a short clip from the press conference i stumbled upon back in january, the one that got me started on this whole alien/UFO kick:
i post this as an example of what's out there in "support" of the believers' side of the debate, as well as to remind myself of what it was like to experience these conflicting arguments firsthand (that is, in my own head). the stories get much weirder than this, too...if anyone has a couple of hours to kill, the full 2001 NPCC video can be found here.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
i am the blogmaster
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2 comments:
What about physical evidence? Is anyone in possession of credible physical evidence to back up these claims?
you know who's in possession of the credible physical evidence? THE GOVERNMENT!!!!
actually, that's one of the interesting things about trying to "prove" the UFO case. the physical evidence we'd most like to see--crafts and bodies--are just the kinds of evidence that UFO believers will readily admit to being unable to provide. it's a perfect system, really (perfect from the standpoint of indeterminacy, i suppose), because neither side can prove that crafts and bodies do or don't exist. the honest doubter can't get mad at the believer for being unable to provide an alien body as evidence because part of the believer's story is that this evidence is taken by agencies, hidden, and its existence officially denied. the honest believer has to acknowledge that their case, if it is to convince others, must not depend on evidence it cannot readily produce.
the types of physical evidence that are used to back up claims such as this one include: documentation of military service at the time/place claimed, documentation of the activity claimed to have occurred (log books, internal memos, reports filed by those involved...these often have to be "smuggled out," and sometimes are), recordings or transcripts of communication between involved parties (audio of a pilot witnessing a UFO & reporting to control tower or to military officials who verify that the military has no aircraft in the area at that time, etc.), recordings of radar tracking unknown objects with unheard-of flight capabilities, military/intelligence documents related to UFO research and/or tracking obtained through FOIA (often heavily blacked out, of course), etc. etc. etc.
so...there are a lot of documents. interestingly, the farmer who first discovered the Roswell crash in 1947 collected a few strange pieces of "metal" from the crash site and took them home to show his family. some of the people who handled these objects are still alive, and their descriptions of the artifacts has never changed...though, of course, the materials were taken by federal officials upon their arrival at the crash site.
lacking the ability to point at the craft and the bodies and say "see! i told you so," believers try to gather physical evidence such as the kinds listed above in large part to show that, at least, such-and-such person's testimony does point to something that we can verify actually happened. the documents are strongest when they corroborate testimony. more to come...
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