UFO: The Greatest Story Ever Denied.

[_Darth J]

Are you referring back to that story where you admitted that you do not know what you saw and I repeatedly explained how it is impossible for you to have calculated the speed of whatever you saw as you claim to have done?

I admitted I didn’t see the occupants of the craft.

You also have provided nothing to identify what you saw, or even any particular reason to conclude that it was a "craft" of any kind.

You explained nothing of substance, and my calculation of approximate speed remains intact. Point A to Point B plus time equals approximate speed, which was beyond the sound barrier, with no sound emanating from the craft – at all. If it was piloted by, say, NASA crew, then America has some incredible locked-up aeronautic secrets the public know nothing about.

I'm sorry, Ray, but your simplistic assumptions are not accurate. "Point A to Point B" as a linear distance does not work for an object in the sky for which you have no frame of reference as to its distance from you, its height about the ground, or its angle from you. Because you do not know how far away from you this thing was or how big it was, you have no basis for determining that it was over Point A and then over Point B. The object could have been much closer or much further away than you assume, because you have no frame of reference for an object in the sky.

http://midimagic.sgc-hosting.com/ufopercp.htm

Your continuing insistence that you are not bound by the limits of human perception does not do much to dissuade any inferences about your possibly engaging in magical thinking.

You speculated on the other thread that the velocity of this thing was 25,000 mph.

"So when someone sees a flying disc moving across the sky at 25,000 miles per hour, with no sound, they’re not going to assume it’s an F/A-18 Hornet."

On the same post, you also speculated that the thing was going Mach 2, which is approximately 1,522 mph.

"When there’s no sound emanating from a flying disc moving at about mach 2 in built-up areas, hovering, then moving off still with no sound, there’s a reason to think it’s not British Airways flight 455."

So your varying estimates only differ by a factor of 16 or so. But let's take your 25,000 mph guess:

25,000 mph x 5,280 feet = 13,2000,000 feet per hour

13,2000,000 feet per hour / 3600 seconds per hour = 3,666.67 feet per second

No, Ray, I do not believe that you were able to make any reasonable observations about an object that would move the better part of a mile in literally the blink of an eye. Either you did not see anything besides a blur, or your estimates are ludicrously erroneous, or both.

Yes, I had never heard of---nor read anything about---the UFO phenomenon prior to your video homework assignments.

You have indeed, from The Journal of New England Skepticism, hoping to confirm your a priori conclusions.

I provided that link, and another link, and a link in this post, to show why your wild guesses about where you think this object was in relation to two points on the ground could not possibly have anything accuracy.

I see, though, that your are on the apologetic of anti-UFO sources needing to be summarily disregarded. You're still not doing a very good job of refuting my major premise that UFO apologetics and Mormon apologetics are largely interchangeable.

Okay, so you're agreeing with me that the documentary just puts this guy up there without explaining who he is or why we care what he says.

Do I have to “agree with you” on what was obvious from the start?

It's obvious to anyone who took trigonometry that your wild guesses about the speed of the whatever-you-think-you-saw do not have the slightest chance of accuracy, but you won't agree with that.

But if people are so confused and gullible and whatever, then what is the basis of the expectation that they will be able to discern the "truth"?

The Holy Ghost, of course. Nothing about “discerning” was presented. Facts were presented, like the conversations between Houston and Gemini 7 and Discovery, as one example. When Borman says he sees a bogey at 10 o’clock high, over 4,000 miles away from earth, I don’t think he was referring to a Cessna 150. Many astronauts know a lot more than they have let on to the public – so does NASA. In fact NASA has told them to shut up! And not talk about their experiences publicly. The early Roswell media reports said what was discovered – an alien spacecraft, and recovered alien bodies – blasted all over the front pages, and then it mysteriously turned into a “weather balloon”. Something like 1,500 rounds of artillery were fired at a mysterious UFO hovering over LA in 1942, all unable to destroy the craft, and then it too turned into a “weather balloon”.

Battle of Los Angeles.

Well, let me finish your documentary. And don't worry, I'll address your Battle of Los Angeles from which no evidence whatsoever of an alien spacecraft was found, but ufologists are selling forged government documents about it, anyway.

http://www.majesticdocuments.com/pdf/ma ... ch1942.pdf

So far I'm not seeing a lot of difference between people recognizing UFO evidences and people recognizing Book of Mormon evidences. Nor am I seeing a difference between the claim that the "truth" is being suppressed by people who don't want the "truth" to get out, in the case of either UFO's or the Book of Mormon.

Then I really can’t help you. Others seem to have no problem seeing the difference. I grant that there will be skeptics who will never be convinced, even informed ones, and perhaps you fall into that category.

"These things can only be discerned by the eyes of the Spirit." That's okay; I've heard it before.

It's kind of funny that all I did about this latest video is ask what it was going to be like, but now that I am making specific comments about it I am closed-minded and have not looked at this overwhelming mountain of evidence such that anyone who is not firmly convinced that space aliens are on the Earth is a drooling moron.

You are not open minded, because you blatantly mock and joke about that which you haven’t experienced, and don’t understand, and you're desperately searching for "weather balloon" explanations. You have approached this subject with anything but rationality.

So far, I don't recall once typing the phrase "weather balloon," although I will be doing so when I finish the segment about the Battle of Los Angeles.

But maybe you have a point that you should not mock and joke about things we do not understand. Maybe it is better after all to make up stories and speculate about things we don't understand.

Do you feel that immediately making innuendos about the motives and character of someone who is not persuaded by your evidence is helping you make your case that UFO apologetics is different from Mormon apologetics?

[_Ray A]

You speculated on the other thread that the velocity of this thing was 25,000 mph.

"So when someone sees a flying disc moving across the sky at 25,000 miles per hour, with no sound, they’re not going to assume it’s an F/A-18 Hornet."

On the same post, you also speculated that the thing was going Mach 2, which is approximately 1,522 mph.

You're horribly misreading, but this is no surprise to me at all.

Let's go over that again:

"So when someone [insert: anyone] sees a flying disc moving across the sky at 25,000 miles per hour, with no sound, they’re not going to assume it’s an F/A-18 Hornet."

There have been reports of UFOs traveling that fast. I was NOT referring specifically to the UFOs we saw!

Here is my report from a blog post just over a year ago where I estimated their speed.

My UFO Encounter, and Other Crazy Speculations.

Maybe you should learn to differentiate between metaphor, light-hearted comment, allusion, and most importantly taking comments in context.

[_Ray A]

Do you feel that immediately making innuendos about the motives and character of someone who is not persuaded by your evidence is helping you make your case that UFO apologetics is different from Mormon apologetics?

That would have to be one of the most ironic statements ever written on this board.

[_Darth J]

Do you feel that immediately making innuendos about the motives and character of someone who is not persuaded by your evidence is helping you make your case that UFO apologetics is different from Mormon apologetics?

That would have to be one of the most ironic statements ever written on this board.

Do you feel that a reflexive quip that dodges the question helps make your case that UFO apologetics is different from Mormon apologetics?

[Guest]

Do you feel that a reflexive quip that dodges the question helps make your case that UFO apologetics is different from Mormon apologetics?

In fairness Darth, there is some (a little) evidence that there are things flying around that don't seem to fit the pattern of normal aircraft. While there is none that I've seen for the Mormon stuff. :)

An example: The my wife and I were laying on our backs in the middle of the night on a golf course at the bottom of Death Valley looking at stars (sounds strange, I know, but something we like to do). The atmosphere is so clear there and light pollution is so low that you can see satellites pass overhead.

You can tell that they are satellites because they are about the same size as the dimmest stars that you can see, except that they are moving. No blinking lights as an airplane would have. They shine with an obviously reflected light.

I pointed out one to her and we were both watching when it made an abrupt right angle turn. Nothing that I know of that has a terrestrial origin can do that. No satellite, no plane, not even a helicopter unless it's almost stationary.

I'm not claiming this was extraterrestrial, but it is hard to explain.

[_Ray A]

Do you feel that a reflexive quip that dodges the question helps make your case that UFO apologetics is different from Mormon apologetics?

The irony grows even thicker.

Well here's one important difference: Do you know of any Congressional hearings (or the academic equivalent) into Book of Mormon historicity?

SYMPOSIUM ON UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS

Calls to reopen Congressional hearings:

Best-selling author Leslie Kean will approach Congress, Obama on UFO disclosure

Pressure Building for Congressional Hearings on UFOs.

Over 400 witnesses from every aspect of the US government, military and Intelligence agencies willing to testify before Congress about "inside operations", cover-ups and denials.

I mean, how much more can I say? Really, how much more do I have to spell out the obvious for you?

[_Darth J]

You speculated on the other thread that the velocity of this thing was 25,000 mph.

"So when someone sees a flying disc moving across the sky at 25,000 miles per hour, with no sound, they’re not going to assume it’s an F/A-18 Hornet."

On the same post, you also speculated that the thing was going Mach 2, which is approximately 1,522 mph.

You're horribly misreading, but this is no surprise to me at all.

Let's go over that again:

"So when someone [insert: anyone] sees a flying disc moving across the sky at 25,000 miles per hour, with no sound, they’re not going to assume it’s an F/A-18 Hornet."

There have been reports of UFOs traveling that fast. I was NOT referring specifically to the UFOs we saw!

So you were just making sweeping assertions about UFO citings in general attempting to bolster the likelihood that you could possibly have determined how fast what you saw was going?

Here is my report from a blog post just over a year ago where I estimated their speed.

My UFO Encounter, and Other Crazy Speculations.

Maybe you should learn to differentiate between metaphor, light-hearted comment, allusion, and most importantly taking comments in context.

From your blog:

"Now to this day I do not know what those craft were A very sophisticated laser-beam effect isn’t out of the question, I suppose, and I’m prepared to wear a few hot-curried scrambled eggs on my face if that were the case.."

What you're trying to do is a subtle shift in the burden of proof, because you are implying that the null hypothesis is that space creatures were flying a vehicle of some kind. That's what I mean by magical thinking. You insist that "I don't have sufficient information to determine what you think you saw" is equivalent to an admission that this was in fact a vehicle piloted by space aliens.

There is not a single fact you provide in your account from which you could have determined the height or distance of any of these things. You would have to know that to know those things to determine the speed of objects in the sky.

I have never disputed that you saw something unusual for which there is insufficient data to make a conclusion. What I have disputed is that in the absence of an explanation, it must have been extraterrestrials.

If you wish, you may continue to assume that I am the board's designated UFO debunker. I will repeat, yet again, that I do not affirmatively claim that sentient life from other planets does not exist. I am saying that I have yet to find compelling evidence to make me believe that. Maybe there will be some on this video by the time I get to finish it. However, my interest in this thread is purely about the striking similarities in apologetics for different beliefs, in this case between ufology and Mopologetics.

[_Darth J]

Do you feel that a reflexive quip that dodges the question helps make your case that UFO apologetics is different from Mormon apologetics?

In fairness Darth, there is some (a little) evidence that there are things flying around that don't seem to fit the pattern of normal aircraft. While there is none that I've seen for the Mormon stuff. :)

An example: The my wife and I were laying on our backs in the middle of the night on a golf course at the bottom of Death Valley looking at stars (sounds strange, I know, but something we like to do). The atmosphere is so clear there and light pollution is so low that you can see satellites pass overhead.

You can tell that they are satellites because they are about the same size as the dimmest stars that you can see, except that they are moving. No blinking lights as an airplane would have. They shine with an obviously reflected light.

I pointed out one to her and we were both watching when it made an abrupt right angle turn. Nothing that I know of that has a terrestrial origin can do that. No satellite, no plane, not even a helicopter unless it's almost stationary.

I'm not claiming this was extraterrestrial, but it is hard to explain.

I have never denied the existence of unidentified flying objects. I am just waiting for that evidence for such objects to be positively identified as extraterrestrial to present itself.

[_Ray A]

So you were just making sweeping assertions about UFO citings in general attempting to bolster the likelihood that you could possibly have determined how fast what you saw was going?

That is your mind reading, and a wrong assumption. Totally wrong.

From your blog:

"Now to this day I do not know what those craft were A very sophisticated laser-beam effect isn’t out of the question, I suppose, and I’m prepared to wear a few hot-curried scrambled eggs on my face if that were the case.."

What you're trying to do is a subtle shift in the burden of proof, because you are implying that the null hypothesis is that space creatures were flying a vehicle of some kind. That's what I mean by magical thinking. You insist that "I don't have sufficient information to determine what you think you saw" is equivalent to an admission that this was in fact a vehicle piloted by space aliens.

This is going in unproductive circles. I couldn't see whether the heads poking out the windows and yelling "hello" were aliens or humans. I've already stated the implications if it was piloted by humans (see above).

There is not a single fact you provide in your account from which you could have determined the height or distance of any of these things. You would have to know that to know those things to determine the speed of objects in the sky.

Here we go again.

I have never disputed that you saw something unusual for which there is insufficient data to make a conclusion.

Then let me ask you again:

What did we see?!

You provide a theory. You have diagrams from my blog, so surely you can come up with something.

[_Darth J]

Do you feel that a reflexive quip that dodges the question helps make your case that UFO apologetics is different from Mormon apologetics?

The irony grows even thicker.

Well here's one important difference: Do you know of any Congressional hearings (or the academic equivalent) into Book of Mormon historicity?

SYMPOSIUM ON UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS

Calls to reopen Congressional hearings:

Best-selling author Leslie Kean will approach Congress, Obama on UFO disclosure

Ms. Kean writes in her book, “the application of science demands that at present we be agnostic about whether any UFOs have any extraterrestrial origin, neither believing nor rejecting this.”

Yet, in her ExopoliticsTV interview with Alfred Lambremont Webre, Ms. Kean states she is not aware of reliable whistleblower or documentary evidence of anti-gravity UFOs of U.S. military intelligence. However, she states, she is open to reviewing substantial and reliable evidence of U.S. black budget anti-gravity UFOs if that is made available to her.

Oh, I see. I am a blind, dogmatic skeptic when I say this, but she is not.

Pressure Building for Congressional Hearings on UFOs.

Over 400 witnesses from every aspect of the US government, military and Intelligence agencies willing to testify before Congress about "inside operations", cover-ups and denials.

I mean, how much more can I say? Really, how much more do I have to spell out the obvious for you?

And to think that that was just 13 years ago, too!

How many more decades do you estimate it will be before this "pressure" reaches critical mass?