It’s pretty much common knowledge that most scientists reject the reality of UFOs, at least in terms of UFOs being something ultimately anomalous, like extraterrestrial spaceships. Eyewitness testimony doesn’t cut their mustard. Photographs don’t hack it. What they demand is something nuts-and-bolts that they can study, put under a microscope, pound with a hammer, pour acid on, etc. No actual body on the lab’s slab equals no actual evidence one can study therefore there is no reality to the nonexistent body and no correspondence will be entered into on the matter. I smell a double-standard rat!
Continued from yesterday’s blog…
If you say you’ve seen a rainbow, you can’t prove that to me since you can’t bring the rainbow, or any part of it (like say the associated pot-of-gold), into my lab and place it on the slab for me to hammer away at or put under the microscope. You obviously believe in the reality of rainbows, yet you can’t put the one you see in the sky on your lab’s slab either. Okay, you know and I know that rainbows exist, but the critical point is that you cannot prove to me (or anyone) that you saw a rainbow. We all know eyewitness testimony, ain’t worth the price of spit in a bucket. As for photographs, being the grand skeptic I am, no doubt your photographs of rainbows are fakes, pure and simple. I REQUIRE PROOF of rainbows and you can’t provide it.
Can you capture and put an actual rainbow in the sky into a laboratory environment and subject it to cruel and unusual punishments? You can artificially create one in the lab, but that’s not quite the same thing – it’s not the real McCoy. And what about that associated physical trace – the pot-of-gold at the end of the rainbow? I’ve yet to read of any laboratory analysis of that pot and that gold. How do we know it’s really gold without slab-in-the-lab analysis? Maybe its fool’s gold! And just like Pandora’s ‘box’ is really a jar and not a box, maybe the ‘pot’ is really a bowl! Of course the scientists can’t quite get at the pot-of-gold since it’s guarded by a leprechaun, and no scientist is going to admit being thwarted by a little green man (or abducted by a little grey one either for that matter).
Okay, I would be foolish not to believe your observation and to deny the reality of rainbows, yet its okay for scientific skeptics to ignore the rainbow parallel when it comes to UFOs. Eyewitness testimony regarding UFO sightings isn’t worth the cost of the paper it’s printed on; photographs of UFOs are indeed pure Photoshop fakery.
But in fact, UFOs offer up way more physical evidence than the rainbow. Despite that pot-of-gold at the end of a rainbow legend, rainbows leave behind no physical traces; no physiological effects, and no electromagnetic effects; they make no sounds, etc. UFOs are not so hampered. So, if crunch-comes-crunch, the reality of UFOs have a lot more going for them in terms of physical evidence than the reality of rainbows. Of course no scientist in their right mind would exhibit scepticism of the existence of rainbows even without any physical evidence backing them up, but when it comes to UFOs, that’s a different horse of another colour – but is it really a different horse, and is it really of a different hue?
Of course one reason physical scientists accept the reality of the rainbow is that they’ve seen one themselves (many most likely) and seeing is believing as long as it’s they who are doing the seeing. If they themselves had witnessed a UFO event they (and their colleagues) could not identify then I’m sure they would be much more open and inclined to accept another’s eyewitness testimony. A bit of a double standard there of course but that’s human nature and scientists aren’t exempt from that weakness. Unfortunately, UFOs tend to be a rarer commodity than rainbows and therefore witnessed way less often, including viewings by scientists.
While UFOs have a higher physical evidence quota than rainbows, they also have a higher strangeness quota too, which is not to say that rainbows don’t have a strange mythological aura about them. I wonder if the scientist who accepts the reality of the rainbow also accepts that the rainbow is a bridge to heaven (Asgard) according to Norse mythology and made famous in the conclusion to Richard Wagner’s first “Ring Cycle” opera “Das Rheingold”. Christian mythology has the rainbow as a sign that at least the next time God lays waste to the world it won’t be via the Big Wet, though I doubt you’ll find that in any textbook on optical and atmospheric phenomena. And if you’re into cryptozoology, the Australian aborigines have a Rainbow Serpent (which doubles as a creator deity), but then again, scientists aren’t noted for their curiosity into the actual existence of unknown mega-fauna or polytheistic creator deities** either for that matter. In fact, you name the culture; you’ll find a rainbow mythology contained within. Rainbows are associated with spirits and demons and all manner of omens from the good, to the bad and the ugly that scientists will reject as part and parcel of their belief system.
So, where do scientists draw the line? Rainbows – yes; rainbow serpents and rainbow bridges – no. And this distinction is rightly so, IMHO. But when they reject out of hand a phenomenon that actually has more and better evidence than say rainbows (auroras and sprites would be other cases in point) then eyebrows must be raised and questions asked – like please explain your logic.
While on the subject of things mythological, let’s go harking back to the stars and planets and other celestial objects. There’s a massive mythology from many ancient cultures that usually goes hand-in-hand with how those celestial objects and night sky patterns came to be. Astronomers don’t support those tall tales either since they have other more scientific theories that explain the origins of stars and constellations. Still, its two competing theories of how to account for say, the Pleiades star cluster. Once upon a time it was Zeus. Today it’s astrophysics. Who’s to say since neither scenario can be subjected to a definitive WE REQUIRE PROOF slab-in-the-lab test.
By the way, as a final counterattack, I haven’t yet seen any SETI scientist come up with proof positive on ET, so IMHO it’s still a tied ball game. But rather than have two opposing teams, SETI scientists may as well study UFOs as well since SETI to date has a batting average of zero. Perhaps that’s what comes from scientists putting all their ET eggs in just the SETI basket.
*And the Sun can’t have sunspots since we all know that the Sun is perfect; meteorites can’t exist since we all know stones can’t fall from the sky;
**Though faith in the reality of God is hardly unknown to exist in some physical scientists, though like stars and rainbows, they can’t put God on the slab in their lab either. Somehow the WE REQUIRE PROOF criteria don’t matter in this case.
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