Concerning _evidence_, RON TAYLOR said to TROY H. CHEEK in UFO:
   >> It simply means it can't be tested at present.  Future testing, when
   >> finall available, may or may not show the claim's validity.
 RT> 
 RT> Ok... I'll grant you that.  It is conceivable that within all the UFO
 RT> hype, there are some valid ET encounters... conceivable, but IMO, highly
 RT> improbable .
I believe likewise.  If there are any valid ET encounters, they have 
obviously been drowned a sea of not-so-valid encounters.  Which is why I 
think it is vitally important to examine all encounters, even if at first 
glance they seem to have a mundane source.  Unfortunately, even if all the 
skeptics and all the believers in the world would trust each other and were 
willing to work together, we still don't have the manpower to do an in-depth 
study of each and every encounter.
 RT> But those claims do nothing to reach a conclusion until they are 
validated,
 RT> substantiated, and shown to be proof of alien presence.
I don't necessary agree with that.  "Before collation, all statistics were 
anecdotes" is a quote I came up with in probabilities class many years ago.  
The sheer bulk of reports proves that "something" is going on.  It doesn't 
necessarily prove what that "something" is, of course, but it does show that 
it's not something that can be dismissed out of hand. 
   >> spacecraft.  However, the skeptic is ALSO making a claim when he says
   >> that the UFO was a weather balloon.
 RT> 
 RT> Again, I have to agree.  If the debunker claims an absolute alternative
 RT> to the ET hypothesis, it is up to him to substantiate that position.
 RT> The problem we have here is that in many cases, the event can be easily
 RT> explained by mundane events...
In some cases, yes.  In some others, no, and claiming the case to be 
explained by mundane events blinds us to other possibilities.  (Skip ahead a 
paragraph if already bored.)
Case in point:  A few years back, I happened to witness a faint, flickering 
green light across the entire night sky, like nothing I'd ever seen before.  
The local "skeptics" informed me that what I saw was sheet lightning.  I 
complained that sheet lightning isn't green, and the reply was that I was 
mistaken or making up the part about it being green.  Once that decision was 
made, I was ignored and spoken of as if addled because I wouldn't let the 
matter drop. Taking my question to the UFO echo, I was informed by then 
scientific moderator Kurt Lockner(?) that our Sun had been very active 
recently, emiting higher than usual volumes of charged particles which where 
interacting with our upper atmosphere.  I was lucky enoughto be one of the 
relatively few people around the world to see the visual resultof one such 
discharge, which incidentally also caused enough electrostatic potential to 
disable at least one communications satellite.
The point of this rambling discourse is that some skeptics seem to have a 
grab bag of cookie-cutter mundane explainations (swamp gas, weather balloon, 
lightning, Venus, etc.) which they apply to every sighting.  If something 
doesn't fit inside the explaination, like green lightning, it gets cut off. 
More importantly, once they decide that the event has been explained, they 
show no further interest in discussing the matter.  E.g. "Why are you still 
talking about X?  That was thoroughly debunked years ago!"
It is my feverent hope that these so-called skeptics are the exception to the 
rule, and that my experience with them as being the norm is atypical.
 RT> It seems that he WANTS to believe in ET so he isn't willing to accept 
he
 RT> sensible (IMO ) alternatives.  I don't understand that.
It seems to me that some skeptics want so much to NOT believe in ET that they 
are willing to accept convoluted "sensible" explainations that do not even 
describe the event in question.   I don't understand that. 
... This is the wrong chapter.
--- JetMail 0.99beta22
The following is an article from the February '97 (Vol. 5, #2) issue of The
REALL News.  It may be reprinted by other skeptics organizations as long as
proper credit is given. REALL also requests that you please send a copy of 
ny
publication that reprints one of our articles for our files.  This article 
ay
also be cross-posted onto other appropriate conferences.
This article represents the opinions of its author, and does not necessarily
represent the opinions of REALL or its officers.
==============================================================================
               The Conspiratorial Superhighway
                     by David Bloomberg
"Paranoia strikes deep
 Into your heart it will creep
 It starts when you're always afraid
 Step out of line, the Man comes, and take you away."
                      -- "For What It's Worth"
                          Buffalo Springfield
     
"Anytime,
 Or anywhere
 Just look over your shoulder
 'Cus we'll be standing there"
                       -- "(Theme From) The Monkees"
                          The Monkees
     
     As I have read various conversations on discussion
conferences around the computer nets, I have run into an
awful lot of conspiracy theories. Ah, the conspiracy theory.
The conspiracy theory is catching up on baseball as the
great American pastime (and conspiracies never go on
strike). We are inundated by them. The most famous have had
numerous books written about them, almost all seeming to
contradict one another. Who was responsible for the
assassination of John F. Kennedy? Who killed Robert Kennedy
and Martin Luther King Jr.? Who shot J.R.?
     Especially increasing in popularity are conspiracies
which link the UFO phenomenon to anything and everything,
including some or all of the above. The best conspiracies
can take any piece of information and incorporate it as part
of the theory. You don't have any evidence linking the CIA
to your speeding ticket? That's just because they were very
clever and concealed their activities! Some in the UFO field
are fond of the statement: "Absence of evidence is not
evidence of absence." However, some have, in deed if not in
words, altered this to: "Absence of evidence is evidence of
conspiracy." When skeptics demand hard, physical evidence of
alien abductions, crashed saucers, etc. (or, as Carl Sagan
has indicated, an alien ashtray), we are often told that we
know darned well that the government has confiscated all the
evidence. For a government which screws up so often in
everyday affairs, it really does a good job of grabbing
every last scrap of evidence following the flying saucer
crashes that seem to occur with alarming frequency nowadays
(do you have the UFO-crash rider on your home insurance
policy?).
     So why is the conspiracy such an integral part of
UFOlogy today? For the exact reason that there is such an
absence of evidence. Those involved, many of whom have
dedicated far too many hours and dollars to simply give up
when faced by this amazing lack of evidence, need a reason
to explain it (unless you're a follower of John Mack and
apparently don't care about evidence but simply brush away
science as an outdated Western philosophy, but that's
another story). This need has been combined with the early
cold-war secrecy of the government, when UFOs started
gaining popularity, to come up with the perfect match.
According to many, the government wasn't trying to hide our
secrets from the Soviets, they were trying to hide alien
secrets from us!
     Let's get one thing out of the way right now: Does the
government lie? Hell yes! In some cases, there are valid
reasons (what's the point of having a super-secret plane if
they give out its specs to the first person to ask about
it?), and in some cases, the reasons seem pretty idiotic
(that can be said about just about anything the government
does). Does this mean that the U.S. is controlled by the
Illuminati, Trilateral Commission, Bildebergers, Council on
Foreign Relations, and/or Grey aliens? Only to those with
very creative imaginations and/or those influenced by
paranoia.
     Paranoia is often, if not always, an integral part of
any conspiracy. They are out to get me. They control the
media. They control the citizens through subliminal messages
sent out through TV and radio broadcasts, and that's why so
many people won't believe me. They are responsible for
anything bad which happens to me.
     I'm not saying that everybody who believes these
stories is paranoid, but I've heard that some of them have
stopped watching football games because they got so upset
when the players would get together between plays and talk
about them.
     But enough of the generalities. You want specifics! Let
me preface it with a little information which you'll need to
know:
     I operate a computer bulletin board service (BBS) and
participate on a number of skeptic, UFO, and paranormal-
related conferences which are distributed all around the
world. In fact, I am the Moderator of the SKEPTIC conference
and was the Assistant Moderator of the UFO conference (until
I got sick of re-explaining the same information to
believers over and over again), among other activities on
FidoNet, the world's largest hobby BBS network. Much of the
information here about UFO conspiracies was obtained through
FidoNet and the Internet.
     As a known skeptic on these conferences, I have been
associated with a variety of conspiracies, as have other
skeptics. When I was made the Assistant Moderator of the UFO
area (the first skeptic-or rather, horrible evil
"skeptibunker"-in such a position), the conspiracies really
started to fly. I have been accused of censoring
information, being a government disinformation agent, and
being on the "alien payroll." (Where can I cash these
Venusian dollars?)
     But that's just a small part of it. Other skeptics have
been associated with even greater conspiracies. In fact, one
conspiracy even has two sub-factions. Some think the
skeptic, who I'll call Curly1, does not exist, but is
actually a name used by a number of government agents
throughout the country, who use the network to spread
disinformation about UFOs (see below). The other group
thinks he is actually well-known skeptic and author Philip
J. Klass (as am I, according to this faction).
     What goes through the minds of these people to make
them come to such strange conclusions? I can honestly (and,
perhaps, thankfully) say that I have no idea. Some simply
cannot seem to understand that it is possible to be
interested in UFO and alien abduction claims without
actually believing them. Therefore, they have to create a
reason for the existence of these skeptics. That reason then
merges with the government conspiracy theory to create
"government disinformation agents."
     These agents, they would have us believe, come in
several varieties. Some are the skeptics, like me, "Curly",
or Phil Klass, who spend time talking about these subjects
and why we don't think people should stay up nights worrying
that aliens may come down and perform sexual experiments on
them. The other kind of disinformation agents, according to
the conspiracists, pretend to be believers in alien
spaceships and the like, but they make wild claims and
generally bring negative publicity to UFO groups. I still
have not figured out how to tell these people from the
conspiracists themselves, but they apparently have their
ways, which appear to consist of whether or not a given
person agrees with a given conspiracist on a given issue.
     Now for the meat. What are some of the wildest claims
these people have to offer? I'm not talking about MJ-12, the
documents which are supposed to show that there is a secret
government group which deals with aliens-and which have been
thoroughly debunked by Klass and others. No, I'm talking
about some of the stuff I see proposed-in total
seriousness-by people who think they are among the very few
with the Truth.
     Let's start with Gwen2, a frequent contributor of
messages to a number of UFO-related computer conferences,
and creator of an anti-skeptic UFO conference. To go into
all of the details of the religion of conspiracy she has
built around UFOs would take up the rest of this year's
newsletter pages (for example, she thinks Jesus was a time-
traveling alien). Because of this, her conspiracy theories
extend beyond the country and even the planet. She doesn't
think the Jupiter-comet collision was a natural occurrence.
Specifically, she said, "why collide with Jupiter?  I mean
it is like they were intentionally AIMED at Jupiter.
Something's up with this." (Emphasis in original.)
     That same day, she informed everybody that "the 4th
Dimensional Hierarchy have officially RESIGNED to the
GALACTIC FEDERATION, releasing their grip on the WORLD POWER
GRID." (Emphasis in original.) She added that "Your heart
chakra and solar plexus will be receiving all this ascension
information, as we the ASHTAR COMMAND have full connection
to your receiving energetic field through these two areas
mainly. So do the REBEL ELITE FORCES have this focus but
they on the other hand are finding it more difficult to
focus on their hold as the minutes pass by; natural law
(light information) must be EMBRACED by everything."
(Emphasis in original.) Apparently, the good guys are
winning, because by the end of the month, she reported that,
"The greys and the hierarchy of secret govts. have lost
their power." Phew! I was getting worried there! I might
have been even more worried if I had some idea what the heck
she was talking about.
cont...
--- msgedsq 2.0.5
---------------