Edmund Storms wrote: > Of course your point is good, Steven. If the hidden artifacts were the > only evidence, believing the UFO claims would be impossible. But, let's > use you example. Suppose people could drive up to your house and see > that the lights are on but you are not hooked to the grid or to any > other obvious source of energy.
Oh, but I am hooked to the grid. I just don't actually draw any power from it. But of course I won't let you see my utility bills; you'll just have to take my word for it. > Suppose a few respected people gain > entry and report that they saw a strange machine in your basement that > seem to be providing energy for your house. Suppose over the years, > thousands of people report the same observations even though their > experiences are totally independent. Are you saying thousands of respected scientists have studied the UFO artifacts and published their conclusions? That would certainly be interesting. What peer reviewed journals have published their conclusions? > Would you then expect people to > believe you had a perpetual motion machine? > > I suggest people believe correctly many things about which they have no > personal knowledge and such knowledge is impossible to obtain. For > example, do you believe humans went to the Moon? Different situation. The lunar landings were a historical event, which by definition we can't observe directly; consequently all the evidence is at least somewhat indirect. And as far as I know, I, or qualified people who are otherwise no different from me, actually do have access to all relevant evidence regarding those historical events. If the Hasselblad slides from the missions were kept under wraps, marked top secret, and only a few "insiders" had ever seen them, and all "outsiders" had to be content with descriptions of the slides along with prints of just two or three selected frames, then the situation might be analogous -- but in fact qualified scientists who have reason to look at the original film are able to do so, and there are high quality scans of all the slides available for all the rest of us. It's when the evidence is direct and currently exists, but we are *not* *allowed* *access*, that one immediately must question whether the evidence actually exists. The claim of artifacts which aren't available for examination by any interested scientist is actually not neutral: It is evidence *against*, not *for*, because it seems to conform to a common pattern exhibited by human liars. Here's a better analogy: The WTC collapsed and the evidence of what made it fall was presumably right there, on the ground, for all to see. But the Government ran an extremely efficient cleanup effort, and disposed of the debris, retaining little or none for further examination, thus making it impossible for all but the few people who got samples before it all vanished to study it. Like the secret UFO artifacts, this makes the situation seem suspicious -- it is evidence that something is not right. It is not proof, of course, and neither is the hidden nature of the UFO artifacts. > All of the evidence on > which you base your belief is either obtained by accepting the > experience of others or from photographs that can be easily faked. Wrong. I've studied the photographs. With technology available in that era, it would have been hard as all get out to fake the photographic evidence. :-) The reflections in the helmets of the astronauts, alone, would have been an absolute nightmare to get right, and since at that time nobody had the technology to really study them and see that the reflections were correct, there wasn't any reason to invest that kind of effort in it. Yet, the reflections were there, on the slides, and they remained there, lying fallow, for over 30 years before somebody, using some heavy computer technology which was less than a dream when Apollo took off, analyzed them and found that they are *correct*. So, no, the photo evidence could not have been easily faked, and the records which say that those slides really do date from that era would be equally hard to fake, requiring as it would a conspiracy of thousands coupled with very carefully timed swapping in of modern fakes to replace the old film, while carefully not disturbing any of the visible details on images which were previously published. > Even > the rocks and returned space craft, which you can see in museums, can be > fake. You have to take the word of honest and respected people that the > event actually happened. An identical problem applies to the UFO claims. > > Ed > > > > On Aug 1, 2009, at 11:11 AM, Stephen A. Lawrence wrote: > >> >> >> Edmund Storms wrote: >>> But Jeff, artifacts do exist. They have been seen by people and >>> described in detail. Granted, you are not allowed to see them, but is >>> that required ... >> >> Of course, in the realm of science, actually "seeing" something is not >> necessary to believe in it. However, in general, we must know that, in >> principle, we *could* see it -- that *possibility* is extremely >> important; I might even say *necessary*. For example, I have never seen >> the MM experiment performed, and never expect to; it's a rather delicate >> experiment which requires specialized apparatus. However, the knowledge >> that I *could* do so is vitally important in believing that it's not >> just a hoax by people trying to support Einstein. >> >> Here, let me make this more concrete: I have a perpetual motion machine >> in my basement. I can describe what it does, and how wonderfully it >> works. I'll explain to you how I've tied it into my house wiring, and >> how I no longer have to pay anything for my electricity. But, you are >> not allowed to see the machine -- I will not let you, even if you ask; >> even if you fly out here, you will not be allowed to see it! Will you >> believe me, though, that it really does exist? >> >> By the same token, alien artifacts which have been described in detail >> but which we, the common folk who are not in the inner circle, are "not >> allowed to see" are not convincing of *anything*. >> >
