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skepticblog.org/2009/08/25...-ufologist/
How to Talk to a UFOlogist (if you must)
by Michael Shermer, Aug 25 2009
I’m a big fan of SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intellience) and I think their search program constitutes the best chance we have of making contact. In fact, on a recent Saturday I was rained out of my normal 4-hour bike ride, so I read SETI scientist Seth Shostak’s new book, Confessions of An Alien Hunter (published by National Geographic), a brilliant and fun read. Seth has a fantastic sense of humor and in his book he presents some of great one-liners to use when dealing with UFOlogists, alien abductees, and the saucerites. For example:
Regarding the time it would take to traverse the vast distances between the stars, which would be millions of years (it will take Voyager II 300,000 years to reach a nearby star), Shostak notes: “That’s a long time to be squirming in a coach seat.”
As for the lack of tangible evidence for UFOs: “Physical evidence — a taillight or knob from an alien craft — is in short supply.”
UFOlogists claim that they have tens of thousands of UFO sightings, as if this is a good thing, but Shostak notes that this actually argues against UFOs being ET, because to date not one of these tens of thousands of sightings has materialized into concrete evidence that UFOs = ETIs. It’s counterintuitive, but more sightings equals less certainty because with so many saucers zipping around we would have captured one by now, and we haven’t.
Shostak notes that crop circles are a very poor means of communication because they represent only a few hundred bits of information, 1,679 bits in the most complex crop circle to date, which is less than a paragraph of text! If ETIs are advanced enough for interstellar space travel, why resort to using wheat fields, which are only ripe a couple of months a year, and then the crop-circle communication is quickly mowed down by angry farmers!
As for alien abductees, Shostak points out that Whitley Strieber’s book, Communion, launched the modern alien abduction movement. And guess what Strieber does for a living? He is a SciFi/fantasy/horror writer! Actually, I knew this already because I met Strieber in the green room at Bill Maher’s ABC show, Politically Incorrect, and Whitley and I were chatting it up over coffee and granola bars in the green room before the show when I asked him what he did when he wasn’t writing about being abducted by aliens. He told me that he writes science fiction, fantasy, and horror novels. The show was over right there in the green room! What else is there to say to a guy who writes this stuff as fiction, then slaps a “nonfiction” label on the book jacket?
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How to Talk to a UFOlogist (if you must)
by Michael Shermer, Aug 25 2009
I’m a big fan of SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intellience) and I think their search program constitutes the best chance we have of making contact. In fact, on a recent Saturday I was rained out of my normal 4-hour bike ride, so I read SETI scientist Seth Shostak’s new book, Confessions of An Alien Hunter (published by National Geographic), a brilliant and fun read. Seth has a fantastic sense of humor and in his book he presents some of great one-liners to use when dealing with UFOlogists, alien abductees, and the saucerites. For example:
Regarding the time it would take to traverse the vast distances between the stars, which would be millions of years (it will take Voyager II 300,000 years to reach a nearby star), Shostak notes: “That’s a long time to be squirming in a coach seat.”
As for the lack of tangible evidence for UFOs: “Physical evidence — a taillight or knob from an alien craft — is in short supply.”
UFOlogists claim that they have tens of thousands of UFO sightings, as if this is a good thing, but Shostak notes that this actually argues against UFOs being ET, because to date not one of these tens of thousands of sightings has materialized into concrete evidence that UFOs = ETIs. It’s counterintuitive, but more sightings equals less certainty because with so many saucers zipping around we would have captured one by now, and we haven’t.
Shostak notes that crop circles are a very poor means of communication because they represent only a few hundred bits of information, 1,679 bits in the most complex crop circle to date, which is less than a paragraph of text! If ETIs are advanced enough for interstellar space travel, why resort to using wheat fields, which are only ripe a couple of months a year, and then the crop-circle communication is quickly mowed down by angry farmers!
As for alien abductees, Shostak points out that Whitley Strieber’s book, Communion, launched the modern alien abduction movement. And guess what Strieber does for a living? He is a SciFi/fantasy/horror writer! Actually, I knew this already because I met Strieber in the green room at Bill Maher’s ABC show, Politically Incorrect, and Whitley and I were chatting it up over coffee and granola bars in the green room before the show when I asked him what he did when he wasn’t writing about being abducted by aliens. He told me that he writes science fiction, fantasy, and horror novels. The show was over right there in the green room! What else is there to say to a guy who writes this stuff as fiction, then slaps a “nonfiction” label on the book jacket?
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Re: A Good One From Michael Shermer
Fri, August 28, 2009 - 6:04 PMNot really a good one. In fact I've met his ilk on many occasions. Not only in the realm of UFOs, but in the regular world.
This is a scenario I actually experienced.
I had massive heart pain that was equal to removing a rib with a tea spoon.
I went along to the ER where they did all the things they needed to do to make sure I didn't die on them. The nurses were very efficiant.
The young doctor stood at the end of the bed and asked a lot of questions and ticked off the answers. He then went behind his consol and watched the monitors for the next hour until the end of his shift. The new doctor, about the same age came over to the end of the bed and asked the same questions and ticked the same boxes before retiring to the consol in the middle of the ER.
I had two other attacks in the sixteen hours I was in the ER, the second was the worst because this skeptic wanted to prove that I was only there for the drugs and ordered the absolute minimum of pain relief.
The pain did not let up and an hour later I was wheeled into have pictures taken. The operator asked me to keep still but the pain was so bad I was shaking. The idiot who called himself doctor tried to send me home with some panadene forte when he could find nothing wrong and suggested that he believed that I was faking it. Both my wife and myself laid into dickwad at that point and told him off for having a laugh at my expense with his fellow behind his consol and that we would like to see his boss now.
His boss came, listened to our tale, examined ( the first since I'd arrived) and then admitted me overnight as I had asked.
He only let me out the next day on the promise that I'd call an ambulance if the pain returned. It did a couple of days later and I returned by ambulance. The skeptic couldn't make eye contact with me and skulked around the ER as if his mum had caught him having a pull.
The registrar took care of me that night and booked me to see their cardiologist the next morning who diagnosed Pericarditis.
I could have died.
Skeptics come in all shapes and sizes. The only thing that separates them is their degrees. For us the difference can be life or death. A skeptic who has no degree and drives a truck can tell us we're liars all he likes, the reality is his opinion doesn't count. If he were a doctor, or a lawyer, or heaven forbid, a scientist! then to be dismissed, could mean the difference between life and death.
Not to me as I repect doctors lawyers scientists and truckdrivers the same. Your fruitfly!
When dealing with the issue of ET contact and abduction, we are Fruit fly.
SETI have as much hope of making contact with an advanced spacefaring civilisation as I have of becoming a billionaire.
As far as crop circles are concerned they're doors opening and closing. Imagine an animal walking through the scrub. Hears a strange sound and looks up to see a giant mosquito. The animal feels a sting and starts to run. The next thing it remembers is being all drowsy and the giant mosquito is on the ground and weird looking bipeds are standing beside it. A bit frightened, the animal staggers to it's feet and stumbles away, quickly regaining it's senses. It stops and turning around sees no gaint mosquito or funny looking bipeds. The animal turns and continues on it's way quickly forgetting the incident ever happened. Back in the dirt there are two dents in the sand that will be blown away by the next breeze.
No evidence.
In my experience and I've had enough to KNOW that there are ETs interfering with life on Earth, I have come to see that anyone who dismisses someones story because they haven't got the aliens trapped in the cupboard and the alien saucer chained up in the back yard, can be put into the same catagory as anyone of those people who took part in ethnic cleansing throughout history. STUPID PEOPLE!
It sound a bit radical, I know, but there are people out there who have been executed for less "out there" stories.
Remember, you are fruitfly and anyone who tries to tell you that nothing exists outside the universal glass jar, or that nothing can travel faster than Stan the special fruitfly who has four extra pairs of wings and glows in the jar and Boofhead the contemplative frruitfly says that is perfectly normal as is written in the fruitfly poo that covers the base of the universal fruitfly jar and of course he is the only one who can read the poo as he has a degree!
Sorry.....got carried away a bit there.
Not like getting carried away through the walls of the bedroom and into a spaceship for a fun evening of anal probing.
Joke.
