Hidden Truth/Hidden Truth.iso/data/newspostings/101-200/193

Internet Message Format | 1996-06-07 | 7.0 KB

Path: news.demon.co.uk!dispatch.news.demon.net!demon!usenet2.news.uk.psi.net!uknet!EU.net!howland.reston.ans.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!sdd.hp.com!night.primate.wisc.edu!newsspool.doit.wisc.edu!news.doit.wisc.edu!news
From: Brian Zeiler <[e-mail]>
Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors,alt.paranet.ufo,alt.alien.research,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Skeptics stay away from Hill's UFO Book
Date: Sat, 08 Jun 1996 01:42:38 -0700
Organization: University of Wisconsin
Lines: 117
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
References: <4ovsuv$[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <4p24sn$[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <4p4pch$[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <4p6pj2$[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <4p98gu$[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <4p9pdg$[e-mail]>
NNTP-Posting-Host: f180-179.net.wisc.edu
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.01 (Win16; I)
Xref: news.demon.co.uk alt.alien.visitors:85932 alt.paranet.ufo:52111 alt.alien.research:24999 sci.skeptic:68933

Michael Edelman wrote:

> What you are saying, behind that mouthful of polysyllabic pi-throwing,
> is that you believe in aliens when no normal explaination works. That's
> a pretty loose set of critera.

No.  The inductive reasoning that hypothesizes extraterrestrial origin is
a result of reasonably strong evidence for the following criteria:

1)  Physical substance (from radar-visual and ground-trace cases)

2)  Intelligent control (from formation flight, evasion, pursuit of
    fighter jets)

3)  Technology that, by its observed nature, precludes human origin
    (from accelerations and maneuvers observed in radar-visual cases)

> Here's a set of phenomena we can't fully explain with today's
> scientific knowledge:

Those don't fit the above three criteria, so your silly analogy is rather
moot.

> : Yes, I'm familiar with the concept of classification errors, thanks.
>
> Then perhaps you'll tell us why anomalous echos keep getting cited
> as UFO evidence....

They don't.  You don't know what you're talking about.  The USAF
commissioned the Condon Committee in 1969 to examine the evidence,
including radar-visual cases.  For some cases, like the Lakenheath case,
the scientists -- yes, Ph.D. scientists -- concluded that the only
feasible explanation was that the echoes were due to the presence of a
solid object.  They can tell this when the weather conditions are not
conducive to inversion; when visual contact confirms radar manifestation;
when air radar confirms ground radar; when two ground radars with
different technical specifications both corroborate each other, which
tends not to happen with inversions in general; when the echoes are large
and solid, not thin and wispy; when geographically dispersed witnesses
also report UFOs simultaneously; and when the observed maneuvers of the
echoes exhibit behaviors atypical of inversions, malfunctions, and any
general radar anomalies.

In short, physical substance is inferred when the evidence overwhelmingly
suggests it within the accepted scientific inferential framework to make
such a determination.  That you claim that all radar-visual cases are due
to anomalous propagations only betrays your profound lack of familiarity
with these scientific analyses as well as your rather biased viewpoint,
since it must be biased if you defend it despite its contradictions with
the body of evidence.

> : Radars produce false targets because both solid objects and atmospheric
> : effects can produce similar -- though not identical -- echoes.  If you
> : were familiar with the research of atmospheric physicist Dr. James
> : McDonald (deceased) of the University of Arizona, you would see that the
> : unsolved radar-visual cases feature echoes whose characteristics preclude
> : anomalous propagation effects.
>
> Such as?

The Condon Report's Lakenheath case was one important one analyzed by
several independent scientific teams, including the Condon Committee of
the University of Colorado as mentioned, but also the American Institute
for Aeronautics and Astronautics, a professional scientific society.
Below I will mention a source for others that were analyzed by similarly
credentialed scientific organizations and independent physicists.

> You should realize that applying statistical methods to data does not
> validate the data!

The chi square analysis gives results which lends credence only to the
inference that the Bluebook unknowns were not from the same underlying
distributions as the knowns.

> : I refer you to atmospheric physicist Dr. James McDonald once again for an
> : illustration of the differences between anomalous returns and the solid
> : returns characteristic of radar-visual cases.
>
> Y'know, for a man with such a huge vocabulary and a list of references,
> you don't seem to have much data at your fingertips.

You debunkers waste my time.  The time I spend re-re-re-re-hashing the
same arguments and evidence for every clueless newbie debunker that
waltzes through here can be better spent on other pursuits. I will give
you references you can pursue for yourself, but I'm not going to type in
a case study, if that's what you're expecting.  For further examination
of case studies of radar-visual incidents that cannot scientifically be
explained any other way except by inferring the presence of a solid
object, refer to Cornell University's _UFOs:  A Scientific Debate_,
edited by Carl Sagan and Thornton Page, 1972.  You can find this at any
large campus library or order it on interlibrary loan through your own. I
know a copy is on my school's shelf right now.

The best part is the analyses by atmospheric physicist Dr. James McDonald
of the University of Arizona.  McDonald was a very outstanding physicist
who served on many civilian meteorological associations.  He also
regularly demolished the pseudoscientific explanations of journalist Phil
Klass, who posited the plasma ball hypothesis.  Dr. McDonald also kept
famed debunker Menzel in line, since Menzel was an astronomer who
proposed highly untenable atmospheric explanations that could never
withstand the scrutiny of seasoned professionals in the field of
atmospheric physics.

Now that I have answered your questions completely and thoroughly, it is
up to you to find this literature and either analyze it yourself if you
have the background or analyze it against the counterarguments.  You'll
find that no counterarguments exist from a scientific standpoint; they
all rely on logical trickery about "extraordinary claims" and on the Big
Skeptic Fallacy of dismissing/mutilating/butchering the observations
until, suddenly, they become explicable without inducing physical
substance.  But that's not science.  So, if you proceed to follow up all
of my posts with ignorant flames and hollow ridicule attempts, you'll
look pretty silly for not following up on your own requests for
information.

--
Brian Zeiler