Hidden Truth/Hidden Truth.iso/data/newspostings/1601-1700/1654

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From: [e-mail]
Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors,alt.paranet.ufo,alt.alien.research,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Edelman's stream of fallacies (was Re: Skeptic fallacies, a select few)
Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 16:34:12 GMT
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[e-mail] (Michael Edelman) wrote:

>Brian Zeiler ([e-mail]) wrote:
>: Michael Edelman wrote:

>: > We see a lot of claims from people writing here that they do "research".

Most people here read the available literature, which is much more than "saucer
fan magazines."  It includes government studies such as the Condon Report, Blue
Book Special Report #14 (which Edelman labeled a saucer fan magazine), FOIA
documents, etc.  And yes, they also read the popularized UFO books.  However, I
have yet to see evidence of Mr. Edelman having read anything.

A few people who sometimes contribute here have done field investigations.

>: > They don't collect data, or test hypotheses.

Do you?  All I've seen are unsubstantiated claims.  You don't even read the
references cited, such as the lab spectrograms and reports on the Ubatuba
magnesium samples.

I have done some research on a UFO video filmed by radar range cameras at the
Nevada Test Site.  Unlike normal UFO video footage, this has the actual radar
range data superimposed on the image plus the commentary of the radar operators.
There are also close ups of the object through the zoom lens.  Because of the
numerical data, it's possible to precisely calculate the trajectory, altitude,
speed and acceleration of this object.  This is a nonstreamlined object with no
obvious propulsion system, yet capable of hovering, making a right angle turn,
traveling at speeds exceeding 500 mph, and accelerations of 3-4 g.  It is also
intelligently controlled, since it circles the radar site at an absolutely
constant distance while rapidly climbling.  It also seemingly changes shape and
glows, and has a pulsating "aura" surrounding it.  Exactly the same shape craft
has been videoed by civilians flying over Mexico City.  This is either some new
and secret government survellance craft of unknown propulsion or its alien.

Hard data like this video, however is generally hard to come buy.  UFO phenomena
are diverse, and most of the data collection is eyewitness reports.  While
skeptics generally snear at these, they are valuable sources of information
since statistical analyses can be done to pull out the common threads.  It isn't
just "SaucerZealots" who do this, but also government studies, such as Blue
Book.  The Air Force recognized very early on that UFO reports clustered around
strategically important areas such as military bases, government labs, harbors,
power plants, industrial sites, etc.  Blue Book Head Ed Ruppelt, e.g., reported
this to the infamous Robertson Panel back in 1953. Major Dewey Fournet of Blue
Book, an engineer, statistically analyzed the unconventional flight
characteristics of the unknowns, and concluded that they described craft with
intelligent control and advanced design, i.e. alien.  At the same time, the
Battelle Inst. was statistically analyzing the same reports as Fournet and
Ruppelt.  This became BBSR#14, Mr. Edelman's "saucer fan publication."  They
came to the conclusion that there was less than one chance in a trillion that
the unknowns could be caused by misidentification of the knowns.  And the
percentage of unknowns was twice as high for the best observors (like pilots,
control tower operators, etc,) than the worst (drunken hillbillies, etc.)  This
is exactly the opposite result you would expect if UFOs were some form of mass
hysteria, mirage, hallucination, misidentification of common objects, etc.

>: I'm collecting data through the Freedom of Information Act.  What are you
>: doing besides dumping your verbal excrement in this group with hollow
>: ridicule and obnoxious winks?

>You're not collecting data.

Please see comments above.  There are different sorts of data.  Mr. Edelman
seems to think the ONLY valid type of data are numbers he can collect in a lab
under carefully controlled conditions.  Not all scientific research is done this
way.

The FOIA documents. e.g.,  are historical data, which tells us what the
government was secretly thinking about UFOs, while publicly posturing that it
was all hoax, hallucination, and misidentification.

>You're taking information, removing the context and reinterpating it to your
>own ends.

From my observations here, everybody has been guilty of this to some extent,
including Mr. Edelman.

[snip out stuff about radar]

>: >What they do is read books ]
>: > written by other UFO fans. This is how research was done in the Dark Ages ;-)

>: More ignorant blather from a vapid buffoon.  These "books written by
>: other UFO fans" that are cited by David Rudiak and myself make use of
>: government data that can easily be confirmed or refuted.  This data is
>: from the USAF primarily.

>Let's just follow this chain of evidence:

>USAF releases data

>"UFOlogist" takes data, and writes some interpretation of it in a popular
>book.

>Brian reads book.

>Yep, that's Real Scientific Reasearch, by gum!

Studies like the Condon Report and BBSR#14 are not "popular books."  A good
example of Mr. Edelman "taking information, removing the context and
reinterpating it to [his] own ends."

>: Can you corroborate this claim of yours that communications between the
>: US and Brazilian governments were poor in the 1950s?  If you can't, we
>: shall have further evidence that you're an irrelevant waste of electrons.

>Well, for one thing, there was no reliable phone service, surface mail
>took many weeks, and no FedEx, either ;-)

>This was before communications sattelites, Bri ;-)

>Of course, the Greys were providing a regular shuttle service.

What does any of this have to do with the metallurgical studies done WITHIN
Brazilian govenment labs on the Ubatuba magnesium samples.  Absolutely nothing,
that's what.

>: So the use of pure magnesium in an airborne vehicle for purposes unknown
>: automatically implies that it is a "primative [sic] material".  Can you
>: please corroborate this claim of yours that the uses of pure magnesium in
>: airborne vehicles are invariably primitive?

>: > And pure Mg wasn't possible in the 1950s? Think again.

>: Can you corroborate your claim that pure magnesium could be manufactured
>: in the early 1950s?  You can't, because Dow and other agencies conceded
>: that no artificial manufacture nor natural occurrence of pure magnesium
>: was known at that time.

>Well, Bri, you can snip my arguments from your quote, but I can repeat them
>nonetheless:

>Mg was a major aerospace material of the 1950s.

But always alloyed, since structurally it isn't as strong or heat resistant as
other material.  As Mr. Edelman himself pointed out, other materials were far
superior for aerospace applications.

>It is very likely that the fabrication of very pure Mg was possible
>then, but a confidential process.

Again, Mr. Edelman can't provide a reference.

>That's typical. I've mentioned,
>for example, Al/ceramic metal matrix composites which were a secret
>process in the 70s, and a bicycle frame material in the 90s!

>Use of Mg in aerospacd technology decreased after the 50s and was
>supplanted by Ti and Beryllium alloys, ceramics and composite materials.
>
>Mg is 1950s aerospace technology. Why are advanced aliens using it?
>The simple explaination is that the fragments were 1950s earth
>technology.

  And he's contradicting himself.  He has called Mg a "primitive" material for
aerospace applications, and yet he is now claiming they used highly purified Mg
for exactly that.

>Now, have any saucer fans in the last 40 years taken the time to find out
>if Mg of that purity was in fact made at the time?

According to Dr. Roy Craig of the Condon Commission and a big skeptic, there was
no magnesium that pure.  He compared Ubatuba Fragment 3 to Dow Chemical purified
Mg in 1968, the best stuff then available.  It wasn't 100% pure, but neither was
Fragment 3.  But multiple spectrographic analyses in two labs on Fragment 1
indicated it was 100% pure, to the limits of resolution of the equipment (about
1 part in a million, similar to the resolution on Fragment 3).

>The answer is pretty obvious. Saucer fans don't revisit data.

Debunker fanatics like Mr. Edelman won't even read it, and he can't provide
references for his claims.

>: Classic example of SkepticMinimalism.  Mike, we have physical evidence
>: that corroborates the claims of the witnesses to a large, but not 100%
>: certain, degree.  This physical evidence was also determined by the
>: Brazilian government and by Dow to defy our knowledge of natural and
>: artificial occurence of this substance.

>...in 1950.

>: > I'd guess we have a piece of an aircraft, or possibly a chunk of
>: > or ICBM debris.

Again, he's contradicting himself.  Highly purified magnesium wasn't suitable in
the construction of aircraft or rockets.  It was always alloyed.  Yet now he's
claiming it came from exactly that.  Can Mr. Edelman provide references that
purified magnesium was used in such a way that chunks of it could be recovered
from an exploded plane or rocket?   Or how about a reference for "ICBMs" being
fired around Brazil around 1957?   Edelman is just making this stuff up out of
thin air and then accusing others of being "unscientific."

>: Now we see Mike lapsing into SkepticInformationFilter.  Debunkers have a
>: deflective shield around their cortex that guards against the absorption
>: of information that contradicts their collapsing hypothesis.  Mike, here,
>: has apparently decided -- contrary to the verifiable evidence by Dow and
>: various government agencies -- that pure magnesium *did* exist at the
>: time.  Of course, if Mike could provide some evidence of this, he might
>: be a little more convincing when he tries to debunk the other evidence
>: and verifiable substantiations of the never-before-seen pure magnesium.

>Oh, suddenly it's no longer a Brazilian source, but a GOVERNMENT source.
>The Brazilian qualifier has disappeard. Next response he'll just call
>it a government response.

The Ubatuba samples were tested in two Brazilian government labs, but strictly
speaking these were not "government" tests, since they were done for Dr. Fontes.
There was some testing at Oak Ridge labs, but again this was privately done by
APRO, not officially by the government.  The only official government sponsored
result was the testing on Fragment 3 reported in the Condon study, and done in a
government lab.  Two samples confiscated by the Brazilian military simply
disappeared.  Dr. Fontes thinks they were tested, but the military never told
him the results.  And the Lorenzens had the experience of submitting a sample to
an Air Force Lab, and then being told it had been destroyed during testing
without any results.

>: > Mg was a major material in 1950s aerospace
>: > technology.

>: Not pure magnesium.  Unless you can provide some documentation to this
>: effect, I'd rather take the word of Dow and other labs, thank you very
>: much.

>As I've noted, no saucer fan has ever verified this.

Again Mr. Edelman contradicts himself.  According to him, purified Mg was a
"primitive" material of no use in aerospace.  Then he uses it to "solve" the
Ubatuba case, saying it came from one of our flying craft.  And he never cites
any references.  There is NO evidence that 100% pure Mg was available in 1957.

>Tell you want, post a copy of the original data, and I'll run it
>by some materials people I know.

>The only claim I've ever seen here is an unverifiable statement
>that spectrographic analysis showed it to be completely pure. That's
>pretty unlikely,  but I'll accept a copy of the original lab data.
>And putting a second-hand recounting in quotes doesn't constitute
>data, Bri!

As I've told Mr. Edelman before, he can pick up a copy of Coral Lorenzen's book
"The Great Flyijg Saucer Hoax."  In it he'll find photos of 3 spectrograms from
Fragment 1 and copies of the original lab reports, in Portuguese and English.
Dr. Fontes gives a complete history of how he came into possession of the
fragments, and how he went about having them tested.  He can also read the
Condon Commission test results, or read books like "UFOs, Yes" by Dr. David
Saunders of the Condon Commission, who discusses the significance of the Ubatuba
samples, or NASA engineer Paul Hill's book "Unconventional Flying Objects."

But Mr. Edelman somehow thinks reading has nothing to do with research.  And
actual lab reports and the Condon Report are just books written for saucer fans.
Right Mike?

>: > It's been replaced by other materals and composites that were
>: > unknown then. Again, why are advanced aliens using Mg instead of
>: > stronger, lighter, tougher materials?

Why are you using pure aircraft/rocket Mg to explain Ubatuba while at the same
time saying it wasn't suitable for these craft?  Consistency please.

>: Why do you assume that pure magnesium has only one use?  Maybe they eat
>: magnesium and make their onboard pool cues out of magnesium.  This is a
>: totally idiotic and absurd line of pseudoskeptical reasoning.

>Brian asks the question, and answers it in one pass!

>: > You're a scientist, you say; what research have you done, other than
>: > reading past saucer tales?

>: And thus Mike lapses back into his rabid rants.  Little does he know how
>: completely insane he appears for stomping around the UFO newsgroups like
>: a madman, hurling insults around and overturning decades of verifiable
>: research with a few keystrokes.  He really doesn't recognize the obvious
>: lunacy in this behavior.
>:
>Oh, I recognize lunacy when I see it!

>--mike