Apollo astronauts were heroes. That is very clear to me and should be to everyone; they took an incredible risk to explore and further the knowledge of mankind.
However, that does not give them a "get out of reality free" card.
Ed Mitchell walked on the Moon for the Apollo 14 mission. OK, got that? He walked on the Moon. I have no issue with that.
However, he also believes aliens exist. That’s fine too; in fact, while wouldn’t use the word "believe", I strongly suspect there are aliens elsewhere in the Universe as well. Where Mitchell and I part ways is that he thinks that the aliens are and have been coming here, the government knows, and has been covering it up for decades.
Thing is, his feelings on this have been pretty clear for a while now. But he recently stated them on the radio, which has led to wide reporting on the topic, like say here. There are a zillion other sources if you care (roughly the same number of emails I’ve gotten on this topic).
OK, yes, an Apollo Moonwalker thinks greys are coming here and probing us or whatever. Fine. He can believe what he wants. I think he’s wrong, but he has the right to believe that.
Two points on this. First, of course, the UFO folks will go ballistic over this, because, after all, Mitchell was an astronaut and walked on the Moon. But then, see my "get out of reality card" comment above. Also, this is simply argument from authority, which is bad logic. It doesn’t matter who believes in aliens. What matters is — hello! — evidence.
Show me the clear pictures. Show me nonterrestrial-isotope-laden artifacts. Show me a frakkin’ flying saucer sitting on the White House lawn.
Show me anything other than blurry pictures and videos, eyewitness testimony, and black-out government documents. I want evidence.
The second point is Mitchell’s history. He has long been an advocate for what can be called at best fringe science, starting with his tests of psychic powers on that same lunar flight. That’s fine — in fact I support things like that, if done rigorously — but clearly in my opinion he goes way too far. Government coverups of actual aliens? Really? Where’s the proof of that? The evidence is always circumstantial, and that makes me suspicious indeed. We have governments that cannot coverup a simple break in, a tryst in the White House, or trade deals between Iran and the contras. Those are cakewalks compared to the massive conspiracy theorized by the UFO crowd.
My point is not to make an ad hominem attack Mitchell’s credibility; he is a nice man and a gentleman. I met him and he was very kind to me, and he told me he literally kicked Bart Sibrel out of his house, which makes my heart sing.
No, my point is that I don’t really see why this is suddenly news. He’s been talking fringe science for decades.
So I want to be very clear here: I have enormous, deep, and profound respect for all the men who walked on the Moon, and all the men and women who put them there. But that does not give them a pass to ignore evidence and to draw drastically unrealistic conclusions without evidence to support them.
July 26th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
The idea of extraterrestrial visitation is unsuported by facts. For that reason, the hypothesis of extraterrestrial visitation needs to recourse to flawed points such government conspiracy or undetectability conjecture.
Government conspiracy is a weird way to “understand” politics. Conspiracies occur but huge, enormous conspiracies are improbable to remain secret for long.
The undetectability conjecture defends that extraterrestrial visitors do not want to be seen and that they have enough power to remain undetectable. The problem here is that we have two hypothesis:
- there is no extraterrestrial visitation.
- there is an undetectable extraterrestrial visitation.
Both hypotheses are consistent with our empirical facts. So, Occam’s Razor advises us to choose the first, more parsimonious one.
July 26th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
A few key points:
-Ed is now 77 years old
-He has had a long-time, documented interest in the paranormal.
-He does not even claim to have first-hand knowledge of these contacts.
Ufools will no doubt honor him with their most sacred mantra, “he seems credible,” but this only highlights once again that the entire UFO movement is an authoritarian cult, built completely around personal credibility and the fallacy of appeal to authority.
July 26th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
As if this government could competently keep anything secret.
As if any government in any democracy could keep anything secret for more than a few years.
July 26th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Let’s not forget, Space Hero Gordon Cooper also had similar views:
CNN article -
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/10/04/gordon.cooper/index.html?iref=newssearch
Astronaut James McDivitt had his own UFO sighting while in space aboard Gemini
These are not disgruntled or looney former employees of NASA, they should be repected heroes!
July 26th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Next thing you’re going to try and tell me is that the Coelacanth isn’t clear proof that Bigfoot exists.
July 26th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
amphiox
What amazes me is the phenomenol selectivity of the global ufo cover-up. Every government in the world has conspired for 60 years to conceal evidence, but they have failed to conceal millions of alleged images and sightings, megayears worth of anecdotes evidence from “credible witnesses” like Ed Mitchell, and mountains of alleged documentation dredged up by enthusiasts and hack writers.
The only thing they have managed to conceal is the kind of scientifically and forensically acceptable evidence Phil mentions. In that case, this sieve of a cover-up is miraculously airtight.
July 26th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
But but but! That’s part of the coverup, silly! That just happened to draw attention away from the real secret.
Nahhh - I can’t do it with a straight face. Sad to see what is undoubtedly a great mind (his doctorate isn’t just h.c. is it?) go to waste like that.
July 26th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
My issue with it is not what he “believes” or states publicly or advocates. He can be convinced of his assumptions all he wants. In fact, if asked, I’m sure he’d fully agree with rational examination and investigation of anything that would otherwise fall under “fringe material” or pseudoscience or anything like it. My issue with it is the sensationalist reporting of such statements completely forgetting about the need for evidence, *hard* evidence, and how he isn’t exactly steering away from this “moonwalker credibility” fallacy. He’s good at diverting attention away from things that the layman is frequently mistaken about (in Irene Klotz’ recent interview with him) and tries to put things in a more believable context, but he’s insinuating now more than in the past that “it must be true because (astronaut and moonwalker) says so” - he says “it’s true” when he should be saying “I guess it’s true, but I can’t know for sure” and people readily believe him. I mean, “I am spaceman, hear me roar” is a bit of a weak argument.
I fully agree to the Sibrel notion btw. It’s a bit of a pity the Aldrin part of that whole swear-on-the-bible thing he tried to pull off is the more famous one, I think the Mitchell part would have made for much more amusing video than that punch in the face he got from Buzz.
July 26th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Why are you wasting your time and thoughts on this? Mr. Mitchell can think anything he wants. He doesn’t need proof or evidence of the existence of UFO, greys, or any other mental periodolia. You have many other things to write on, good things. Yes, I know he spoke of things fringe and that fans the flames of non-critical thinking, but you are preaching to the choir and he will be believed only by the fringe. I just hope the greys are not reading your blogs and will remember how you feel about them when they come out of the “alien closet.” I’d hate to be you when they probe you in ways a man should never be probed. WooHoo! From the; “I just hope…” forward was tongue-in-cheek. Have fun at ComicCon.
July 26th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Ok, I didn’t know that he had been into this stuff for a long time. I kind of assumed that perhaps he was starting to have brain issues due to his age.
July 26th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
I know you’re right Phil, but… it would be so cool!!
Damn! It would be so cool…
July 26th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Ad Hominid:
I need to go back over what Mitchell said before I comment on it, but the fact that he was dabbling in the paranormal in the 1970s doesn’t mean too much. It was, after all, the 1970s, and PSI and other fringe stuff was all the rage (so was poly water, but that’s another story).
July 26th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Mitchell has also claimed that he was cured of kidney cancer by a ‘remote’ healer. Just because he was an astronaut doesn’t mean he’s a credible source of info.
July 26th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
The main problem I am going to have to deal with when I go to work Monday to my wackjob co-workers is that he actually said he was privy to information from the government about aliens. You can actually listen to it here.
July 26th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Your moniker speaks the truth….you really are a bad astronomer. If you honestly are an independent and unbiased judge of anything, then you’re just ignorant and lazy, on the other hand, I believe the more likely scenario, you are just another agent of disinformation. Extra-terrestrial beings are here, have been for a long time, and your naivety doesn’t change that. Why don’t you go talk to someone who would know…like, maybe an ASTRONAUT WHO WENT TO THE MOON for starters?
Tsssk, tsssk, tssk….bad astronomer.
July 26th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Well if aliens aren’t on Earth, what’s all this hubbub over the southwestern border?
July 26th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Yeah, the thought of any government (much less all of them) managing to keep a secret this big is incredible…as in not credible. The more people you have involved, the less likely it is that it could be contained. But hey, I’ll happily admit I am wrong when the actual evidence arrives.
July 26th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
We received similar testimony that well-placed members of the U.S. government had discussed meetings with extraterrestrials — however our source was from the Intelligence Community.
Investigative author Gus Russo wrote an article that explored the involvement of some members of the Intelligence Community in promoting the UFO tales, which is available here:
http://starstreamresearch.com/inside_the_spy_game.htm
July 26th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Why does this subject bother some of you so much? If you had seen what I did 14 years ago you would not be suprised to hear Dr. Mitchell’s beliefs. From the perspective of someone who has seen something clearly unexplainable, every story, every instance, is one step closer to the truth coming out. I guess you can all explain away Gordon Cooper as well????? Skeptisism is good but most of you already know what you want to believe. Thats a very un-scientific approach.
July 26th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
At least this led to a highly entertaining rant from Hoagland on Coast To Coast last Thursday, where he blasted Mitchell for being unscientific. His own theories, said Hoagland, are based on strict scientific methods, whereas Mitchell just makes unproven claims. Hoagland himself at least has photos that can prove he is right.
And that’s why I love Coast To Coast AM.
July 26th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
I agree. Taking part in something heroic and meaningful in your past doesn’t give you the right to assume people will either believe or go easy on you simply to patronize you (coughjohnmccaincough).
And as far as aliens go, I can also agree that, given the sheer size of the universe, there is bound to be some other form of life out there beyond the simple microbial stage. So yes, I too “believe” that life does exist out there, intelligent life at that. But I can also agree about the lack of evidence. I’m someone who has watched the X-files religiously, but I’ve yet to see a single video, image, or testimony that can’t be easily faked. And the overwhelming volume of laughably fake material out there is enough to jade anyone about the possibility of “aliens” visiting our planet.
And in many ways, I agree. I can’t imagine that any civilization advanced enough to reach Earth through faster-than-light travel, wormholes, interdimensional travel, or any other sci-fi means would have any real need to study a species as primitive as us. But I guess it’s not technically impossible.
I just watched any episode of Trek Next Generation that explains all about the process of “first contact”; the crew makes their presence known to the leaders of an alien world so they can decide if their people are ready to accept the fact that they are not alone in the universe. So in concept, I suppose I can ALMOST see that happening to our planet, and our government making the choice to keep it a secret for the same reason they did on the show, which is the fact that their people aren’t evolved enough yet to handle the social and religious repercussions of suddenly revealing everything. But then you’d have to wonder why they’d choose one country over the other in deciding who is the “leader of Earth”.
Also there’s the theory that the government is covering it up to use it for technological research, which has been portrayed in more movies and X-files episodes than I can count. Technically that could also “work”, but I’d have much more difficulty believing that one than even the “first contact” theory, and that’s saying a lot.
I think it’s possible our government knows about “aliens”. But I think it’s even more possible that they would go to the same lengths to cover up non-alien military experiments to keep secret technology out of foreign hands than they would to cover up any kind of UFO crash. So until real evidence arrives, I’m not buying it. But I won’t discount the possibilities.
July 26th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Well, wouldn’t it be more fun if he were right?
Not that he is, it’s just that the world would be a more fantastic place if he was.
July 26th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
more than 70% in US believe in God, and more than 50% go to church every Sunday. Look at science and eingieering professors. They go to church as well, and talking about God. OK, show me the scientific proof of God. Do you believe in love? show me the evidence of love. The very thing that you’re readonmg this article is the evidence that goverment cover-up is failing at the moment when information sharing is ubiquitous. I agree that there are a lot of freak to take advantage of this stuff, or propagate disinformation. The credibility of Mitchell is that he only loses his credibility by saying this stuff.
July 26th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
I’ve listened to what Dr Mitchell has to say.
I’ve seen no conclusive proof that he is right, however neither have I seen any conclusive proof that he is wrong.
One thing I notice about the Alien/UFO debate is that each side builds a convincing case, but only to their own satisfaction. So I suppose ‘believe’ whatever makes you feel comfortable.
I have never really understood why people get so emotional about the subject unless it frightens in some way that I am not aware of.
July 26th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Mitchell isn’t the first credible person to say this. What I’m waiting for is for one of them to outline the specific evidence that became available to them. How does Mitchell know aliens have been here? Who told him? When? Why does he believe?
I have no problem with the notion of aliens hiding themselves from the general populace and making themselves known only to a few government officials. (Frankly, I’m still working on why they’d stop here at all.) But, I’m suspicious when no one ever tells us the details.
July 26th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
We have proof. The Mass Media is censoring it!
go to www.disclosureproject.org
or go to google video and search “disclosure project”
July 26th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Ah yes Stanely above makes a good point, the old circular argument : ‘he taks about UFO’s therefore he’s a nut! ‘How do you know he’s a nut? ‘Because he talk’s about UFO’s’ ….case closed.
July 26th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
justcorbly says “How does Mitchell know aliens have been here? Who told him? When? Why does he believe?”
From there: www.disclosureproject.org
or go to google video and search “disclosure project”
You will have all the names, evidences, and written TESTIMONY unde OATH(thats 30 years in prison if anyome of them is lying and thats’ INCLUDE Dr. Mitchell)
July 26th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
I was always suprised about how many seemingly legitimate people are active in the Disclosure Project - but that’s just numbers. Oaths and testimony? That’s okay, but it’s no proof. The Disclosure Project just manufactures a lot of big words but fails to produce evidence. 400 people swearing oaths and bearing testimony to the existence of aliens is utterly worthless if there is no tangible and testible evidence of their claims.
July 26th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
@Phil
Your move to Discovery has sure opened a few more doors.
@Viewer3
As to why an advanced civilization would secretly visit us?… remember Twilight Zone, “To Serve Man”.
I’ll believe in Aliens visting us when there is non-terrestrial DNA or equivilent. Unitl then I’ll just enjoy my aliens in fiction.
July 26th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Well, on Larry King there was a physicist with an MSc by the name of Stanton Friedman arguing with Bill Nye and Shostak, so I think it’s safe to say that Woo transcends education somehow.
For the why, I refer you to Shermer’s book “Why People Believe Weird Things” especially the chapter, “Why Smart people Believe Weird Things.”
July 26th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
@Keith:
What bothers me (for one) about it is that his “beliefs” as stated again just recently boil down to “someone who knows someone who says has seen something told me, but I can’t tell you who” - there is no substance in that whatsoever, and the fact that he’s Dr. Edgar Mitchell astronaut-and-moonwalker doesn’t somehow magically add substance to it. It’s hearsay when it’s coming from him as much as it would be hearsay when it came from you or me, and as such it’s pretty much worthless. Statements like that are what’s truly unscientific here.
As for Gordon Cooper, besides the obvious fact that his stories are too just that (stories, as opposed to hard evidence) - Gordo was known for telling anyone exactly the big story they wanted to hear and then some. You could say he loved to entertain. He didn’t even care when he contradicted himself in the process.
July 26th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
@Danmarino:
You’re right. You say, “Extra-terrestrial beings are here, have been for a long time, and your naivety doesn’t change that. ”
Actually, Dan, I am one of “them.” My “saucer” crashed in 1876. Since then I’ve been living as a “human” male. I have the ability to shape shift into any species I desire. Bigfoot, yep, that’s me. “Loch Ness”, yep, me again. “Mothman”, hehehe, lil ‘ol me. George W. Bush, ummm, no, that’s one of yours.
I’m from Z. Reticuli. My people aren’t really that famous in the galaxy, although we did invent the cure for hemorrhoids. Sitting in out saucers for extended periods is a real pain, so to speak.
July 26th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
The disclosure project loses all credibility when Dr. Stephen Greer, the founder/director, stands on a hill, waving his flashlights at the sky, directing UFO’s to a landing spot. But, maybe I’m the only one that feels that way.
July 26th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
@Michail L.
I knew you were too smart to be one of us. You did say once you weren’t born here. Nice makeup by the way. Haven’t you got someone to spare for Bush.
You didn’t miss anything last night. Clouds clouds and more clouds. Yuk.
July 26th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
I have found that many ufo “skeptics” are far more dogmatic and unconcerned with evidence than most ufo “believers”.
I put these terms in quotes because many of these “skeptics” are not true skeptics at all, in the sense of being rigorous, rational examiners, and many “believers” are not believers in the usual sense because they “know” they saw a flying object that they could not identify, and they know that it was not any plane, planet or other natural or man made object.
The problem is that these sceptics demand a landing on the white house lawn. What if tornados (or ball lightning for that matter) were 95% less frequent. How much crisp photographic evidence would exist? And you could wait a long time for one to strike the White House lawn.
Please check out the the Associated Press article about the radar confirmation of the Stephenville Texas sightings.
Mr. Plait, please explain those certified radar readings without resorting to some theory involving intelligently controlled, vastly sophisticated craft decades ahead of what we have. If they are military craft, than the Government cover up of futuristic technologies is just as alarming and harder to believe as the cover up of alien ufo’s.
July 26th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Regarding Dr Greer. The man spent most of his life saving people’s lives as an emergency trauma room doctor.
Whatever stunt he pulled with a flashlight does not detract from the credibility of hundreds of military brass and officers interviewed by the Disclosure Project who have sworn on penalty of perjury that they have first hand knowledge of UFO’s.
I don’t understand the terror many “skeptics” have regarding the existence of ufo’s. They seem to be terrified of having their cozy paradigm shattered- not appropriate for a scientist. Open your eyes for goodness’ sakes. The evidence is already here.
July 26th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Looks like it’s going to be that way again, Leigh. (Clouds). That’s too bad.
I forgot to mention that I also provided George Lucas with the idea for Star Wars. He stuck with the plan for the first two movies, then got off track with Return of The Jedi. We don’t like to talk about the prequels. It’s what’s known as the “Intergalactic Embarrassment”.
July 26th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
@danmarino,
It seems that sense Dr. Plait disagrees with Ed Mitchell’s views and asks for evidence, that you believe that makes him ignorant and lazy or a disinfo agent.
This is typical thinking of non-reality based thinking.
It’s easy to call someone a disinfo agent or any other term.
But that still doesn’t work to get one out of reality.
Where is the peer reviewed scientific evidence?
All we have are anecdotes, blurred photos and videos, faked photos and videos, and misinterpretations.
Ed Mitchell’s accomplishment does not give him any more insight into UFOs being alien craft than any other person.
It’s still a question of evidence. Hard core, peer reviewed, scientific evidence.
As of yet, there is none.
July 26th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
That first line should have read “It seems that since Dr. Plait disagrees with Ed Mitchell’s views and asks for evidence…”
July 26th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
OK Phil, you were meaning to blog about Crichton and I beat you to it with a post you were in agreement with. I was meaning to blog about Mitchell and you beat me to it with a statement I agree with completely.
July 26th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Wow Phil, this is so close to what I blogged about this subject:
http://tinyurl.com/5umuh2
I tried to walk a fine line between respect for the man and his accomplishments (after all, how many people reach the absolute pinnacle of their profession?) and disdain for his dismissal of critical thinking. It’s a sad tarnish on his otherwise fine legacy.
July 26th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
If there was an immensely powerful and advanced, galaxy spanning civilization, the type of civilization that would be most likely to be visiting earth (because they’re pretty much everywhere). The activities of that kind of civilization would be galactic in scale. It would be impossible not to notice SOMETHING just by looking up at the night sky! Just the heat waste from their space travel and other energy generating systems should be detectable.
So assume then a somewhat less accomplished group of visitors. Maybe they’re just a Type II civilization, controlling only a few nearby star systems, and they happen to stumble on earth because, well, earth is close by and comparatively easy for them to get to. But that would mean their home system is CLOSE BY, and readily observable. How much energy does it take to launch an interstellar expedition? Keep in mind they’ve been doing it constantly for over 50 years, in significant numbers (there are so many sightings being reported, after all). What are the chances that astronomers on earth would not have noticed something, some spike in gamma rays, or increase in luminosity, or something, coming from a star just a few light years away?
Ok then, maybe they’re even less accomplished. They’re just an advanced Type I. They left their home system on a generational ship and Sol is the very first star system they arrived at. They don’t have the economy to sustain regular interstellar travel, so say they’ve set up a base in our solar system somewhere and are just sending out interplanetary expeditions to earth. But they’re doing this hundreds of times every year. Now their home system would have to be one of the closest of neighbours to the sun, and they have got to have a big energy using base, dumping waste heat at a phenomenal rate, right here in the solar system. And we haven’t noticed?
All three cases, hundreds, even thousands of sightings all over the world on earth, but not a hint, not a twinkle, not a blink, in space. They’re coming here, converging on earth. We’re looking out. We see nothing?
So maybe they’re trying to hide. They don’t want us to see them. Their spaceships have stealth, so militaries around the world scanning the sky for ICBMs and airplanes can’t see them (yet this stealth always fails on dark empty roads late at night when lone, drunk truck drivers trundle by). All their energy generating capacity, planetary and stellar, and all their heat waste, they’re masking, and not just masking, but exactly replicating natural phenomena.
I don’t think a Type I would be able to do that. Probably not even a Type II. Which leaves us the Type III. If they control the entire Milky Way, they could probably do it. We could even postulate a intellectual quirk or blindspot, a random byproduct of imperfect evolution that would account for them to be able to do all that, and yet somehow fail not to be seen by drunk truck drivers on lonely roads once they get here.
But what about Type IIIs in other galaxies? A civilization actively manipulating the energy of an entire galaxy, without altering the observable radiation output of that galaxy in any way? They’d have to be bigger than Type III to do that. They’d have to be Type IV. But then what about IV’s in other galaxy clusters? Superclusters? And that among all the aliens out there, ALL of them prefer to hide? It’d take only one civilization to say “screw that, we don’t care if some half-evolved apes on some puny little waterworld out in the boondocks of the Milky Way might see us and we’re not going to waste the effort and resources to hide ourselves” and we’d see them.
Logically then the only possibility is for there to be just one alien civilization. It has to span the entire observable universe and be making the effort to hide every single one of its activities as if it was just natural phenomena, but somehow consistently screw up once they get here whenever a camera with a defective focus lense is pointed at them. The question then is why would they bother? Do we go out of our way to hide ourselves from ants? (And ants may not have much intellectually, but if you step on their anthill, they do notice)
July 26th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
danmarino, thanks for proving my point. With no information, and seemingly without comprehending a word that I wrote in my post, you use the very bad logic I write about and, as a bonus, accuse me of being a liar.
Folks, I present to you Exhibit A on why we must never tire fighting antiscience.
July 26th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Amphiox, I demand you return those Michio Kaku books I let you borrow.
July 26th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Are UFOs real? Where is the proof for extra-terrestrial visitation? These two questions completely miss the point in my opinion. Like the age old science vs. religion debate, the arguments traded circle round and round, leading no where. What interests me are the deeper sociological, psychological, and epistemological questions that arise from the discussion of these phenomena.
What do these improbable stories and myths tell us about who we are and where we might be headed? What might these stories of strange objects in the sky, government secrets and conspiracies, zero-point energy, bizarre alien morphologies, and sexually-tinged alien abductions experiences mean at a deeper level of analysis? How and why have these stories spread and evolved? What are the psychological and social implications of such myth-making? Perhaps the veracity of the stories is less imporant than their possible meanings and interpretations. Stories will never lend themselves to objective verification, but that makes them no less interesting.
We might also ask why the more rationally minded among us feel threatened (or at least annoyed) by belief in the irrational, the supernatural, and the immaterial? Are the objections societal or personal? What are the psychosocial forces that go into shaping these reactions? For instance, fear of ridicule and rejection from the group, the comfort of consensual knowledge, or the neurological appeal of settled facts versus ambiguity. Are their possible historical reasons for these reactions? Why does this subject invariably lead to condemnations of “believers” as being ignorant, senile, fantasy prone, gullible or simply fallible human beings who did not see what they think they saw do to limits of their senses and perceptual faculties? Why must the boundaries of accepted, consensual knowledge be so clearly defined for some and much more ambiguous for others? How might (if ever) the objective, external, collective processes of science reconcile with the subjective, internal processes of direct experience?
In other words what does the very existence of this debate tell us about ourselves? How might this discourse inform our own critical analysis of why we think the way we do and why we believe what believe? I think what’s needed are fewer of the tired back and forth arguments which only serve to reinforce one’s pre-existing individual and collective narrative, and more questioning, critical inquiry, and introspection. I long for the day when I might flip on Larry King hear UFOs being argued in terms of epistemology - but I’m certainly not hold my breath.
July 26th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Just blogged about this too. I don’t see what all the fuss is about. The moon landings were a hoax, this so-called “astronaut” is a faker by trade
July 26th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
What has always struck me about the dozen Moon walkers is how diverse their interests and personalities are, one is an artist, (unfortunately only one) was a Geologist, Armstrong seems a bit shy, Aldrin less so. Then there is the guy you mentioned, Ed Mitchell, who is a bit out there. I suppose that’s good in a way that such a motley crew of people with diverse interests were are surrogates to go to the Moon. Diverse like America. This same guy also went on a quest for Noah’s ark, so yes I’d say he’s a bit out there, and as Phil mentions being sent to the Moon shouldn’t lend someone credibility. Obviously there is an element of the right stuff, mental and physical agility, but these people aren’t gods and they don’t necessarily gain gravis from their accomplishment.
July 26th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
Troy, it was James Irwin that went looking for Noah’s Ark. Guess what? He didn’t find it.
July 26th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
BTW, Irwin died in 1991 of a heart attack. He was only 61.
July 26th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Danmarino said: “If you honestly are an independent and unbiased judge of anything, then you’re just ignorant and lazy, on the other hand, I believe the more likely scenario, you are just another agent of disinformation. Extra-terrestrial beings are here, have been for a long time, and your naivety doesn’t change that. Why don’t you go talk to someone who would know…like, maybe an ASTRONAUT WHO WENT TO THE MOON for starters?”
Okay, let’s ask Neil Armstrong, or Buzz Aldrin, or one of the other surviving astronauts who walked on the Moon. What if they don’t endorse what Ed Mitchell says? Does that make them disinformation agents?
And on what basis do you say that ET beings are here, and have been for a long time? Just your say-so doesn’t make it true.
July 26th, 2008 at 11:00 pm
The US gov’t doesn’t deny that UFO’s exist so why should you? The govt only denies that UFOs are a National Security Issue. Let’s be honest, you are only waiting for some Podium Based Gov’t Mouthpiece to tell you it’s OK to believe in UFOs. Admit it, because when they do, do you think they’d let people like you see the real ET or evidence? Again, you’re only asking for they’re blessing to accept the existing evidence as proof as no other evidence, except their word, will be offered to you.
July 26th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
danmarino Says: “If you honestly are an independent and unbiased judge of anything, then you’re just ignorant and lazy”
Way to support your opinion by calling your opponent names, danny. That pretty much negates any further argument you might have had.
Keith Says: “If you had seen what I did 14 years ago you would not be suprised to hear Dr. Mitchell’s beliefs.”
Of course, you have testable evidence to support whatever claim you have, right? That’s all we want. One tiny little shred of evidence. Otherwise, you might as well try to convince us that you saw a purple dinosaur dancing in your living room.
Stanely Says: “OK, show me the scientific proof of God. Do you believe in love? show me the evidence of love.”
God, or the concept of an omniscient and omnipotent being, is a religious matter, not based in science. That is a matter of faith - the belief in an idea that has not been proven. Science is not based on faith. Thanks for trying to drag this into a religious debate.
Love, on the other hand, is a proven Human Emotion. We can scientifically test and prove that love exists. One way to prove love is by its affects on humans: look at songs, and poetry, and writing, and commitments. We can show that humans are constantly affected by emotions, by our own actions. The evidence is astounding. Nothing has moved people to live and die more vehemently than love. Love for a family member; love for a spouse; love for a boy or a girl; love for a country; even love for an imaginary being like Jesus or God. If you think there is really no evidence for love in this world, then you are sadly mistaken.
Personally, I am interested to see what evidence surfaces from Mr. Mitchell’s claims. I would love to see a real alien craft, or an alien life form, or any credible proof whatsoever. However, when it comes down to it, Ed Mitchell is entitled to his opinion, but unless he can provide actual evidence, there is no reason to believe him.
July 26th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
Only the word love was supposed to be in italics, for obvious reasons.
July 26th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
My heroes are the men and women who teach our children. My heroes are the men and women who police our streets and come to our aid when we are in dire need. My heroes are the people to struggle day in and day out to feed and clothe their families and who strive to raise their children correctly.
A person is not a hero for what they have done — they are heroes for what they DO, every single day.
A man first stood on the moon’s surface because of political ideologies, not because of a profound sense of exploration and desire to improve human existence. What happened to them when they experienced this was profound in that it gave these men the best view on how puny we are in the cosmos. What a way to learn to be truly humble as a resident on our little blue ball.
I will always respect people who are willing to push the limits like the many international astronauts and cosmonauts have done, but I will never be so naive as to put them onto a pedestal high above a hugely deserving group of everyday people.
July 26th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
I used to think there might be something to the whole UFO business, until I actually started studying physics. Granted, alien beings capable of making an interstellar trip should know more than we do, but they still can’t do the impossible, and too many of the reports you read about of UFOs ask one to believe the impossible. Some fundamentals just cannot be gotten around. You can’t eliminate inertia or mass, for example. A craft could be built capable of zooming along at say, 500 kts and then pull a 90 degree turn. Modern materials science could do it. However, the crew of such a vehicle would be turned to paste by the acceleration.
July 27th, 2008 at 12:01 am
I think danmarino should go back to football
July 27th, 2008 at 1:59 am
amphiox, you just blew my mind.
Was that from any of Kaku’s books? I’ve been meaning to read something from him, but I’ve never been fully convinced about him.
July 27th, 2008 at 3:06 am
DLC,
Two words - inertial damper. –grin–
July 27th, 2008 at 3:13 am
The thing that intrigues me is that someone who is completely credible, and who is very close to me, had a UFO sighting with their friend at point blank range. This craft was your completely “stereotypical” UFO. My relative who saw this said said it was hovering right next to the power lines, next to the highway, out in the middle of nowhere, and made no noise. It raised up in the air and shot off at speeds and in a way that no craft today could. And this was in the late 60s.
There was another guy that came out recently on Larry King who mnetioned his UFO encounter. He was in the Airforce and saw film of a craft that shot down a dummy test Nuclear missile which his senior officer had no knowledge of and some government officials seized this film and have sat on it ever since. The airforce guys senior officer corroborated his story as well. Her eis a link to his story.. notice the government threats.
http://ufology.wikia.com/wiki/Robert_Jacobs
This is why the story is so fascinating to me. Either the the military is itting on incredible technolgy they created.. or the governement is sitting on a UFO cover up. Both of them for 30 to 60 years!
There was a sighting in Stephenville texas just reecntly that was just as impressive. a craft that was over a mile long flew directly over peoples houses and travelled at speeds in excess of 2000 MPH.. making no noise! No sonic boom from brekaing the sound barrier. A pilot on the groundwitnessed it up close and personal. He was blown away by it. He didn’t think it was possible it was government.. but I think in this case it was a stealth blimp with somekind of cutting edge propulsion system.
July 27th, 2008 at 5:32 am
amphiox you really picked that apart. I have to use this cliche, you win at the internets.
Personally I think the term UFO gets a bad wrap. Because the nut jobs who throw it around forget the U stands for unidentified. When there is an explanation its no longer a UFO (and no that explanation isn’t little green/grey men). People who saw the B2 stealth fly before it was unveiled (and I’m sure some people saw it) saw an UFO. Once the B2 gets announced, the U ceases to exist, leaving just a flying object.
I do have a story that some would make about aliens. About 5 years ago when I was driving on a 2 lane county highway my buddy and I saw some weird light phenomenon out the back window. It was cool and a little creepy. And while I still don’t know what it was (the setting sun’s light being reflected by something probably) I do know it wasn’t aliens.
July 27th, 2008 at 5:49 am
According to the Woo folks this guy was (and continues to be) part of a massive conspiracy to convince us all that he went to the Moon but his evidence on alien visitations is to be trusted? Hmmmm
July 27th, 2008 at 5:53 am
A thing that has always confused me about these UFO stories, how come they always crashland in the USA? I mean, there is a much larger chance of them crashlanding in water, Russia, China or Canada, if we are talking areal.
And luckily, they always appear to land within the reach of the government for them to cover it up. These aliens sure know where they’re flying, huh?
July 27th, 2008 at 7:30 am
madge, they are not the same. Hoagland, as was pointed out by a commenter upstairs, has evidence! Yeah, it’s the UFO people who are the crazy ones.
July 27th, 2008 at 9:27 am
There’s lots of anecdotal evidence that something genuinely strange and unknown to science is going on. Much of this by trained military witnesses. For those who tar and feather these good and brave men as fools or liars without really looking into their claims- I say good day sir. You have no genuine scientific curiosity.
How many of the scoffers here have really looked into the evidence? My close-minded friends won’t look- why? because- they say-there isn’t any evidence, there cannot be evidence, since the subject is impossible and so absurd. So, they don’t even look. Like Galileo- the establishment wouldn’t even look through his telescope.
I could list dozens of high ranking folks, officers, cosmonauts, generals, presidents, governors that have had vivid sightings- and amazingly, most folks here would simply write that off as utter non-evidence. Balderdash.
Have you ever been to court? Competent eye-witness evidence, especially when correlated with others, is enough to send a man to prison.
Just because this phenomenon doesn’t make sense to us doesn’t mean it should be simply blown off. It’s one thing to keep an open, skeptical view and suspend disbelief while investigating- however, that is rarely the case among folks caught in a culture of knee-jerk denial, and no, that is not science but dogma.
Just try to keep an open mind. No absolute proof- but the anecdotal evidence is profound, and you write this off at your own scientific peril.
July 27th, 2008 at 10:29 am
@Svip,
Actually the truly amazing fact is that these little grey buggers can travel hundreds or thousands of light years through interstellar space, navigate through star systems, asteroid belts and whatever other dangers lie out there, only to CRASH when they get here.
July 27th, 2008 at 10:47 am
“Just try to keep an open mind. No absolute proof- but the anecdotal evidence is profound, and you write this off at your own scientific peril.”
So you want us to believe in fairies, leprechauns, gremlins, angels, god(s) and that whitening toothpaste works?
July 27th, 2008 at 11:28 am
“There’s lots of anecdotal evidence that something genuinely strange and unknown to science is going on.”
Uh huh. There’s a lot of anecdotal evidence that magnet therapy works too, but the actual science just doesn’t back it up. Besides, if magnets actually had the effect that the snake oil salesmen that sell them would have you believe, an MRI might just kill you.
Eye witness testimony is the lowest form of evidence. Even in a court of law it is rarely relied upon alone. There is a reason for this — people are lousy observers. We make mistakes all the time even with things that we commonly see. Ask 4 witnesses to describe a hit and run accident they all just saw and you’ll probably get 4 different descriptions of car that sped off.
Also, in a court of law, there are time factors that just are not relevant in science. Crimes need to be solved as quickly as they can be. With science we have the luxury of taking our time and checking and rechecking and actually get good hard evidence for our claims. Evidence will convince us that a claim has merit. Anecdotes mean nothing. Nada. Zilch.
You can argue from authority all you want. It doesn’t mean a thing. The dozens of high ranking folk and military personnel are still human and they suffer the same human failings as the rest of us.
All we are asking for is actual hard evidence. I really don’t see how that is too much to ask. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Simple as that.
July 27th, 2008 at 11:46 am
@TShannon Doyle:
No proper scientist (none that I know anyway) would flat-out dismiss anecdotal evidence as completely meaningless. Anyone of them would be thrilled to get more, to have really hard evidence, to get their hands on some funny exotic alien material to further examine it and to learn from it. They all are genuinely curious - like Phil here, their natural reaction is “show me more.” But anecdotal evidence is not evidence, it’s an anecdote. It’s to the very least unwise to jump to conclusions based on what someone else merely tells you, or what someone has merely seen. No matter how much and no matter how often. That’s the difference between accepting that you’re unable to explain something and inventing an explanation in that case.
July 27th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Show you a clear picture of a UFO? Go to google images and google “Belgium ufo.” You will see clear images. This UFO appeared over Belgium in 1989-90 and was witnessed by hundreds of people, photographed, and tracked on radar. If you go to youtube and type in “Belgium UFO,” you can see the press conference that the Belgium Air Force has where they released the radar tracking data. We are being visited my friends, and the writer of this article is wrong.
July 27th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
@Kirk
Oh got! Fuzzy triangles attack Belgium! Waffle stock’s tumble!
July 27th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Dear Platt,
Thank you for letting us know you don’t believe him. Because for 45 years I have witnesses debunkers like yourself have over and over again marginalized honest peoples statements on this subject. Mostly through innuendo. Honest people who show integrity in every other aspect of their lives suddenly, because of zealots like yourself, become suspect. He walked on the Moon has a PHD and says he knows we have been in contact with ETs not does not say he believes. So he is either a liar or you wouldn’t even respect anyone no matter what character they possess on this topic.
Finally I believe Dr. Mitchell statements regarding the UFO reality should stir in the hearts of most fair minded people that the UFO subject should be at least looked into seriously again especially after what happened with the Stephenville TX. radar Tapes proven there were UFOs there right where the witnesses said they were.
Joseph Capp
UFO Media Matters
Non-Commercial Blog
July 27th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
@Kirk
Lot’s of fuzzy pictures and videos, talking heads speculating, stock film of jet fighters and re-enactments, not to mention artists impressions both as painted pictures and video footage.
Exactly which picture or video have convinced you that this phenomenon was caused by aliens in spaceships?
July 27th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
@Kirk:
Maybe our idea of a “clear picture” differs somewhat, but for what it’s worth, googling “belgium ufo” gets me blurry, shaky, badly exposed pictures that don’t show any detail worth mentioning. It is not possible to tell what that is, short of an airborne craft. That’s precisely the problem - this is not hard evidence, making statements like “we are being visited” based on this is a very willing leap to conclusion. The only way to come to that conclusion is when you “want to believe” in pre-formed assumptions, and that is not a science mindset. That’s merely faith.
(And for what else it’s worth, I’m surprised you’d seriously suggest the Belgium UFO flap as an example. As interesting as the Belgium photos and circumstances are, there are far more interesting pictures out there than these.)
July 27th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
I think I was filtered out. Sorry if the original eventually pops up. There are UFO’s all over the Americas. South of the US and Canada, they tend to joyride around volcanoes. In the US and Canada, they use the catch, probe, release strategy. Why is this? Why don’t they think Mexicans are probe worthy? Racist aliens.
Somebody above mentioned Richard Hoagland and his scientific approach. If you want a good laugh take a look at his “”Best” Photographs”.
http://www.ufoevidence.org/photographs/view/topphotos.htm
These are the best? UFO photo hoaxers aren’t trying hard enough. Where’s the commitment?
July 27th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
There are many more reasons to be suspicious about the UFOer claims than suspicious about having been a lot of anecdotes and therefore there must be something going on.
For instance, what strikes me about the claims of UFOers, and proponents of other myths like the religions and woo woo, is their lack of imagination. A good science fiction writer would make a far better myth, but even the best SF writers, or the best scientists, could not have imagined most ofactual reality, stuff so weird (and so accurate) as quantum mechanics, for example, without tools (like math), experiments, and EVIDENCE!
With religion, is usually a lame anthropomorphic god or gods who, so mundanely, have human emotions and desires, and huge egos. And they’re usually as barbaric as the men of the time when the myths were written, and they evolve to reflect what the male believers of concurrent times believe. It is just so disingenuous.
Similarly, with UFOers the aliens usually are anthropomorphized, and how the hell did they end up looking so similar to us when the closest relative to us who shares 99-or-so% of the DNA with us looks so freaking different? If you really wanted to go crazy, you’d say they’re humans from the future, and some say so, but then again, the movies that exploded in the pop culture some 60 years ago rarely say that, doesn’t it?
Besides the movie and pop culture explosion, yet another reason to be suspicious is the witness account that lit the fuse, Kenneth Arnold’s. It’s just such a spotty and self-contradicting account. He told Edward Murrow that he didn’t say the things were saucer shaped, but moved like floating saucers, but earlier it seems he did say they were saucer-like. In any case, either he can’t be trusted, or if he is to be believed, the media totally misinterpreted the whole “saucer” business, and the subsequent “saucer” culture loses a HUGE chunk of its credibility.
July 27th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Wholesale dismissal of “conspiracy” because of perceived inabilities of governments to maintain secrecy is ignorance of the facts at hand. We know the government can maintain quite well long term conspiracies of silence on a need to know or need to coverup basis.
The manhattan project was concealed for many years, yet it involved not only tens of thousands of individuals, but large scale building projects as well. The government can obfuscate by many means. The B2 bomber and stealth technology was kept secret (by definition a conspiracy) from the public for decades, though known by a large number of people, thus a large number of people can conspire to keep things “secret” or withheld from public knowledge quite sucessfully. To deny this basic fact, is to deny that WWI documents are still being held from the public, under cover of secrecy and confideniality.
This government won’t even tell you who attended Cheney’s energy meetings, do you really think they would release information that might lead to widespread panic and chaos, such as UFO’s and their superior technologies?
A reasonable person learns to extrapolate, if there are billions of stars in our galaxy, and one (earth) has intelligent life, simple mathematics says in a universe of billions of galaxies at the least a few hundred intelligent life forms must exist.
Do not dismiss Dr. Mitchell because he throws your own belief systems into doubt, and do not demand proof from him, instead ask your governments, those political bodies supposedly beholden to the citizens from whom their very power and being springs, to release all their secret files. You might be suprised at what you will find, amongst the widespread cases of hidden malfeasance and wide-spread financial looting by those entrenched in the military-industrial state, there will be evidence of the unexplainable as well as the locations of recovered debris from ufo crashes.
Momentum is building and the wide-spread use of digital photography guarantees that in the next few decades thousands if not hundred of thousands of sightings will be recorded. governmental deniability will become ever louder while appearing ever more ineffective much like George Bush claiming he doesn’t torture while document after document surfaces to prove his government does torture and with the implicit consent of the President.
July 27th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
HARD EVIDENCE OF NON CONVENTIONAL UFOs
It is disingenuous to say that their is no credible existence for the existence of Unidentified flying objects that defy the capablilities of
any known conventional or military craft.
What evidence do you have for the existence of tornados, other than the rare footage (usually taken by people running away) and the anecdotal stories by people who have witnessed them. Photographs in todays world are not valid evidence as they can be fudged. What less evidence is their for UFO’s ?
If you want HARD evidence, look at the thousands of pages of FAA radar returns from the Erath County sightings of January 2008. NObody doubts the authenticity of these reports.
How do you explain these documents?
July 27th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
I don’t know, how about destroyed houses, fields, and other property? Hurricanes leave a large amount of physical evidence behind.
July 27th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
How does Phil Plait know Ed Mitchell hasn’t seen “the evidence”? Just because Mitchell hasn’t shown what he’s hypothetically seen doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, nor that Mitchell is being unrealistic.
July 27th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
You guys can’t be serious. First of all, governments can hide stuff, but this stuff is much harder to hide than some secret project or airplane. By the way, if we’re gonna be conspiracy theorists, why isn’t it much more likely that the government is peddling the UFO stuff to conceal their secret aircrafts? And the difficulty of government conspiracy is just one reason, and not even the main reason. If you scrutinized the anecdotes and blurry photos and videos as much as you pretend “skeptics”, you’d realize how unlikely it is that these ETs are visiting us. Especially, as several have pointed out, if you understood how basic science would have to be turned on its head for them to be here, or the aliens were intelligent enough to be here, but stupid enough to get caught by simple people with no credible resources. And save yourself the tired “open minded” appeal, that doesn’t work when you’re “so open minded that your brains fall out” (phrase stolen).
And tornadoes? Really? First of all, tornadoes are perfectly natural, and are well explained, there is a clear mechanism for them to work, and it has been witnessed by thousands if not millions of credible sources with more than just anecdote. Unless all the major and small media networks across the world report on a single UFO incident with the same info obtained independently, with different original (as in theirs) footage of the same event, and they see grey little men, and unambiguously state so, it won’t be anything like any natural event such as tornadoes. But that should be obvious to anyone, it would seem.
July 27th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Ignore evidence? What evidence? What data do you have that disproves what Edgar is claiming? You want evidence, then just try and get it. Every single Tom Dick and Harry wants to see a UFO land on the White House lawn…MUFON made progress in compiling a report on the Stevenville sightings, despite much adversity from the military authorities.
They have done the necessary legwork to gain hard evidence.
Edgar seems perhaps a little subdued by the response he received and not a little defensive…maybe a little shocked that his story has had so much exposure at this point. He had gone on interview to discuss his experiences as an astronaut, and only repeated much of what he had already stated in earlier interviews. Subsequent interviews have been more muted, and then there was the statement that NASA had “nothing to do with it.” (The cover-up)
He may well worry about repercussions for sticking his neck out, or more likely the rash actions of his interviewer in calling his ex-employer.
It is easy to isolate and discredit individuals…that was the point of gathering so many high ranking people in one room for the Disclosure Project press conference. They were at least legally protected, as many were apparently still under oath.
Instead of mounting a character assassination, highlighting his beliefs or dismissing his story as the ramblings of an old fool and a has-been, as so many appear to do, how about lending some of that rigor to help uncover the facts. Mitchell has gone as far as he is able, without betraying the trust of those who confided in him, and not bending to the will of bullies. That says a lot about the man Edgar is. I for one hope that more people of his stature will come forward.
Why are the testimonies of everyday people still not valid?
July 27th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
What evidence do you have for the existence of tornados, other than the rare footage (usually taken by people running away) and the anecdotal stories by people who have witnessed them.
Are you serious?
You ever heard of Doppler radar? Tornadoes are measurable, genius. They have measurable, observable characterstics and leave unmistakable physical evidence.
I wasn’t even going to bother with this thread, as I spent all the effort I could muster arguing the same silliness in the Larry King thread a few days ago… but come on… if that’s your analogy then there really is no point trying to have an intelligent debate on the issue.
July 27th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
There is ample visual, photographic, and radar evidence that objects are entering the earth’s atmosphere from space, and maneuvering with accelerations that are not possible with conventional technology. One organization, NARCAP, which was founded by two senior NASA research scientists, is tasked by the FAA to catalog and investigate situations where unidentified objects interfere with commercial aircraft. There are over 3,000 incidents in the NARCAP database. 3,000. See:
http://narcap.org
July 27th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
By the way, the notion that the government can’t ‘keep secrets’ is ludicrous. For those that believe that, please show me the pictures and videos you have of the various underground bunkers and laboratories at Area 51. While you’re it, please post the nuclear launch codes. Since the government can’t keep secrets, maybe you can entertain us with the leaked codes. Please also explain how the Stealth 117-A fighter was kept completely secret for almost 20 years despite the fact that nearly 10,000 people knew about it and worked with the technology hands on. Finally, the honest truth is, the UFO ’secret’ has NOT been kept. A large volume of information on alien visitation has leaked out of government circles over the past 50 years.
A NASA astronaut is blowing his part of the lid open on this information. I wouldn’t exactly call that keeping a secret. The British government is releasing the totality of their UFO files over the next 4 years. The information is coming out now. Most of the skeptics on here look absurd in their attempts to discredit every single snippet that comes out, including the shameless belittlement of an MIT PhD astronaut.
July 27th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
Didn’t you see Twister, with Helen Hunt? Geez….
July 27th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
I just wrote an entry on this fellow on my website. Clearly he’s lying, though I don’t know entirely why (perhaps he has a book coming out?). It’s very sad, really, that his legacy is being ruined by these stupid remarks he’s making.
July 27th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Dr. Mitchell is not the only one that has come forward. Remarkable evidence is available proving that UFOs and ETs have visited our planet. See (www.disclosureproject.com and www.freedomofinfo.org).
Solid testimony from over 500 corporate and military witnesses has been accumulated by two disclosure initiatives. These disclosure witnesses have openly stated they are willing to testify, under oath and before Congress about their direct encounters with UFO crash site investigations, secret UFO documents, UFO photographic evidence, UFO radar reports and recovered crashed ET vehicles.
As an Attorney, I can attest that the jurisprudential evidence of this quality does not get any better, especially when witnesses possess the ranks of Brigadier Generals, Commander of ICBM Launch facilities, Senior FAA Crash Site Investigators, astronauts, pilots and officers with above top secret clearance. Men have been executed in the U.S. with far less evidence.
Other governments have started releasing previously classified data on ETs and UFOs. France was the first, in March 2007 the French National Space Agency placed 1600 previously classified UFO sighting reports into the public domain for examination; beginning the process of full disclosure of non-Earth origin craft. Similarly, the United Kingdom in May 2007 began a disclosure initiative. Other countries have started to follow suit. It is time for the United States to do the same.
In my personal experience, I was a U.S. Army Major and held a top secret clearance. My awards include the Bronze Star Medal for leadership in combat as well as others. As a result of my positions other officers have confided in me and I have no doubt that there is something to this enigma.
It is imperative that this issue receive media and elected official attention. It has been acknowledge by the U.S. military and other federal organizations, through freedom of information requests, that files on the subject remain classified. It is time for the country to move toward full disclosure. We the people, have the right to know the whole story.
July 27th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
[…] for a good article on this from a skeptical point of view, click here) Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)UFOs Invade National Press Club Apollo 14 […]
July 27th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
Goldengood said: “There was a sighting in Stephenville texas just reecntly that was just as impressive. a craft that was over a mile long flew directly over peoples houses and travelled at speeds in excess of 2000 MPH…No sonic boom from brekaing the sound barrier.”
It’s interesting how stories get inflated with time. According to the MUFON report available at http://www.mufon.com/documents/MUFONStephenvilleRadarReport.pdf the object was likely less than a quarter of a mile across, and was generally tracked at speeds of under 100 mph. That would explain the lack of a sonic boom. There was one anomalous radar blip which, if correct, would have required the object to travel at 2000 mph, which means it’s more likely it was an anomalous radar return. And in any case, the witnesses said they weren’t sure whether they were looking at one object or a group of smaller objects.
And having read the report, I was less than impressed by some of the witness statements. For example, the MUFON report says one of their witnesses was described as having difficulties understanding the concept of angle of elevation, as in describing how far above the horizon the object was. Worse than that, this was a witness they spoke to in person – how hard is it to explain or understand this sort of concept when you can point to the sky? And worse again, this witness was one of eight witnesses the report says were the most reliable!
So please don’t go saying it was an object a mile across travelling at 2000 mph. It was nothing of the sort.
July 27th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Joseph Capp said: “He walked on the Moon has a PHD and says he knows we have been in contact with ETs not does not say he believes.”
Buzz Aldrin has also walked on the Moon and also has a Ph.D. But he isn’t saying governments around the world have been in contact with Extraterrestrials. Who should we believe? Mitchell or Aldrin?
“So he is either a liar or you wouldn’t even respect anyone no matter what character they possess on this topic.”
That, sir, is a false dichotomy. There are other alternatives than “He’s a liar” and “He’s telling the truth”. He could also be mistaken.
“Finally I believe Dr. Mitchell statements regarding the UFO reality should stir in the hearts of most fair minded people that the UFO subject should be at least looked into seriously again especially after what happened with the Stephenville TX. radar Tapes proven there were UFOs there right where the witnesses said they were.”
Yes, an unidentified flying object. I’ve read the MUFON report about Stephenville, and I see little evidence for an alien spacecraft. My explanation would be a group of helicopters flying slowly at a moderate altitude in poor light.
July 27th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
Wow, this topic just gets better and better!
Appeal to authority…
My favorite argument so far has to be, “What evidence do you have for the existence of tornados?” LOL
No reason to argue against the UFO=Aliens crowd, since they shoot themselves in the foot far better than we could!
July 27th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Ed Mitchell is like a lot of people. He has his weak spots in accepting some paranormal bs.
Otherwise he’s a nice guy.
July 27th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Stating Obvious said: “The manhattan project was concealed for many years, yet it involved not only tens of thousands of individuals, but large scale building projects as well. The government can obfuscate by many means. The B2 bomber and stealth technology was kept secret (by definition a conspiracy) from the public for decades, though known by a large number of people, thus a large number of people can conspire to keep things “secret” or withheld from public knowledge quite sucessfully.”
The Manhattan Project was kept secret from the public for about three years, which isn’t very long. Despite the level of security, the Soviets knew pretty much all about it, thanks to their spies.
The impression I have of the B-2 bomber is that the time from its development to its first public display was no more than about 15 years. In any case, the relevant stealth technology is highly specialised, and thus easier to keep secret than something as large as aliens being in contact with governments around the world for 60 years.
The point I’m making is that if you want to keep something secret for a long time, it had better not be a Big Thing involving lots of people.
“A reasonable person learns to extrapolate, if there are billions of stars in our galaxy, and one (earth) has intelligent life, simple mathematics says in a universe of billions of galaxies at the least a few hundred intelligent life forms must exist.”
I don’t think anyone is arguing with this. What we’re arguing with is the certainty that some of these intelligent life forms are buzzing around the Earth, interacting with governments for the past 60 years.
“Do not dismiss Dr. Mitchell because he throws your own belief systems into doubt, and do not demand proof from him,”
Why not? He’s the one making the claim.
“…instead ask your governments, those political bodies supposedly beholden to the citizens from whom their very power and being springs, to release all their secret files. You might be suprised at what you will find, amongst the widespread cases of hidden malfeasance and wide-spread financial looting by those entrenched in the military-industrial state, there will be evidence of the unexplainable as well as the locations of recovered debris from ufo crashes.”
So if they say they have no evidence to release, you’ll say they’re just holding on to it. Let’s just say, for argument’s sake, there’s no evidence to release. What would convince you that they’re telling the truth?
“Deniability will become ever louder while appearing ever more ineffective much like George Bush claiming he doesn’t torture while document after document surfaces to prove his government does torture and with the implicit consent of the President.”
The difference is that evidence of the use of torture is being produced, from various sources – documentary, statements from victims, and statements from perpetrators – all pointing in the same direction. It’s called a consilience of evidene. By contrast, evidence of alien spacecraft isn’t being produced.
July 27th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
@amphiox… your arguements are tainted by your repeated use of, “…drunk truck drivers…” Surely you mean drivers of pickups and other small non-comercial trucks. The professional drivers of big trucks are held to high standards of sobriety from both alcohol and drugs. The tens of thousands of company and independant truck drivers who reliably bring all you goods to stores near you are seldom drunk, especially behind the wheel of a “big rig.” Like any other segement of our society, there are the few who will occassionally get drunk, but when their very livelyhood depends on them being sober, they will not drink and drive very long. Most companies have strick rules including random testing that is rigerous and often. Any driver caught drunk, or even involved in an off-duty drinking offense may lose the employement status he/she worked hard to get. You seem to have fallen for TV and movie stereotypical concepts of professional drivers. Most drivers are not some half-baked, back-woods, rednecks from the hills, having more teeth than IQ.
July 27th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Pop, you’re hilarious.
Did you guys see the excuses NASA gave?
July 28th, 2008 at 12:18 am
As if any government in any democracy could keep anything secret for more than a few years.
Well… I sometimes work with classified stuff, and get occasional briefings. There *are* secrets kept very well by the U.S. government, and a handful that are older than some people on this message board. I believe there’s still a few that carry a potential death penalty if compromised.
No, I’m not saying Mitchell’s comments are anything but woo, but secrets *can* be kept if enough effort is made and sufficient incentive exists.
July 28th, 2008 at 12:24 am
We have governments that cannot coverup a simple break in, a tryst in the White House, or trade deals between Iran and the contras.
Not so good examples. Watergate (I assume that’s the break in you mean) and Monicagate (don’t you hate the *-gate meme?) were not organized, classified operations. The Iran/Contra deal had too many segments outside the sphere of influence of the usual rigamarole of classified information control.
July 28th, 2008 at 12:29 am
Isn’t that exactly what makes it a good example in this case?
Anyway, Phil, is youtube linking not allowed or something? I’d posted a link to Friday’s Top Ten on Letterman which talked about this, but the comment got yanked (I saw it posted, and later it was gone).
July 28th, 2008 at 12:30 am
Damn! Now I see it again! ALIENS playing with my mind to undermine my credibility!
Never mind about the youtube comment then.
July 28th, 2008 at 12:33 am
Do you believe in love? show me the evidence of love.
Try Monica’s blue dress.
No. You didn’t just read that. Move along.
July 28th, 2008 at 12:41 am
Isn’t that exactly what makes it a good example in this case?
Dunno. We’re discussing classified information that no one knows anything about and probably does not exist.
However, given that no real evidence exists of a government coverup, that does suggest possible limitations and boundaries when conjecturing about any hypothetical operation. I have to assume that these hypothetical secrets are not released to anyone not heavily controlled and handled by the government. You need to construct a scenario that leads to the current real world situation of no public evidence. You savvy?
X-Files was fiction, but I thought they presented a decently believable scenario without too much belief suspension. Tightly controlled information in the hands of a few people who had an almost fanatical devotion to keeping the secret, and quick elimination of even potential leaks.
July 28th, 2008 at 12:57 am
Quiet Desperation said:
“Do you believe in love? show me the evidence of love.
Try Monica’s blue dress.
No. You didn’t just read that. Move along.”
Thanks for that mental image. I will never ever wear a blue dress again.
And, no, you didn’t just read that either. Move along.
July 28th, 2008 at 1:03 am
Also, the love thing is such a bad analogy, and religionists and woo peddlers are always touting it.
Love is a feeling, we feel it, therefore the feeling exists. By definition. We don’t doubt the feeling of god, many of us have felt it before even. Now, that it is a god, that is something else.
For instance, when a guy does something horrible out of “love”, appalled romantics go “that’s not real love”. I think it is. What that person felt was love, he just acted upon it in a twisted way, that’s all. He thought he’d get the attention of the loved one(s), or he was doing something good for them.
Similarly, even as an “atheist” I do believe people feel god and act upon it, sometimes in twisted ways, but there is no such thing as a “real” god that is telling you how you should act, in the same way that love does not tell us how we should act. It is common sense and rationality, and maybe even some instincts that tell us that.
July 28th, 2008 at 1:24 am
Quiet Desperation,
Yeah, but the point was just that this kind of information would be uncontainable, just like you said the Contra deal was. And the X files? I liked it, but come on. Thing is that it wouldn’t take just the US government to hide something like this, it would take other governments as well, some of which surely could benefit by exposing the US govt. with such a massive conspiracy. Hence, there could be no tight control of information in the hands of a few people. That was the point. There are many people who believe they have seen this, some of whom seem credible, as per the original post here, and at least these could have been taken care of by such a conspiratorial government.
July 28th, 2008 at 1:28 am
easy to keep secret - look at nuclear secrets - area 51 - jfk etc - they have the official secrets act and executive powers that can keep the lid of secrecy for many years - maybe even levels of “secret government” … very possible. In fact buzz (aldrin) recently said the same - and applause to them - they had “access” and had to be prepared for any eventuality - i actually think bart sibrel is brave - asking for disclosure - but neil said he didn’t “deserve” answers !! Do we ????j
July 28th, 2008 at 3:23 am
[…] Ed Mitchell: Going to the Moon doesn’t mean you’re right […]
July 28th, 2008 at 5:05 am
@andyo
You brought up a point that I was going to make. Any sort of cover-up would take more than just the U.S. government. It seems the assumption that it’s only the U.S. that we’re talking about that needs to be keeping things under wraps.
Okay, suppose we also include the U.K., Germany, Russia, China…y’know, the “big boys”. Their governments are pretty decently organized, with pretty good resources, on average. Perhaps they might also be able to keep every little bit of “proof” hidden from the general public and prying reporters.
Now, what about the up-and-comers, like Brazil and Argentina? Now what about all the other countries all over the world? Maybe we can assume that the aliens avoid places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, and so on, because of all the fighting there. But do they really only pay visits to places that are able to cover it up? Seriously?
July 28th, 2008 at 6:37 am
Right there with you Phil.
As I said in a recent post at Space Disco, I need to see the aliens march out of Wright Pat before I “believe” anything.
Also, we have a curious interview with Mitchell posted on Discovery Space: http://dsc.discovery.com/space/qa/alien-ufo-edgar-mitchell.html
As usual: lots of claims, no names, and no evidence.
July 28th, 2008 at 7:39 am
@ Quiet Desperation:
I think that is the key issue here. Members of the government, including a former astronaut and member of Parliament from Canada have been discussing this openly for years. If there was a major government conspiracy going on, why are they allowed to talk freely about it? Why are they still alive? If there is a government conspiracy the U.S. government at least is not trying very hard to keep it under wraps.
Of course you could say that because they talked openly about it then it would be too suspicious to “disappear” them. But think about the implications of that: anyone who speaks freely about this is automatically safe. Considering the disaster that would supposedly unfold if this stuff became public knowledge, anyone with inside knowledge but hasn’t spoken out is in danger of being eliminated to prevent any further leaks, especially when people are supposedly figuring out the conspiracy. Insiders would actually be safer if they spilled the beans on the whole deal. The same goes for the 9-11 truthers and the moon hoax theorists or any other giant conspiracy. The fact that people who speak openly about it are still alive means that the safest thing to do for people with inside knowledge is to speak openly as well. As long as they keep quiet, they are a liability that the people behind the conspiracy can decide to eliminate at any point. Because there is no apparent connection there would be no suspicion. Yet they don’t make any such efforts to protect themselves.
July 28th, 2008 at 7:49 am
Its a Catch-22.. Some things are just so powerful that no one person/country/religion would want to to let it happen or make it public.
whether its true or not is beyond the point.. the irony of it all is that our government keeps things under wraps and tries to protect us from ourselves.. same goes for any government. IF we had a real representative country then we very well may have an ambassador to the cosmos with a budget / science / research arm to try and discover other intelligent beings or forms of life but the fact of the matter is our government and religious systems are so naive that they survive merely upon us being the highest form of life and anything that ads doubt to that would be detrimental to their power and their views of our existence.
July 28th, 2008 at 8:08 am
I would think whether it’s true or not is pretty much the point. Government hiding not stuff is just a (non)argument from the UFOlogist camp, but I’m pretty sure what we’re all trying to get here is simply the truth. What you seem to imply is conspiracy for conspiracy’s sake. At least I’ll give the benefit of the doubt to the UFOlogists that what they seek is the truth, not just conspiracy, however misguided they might be.
July 28th, 2008 at 8:49 am
Something that no one has pointed out thus far: the simple fact that he WENT TO THE MOON doesn’t lend any credibility because…wait for it…the aliens are supposedly HERE, not on the Moon. It’s like depending upon an “expert” to describe the island of Fiji because he’s traveled to Vancouver. I know, I know, his ‘access to the space program’ and all those smart people who are ‘in the know’ lends credibility to him for those who wish for him to be credible. If he was describing a strange thrust phenomenon that occurs in a gravity anomaly while landing on the Moon…ok, his experience lends credibility to his accounts. But secondhand information for something that supposedly happened (happens) HERE is not made fact (or rational or credible) by reason of him having gone THERE.
July 28th, 2008 at 9:00 am
I don’t take these fantasies any more seriously than I take Mitchell’s other fantasies. But I must point out that “The Government couldn’t cover all this up” isn’t a valid argument. The Government hasn’t covered “all this” up; if they had, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. The Government has just denied “all this”, and denial can easily go on forever, whether it’s honest or not. (And, since there’s good reason to think that, in this case, the denial is honest, and no real evidence that it isn’t, I’m assuming for the time being that it is.)
July 28th, 2008 at 9:04 am
“A reasonable person learns to extrapolate, if there are billions of stars in our galaxy, and one (earth) has intelligent life, simple mathematics says in a universe of billions of galaxies at the least a few hundred intelligent life forms must exist.”
This has been mentioned several times as if scientists and astronomers like BA are completely ignorant of the statistic possibility of life in our galaxy alone. The issue as it has been mentioned before is whether intelligent life has discovered the ability to travel light years to earth just to put probes in humans. If you think alien-UFO skeptics are missing the big picture by not understanding the billions-and-billions argument then you don’t understand them and their arguments.
“What evidence do you have for the existence of tornados, other than the rare footage (usually taken by people running away) and the anecdotal stories by people who have witnessed them. Photographs in todays world are not valid evidence as they can be fudged. What less evidence is their for UFO’s ?”
This discussion has officially jumped the shark with the tornado analogy. Rare footage? There are tons of *detailed* footage of tornados