According to the pro-ET lobbying group Paradigm Research Group,
An event with historical implications will be held at the National Press Club in Washington, DC from April 29 to May 3, 2013. At that time as many as forty researchers and military/agency witnesses will testify for thirty hours over five days before former members of the United States Congress... The Citizen Hearing on Disclosure of an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race will attempt to accomplish what the Congress has failed to do for forty-five years - seek out the facts surrounding the most important issue of this or any other time.But of course, to lobby for "disclosure" implies that there is something to "disclose," which is highly dubious. And to hold a valid "hearing" implies that witnesses are queried under oath, which of course will not be the case, leaving them free to fabricate as much as they please without fear of repercussions. The five former members of Congress are being paid a reported $20,000 each by Paradigm to participate in this circus.
"Former Alaska senator and presidential candidate Mike Gravel [Dem/Lib,AK] is participating in a forum that seeks to prove that aliens have visited earth"
“I agreed to participate,” Gravel told CBS 11 via telephone. “I have my own views and skepticism, but I'm reading up on the subject, and like anything else, the more you read up on the subject the more you become surprised. I have no preconceived ideas that there are or aren't extraterrestrial influences as to things that are going on, and I'm curious. I do a lot of reading and studying about what's going on, especially as I get older, and so I'm curious if there is something out there that they can prove to skeptical eye.”
Former Rep. Merrill Cook, [R-Utah] says he "doesn’t believe aliens have made contact with Earth, but he promises to keep an open mind as he participates in 30 hours of testimony in a mock hearing".
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| Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick |
| Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick |
Another is from Michigan: "A group hoping to prove alien contact with Earth has tapped former U.S. Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick to help convince the federal government to acknowledge the existence of extraterrestrials. The Detroit Democrat will help preside over 30 hours of congressional-style hearings."
The other participants are former representatives Lynn Woolsey [D-CA], and Roscoe Bartlett [R-MD].
As for those giving "testimony," it's mostly the usual suspects whose stories we've heard over and over.
- Sgt. Jim Penniston (USAF-Ret) claims to have not only seen a UFO land at Rendlesham, UK, but to have received a binary message from it, telepathically, that is now being deciphered. Although the incident occurred in 1980, these details were just revealed (or, more likely, just made up) in 2010.
- Dr. Steven Greer, whose new documentary movie Sirius promises Free Energy and a Dead Alien. "The Earth has been visited by advanced Inter-Stellar Civilizations that can travel through other dimensions faster than the speed of light," according to Greer.
- Nick Pope, who worked, part time, on the U.K.'s Ministry of Defense UFO investigations twenty years ago, and has been making a career as a UFO celebrity from it since. Pope has spent the last year or so denying his own statements made about forthcoming 'alien invasions.'
- Richard Dolan, whose most recent talk at the International UFO Congress was about 'mysteries' of ancient pyramids, UFO crash retrievals, reverse-engineeered alien technology, a "secret space program," human-alien hybrids, telepathic alien contact, and mind control.
- Linda Moulton Howe, who routinely makes all kinds of wild claims, such as that aliens are using lasers to remove body parts from dead cows.
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| 2010 'UFOs and Nukes' Press Conference in DC |
On September 27, 2010, UFOlogist Robert Hastings organized a "Disclosure Conference" also at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. Many claims were made about UFOs supposedly interfering with U.S. nuclear missiles, as if the aliens were pacificsts. (However, the Russian-born UFOlogist Paul Stonehill has elsewhere claimed that UFOs attempted to launch Soviet missiles, as if the aliens were war mongers.) A rebuttal to one of Hastings' main cases is here.
On April 20, 2009, Bassett and Paradigm Research hosted a "disclosure" press conference at the National Press Club. Among the speakers then were Edgar Mitchell, Nick Pope, Richard Dolan, and Roger Leir, who are all also speaking in 2013.
On April 21, 2008, Bassett and Paradigm Research held a UFO-related Press Conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. Among the speakers were Richard Dolan and Grant Cameron, who will both be speaking again in 2013.
On Septermber 17, 2007, Bassett and Paradigm Research held a press conference at the National Press Club,
to demand that presidential candidates support a "truth amnesty" to end the "government-imposed truth embargo on the facts confirming an extraterrestrial presence."
Among the participants was Alfred Lambremont Webre, who recently has been claiming that Barack Obama was teleported to Mars in the 1980s. Bassett presented Webre with a Lifetime Achievement award in 2007 for his work for 'disclosure,' although Bassett has since distanced himself from Webre's Mars Teleportation claims.
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| November, 2007 UFO Press Conference |
On November 12, 2007, James Fox and Leslie Kean hosted a press conference in Washington, DC, with many of the same witnesses, many of the same claims. The tales told at this press conference were made into the documentary movie I Know What I Saw. Among Paradigm's 2013 speakers Penniston, Pope, and Santa-Maria also spoke then.
On May 9, 2001, with much ballyhoo Steven Greer launched his UFO "Disclosure Project" with a press conference at the National Press Club. The 2013 Paradigm speakers who also spoke in 2001 are Nick Pope, Edgar Mitchell, Robert Salas, George A. Filer, Robert Wood, and Steven Greer. It is unclear if these "witnesses" will have anything substantial to add to the claims they made in the 2001 press conference.
So clearly, in the matter of 'Disclosure,' there is "nothing new under the sun." I hope I didn't forget any other "UFO disclosure" press conferences. If I did, please let me know!
The above is Rachel Maddow's show on MSNBC for April 12, largely devoted to what she describes as these "fake hearings."
Same old, same old.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I wonder what they were thinking when they decided to promote this farce by using:
1. Faked footage depicting an element of the 1952 Washington flap (in fact, that CGIed footage is based on a very real photo that contains real... lens flares, so really it's a quite humorous double error).
2. Callahans FAA cover-up claims (that were positively proven to be outright lies on his part).
It's all like a broken record.
What a waste of money. UFOlogists always complain about not having money to study UFOs but when they do have it, they spend (according to one report) over a half-million dollars on a publicity stunt, which will accomplish nothing. A more interesting approach would be to pay some scientists to appear on such a panel. After all, they complain that scientists don't take them seriously. If that is the case, pay the fee to some scientists, who are confirmed skeptics, hold it in a public environment, and see if these "witnesses" can withstand some real questions by experts. If the witnesses come out looking good, maybe they will convince "science" to take an interest.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I think they would know the outcome of such a display and it would be money thrown down the toilet as the skeptics would state they were not convinced by the testimony. In the present situation, they have paid these former congress people to be there. As politicians, they know it is not right to bite the had that feeds them. I seriously doubt that any of them will be truly skeptical and actually grill the witnesses about their flawed stories. How many times has Penniston changed the location of the landing site?
The Press Conference should be renamed
ReplyDelete"Science-Fiction Writers on UFO Disclosure"
TS4072
I'm sure that $20K will entice enough open minded views. Personally, I look forward to this "dog and pony show." As Robert has documented in his post, the past attempts via National Press Club trappings has led to more ridicule of the subject.
ReplyDeleteJust a reminder concerning Hastings' last press club floor show (2010), they key witnesses to his story were never invited or chose to sit it out. And...there is ample evidence that one of the principle witnesses was deliberately not invited due to the changing of his story. BTW, those not in attendance did not provide affidavits as did the other attendees.
Robert Sheaffer wrote "to hold a valid 'hearing' implies that witnesses are queried under oath, which of course will not be the case, leaving them free to fabricate as much as they please without fear of repercussions" :
ReplyDeleteI posted a query about this on the Facebook page of Steve Bassett (as the person behind the "hearing") a week ago today. I posted: "Will the testimony given to the Citizen Hearing on Disclosure be given on oath? Or are witnesses prepared to sign an affidavit after giving their evidence that the testimony they gave was true? Several of the photos at the top of the main webpage for the Citizen Hearing on Disclosure show the oath being administered to those giving testimony to congressional committees, so hopefully this key element of congressional hearings is being replicated for the Citizen Hearing on Disclosure."
http://www.facebook.com/steve.bassett.58/posts/10152111191777524
I've had no reply at all so far from Steve Bassett.
Nick Pope (one of the participants in the forthcoming "hearing") was kind enough to respond, indicating that "I’d have no objection to taking some sort of (secular) oath, or signing an affidavit. But it’s Steve’s event, so it’s up to him how he wants to structure things".
I posted about this issue on a few UFO discussion forums. One other person (Lillian Waters (associated with MUFON) posted on the relevant thread on Steve Bassett's stating : "I think it is a good idea to have the witnesses take an oath. The press has been labeling the Citizen Hearing as 'fake' and 'mock'. Let's make it 'real'. Administer the oath to the witnesses just like it would be done in a regular congressional hearing. It would show that we take this seriously."
I'll post the same point on the UFO Updates email discussion List in the next few days, as part of a small batch of posts I'm planning.
The issue with taking an oath to testify here is that so much stuff literally cannot be proven or disproven.
ReplyDeletePenniston received a binary message from a UFO- telepathically. Alien invasions, aliens built the pyramids, aliens killing cattle. No oath would suffice here.
For that matter, what power of law would an oath carry in these proceedings? It would honestly be too much for me to see these people being sworn in to testify that human-alien hybrids walk among us.
That's the great thing about science. Scientists want to know they've truly discovered something and put theories through stringent tests to see if it holds up. Then, they take it to the community to see if others can replicate their findings. They don't hold hearings to force the government to provide that missing proof they always knew was there.
I wish that the aliens who taught the early humans and built so many important landmarks millenia ago would have a talk with the ones mutilating cattle and abducting people...
Here's what should be done: get the U.S. military to disclose whether or not they have a triangular-shaped stealth blimp with remarkable maneuverability. If they do, this could explain the Rendlesham Forest UFO case and the Lights Over Phoenix UFO case. We need to insist on critical thinking and reject wild speculation.
ReplyDeleteI think Ian Ridpath has adequately dealt with Rendlesham. So your idea of a 'triangular-shaped stealth blimp' is redundant. Also, I cannot believe the US or the UK would be flying their supersecret aircraft over the Christmas holidays!
Deletetranspower;
DeleteThere's nothing in all of the Rendlesham fairy tale that's anything like a giant stealth blimp to start. And every report that has been used as evidence for the mythical blimp can be better explained by ordinary military-training events, the Phoenix "Lights" for example, or exaggerated reports of the B-2 bomber more often than not. The "giant stealth blimp" myth began in the late 1980s when the B-2 started flying. And much like the "Aurora" myth, there may have been plans, contracts and even testing, but these things were canceled in the early 1990s, Reagan-era "Star Wars" defense fantasies were over.
There are blimp projects, but the "giant stealth blimp" of the 1980s, reported to float dreamily over Southwestern cities, or stand on edge, hundreds of feet high over deserts before disappearing behind a rainbow, and with a starfield cloaking capability is pure late-night-radio baloney, a minor diversion in "UFO" mythology. But it does recall the public's wishfulness and optimism about technological progress that propelled the original Airship hysteria of 1896-97 and its ready willingness to believe, its predisposition to believe by media conditioning, and Believing is Seeing.
Yes, it's almost a "future that was" moment. Too bad none of it ever happened.
Hudson Valley: Long-running Hoax
Belgium: Typical media-fomented "UFO" Hysteria
Illinois: B-2 Training
google "Lenticular Re-entry Vehicle".
DeletePeace
Bassmeant
Thank you! I read the Popular Science article in 2000. As crazy a nuclear fantasy as I've ever heard. Could've been one of the former itinerant unclear physicist's "brilliant" ideas, huh? Maybe the fantasy-prone fizzycyst saw it in the back pages of Amazing Stories, right next to the Home Nuclear Generator, and believed it was real too! (LOL)
Deletecda: I looked at Ridpath's discussion of the Rendlesham case, but I think his work is quite sloppy. The evidence we have is that there was, indeed, a craft there. My point is that it was a super-secret military craft, not extraterrestrial.
ReplyDeleteThe best witness, Airman Burroughs, stated at the time: "We could see a beacon going around so we went towards it. We followed it for about two miles before we could [see] it was coming from a light house."
DeleteAlso, take a look at: http://www.thestealthblimp.com/
ReplyDeleteObviously you debunkers have made up your minds already no matter what happens. Same old same old? Maybe you should start paying attention instead of focusing on what little pieces you can so can throw the baby out with the bathwater.
ReplyDeleteLooks to me like it's the same old same old closeminded arguments that you continually come up with.
Welcome G-gnome.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you took the time to post. I think it's important you used the phrase 'start paying attention' since that is required of participants lest they sound silly with their comments.
Evidently I need not ask if you've read many of the previous entries within this blog. They would clue in the newcomer to the many, repetetive UFO disclosure actions by the PRG. Eventually, it does become a case of 'same old, same old.'
I will take the warning against close-mindedness to heart. Go and do likewise.
Very expensive LARPing.
ReplyDeleteLOL. I enjoyed the bias comments in this article. I thought journalism was not meant to include personal opinion?
ReplyDeleteThe vibe I got from this was, 'HEAR MY VOICE! before you listen to both sides.' Poor writing skills Mr Sheaffer I wonder what your book reviews are like....
Psychic Vibrations, A Skeptical Book that’s not just Informative, but FUN to read! LOL........sounds legit!
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hypocrisy
DeleteGreetings, Mr. Clayton. That was a reasonably accurate assessment of journalism. This, however, is a blog. The title is usually a giveaway.
DeleteI liked the use of irony, specifically in the phrase 'poor writing skills'- keep up the good work!
Greetings, jozzcooper. Glad to see you also enjoy sarcasm. :D
DeleteLets talk openly. You are a science man, correct? Would you consider the following accurate?
> Universe is around 13.78 Billions years old.
> Earth around 4.54 Billion years old.
> Human life on earth around 200,000 years old.
> Discovery of flight only 110 years ago.
> Einstein's equation E=mc2 revealing the potential for multiple dimensions, published 108 years ago.
> Humans land on the moon, 44 years ago
> Humans land a rover on Mars, 16 years ago.
So humans are evolving at an amazing speed, however the potential for another extraterrestrial civilization to evolve anywhere between that 13.77 Billion years when humans hadn't evolved yet... is impossible?... please, enlighten me!
"Well, ummmmm... derp! I think, ummmm... we haven't got enough evidence to prove what it is but ummmm... we can definitely close our minds off to certain possibilities."
Frank Clayton - April 25, 2013 at 2:45 AM:
Delete"Einstein's equation E=mc2 revealing the potential for multiple dimensions, published 108 years ago."
This is not correct. That equation only gives you the amount of energy of a body with mass, in a reference frame where the body is at rest.
There is nothing in it about "multiple dimensions".
Frank Clayton - April 25, 2013 at 2:45 AM:
"So humans are evolving at an amazing speed, however the potential for another extraterrestrial civilization to evolve anywhere between that 13.77 Billion years when humans hadn't evolved yet... is impossible?... please, enlighten me!
Certainly. What you just did is usually referred to as "strawman": it is a false representation of the argument used by the other person. Effectively it is putting words into the other person's mouth, and has the effect of avoiding the actual argument used by the other person.
The possibility that life and civilizations have evolved in other parts of the universe is not evidence that Earth has been visited by extraterrestrials.
And you topped it off with a hint of "magic future/alien technology", which is basically just fiction.
Frank Clayton - April 25, 2013 at 2:45 AM:
""Well, ummmmm... derp! I think, ummmm... we haven't got enough evidence to prove what it is but ummmm... we can definitely close our minds off to certain possibilities."
Possibilities such as:
- insufficient information to reach a conclusion;
- honest mistakes by witnesses;
- invisible pink unicorns;
- binge-drinking Santa Claus.
What criteria should we use to decide which possibilities should be considered?
Mr. Clayton, thanks for the quick reply. While I do love science, my academic background in scientific study is not at the level of several of the other posters here, so I focus more on what I can offer- things like logic.
DeleteYou laid out a timeline of sorts, so let's take a look at that. Is it supposed to indicate that we're on the verge of immense breakthroughs in interstellar travel? That doesn't logically follow.
Einstein's famous equation is mentioned, but the important part is left out, the part about velocity limitations and energy requirements for space travel. Go back to the blog entry on Dec. 29, 2012 if you'd like a thorough perspective on this.
(http://badufos.blogspot.com/2012/12/is-interstellar-travel-preposterous.html)
Compare the distance to our moon or Mars relative to even the nearest star. Forgive the pun, but the difference is astronomical. We've achieved just a fraction of the velocity of light- it would take thousands of years to get anywhere.
Technology will continue forward, to be sure. There is a limit to it. We know enough about interstellar travel to know we shouldn't bother with it.
What does this say about intelligent life elsewhere? Well, nothing. It's certainly possible for a variety of other civilizations to have arisen in the universe. I think we're all in agreement here on that. They're still constrained by the same limitations.
Could a much older alien race, through tenacity and a desire to explore, travel among worlds? It's possible. It would involve "generation spaceships" coursing through the vastness of space for millenia.
When they got here, after all that time, is it logical these highly advanced people spend decades flitting about the skies, not talking to anyone, etc.?
ETI is possible. The way that folks like Greer present them is what I find unbelievable.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteMr. Clayton, your comments have gotten too abusive. I have removed one of them, and I will ban you if this keeps up. I also removed Papageno's reply to that abusive post.
Delete"The possibility that life and civilizations have evolved in other parts of the universe is not evidence that Earth has been visited by extraterrestrials."
DeleteExactly. We've been hearing this phony rationale for reviving the ETH of "UFO" reports and continued belief in the "UFO" myth and delusion by "model agnostic" Believers for decades.
This is classic pseudoscience on at least two counts: Having the answer before hypothesis; and manufacturing a new variation on a failed hypothesis, the ETH, with a phony sciency appeal.
It's curious how otherwise rational people can make the irrational leap from a report of the failure to identify an ambiguous visual stimulus--a negative--to a possible positive identification of interstellar spacecraft from a hypothetical advanced civilization, and pretend it makes sense! It's a non sequitur.
My question for Believers is: How did you get the idea that a "UFO" report might even begin to indicate spacecraft from another world? It's your belief in the myth that you should be questioning.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteHal yang tidak pernah terbayankan kini menjadi kenyataan dengan keluargaku,,,untuk MBAH SARTO kami ucapkan banyak terimakasih karna berkat bantuannya ALHAMDULILLAH keluarga kami bisa lepas dari hutang dan masalah,karna nomor “GHOIB”untuk pasangf togel,hasil ritual MBAH SARTO meman benar2 merubah nasib kami hanya sekejap,dan disitulah aku berkesempatan kumpulkan uang untuk buka usaha kembali,karna baik rumah sudah disita,,warung makan jg sudah bangkrut,,tapi itu semua aku masih tetap bertahan hidup dengan anak istriku,,walau cuma kontrak tapi aku tetap bersabar dan akhirnya MBAH SARTO lah yang bisa merubah nasib kami..MBAH SARTO orang paling bersejarah kepada keluarga saya…!!! Kepada teman2 yang di lilit hutang dan ingin merubah nasib baik dari pada sekaran HBG: 082=378=607=111 MBAH SARTO,dengan penuh harapan INSYAH ALLAH pasti tercapai.
ReplyDeleteIt appears that the flagship bunch of ex congress people were paid $20,000 each to sign up for this circus:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/29/ufo-conspiracy-hearing-congressmen-senators
Furthermore it seems like they were told it was for the sake of promoting general transparency (I mean, who doesn't want that), that one of them is a religious nutjob and another one adheres to that old and annoying fallacy of "the universe is vast, therefore there has to be visiting aliens". I'm not impressed, I wonder if anyone else is?
Here is a brief summary of the testimonies:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/02/citizen-hearing-on-disclo_2_n_3200580.html
The level of science here ranges from "personal experience" to "unusual personal experience" to "idiot foot doctor who doesn't know how feet work" and I would love to see a brief analysis here.
I continue to read, with wry amusement, an abundance of articles aggressively ridiculing the Citizen Hearing On Disclosure, followed by dismissive commentary from those who insist that there is no government suppression of information.
ReplyDeleteThose individuals appear to base their opinion on a personal certainty that (A) Our government would NEVER lie to the people of this country, and (B) Nobody has proof that UFO's even exist.
Next they sniff derisively and announce, as if they had discovered something dirty, that the panel is actually being paid a salary to conduct the hearing.
So let's look at this...
The witnesses happen to have some pretty serious credentials, and they come bearing actual evidence. You remember actual evidence...that would be Freedom of Information documents, videotapes, photographs, signed, witnessed and notarized statements, hard copy radar reports, and first hand
witnesses with unimpeachable credentials.
Organizers engaged the
services of several former members of Congress (a TRI-partisan group, Republican, Democrat and Libertarian) to conduct the hearing. Well thought of former members of Congress, I might add.
The reason for doing so is that despite decades of requests, active
members of Congress are actually terrified out of their minds of
tackling the subject. A good bit more terrified than they are of the
NRA actually, since this time active members of Congress wouldn't just be facing threats of being primaried, they'd be recalling a trail of very dead bodies
The first thing you must understand is that this Hearing was not simply about the fact that UFO's have been visiting earth for a very long time. That's old news. Unless you've been living on a desert island you should have known that fact for most of your entire life.
What it's about is MONEY. A whole stinking PILE of money. MORE money than you can even BEGIN to conceive of.
It's the reverse engineered technology which resulted from shooting down NON-HOSTILE visitors to this planet simply in order to capture their craft.
Technology, if disclosure were to be made public, which has the ability, among other things, to totally eliminate our planet's need for fossil fuels and to reverse damage to the planet. This idea is not well received by related industries.
There's no way anybody could keep this matter secret, commenters insist.
Need I remind you that not even Vice President Truman knew about the massive Manhattan Project until after he became President? Or
that when Eisenhower became President and information on UFO's was denied to him by the small, military industrial group which had grabbed control of the project, he had a message hand delivered to them, saying that either they release the information to him immediately or he would personally activate the 1'st Army and invade Area 51?
Can't keep it from the public? 90% of the media is owned by a mere 6 corporations.
This is not the stuff of the tinfoil hat crowd. When hundreds of trillions of dollars are on the line, witnesses are mere collateral damage.
When even Rachel Maddow of MSNBC devotes a huge, out of character segment to viciously attacking the hearing and its witnesses a full week BEFORE it has even taken place, (nothing like reporting the results of something that hasn't happened yet) you know word has already come down from on high; Trash it or be prepared to lose your job.
I cannot recommend the archived testimony at CitizenHearingDOTorg highly enough.
Start at the beginning, watch the testimony in order, and don't forget the lecture segments (there were about 3 per evening for four days.)
Want more info?
If you're new to the subject, you may want to start with the new documentary SIRIUS, from The Disclosure Project
the-office.com/SiriusEnergyDOThtm
I think you'll also find the information (and some rather startling UFO photos) on these pages quite fascinating ;
the-office.com/afo/sightedDOThtm
the-office.com/majicDOThtm
the-office.com/afo
Well organized reply and impressive website, thanks for taking the time to make the case.
DeleteDon't you notice a major internal inconsistency in your material. While lauding the credibility of astronaut mitchell's second-hand hearsay, you IGNORE his first-hand clear-cut assertions that neither he nor any astronaut he ever worked with described encountering UFOs in space? And yet the wbsite opens with the claim, "Today they're even being captured on satellite photos, viewable both on Google Earth and in images from the Space Shuttle. THIS IS A FACT: A great many of those vehicles are actually our own. And our tax dollars paid for them. "
Now -- are Internet accounts astronaut in-space reports bogus, as Mitchell repeatedly states, or is your promo claim -- that there are credible reports on youtube -- bogus? How could both be true simo?
Truly curious. Also, Otto Binder was a retired science fiction author at that time, impoverished, and crushed by family tragedies -- but not a journalist. Check his sad bio out.
Greetings Cynthia,
DeleteThat was an interesting read, and certainly informative as regards a mindset of uncritical belief.
I am impressed, to say the least. I take it one's wry amusement has a significance that unsubstantiated claims don't. Why is skepticism of UFO cover-up conspiracies equated with believing everything the government says? I understand that's a common tactic, but it's really odd to me.
I think the tone of the remarks works against them- "sniff derisively" for example. Honestly, how can anyone not roll their eyes at a group of politicians being paid a nice chunk of change to listen to UFO reports? This is especially true when nothing is actually on the line. I said on Robert's FB page that I'd sit in those hearings for that much money.
What exactly is a "serious" credential for a UFO witness? How about an unimpeachable credential? Outside of my mom, I can think of one person in U.S. history who I'd rate as unimpeachable, and he wasn't there.
We have to come up with a new word for evidence. It's used in a different way in UFO circles. I half expect Inigo Montoya to jump in and say "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." Give me a ship and its pilot and I'll be on-board, so to speak.
Ok, Cynthia, the following are not facts:
-members of Congress are terrified of tackling the subject
-flying saucers have been visiting Earth
-we've reverse-engineered alien technology
-our military has shot down alien ships
-hundreds of trillions of dollars are at stake
-witnesses are being snuffed and considered collateral damage
These are all supposition and theory. It doesn't make them automatically untrue, simply unproved.
A curiosity among UFO speakers is the contention that things are being kept from the public. Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't these speakers members of the public addressing other members of the public? A litany of folks delivers testimony during a well-publicized Citizen Hearing and I'm to believe information is being suppressed? It must be all governments right? I mean, the aliens surely have landed all over the place. Perhaps the strategic advantage of announcing alien contact didn't occur to the Soviets or Americans during the Cold War, to name one instance.
I would like to make a request, to Cynthia and others of a like mind. Find one thing, just one, among the various claims made at the Citizen Hearing that doesn't sit right, that seems a little too far-fetched. Look into that claim. You have nothing to lose by doing so, and you might even be surprised.
Joining in a bit late here, but... on April 21, above, the poster calling himself transpower said "The evidence we have is that there was, indeed, a craft there [at Rendlesham]".
ReplyDeleteWe do? Can you tell us what it is, please?
Whether you agree with the use of the word 'fake' or not, the fact remains that the Disclosure hearing was not a genuine Congressional hearing, however hard the organizers worked to make it LOOK like one.
ReplyDeleteReading these comments I am amazed at the degree of emotional commitment on both sides of the argument. Surely the issue is simple. There is a vast number of sightings of unidentified flying objects going back at least as far as WWII. The vast majority can be explained in mundane terms and a very small percentage remain unexplained. This means we do not know what those things were that were sighted.
ReplyDeleteIt is surely as silly to leap to the conclusion that they represent alien intelligence as it is (and it really IS) to dismiss them out of hand. Intelligent inquiry requires a skeptical approach AND an open mind, and rigid adherence to the facts.
Well, we have one fact that is universally accepted, there have been a small number of sightings of objects which defy explanation, and a number of these sightings were made by highly trained observers. It behooves us to inquire intelligently into what these sightings might be, without prejudice and without blinkers. To see only our own answers without asking questions makes us blind.
There is nothing absurd about the possibility of visitors from other planets except the way they are represented by so called 'skeptics'; nor is there any reason to suppose that unexplained sightings of flying objects must necessarily be sightings of alien spacecraft. The fact is, nobody knows what they are. Nobody.
It is unedifying to see intelligent people categorizing themselves as 'believers' and 'skeptics'. Neither of these stances represents an intelligent approach. The only intelligent approach to the unknown is an open-minded attitude of inquiry.
There was some very impressive testimony at the Citizen Hearing, by highly intelligent and qualified people, and while their conclusions may or may not be questionable, neither is it helpful or intelligent to scoff at them and dismiss them out of hand.