Hi Jed, I'm probablly getting way OT here but I feel a need to follow-up on one particular line of thought.
... > Perhaps a theorist can work with a pencil and paper alone, > but in experimental and observational science instruments > are the only source of valid information. UFO-ology will > never be a science until people devise instruments to capture > them, such digital cameras that trigger automatically. > (UFO-cams.) Surely you're not suggesting that our nation's highly sophisticated intelligence gathering instrumentation network (that probably DOES include UFO-cams) has not verified beyond a shadow of doubt that certain kinds of UFOs truly exist? And by "UFOs" I mean some kind of unknown craft that appears to be controlled by some form of foreign (to us) intelligence. The point I'm trying to suggest here is that this particular subject and others like it remain scientifically unsupportable more for political and cultural reasons than the fact that on the surface no scientific evidence appears to exist to back up the extraordinary claims. Government UFO Reports, like the notorious one headed by Professor Condon from the 1960s, was indicative of the kind of suppression and just plain out-right ridicule of the evidence that occurred. The suppression of evidence probably is still going on today. It seems to me that they (specific sectors of our government) simply don't know what to do with the scientific data, the UFO-ology evidence. The pesky things don't seem to follow orders. They come and go as they please. The don't leave calling cards. How rude of them! It's best to relegate them to the X-Files cabinet and be done with it. But don't tell me it will "never be a science until people devise instruments to capture them". In my view sufficient evidence has already been captured ad nausea, and particularly within our highly sophisticated intelligence gathering network (HSIGN). As a society, I suspect we're really not ready to address the implications, and so the subject and all the evidence that has managed to make it out into the public domain remains, mostly, a modern myth. Of course this is a personal opinion I'm expressing, and not scientific "fact. Never the less, I would be an absolute fool to assume our HSIGN hasn't acquired sufficient hard data within the last 50-60 years. They aren't that stupid. > I suppose they will resemble the instruments > that international teams of amateur astronomers are using to document > asteroids. > > There are times when the human senses substitute for > "instruments." One of the early breakthroughs in transistors > came about when a chemist smelled sulphur, and realized it > was doping the devices. The human sense of smell is remarkable, > and in the early 50s it was still rivaled chemical assay > techniques. Ed Storms says that he can see some details and > contrast in a microscope with the naked eye that a digital > or film camera will not capture. > > - Jed Which just goes to show that on occasion our own senses are occasionally the best instruments of all! Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com
