Scientists debunk themselves into a corner Volume 2

Post Reply New Topic

In this instalment of "scientists rushing to debunk stuff" we now turn to UFOs. Most scientists wave these away as misidentification of planet Venus, aeroplanes or (the airforce favourite) swamp gas, flocks if birds or temperature inversions.

In this video we have a classic example of a scientist rushing to debunk UFOs with a theory that hasn't aged well.

the video taken from Australian 60mins from 1982. Dr Michael Persinger was a Professor of Psychology at Laurentian University in Canada till he passed away in 2018. According to Prof Persinger back in 1982, UFOs are ball lightning associated with volcanoes and/or weather events. He seemed so sure of himself at the time.

Sociological explanations around 2000 assure us that people underwent mass hysteria following the cold war and nuclear weapons and Kenneth Arnold's original claim of flying discs created a template for all future UFO sightings.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/200 ... n.research

Or Prof Susan Clancy who says memories of UFOs or alien abduction is a form of false memory where we implant memories of things that never happened.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12150421/

then more recently in 2025 we have psychologists who conclude there is a tendency for people to attribute unexplained events to paranormal or extraterrestrial events. “When faced with events we cannot control, our minds look for patterns and explanations,” the study’s authors write.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/artic ... ne.0312511
this summarises the 4 main lines of modern debunking against UFOs.

the great mountain of debunking stories came crashing down in 2017 when the government eventually admitted since at least 2004 both the airforce and navy have been regularly reporting anomalous craft shaped like
tic tacs
rotating tops
discs
eggs
jellyfish
rubber ducks
triangles
triangles inside squares

So how have scientists responded to the emerging data from US Congressional hearings since 2017?

the US government and members of the scientific community engaged in aggressive debunking and ridicule of thousands of normal people who have had incredible experiences for the past 8 decades need to issue an apology for the humiliation many of these people have endured.

text book example
https://www.screenwest.com.au/made-in-w ... to-aliens/

Rodwell is a remarkable lady who counsels people who have post traumatic stress from alien abduction experiences. Mary endured horrible ridicule back in 2010 when she did a University talk circuit and was hounded by academics and laughed and interrupted her talks like she was some type of subversive terrorist. In the University of Adelaide one particularly foul Professor of Physics encouraged his students to laugh at her.

this is the primary reason I made these posts - Universities no longer seem to be open minded places anymore.

The first step to convincing me that aliens may be visiting us is to explain why they would find us so interesting that they would spend tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of years or longer to get here and the same to return home.

Before mentioning the word "alien" - First accept what I present in my post. the 8 decades of debunking from 1947-2017 that essentially attributed sightings and experiences to hallucinations, attention seeking and poor observation skills. Psychiatrist, the late Prof John Mack, interviewed hundreds of people who experienced abductions and sightings of UFOs and staked his professional reputation (he was the preeminent person in his field as the founder of the school of Psychiatry in Harvard) that these people were all completely normal and had symptoms of trauma. He accepted they had real experiences they could not mentally process. Even if it was all man-made, they saw/experienced something anomalous. I'm one of these people.

One textbook example were residents of Phoenix Arizona who in 1997 saw giant triangle shaped craft. Likely the entire city saw the craft and many were even brave enough to go to the police and media to report their sightings. So when the governor of Arizona himself, Fife Symington, told the media he saw them too, a lot of people attended the press conference he held about the incident. Instead of corroborating, he ended up making fun of his own constituents and made out people were somehow "dumb" and couldn't tell the difference between airforce flares and craft. People who stuck their necks out were left humiliated and angry with Symington. Many years later Symington admitted he did actually see the UFOs but felt he couldn't risk his job as governor so pulled a fast one and debunked his own experience in front of the entire country (this was televised coast to coast). It left a lot of Pheonix residents looking like fools who to this day are angry at Symington for betraying their trust in him to back them up.

That people see something they can't identify? That seems likely. It's the jump from that to saying that they are space aliens that is absurd.

Start with the very first victim of debunking, 1947 Jessie Marcel. He's the poster boy of schmucks who people laughed at because he mistook a weather balloon (the airforce later claimed in 2000 it was a secret spy balloon part of Project ) for a crashed metallic disk.

So who was he? he was a major in the US Airforce, he was also an intelligence officer who was involved in the nuclear program that dropped bombs on Japan. In addition to nuclear program, airforce and military intelligence, he received a letter of commendation from General Ramey and Kepner who were in charge of the US airforce for his work on operation Crossroads which was nuclear testing on Bikini atoll in 1946. Keep Kepner's name in mind because he was in charge of balloon operations for the US airforce. It's not hard to really to differentiate a balloon from a solid object, for Marcel it's a no brainer.

So this man who was one of the most decorated individuals in the US airforce and one of the smartest - in 1947 he saw debri from a fallen balloon and went straight to the media (risking his entire reputation in front of the country and world) said its a crashed flying saucer. But then later he came back and said "oops" my bad, its just pieces of a weather balloon. I mean, "really!

take a step back and ignore the word alien and accept there's been a campaign of debunking.

Those involved in collecting the debris said it was wrapped in wrapping paper and fit in the trunk of a car.

Just how big are these so-called extraterrestrials?

I liked the one a few years ago when a flying saucer was seen regularly for a while in one of the northeast states.

It suddenly stopped when the FAA told the pilots of the small planes to stop flying around at night in a loose formation while flashing their lights in unison.

there were four witnesses from the airforce at the Roswell crash site
Major Jesse Marcel:
Head of intelligence at the Roswell Army Air Field, he was the first to arrive at the crash site and later stated that the debris was not a weather balloon.
Colonel Cavitt:
Commander of the 700th Air CIC Detachment's Roswell office, he accompanied Major Marcel to the crash site and helped collect debris.
Sergeant Rickett:
From Cavitt's office, he also traveled to the crash site and helped collect debris.
Brig. Gen. (later Lt. Gen.) Walker:
The Air Force official who initially announced the recovery of a "flying disc" before quickly changing the story to a weather balloon.
Also Sherriff George Wilcox.
How is it 5 sober individuals (4 of them senior airforce personell and one from law enforcement) could mistake pieces of balloon for a crashed UFO??
take a look at the material Marcel was asked to pose with


Even a 10 year old boy (Marcel' son) said the material they posed with was not the material his father bought home. If you saw bits of alfoil and wood would you seriously jump up and down and say its a flying saucer. Claiming 4 seasoned airforce personell could look at this and see a flying saucer is severely testing how gullible we all are.

Yeah the airforce tried this with the Arizona Phoenix lights too. the problem was multiple people saw an object the size of a football field silently (without noise) cruise over their homes. One witness said it best. "I know what I saw, if its one of ours then all I can say is I feel safe we have it and not the Russians or Chinese, but why all the secrecy"?

Why indeed...

If there were ET's , Trump would be best friends with them and brag about it, thus no ET's

I'm merely echoing what the us government says - they are anomalous and they exist. No need to use the following words
Alien
Et
extraterrestrial
off world
interdimensional

Sorry Mr Word police , it's a fair cop , I'll go quietly

Do you know why such a smart and decorated US airforce service man went straight to the media with this? That sounds off to me.

If he seriously thought it was evidence of alien visitors, wouldn't his instinct be to go straight to the military with it? If it was clear proof of extra-terrestrial life visiting Earth he'd surely have understood the dangers of putting that information directly into the public domain?

Oh no, you don't have to go?