General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: UFOs are in today's news again. Step up DUers. If you have had a sighting, lets us all know. [View all]StClone
(11,690 posts)It is a starting point and also a separation point between a Scientist and the ever-skeptical, if not cynical, whose position is nearly implacable.
Scientists first admit by saying to themselves "That's odd." Then design and investigate and go where the observations, tests, and theories, take them, and keep building. Even if the answer is ever-elusive (like Gravity, that is not settled, force? Not a force? Which subatomic particle causes it? Graviton?). But we see gravity's effects, at least in how we perceive reality, it does exist. And we can test and examine that but still, it is not settled exactly.
The proclaimed Skeptic is admirable (in regard specifically to the "UFO/UAP" thing) because they do Science by disproving or at the very best "cast doubt" or "debunking." And don't have to do much more than go on the idea, "it is not known to exist therefore it doesn't" and will offer Occam. But often they do not open the evidence wide enough to make the evidence "Occam-izable." There is a great service in questioning, and disproving, a lot of the junk images, stories, and conspiracies out there...fabulists, liars, fraudsters, and clickbait sites. However, there are those who are self-appointed to never face the real phenomena but throw sand in the gears. Donald Menzel is one of the greatest of those debunkers. A giant in the field of Astrophysics he was also been credibly linked to studying the UFO topic seriously, secretly, within the Government.
Take the Navy fighter pilot who sees the same phenomenon which has occurred since the 1940s, he is mistaken! He, the top flight fighter pilot, with 20/10 vision, psychologically tested for stability and mental acuity, is off-kilter. He takes IR videos of the unknown, and is told "It shows a blurred, distant airliner!" The pilot is entrusted with our secret technology in the form of a billion-dollar craft, yet he is misled. On and on.
Yes, we need serious doubt when making a case for the basis of what the "UFOs" are and that threshold is not going to be proven, or disproven, without serious minds "positively" taking on the challenge once and for all. We need to face this while dragging the dead weight of nay-sayers along with us to a more enlightened position. There are effects on people created by this phenomenon and though not testable like gravity, we can find a starting point.