CLICK HERE to read a scientific perspective on the UFO sightings in a Texas town that were the focus of the February 2nd post on this blog.
Click here to view the video that accompanies this story on the Newsweek website.
Click here to view the video that accompanies this story on the Newsweek website.
12 comments:
When desperate situations are at hand, people seem to believe the first thing that pop's into their mind. Because we had been constantly fed unrealistic information through movies and the media, we tend exaggerate normal things and build them up to be extraterrestrial ones. Though it may of been true that some people saw something hovering in the air, the simple lack of visual evidence does not confirm their wild conclusions. Like it had stated in the articles our brain creates an image in our mind, that would explain something we simply cannot comprehend. And because of all the brain washing media that image tends to be a UFO. I am not opposing the idea that there may be life outside this planet, but being a realist I cannot come to any conclusion simply based on the emotion and claims of others, no matter how convincing they may make their story. Visual evidence is the best tool to use to back up such claims. But other than that, our individual visual perceptions seem to fail us in time of fear, disparity and events which our brain simply cannot comprehend. Just like in older times, people claimed to see demons or angels. And when sailor claimed to see sea monsters. They are all claims which do not provide justification, just emotional and religious outbursts.
This article seems to hold pretty well with some cases of UFO sightings. I can understand how there are some people (especially those without much understanding of science or nature) who are likely to view an everyday natural phenomena as a UFO under given circumstances.
Still, for that one person, the object is a UFO as long as it is 1)unidentified, 2)flying and 3)an object (obvious).
Just because an object isn't a spaceship doesn't mean that it isn't a UFO. This is something that is not well understood by many, as UFO is assumed to be some sort of foreign flying aircraft.
The degree of what determines a UFO is the real question that this whole debate boils down to. Some people use the common definition of UFO. Others consider UFOs to be strictly extraterrestrial, while there are even those who settle for a midpoint definition of a UFO; a flying AIRCRAFT (instead of object) that is unidentified for unspecified reasons (instead of only due to something extraterrestrial). These differences in the working definition of a UFO create much confusion in the situation.
It appears to me that the real problem that scientists have with UFOs is that they are something that can not be explained. They have a hard time accepting that there are things outside of current knowledge, and they find themselves atleast as equally as guilty as the conspiracy-theorist who quickly assumes a UFO to be extraterrestrial. Instead, many in the scientific community quickly assume that a UFO is merely some easy to explain phenomena under some strange lighting or something. It is this assumption that will limit our understanding of UFOs, and as long as such assumptions are held, we will not find ourselves any closer to the truth.
Simple counterexamples to this articles assertion that under weird circumstances people literally view (visually percieve things that are not there) are the cases of mass UFO sightings where thousands of people view UFOs at the same time. While it is reasonable to think that one person could be off the mark on their perception, it is not reasonable to think that a magnetism change would cause such large amounts of people to just happen to hallucinate the same UFO at the same exact time. Furthermore, UFOs have been videotaped and are clearly UFOs. This is not to say that they were extraterrestrial, however in these videos, the objects are not any closer to appearing to be weather balloons than they are to being full blown flying saucers.
Scientists look at these ambiguous objects and based on their knowledge of physics and the seemingly impossible nature of long distance space travel they assume that the object can in no way be a space ship so they slap on some generic term such as weather balloon.
Other than their story that they saw a UFO, none of the people had any proof. Without firm proof such as photos or better yet actual video I don't think we can really believe that there was a UFO.(why is there never any real evidence for this kind of stuff? or if there is, why is it always blurry?) Just like the article said, people will create imaginary things to deal with what they don't understand. some people I know also believe in highly religious beliefs and UFOs, pretty much anything extreme. Most of what they believe is based off of something they've seen, but the rest of their stories is over exaggerated. It seems these people are only using their sense perception. Sense perception is a way of knowing, but not an entirely reliable one. It is very believable that they saw something they did not understand and thought it was something unwordly. Obviously people saw somehing that night, but who's to say it really was a UFO. Without proof we cannot disagree with these people's conclusions and at the same time we cannot agree with them.
I like how the scientists don't dismiss the locals as crazy just because they claim to have seen a UFO, because it is definitely true that no one can prove at this point that UFO's do not exist. But there is not sufficient evidence here to base a knowledge claim on either. We would basically be relying on these peoples' beliefs and experiences. There has to be some irrefutable evidence that doesn't rely on the individual and that can be analyzed by others before you can prove a knowledge claim. Plus, the brain is a structure even scientists don't fully understand, so I think it's very possible that to define the undefinable the brains of the locals picked the closest image available: that of a UFO; just like the brain erases or creates images for people with repressed memories.
As I was reading this article I realized how much we could tie some of the things we learned in biology this year into this article. The scientists were saying that UFO sightings could be have something to do with magnetics in the earth. (The esample about the earthquake and earth's plates shifting causing a change in magnetic charges) We learned this year about how most of what we feel is simly a chamical reaction or stimuli in the brain. I also read that in the blog about whether love was chemical or emotional. It is weird to think that we what these people are seeing they aren't really it is just something that is altering stimuli in their brain. It is a very interesting thought. If chemicals/hormones can alter what we feel or see then why can't magnets? The other piece is that sometimes people don't describe the UFO exactly the same. This relates to the fact that your mind sees what it wants to and people have different perspectives based on their social and cultural backgrounds.
Okay, so I agree with Kay that people tend to believe the first thing that pops into their head when they are desperate. However, Im not sure that it is fair to say that the people of that town are desperate. Instead, perhaps they just want to believe. This would really connect back with some of the readings we did earlier in the year about the "knowledge webs," that consists of truth claims that all web together to form a thought, or multiple thoughts. Where I am going with this is the fact that perhaps believing in Aliens (via sense perception) would be the most "convenient," or conservative belief. In those readings that we did earlier, the author mentioned how people tend to believe in things that would least contradict and thus challenge the current/core ideas in a knowledge web. In this particular example, such truth propositions make up the peoples' knowledge webs: they know they saw something...many know that they had a physical encounter...they know that many people in the town had the same experience.
The point I am trying to make is that perhaps the reason why the people in the town want to believe that it was aliens that they saw was because this would most conveniently fit with the knowledge claims just listed above. To say that aliens did not exist would be to contradict much of what is in their knowledge web.
I had a little bit of trouble following this article. I felt like a lot of interesting claims were bad, but without sufficient support. I especially got sidetracked by the reference to the duck/rabbit picture. I think the author was trying to show how perception changes with the viewer, but the point wasn't made very clearly. What I actually wanted to comment about anyways was the experiment to an induce a religious experience in the atheist. I thought it was interesting that the author said the attempt failed because the man in question has low -temporal lobe activity; it reminded me of the article we read in class about how liberals and conservatives may have different brain activity. It made me wonder, is religion just caused by high- temporal lobe activity? That would be so weird, to be able to induce religious feelings or take them away by controlling brain activity. Could we really have a world without religion? What would happen to knowledge gained by faith?
When people are scared of something they can not comprehend they look for ways to ease their nerves by putting the pieces together. This is true with children also, after watching a horror movie they believe they are subject to the same masked killers or monsters they saw on the screen. They are not in more danger after seeing the movie than they were before they simply believe that they are because they have just witnessed something they can not explain, when they hear noises at night they imagine the same monster they saw on the screen because that is one of their greatest fears. In earlier times people saw angels and demons because biblical stories incorporate the two characters and people had never seen these characters before. All they had were stories of such encounters and when they encountered what they did not know they perceived those characters for lack of evidence that it wasn't something else.
The same is true for the people who saw the spacecraft, they saw something and as soon as one person perceived it could be a spacecraft they all believed it really was.
Well, this does explain why there are so many UFO sightings nowadays. I have been been a firm believer that peoples' past experiences play a significant role in their present interpretations. Just as people today have been so desensitized to murder and violence through videogames and movies, the same effect can be translated to "UFO experiences". It's much easier now to see a strange light outside and suspect aliens than to use reason and logical processes to deduce a valid conclusion. I am highly skeptical of such claims for the following reasons: They tend to contradict themselves and they are often made by people who have no background in the field. This is why I take it to be much more credible when military personnel or airline pilots report a UFO than Billy Jean from the Texas backwater. It is my opinion that the whole UFO craze was fabricated by the government in order to deny the existence of advanced military projects. Perhaps the Roswell crash was a flying saucer, an American-built flying saucer that was "blamed" on aliens so as to deter any Commies that might be trying to steal military secrets. You must remember that back in the day, the government would go to great lengths to safeguard against any Communist threat, foreign or domestic. If the public had to be misled to believe UFOs were real in order to keep them from turning over military information to the Reds, so be it. That time period may be long gone, but the runoff psychological hysteria is here to stay.
I believe both men in the video that say that they saw something in the sky. But whether or not it was something "not of this world" is the question. Like the video said, 200 or so reports of UFO sitings are reported every month in the US. I remember a couple weeks back there was a huge UFO / Alien Aircraft story that the media was blowing up and reporting on, and people swore on their life that it has to have been a flying saucer. It turned out to be a prank pulled by some kids that lived in the little town. This whole situation just goes back to the whole concept that sense perception (specifically sight) can be very decieving. So, I believe that those people did see something in the sky, but who knows what it really was...
I believe both men in them saying that they both saw something in the sky that night, but whether or not it was something "not of this world" is the question to be answered. Like the video said, hundreds of UFO sighting are reported per month in the United States, and that most of the time they turn out to be nothing. I remember just a couple weeks back, the media was blowing up this huge story about a possible Alien Aircraft story, and in the end it turned out to just be a prank by some kids that lived in the city. I think that society and more specifically the news, really blows up certain things that happen. I think that when it comes down to the whole UFO spotting, you have to remember that sense perception, one of the ways of knowing, is the most deceiving so people are going to see what they want to see and believe in what they feel most comfortable believing in.
It is no coincidence that these people are all seeing some sort of bright anomily, but there is, like Kay said, no actual tangible visual evidence that we are aware of to compare or use to justify a theory about them. The problem that exists in today's society is that there is a materialistic view that has been indoctrinated into the publuic school system which trains younger generations that there is a scientific explaination that we can find for everything if we try. Whether it be psychological analysis or physics, people are always claiming that specific laws are applicable in all sets of circumstances. This type of thinking stems from an ignorance that claims we are the superior intelligence and that since we can use and recognize infinite concepts that exist, we can therefore understand all of the events that take place. Because people who think this way believe that they can and should come up with the answer, they often assign testing or methods of validation which are incongrous to the other situations in which those methods were applicable. The quote "Evolution provides a good starting place for explaining why people have paranormal experiences" is a general statement made that suggests this type of thinking. There are many types of evolution which are true, but when you use the general term evolution, it comes off as though your foundational assumption is that DARWINIAN evolution is the source for our origin. Evolution of the brain over time is consistent with that of macro evolution which claims that species change over time and that people's brain's evolve and pass down the evolved genes, and thus they conclude that these anomilies "must" be caused by some inherited gene or specific brain reaction. Unfortunatley "Evolution" cannot explain the true anomilies which happen.
It is a very real possibility that supposed aliens could be demonic spirits.. or more likely "fallen angels". Somone hearing this is going to naturally assume that this is rididcuilous because the foundation that they have established is tied to the assumption that everything is a result of random events from which their is no design or outside forces. So until we remove that original template that has been created by our literature, which is dominated by pure liberal media in our schools and public education programs, the idea of any outside force our miraculous event will be ruled out because it would not seem logical with that foundation. I don't know how or why all of these people saw what they saw or whether we can ever truly know what it was, but I do know that as long as we live under the deception created by our matericalistic anti-god thinking, that we will never be open to the other possiblilities which exist.
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