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From: Jim Deardorff <deardorj@proaxis.com>
Date: Sat, 14 Feb 1998 11:50:23 -0800 (PST)
Fwd Date: Sat, 14 Feb 1998 21:17:31 -0500
Subject: Re: The Next Step

>From: "Tom Burnett" <burnettc@gte.net>
>To: <updates@globalserve.net>
>Subject: Re: UFO UpDate: The Next Step
>Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 08:10:16 -1000

>> To: updates@globalserve.net
>> Subject: UFO UpDate: The Next Step [was: Re: 'UFO Sphere/Orb'...]

Tom wrote:

>[...]

>This thread
>started when someone decided that judgements concerning the
>morality and ethics of a race of ETs could be made from an
>unidentifiable still photograph.  I disagreed with that, and
>still do, [...]

In case it might be inferred that that "someone" was me, let me
set the record straight.  I said that much could be deduced about
the ethics/morality of ETs responsible for overseeing the
sightings of the past 50 years from examining the deniability
factor they so often fed into those sightings.  This should not
have been distorted into "from an unidentifiable still
photograph"!  Distortions like this don't belong within the true
scientific method, and shouldn't be tolerated on this list.

As Bruce Maccabee said in a post today:


"The conventional/straight world accepts the idea that there are
no UFOs. Therefore each sigting must be explainable. Therefore
there is an explanation for each sighting. When a sighting comes
along one or more skeptics comes up with an explanation for the
sighting. "It was Venus.... it was Mars.... it was an
airplane... it was a balloon..." ... whatever, depending upon the
sighting."


So let's keep Alex's sighting & photos in context of previous
ones of a similar nature.

Bruce went on:


"However, rarely _if_ever_ does a skeptic "test" the explanation'
against the available sighting data.  Instead, what usually
happens is that the skeptic finds an explanation for one part of
the sighting and then "publishes"  (I can cite specific examples
in my own experience if anyone is interested.) The general
public/press/scientific community then assmes the sighting has
been explained and goes on its merry way."


Obviously, a capable ufologist doesn't operate that way, and
continually ignore the bulk of the data that came before the
particular sighting in question.  Instead, he sees how it may tie
in with the past data.

I went on to give examples of types of sightings where the UFO
craft was disguised to appear, with a rough first glance, like
some known object. Obviously the details of their appearance
and/or behavior/maneuverability allowed the impressed witness to
realize the object was quite remarkably different from the
mundane object it may have cursorily resembled, and so it was a
UFO sighting. But the negative skeptic ignores these differences
and latches onto the similarities only. This saves him/her from
believing what is unacceptable to his/her "belief system."  This
saves him/her from going beserk.

Quite often, such a belief system cannot imagine that what
advanced technology and understanding thousands of years advanced
to our own could do would indeed seem like magic to us, as even
Sagan once realized.  And quite often it can't admit that alien
intelligence could be greatly advanced over our own.

I believe Alex's orb sighting is probably one more sighting of
this nature. Agreed it may only be a coincidence that it
resembled a lens flare, or as Bob Shell would emphasize, perhaps
it is a lens flare and the real UFO eluded capture on film.  (But
Alex's other photos of it, though less distinct, suggest this
isn't the case.)

We need to keep in mind the category of UFO sightings wherein the
object passed itself off, under cursory examination (but not
detailed or complete examination), as a mundane human or natural
object, and not forget that this category of UFO exists when we
come across others of the same nature.  Don't treat Alex's
evidence in isolation from the rest of the UFO phenomenon.

  Jim Deardorff