and I saw it too. It was dramatic. And it couldn't have been flares because it was too symmetrical. It had a geometric outline, a constant shape.
Symington also noted that he requested information from the commander of Luke Air Force Base, the general of the National Guard, and the head of the Department of Public Safety. But none of the officials he contacted had an answer for what had happened, and were also perplexed. Later, he responded to an Air Force explanation that the lights were flares: "As a pilot and a former Air Force Officer, I can definitively say that this craft did not resemble any man made object I'd ever seen. And it was certainly not high-altitude flares because flares don't fly in formation". In an episode of the television show UFO Hunters called "The Arizona Lights", Symington said that he contacted the military asking what the lights were. The response was "no comment". He pointed out that he was the governor of Arizona at the time, not just some ordinary civilian.
Frances Barwood, the 1997 Phoenix city councilwoman who launched an investigation into the event, said that of the over 700 witnesses she interviewed, "The government never interviewed even one".

The possibly were flares coincident, but such explanations are not sufficient to close the issue, even to this day. And the closed nature of the investigation is suspect.

Lets not go on for years. Let's agree to disagree.

Originally posted by Taoman
You are right in one thing. We will each highlight those elements that support our own view, so it appears nonresolvable.

I said not such thing. I said, that once I convinced you that one incident was not significant you would move on to another incident. It appears though that you are not even willing to admit the issues with the one incident.
It is clear that:
1. There were flares that night dropped by an army plane.
2. Most of the sightings, photos, video recordings etc were of those flares.
Ultimately what you portrayed as a massive event well documented and with many witnesses is clearly nothing of the sort. Either you were mistaken or were being dishonest. At least have the honesty to admit that you were mistaken.
Now all you are left with is second or third hand romours and 'controversy' and people making claims about how they weren't willing to come forward, or had their videos confiscated etc. All the 'hard evidence' is not forth coming.
There is certainly nothing whatsoever in what you have presented that would lead me to believe that the event was little more than some flares and some aircraft flying overhead and a few overzealous reporters.

In relation to this sort of phenomena I feel it important to point out that when Haleys Comet came by, many people read about it on the news, then went out at night to observe it. However, most of them had never looked at the sky at night before and there were all sorts of fantastical stories ranging from people who thought the milky way was the comment and people who saw shooting stars or aeroplanes and thought they were the comet. Only those with some experience, and a sky map actually saw the comet. But some of the stories I heard were quite fantastical.

Originally posted by Taoman
You are right in one thing. We will each highlight those elements that support our own view, so it appears nonresolvable.

The Wiki article goes on beyond what you say with the controversy about all sightings being flares, which happen fairly regularly from the nearby airbase. Why did a city used to such flare drops suddenly get very active reporting a str ...[text shortened]... tigation is suspect.

Lets not go on for years. Let's agree to disagree.

(why?)

Why indeed!!

The press has always been corrupt. They will change stories of this nature quite often.

But lets not talk about spaceships, lets just mention something like the 20 or so bodies that were found in a ditch somewhere in Queensland. When this came on the news, we (me and my girlie at the time) , were sure that this would be the biggest news story to emerge for a long time. Alas, nothing. No follow up report.

As for the few "crazies" who thought they heard something on the news about it ... well they were easily dissuaded that they didn't see it or that it was something else.

It's only the stories that are in and out of the news for months that people remember .

Originally posted by Taoman
We will each highlight those elements that support our own view, so it appears nonresolvable.

I am curious as to why you think it would be nonresolvable. Does this mean you accept that your views and conclusions are pure speculation not based on the evidence but based on your pre-existing bias?
I on the other hand claim that my views and conclusions are based on hard evidence and thus I believe that I should, given enough time and effort, be able to either convince someone with differing views that my position is valid, or, have my own position altered by the presentation of evidence by the other party that contradicts my views.
In other words I do not think the evidence is purely neutral and that we are simply making it into what we want. I believe the evidence is real, and should lead to the same conclusions for all who are willing to look at it.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I am curious as to why you think it would be nonresolvable. Does this mean you accept that your views and conclusions are pure speculation not based on the evidence but based on your pre-existing bias?
I on the other hand claim that my views and conclusions are based on hard evidence and thus I believe that I should, given enough time and effort, be able ...[text shortened]... evidence is real, and should lead to the same conclusions for all who are willing to look at it.

You clearly ignored the rest of the article that was stating the viewpoint from the other side. This is a misrepresentation. It appears unresolvable to me.
The Governor of the State, an ex-military man was not a "nutter" and his statement should mean something, but apparently not.

Hundreds of witnesses were ignored in the so-called "investigation", as you ignore the reasonable argument as to why so many became aroused when flare drops were well known in the city, and witnesses knew of them. I stated some flares were possibly coincidently observed. But a common known local event does not explain away the whole expanded phenomenon. The craft observed was enormous.
The overall view is neither conclusive nor objective, when many witnesses of it were ignored.

It is a known feature of US government investigations of such events to ridicule and suppress. I'm not sure what their motivation is, but no doubt "national security" will be mentioned somewhere. I am not convinced by official investigations that appear to ignore respectable sane witnesses, according to the Governor's own statement. What happened in toto is now not resolvable, relying on differing witnesses and a suspect "investigation". That some flares were seen is probable from the evidence.

Anyway, as you state, that is only one of many UFO incidents.

One I personally heard, was described years ago by a missionary to Papua New Guinea. He and about 80 other people, including the local administrator saw a craft close enough to distinguish beings at the windows waving at them. For a number of hours. The appearance and sound of the craft was very similar to other sightings far from Papua New Guinea - circular with "lights" around the edge that were actually viewing windows. The humming but relatively quiet sound was also similar.
He was not predisposed to believe in extra-terrestrial visitors at all (with his fairly fundamentalist belief system), but was very convincing as he described the event to a full church in which I was present. No evidence otherwise though.

My mother saw a UFO early one morning and excitedly described it to us, as young children, when we arose. We were somewhat skeptical, until numerous other like reports were described in a news item in the evening newspaper. There was no explanation. It too was circular (seen from the side as a "cigar" shape) and flew away at unbelievable speed, according to my mother, who was in a sane frame of mind and not at all thinking or hearing of such things, at the time, totally unexpected.

All rubbish of course - no evidence. If one was open to such things one could see a number of reasons why they may not make actual contact. We may carry alien bugs that could wipe them out, for one. or vice versa. Perfectly possible. Be very careful, thank you. Did you see what happened in some primitive societies when similar contact was made by Europeans? They died en masse from the imported diseases that their immune system had not encountered. And that was on the same planet!

Originally posted by Taoman
You clearly ignored the rest of the article that was stating the viewpoint from the other side.

That is simply not true. I gave a rough summary and left you to read the rest if you wanted to.

This is a misrepresentation. It appears unresolvable to me.
Why are you so quick to make it 'unresolvable'? If I have misrepresented something, correct me.

The Governor of the State, an ex-military man was not a "nutter" and his statement should mean something, but apparently not.
A statement he made 10 years later. No, I am afraid his statement does not mean a whole lot. And no, you don't have to be a "nutter" to be mistaken, nor do you have to be a nutter to make stuff up. Either is perfectly possible.

Hundreds of witnesses were ignored in the so-called "investigation",
So you claim, but since they were 'ignored' you don't actually have those witnesses.
This is real misrepresentation. You do not have hundreds of witnesses, you have one or two people claiming there were hundreds of witnesses and that those witnesses were ignored.

as you ignore the reasonable argument as to why so many became aroused when flare drops were well known in the city, and witnesses knew of them.
That is because it is not a reasonable argument - and no I did not ignore it, I addressed it.

I stated some flares were possibly coincidently observed. But a common known local event does not explain away the whole expanded phenomenon.
And it is an obvious error to make it into a 'whole expanded phenomenon'. You are claiming there are two separate phenomena yet attributing all your witnesses etc to the 'UFO' event when you readily accept that many of them (and according to Wikipedia, most of them) were related to the flares.

The craft observed was enormous.
Nonsense. I can assure you that you cannot accurately judge the size of a craft in the sky, and doing so at night is even worse.

The overall view is neither conclusive nor objective, when many witnesses of it were ignored.
Then you should agree that there can be no conclusive nor objective conclusion and it is perfectly reasonable to make the most reasonable conclusion ie that it was all a result of some flares.
It is not reasonable to make the conclusion that it is evidence for alien activity.

Anyway, as you state, that is only one of many UFO incidents.
Yet it was apparently the best one you could present and it has totally failed to be convincing.

One I personally heard, was described years ago by a missionary to Papua New Guinea.
As I said, once we move on to others we can be at this all year.

All rubbish of course - no evidence. If one was open to such things one could see a number of reasons why they may not make actual contact.
But unless they have anti-camera technology you would expect something more concrete by now.

We may carry alien bugs that could wipe them out, for one. or vice versa. Perfectly possible.
No, that would not preclude communication.

Originally posted by twhitehead
That is simply not true. I gave a rough summary and left you to read the rest if you wanted to.

[b]This is a misrepresentation. It appears unresolvable to me.
Why are you so quick to make it 'unresolvable'? If I have misrepresented something, correct me.

The Governor of the State, an ex-military man was not a "nutter" and his statement shou ...[text shortened]... vice versa. Perfectly possible.
No, that would not preclude communication.[/b]

Your floundering mate

Originally posted by NOTGATE
Your floundering mate

He's really not you know. He's sharp as a tack, whether you agree with him or not.

Originally posted by avalanchethecat
He's really not you know. He's sharp as a tack, whether you agree with him or not.

Yeah, the ol' Twhitey is pretty sharp. I've always found him a fine "obstacle" 🙂 on the road of (spiritual) evolution.

Thing is the laws of physics have been broken (or bent at least), and more and more people are discovering these 'oddities' on a regular basis.

"They" say that we (humanity/scientists) will never get it because the means of us trying to understand cannot find what they are looking for.

Luckily rationale (science) is evolving. From Newton to Einstein and now the advent of quantum.
Where to next? I dont know, but I think we all need to be courageous and "solid" to "bring home the bacon" on this one. Especially when there are forces out there whose sole purpose is to obfuscate and mislead the public... but even more importantly to keep the divisions in place between us. They need war. They need drugs to be illegal, etc,etc.
I think we'll (humanity) will get "there" , but when and how many is still a bit of a lottery.
Nothing is set in stone, and despite all the things that seem unchangeable in this often effed up world, I am optimistic that when real change comes, it will be (relatively) swift, hence the need for 'preparation' (ie , preparing our minds and understanding our common yet unique psychologies )

"It's 90% preparation..." (a quote from my 'guru' from some years ago)

Originally posted by twhitehead
That is simply not true. I gave a rough summary and left you to read the rest if you wanted to.

[b]This is a misrepresentation. It appears unresolvable to me.
Why are you so quick to make it 'unresolvable'? If I have misrepresented something, correct me.

The Governor of the State, an ex-military man was not a "nutter" and his statement shou vice versa. Perfectly possible.
No, that would not preclude communication.[/b]

"That is simply not true. I gave a rough summary and left you to read the rest if you wanted to."

Not quite tw.. You said:
"It (you are referring to the article link) clearly states that there were two distinct events with the second event turning out to be flares dropped during an airforce exercise."

My point is that the article does not "clearly state", but the first section of it gives that statement. Other parts of the article state that this is controversial. It is in that section referred to as a slanted categorisation of multiple types of appearances, the sources of that categorisation being already UFO skeptical with prior bias and some media quoting them. I don't find simplistic media reports very valuable either way. They are just roughly reporting an opinion one way or the other. I look beyond that to reasonings and evidence. It appears from the evidence stated there were flares released at about the same time from the local airbase, a common occurrence and some sightings may have been those.

As the article goes on to state beyond the section you over-generalised the article from, the reports were far more extensive than that and lists them.

"Why are you so quick to make it 'unresolvable'? If I have misrepresented something, correct me."

Just this once ( I aplogise to readers for the extended post) I will respond in detail to the first few. To do it to all of them would be far too lengthy.

Why am I "quick" about this? My statement is referring to the fact that the evidence is now old, numerous witnesses were not examined or recorded, there are time conflicting reports (e.g. the Governor's statements, he gave one early - while he was in office, how close were elections I wonder - that was at odds with his later more expanded statements.)
I also see the discussion between us as unresolvable because, while I accept rationally some of your arguments, you never even acknowldege any argument from the other side as even having any rational merit or refer to them. This is a mark of your responses and have encountered them many times before on different subjects. This does not have the flavour of rational discussion but rather reminds me of the sort of discussions I have with fundamentalists. I guess there are reductionist fundamentalists too, but I certainly dont think as kooky.

"A statement he made 10 years later. No, I am afraid his statement does not mean a whole lot. And no, you don't have to be a "nutter" to be mistaken, nor do you have to be a nutter to make stuff up. Either is perfectly possible."

See above. You totally dismiss the statement. Another reason this is unresolvable between us.
You state it does not mean a whole lot. I think it is significant at least. Obviously the use of perjorative terms like 'nutters' has nothing to do with rational examination of evidences. You totally ignore the other possibilty - 'mistaken', ' making stuff up' or sincere report of something quite strange witnessed by a apparently quite convinced man in a position to have far more contacts with military and governmental organisations than most.

"Hundreds of witnesses were ignored in the so-called "investigation",
So you claim, but since they were 'ignored' you don't actually have those witnesses. This is real misrepresentation. You do not have hundreds of witnesses, you have one or two people claiming there were hundreds of witnesses and that those witnesses were ignored."

This is gobbledy gook tw in the way it is stated. So if witnesses are ignored, later there are "no witnesses" reports and because there were "no witnesses" that is why they weren't ignored - there was nothing to report! A circular obfuscating argument.

Instead of listing the verbal reports and their detail in the article, I will repeat the link for readers to look at all the witness statements, just in that article, and the detail and the spread of the reports.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Lights

I would be interested to hear, just reading what they say in detail, including the nature of their movement, whether it an obvious mistaken observation of "flares" or ballons". Note these reports on two distinct occasions months apart, include a governor (later, when out of office) and a policeman. The reports on "ballons" has this comment attached:
"On April 22, 2008, a resident of Phoenix told a newspaper that the lights were nothing more than his neighbor releasing helium balloons with flares attached.[14] The following day a Phoenix resident who declined to be identified in news reports stated he had attached flares to helium balloons and released them from his back yard.[6] However, no name or pictures of the reported hoaxter were ever released, nor was anyone cited, ticketed or charged from the supposed releasing of flares over a residential area that at the time was enduring a record drought."

- did not want to be identified
- jets scrambled but later denied
- no names or pictures , no evidence at all, but jumped on as such by biased skeptics.
- no record charges laid for what would be a serious misdimenour.

Some evidence!


"as you ignore the reasonable argument as to why so many became aroused when flare drops were well known in the city, and witnesses knew of them.
That is because it is not a reasonable argument - and no I did not ignore it, I addressed it."

Sorry, I can't find where you addressed the argument as to why people who knew of flare events locally should become somewhat stirred up like they did. You may mean something else. And btw, referring to Haley's comet and the usual number of uninformed interpretations, does that mean all reports are therefore of the same nature, ipso facto? That was a totally different type of incident.

Enough.

You can respond, but I am finished. Is that snoring in the background, I hear?

For those interested in the topic an interesting source (from both viewpoints) is The Huffington Post UFO secton.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/ufo/