Case Closed On Jerusalem UFO Video 336
Posted
by
timothy
from the no-border-incursion-after-all dept.
from the no-border-incursion-after-all dept.
astroengine writes "Skepticism was high after videos surfaced earlier this year depicting a UFO over Jerusalem. However, ufologists defended the sighting, dismissing claims that it was a hoax. But a few days ago, the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), one of the oldest, largest, and most respected UFO investigation organizations in the world, announced their findings about the Jerusalem UFO. Yes, even MUFON has concluded it was a hoax."
Typical (Score:4, Insightful)
'UFO'* video appears.
Some people offer rational explanation.
People who believe it's a UFO say nu-uh.
Rational people put forth rational explanation
People who believe it's a UFO say nu-uh.
People accept it's a hoax.
At no point the people who believe in UFOs think that maybe if the last 100 sighting were incorrect, then may the idea we are being visited is wrong.
*for the sake of this post UFO means alien visitation.
Re:Carl Sagan (Score:5, Insightful)
Every era has had their share of unexplained phenomena. Before UFO's there were demons, beasts, witches, etc. The current myth-of-the day is UFO's. (And I'm not saying they don't exist, just that there might be a simpler reason for all these sightings)
So what you're saying is that fallen angels have adopted modern stories to continue their nightly activities? I wonder why they shifted from being succubuses to doing anal probes.
Re:The day that we get proper footage... (Score:4, Insightful)
That right there is the best evidence against.
We've seen a geometric explosion of people carrying camera equipped gadgets all day every day, and still we get points of light against a black background.
So many of the anecdotal accounts describe up close encounters, huge ships hovering 50 feet off the ground or drifting slowly about in no particular hurry to hide or escape detection, all sorts of details visible. Where the phonecam shots of those? Huh? Huh? Huh? Yeah, I thought so.
And, hey, although a hard core skeptic, I would *LOVE* a real photo of an alien ship. The world could do with the punch in the crotch of that magnitude.
Re:Carl Sagan (Score:2, Insightful)
Before UFO's there were demons, beasts, witches, etc. The current myth-of-the day is UFO's.
Ah, I see what you did there. Demons and witches are imaginary, so UFO's must be too. Sagan was a smart guy, but I don't see why his application of pop-psychology to the matter has any weight.
Here's a US Army Colonel who contradicts [aolnews.com] Sagan:
Re:MUFON is not respected. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)
Where non-news confirmed to be non-news is news.
The news is: This UFO hoax is so lame even UFO nutters rejected it!
Re:MUFON is not respected. (Score:2, Insightful)
Thanks for proving my point. It's not up to the sceptics to demonstrate how the case files are not actual real UFOs, it's up to the believers to show how they are.
we are not in a courtroom. this is not how science works and mankind gains new knowledge :
if there is an unexplained phenomenon, interested researchers bring explanations and hypothesis for that phenomenon. when someone brings proof, the hypothesis moves forward.
unexplained phenomenon means, unexplained phenomenon. that means, the skeptics did not provide anything to disprove the existence of that phenomenon in an acceptable manner either.
Not Carl Sagan (Score:2, Insightful)
I have a problem with Carl Sagan. He delivers skepticism with dismissal and a know-it-all attitude, seemingly based on the assumption that popular science is a... a godsend.
Real Scientists, like Real Programmers, have a very different approach to their philosophy. They don't madly hack and slash with Occam's Razor since OR also has the little talked about, additional qualifier of the need to provide a full explanation; not just the simplest one. E.g. I think that if Carl Sagan had his way with the Standard Model, neutrino mass would be considered an error of nature and anyone who attempted to measure it he would label as a quack or a crank.
Carl Sagan and self-labeled "skeptics" are the Penn and Teller's Bullshit to everybody else's Mythbusters.
Re:Carl Sagan (Score:5, Insightful)
Te current myth oof the day is the gov can do good...
Exactly the opposite is true. You only need to spend some time in a place without effective government to realise that.
The (uniquely American) myth of the day is that there is no role for government in countless different areas that other societies have been fighting tooth and nail to get government to look at.
You want know what life is like when you government ceases to play a role in your life? Corruption is the first sign that things are going wrong. It becomes rampant because nobody's looking out for you, so you have to look out for yourself. People stop planning and start looking for the shortest distance between them and the next meal.
Then security starts to wane. Fewer police patrolling makes the streets less safe, so people -rightly- begin to trust one another less and less.
Then education goes into the shitter, because only the schools run by and for the wealthy are self-sustaining, and the others are staffed by teachers who have to take a second job to make ends meet, even if that means not showing up a day or two a week.
Then crime gets worse, because you get an entire generation of disaffected, unemployed, cynical and frustrated youth who stop giving a damn about you because you never gave a damn about them. They'll just as soon jack you up for your mobile as look at you.
And then it just goes spiraling down from there....
Think I'm making this up? Don't. I'm describing exactly what's happening in the developing country I'm living in. We at least have an excuse, because our government has extremely limited means. You folks in the developed world have no such luxury. So here's my advice: Stop bitching about whether government services are good, and start talking about how to make them better.
Re:Typical (Score:5, Insightful)
To be fair, my father served in the Airforce underneath a Colonel who was friendly with him. This Colonel said specifically he had knowledge of certain things like missile guidance systems, stealth, etc. that were taken from alien technology.
As someone who served in the military for an extended period of time, one of the biggest disappointments for me was realizing that many officers are either retarded or fucking nuts. I know an airforce pilot who's convinced that there is alien architecture on Mars. I know a Military Intelligence officer who is convinced that the Earth is 6,000 years old. Most recently, I had an army Captain tell me that garlic cures cancer.
I think part of growing up is realizing that people - even highly placed people with all sorts of qualifications - are generally full of shit. Most of the time it's simple ignorance rather than malicious lies, but it doesn't change the fact that authority figures are generally just as fallible as anyone else. THE most important thing I've learned in life is to evaluate every claim based on the evidence presented for it, rather than the credentials of the person who is vouching for it. Without that, we may as well be back in Galilean times, where reality is determined by church officials regardless of what data those uppity "scientists" present.
Re:Carl Sagan (Score:2, Insightful)
Funny, I live in a developing country too, and the best thing they ever did was stop controlling their citizens' lives and let individuals flourish. You see, government used to be a part of citizens' everyday lives. You had to have a permit for this, a permit for that, the government would assign you a job on graduation, population was kept even by a system of assigning households, and so on. People are continually amazed by the stuff I do - "you mean you didn't ask permission first?" It simply never occurred to me that the government has a place in my life.
The new approach of "let people do what they want" is working quite well, too. Hospitals aren't scary and dirty any more. People can live in nice places instead of the "warren of hundreds of identical blocks of apartments" that are still around (and crumbling badly). I could think of another dozen examples, but you get the idea.