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From: Brian Straight <brians@mdbs.com>
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 09:14:37 -0500
Fwd Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 23:38:14 -0500
Subject: Re: 'UFO Sphere/Orb' over Brooklyn, NY


>Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 06:59:45 -0500 (EST)
>To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <updates@globalserve.net>
>From: Steve Neeley <stneeley@mail.bright.net>
>Subject: Re: UFO UpDate: Re: 'UFO Sphere/Orb' over Brooklyn, NY


> Skeptical disinformation is not the same as
> scientific proof.


 > Steve

Well said, Steve.  The big problem with UFOlogy is the question
of just what consitutes scientific proof.  Essentially, we are
dealing with a nonreproducible phenomenon which occasionally
leaves highly ambiguous physical traces.

Photography and videography are, alas,  in this digital age,
unreliable, and are likely to promote much controversial heat,
but little light.  Radar and other 'independent' verification
technologies are also subject to known anomalies which render
them inadequate for pure scientific verification.  Outside of the
physical investigations we conduct (checking weather, flight
trajectories, astronomical and meteorological phenomena, etc.),
the most critical information we receive is (obviously)the
testimony of eyewitnesses.  And unfortunately, this can only be
at best anecdotal.  The character, experience, and psychological
makeup of such witnesses therefore becomes of critical
importance.

My own feeling is that the best any of us can do is to
investigate reports thoroughly and make up our minds as to the
veracity of the witness.  Thus, any corroborating evidence (or,
indeed, evidence to the contrary) must be viewed strictly within
the context of the witnesses character, competence, and
experience.  Such a methodology cannot, in the strictest sense,
be called scientific, but UFOlogists are continually breaking new
ground in philosophy, psychology, and science.  Any 'answers'
undoubtedly lie in the diligent application of methodologies from
all three.

Brian