4705 replies to this topic

[psyche101]

zoser, on 08 July 2012 - 01:06 PM, said:

My opinion on this would be that Jim is an expert in his field but this forum primarily concerns a different field.  Unless we have a Ufologist posting here who has been in a position to research the field over decades as a profession, then really we are all scratching around down here in the mud down together.

In a sense I agree with you, Jim is head and shoulders over these charlatans that shoehorn ET into any and every tall tale that they possibly can. They care not for math, nor do they care for any prosaic explanation, as we can see for the example you posted concerning Buzz Aldrin whereby his words were altered to specifically offer a more nefarious scenario than that which actually happened. Boon put it quite well that the crowd you speak of are by definition an oxymoron. You will notice not a single one of those snake oil salesmen have the gumption to come in here and speak to the people, like Jim does, and lets face it, that is because Jim has absolutely nothing to hide. The field you speak of is one of trickery, charlatans, new agers, all the sellers of fantasy and dreams, not a one with their feet firmly on the ground with a proper grounding in flight mechanics who actually can start to make sense of the anomalies that confound the everyday person like Jim Oberg. Whilst Jim is probably not very good with fictional ET tales, he can tell you how a rocket engine is designed and what it's behaviour will be, and we are extremely lucky to have him on board to help us laymen understand these intense and complex processes. It is merely a shame that a few miss the opportunity to learn from a true qualified professional with a wealth of experience when the opportunity has been obviously placed under their collective noses. The old, you can lead a horse to water scenario I guess.
In short, if one is interested in keeping the mystery and never learning a thing, I could see why one would wish to avoid Jim Oberg and stick with the snake oil salesmen in the field. That is certainly not Jims field.

[psyche101]

Hey Zoser

How did you go with this link?

LINK

[quillius]

psyche101, on 05 July 2012 - 10:54 PM, said:

Gidday Mate

Cheers for the link, it kinda makes me feel sad for James Oberg. I think this illustrates that strong believer types just want skeptics out of the way, and do their level best to discredit their public standing. The inane crap Jim had to suffer from Rudiak seems unjust to be honest, and I have to wonder what Rudiak (famous for the Ramey memo nonsense in the ever continuing Roswell crap) was trying to accomplish, Jim was right in then end, but what was Rudiak saying the snowflake sized particles were? Nano aliens? With Ice flake Ships? I think Rudiak (and Fleming for that matter) walked out of that one looking a boob.

@ Jim, mate, your patience is yet another reason to admire your work.

Cheers.

Hey Buddy, I am sure Jim is big enough and ugly enough to deal with things....(.I did let him know out of courtesy that I was posting the link.), and yes I appreciate the fact he is here posting, I wish we had more prominent figures that have some kind of knowledge with cases/aspects of Ufology were also here, it would make for fascinating debate...

my number one on the wish list would be my old friend Mr E Mitchell

[zoser]

psyche101, on 08 July 2012 - 10:09 PM, said:

In a sense I agree with you, Jim is head and shoulders over these charlatans that shoehorn ET into any and every tall tale that they possibly can. They care not for math, nor do they care for any prosaic explanation, as we can see for the example you posted concerning Buzz Aldrin whereby his words were altered to specifically offer a more nefarious scenario than that which actually happened. Boon put it quite well that the crowd you speak of are by definition an oxymoron. You will notice not a single one of those snake oil salesmen have the gumption to come in here and speak to the people, like Jim does, and lets face it, that is because Jim has absolutely nothing to hide. The field you speak of is one of trickery, charlatans, new agers, all the sellers of fantasy and dreams, not a one with their feet firmly on the ground with a proper grounding in flight mechanics who actually can start to make sense of the anomalies that confound the everyday person like Jim Oberg. Whilst Jim is probably not very good with fictional ET tales, he can tell you how a rocket engine is designed and what it's behaviour will be, and we are extremely lucky to have him on board to help us laymen understand these intense and complex processes. It is merely a shame that a few miss the opportunity to learn from a true qualified professional with a wealth of experience when the opportunity has been obviously placed under their collective noses. The old, you can lead a horse to water scenario I guess.
In short, if one is interested in keeping the mystery and never learning a thing, I could see why one would wish to avoid Jim Oberg and stick with the snake oil salesmen in the field. That is certainly not Jims field.

Yes psyche but you are missing something.  Worship the authorities and the PHD's who write the text books if you wish.  Remember however that it's among that crowd that the real criminals of this earth hide that keep the truth away from the public and lay trails of deceit; and there lie the real snakes.

Chose your camp wisely.

Edited by zoser, 09 July 2012 - 06:20 PM.

[zoser]

psyche101, on 09 July 2012 - 07:04 AM, said:

Hey Zoser

How did you go with this link?

LINK

Had a quick look but seemed irrelevant to the thread.  Can you summarise the thrust of it please?

[zoser]

Milton Torres relates his encounter over the UK in 1959.  A short but powerful testimony where he describes a craft the size of an aircraft carrier.  He takes off to intercept the craft but it takes off at incredible speed.  He is ordered to keep silent about the encounter.  Quite a famous case.  Edgar Mitchell comments.

[psyche101]

quillius, on 09 July 2012 - 03:24 PM, said:

Hey Buddy, I am sure Jim is big enough and ugly enough to deal with things....(.I did let him know out of courtesy that I was posting the link.), and yes I appreciate the fact he is here posting, I wish we had more prominent figures that have some kind of knowledge with cases/aspects of Ufology were also here, it would make for fascinating debate...

my number one on the wish list would be my old friend Mr E Mitchell

Indeed he is, it just seems unjust to have these little people running around his feet just biting his ankles. After a career in NASA it seems just not right that he should have to deal with accusations from the likes of Dave Rudiak. Not even in the same ballpark as Jim.

[TheMacGuffin]

psyche101, on 09 July 2012 - 10:19 PM, said:

Indeed he is, it just seems unjust to have these little people running around his feet just biting his ankles. After a career in NASA it seems just not right that he should have to deal with accusations from the likes of Dave Rudiak. Not even in the same ballpark as Jim.

My main criticism of Oberg is his tendency to splash some kind of "explanation" on UFO reports even in cases where they are truly unexplained.  I don't say he's 100% wrong since he knows his missiles, but he's far from being 100% rights.  And I know of other former NASA people who strongly disagree with him, like Richard Haines, but they do not appear on UM.  Not so far as I know.

[psyche101]

zoser, on 09 July 2012 - 06:20 PM, said:

Yes psyche but you are missing something.  Worship the authorities and the PHD's who write the text books if you wish.  

Zoser

This is where you and I part ways in every conceivable fashion. I worship nobody. I have faith in nobody, I do not believe people with tales, I believe people with evidence. Empirical evidence means repeatability. That is right, you cannot just "say something" scientifically, you have to pass a rigid muster from all conceivable angles. Every other scientist, including those one might consider close friends will take any claim put forth and ritually dissect it to see if it is true, and has the right to stand in a hall of fact. Once you get to this stage, there is no negotiation of the truth. Fact is undeniable.
Faith seems to be all you require to achieve the level of believability that you do and to be satisfied with an answer. I guess that is why you draw my attention so often, you have no respect for fact, but allow faith to guide you. I see that as a large mistake with regards to research because faith will let you down, facts will not. Faith has led people to believe in an old book with a omnipotent being who has cats an dogs living together on a big boat to save drowning in a water covered earth, on 40 days and night no less, and who is vengeful to an extreme in the first half of his book, and nice in the second half. I just have difficulty with faith in a giant schizophrenic bearded superman as the creator of the Universe. And to put it mildly, most of the alien stories that have you so mystified make this tall tale pale by comparison.
Personal belief is another story. If one is happy in oneself and one is happy to keep such musings to oneslf and not try to force them on others, or lie about them to seem more mysterious, that's fine with me. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, biut nobody is entitled to their own facts. Facts say not a shred of proof exists to support the ETH. People's ideals disagree with this, not a single person alive has a fact to challenge this conclusion. But fact is, every single UFO answer to date has come from beneath out feet. As such, the trend is likely to continue, no matter how hard one might wish otherwise.

zoser, on 09 July 2012 - 06:20 PM, said:

Remember however that it's among that crowd that the real criminals of this earth hide that keep the truth away from the public and lay trails of deceit; and there lie the real snakes.

That is a narrow paranoid view.

Real criminals? Like curing Polio? Fighting cancer? My wife suffered cancer in recent times, D knows about it, he was pretty supportive through it actually, and when he meets her finally he will see two big scars on her neck that she has kept a a reminder. She was saved because of these people you call evil. My baby sister is back at the moment from the Netherlands to receive her qualifications and she is on the breast cancer team in the Netherlands, and making some breakthroughs she tells me. Is that the evil you speak of, or the evil you use to log onto UM?

The entire globe does not fit into one narrow minded paranoid view. There are simply far too many of us to do so. I would say the people you call criminals are not criminals, Charles Manson is a criminal, Wayne Gacy was a criminal, Gary McKinnon is a criminal. Saving lives is not criminal. That you would suppress real world science for some silly alien fantasy is criminal though. I really do not know where you get such inane suggestions from, but I think you watch a bit too much TV, or Youtube whatever your individual case might be. It seems you need to spend some time in the real world. The people you call snakes will put their own lives on te line for the likes of you and I. That you hold such a dim view of real world heroes is disheartening. I would really like to see you make such an accusation to a marines face, but I do not think you would have the guts to do so.

Try to remember that a scientist is a person like you and I, who has favourite foods, falls in love and perhaps enjoys a good book. They are not automatons designed by the machine to keep you in the dark. That is fantasy.

zoser, on 09 July 2012 - 06:20 PM, said:

Chose your camp wisely.

Probably the wisest thing you have said here ever without realising it. I truly find it a great pity that you refuse your own single piece of good advice. I see no reasoning as to why you consider a policed, transparent and triple checked process nefarious. That Zoser, is fantasy.

[psyche101]

zoser, on 09 July 2012 - 06:22 PM, said:

Had a quick look but seemed irrelevant to the thread.  Can you summarise the thrust of it please?

That link pertains directly to the Fatima event I listed on the previous page, regarding mass testimony. Faith based human interpretations, no more. You said it was irrelevant here because it was a religious event, but many consider it a UFO event, which I know it was not.

zoser, on 05 July 2012 - 06:12 AM, said:

The testimony of the dozens and even hundreds of witnesses on this thread now speaks louder than anyones intellectual argument.  

As for the cases being already "dealt with":

Consider them re-opened.

I believe the happenings at this event contradict your assumptions.

Testimony as such does not in any way trump intellectual argument.

Edited by psyche101, 09 July 2012 - 11:38 PM.

[TheMacGuffin]

psyche101, on 09 July 2012 - 10:49 PM, said:

Gary McKinnon is a criminal.

I actually signed a petition to our Attorney General here in the U.S. on behalf of Gary McKinnon, as did quite of few other people from my...background.  We thought that he didn't do anything really harmful to the country, and pointed out that there has been quite a debate going on for years behind the scenes over how much UFO-type information should be disclosed to the public.

At any rate, I wouldn't put him in nearly the same category as Gacy and Manson, who certainly deserved the death penalty inasmuch as anyone ever did.

Edited by TheMacGuffin, 09 July 2012 - 11:42 PM.

[psyche101]

TheMacGuffin, on 09 July 2012 - 10:25 PM, said:

My main criticism of Oberg is his tendency to splash some kind of "explanation" on UFO reports even in cases where they are truly unexplained.  I don't say he's 100% wrong since he knows his missiles, but he's far from being 100% rights.  And I know of other former NASA people who strongly disagree with him, like Richard Haines, but they do not appear on UM.  Not so far as I know.

I do not mind people having a good crack at an explanation, if it is wrong, transparency should reveal such. And that's what I like about Jim, transparency. He will answer any question, and offer the best possible solution his experience can muster. I think it is good to have a starting point that is well thought out, and is qualified by it's own properties. Having him visit here I find adds a personal touch that few seem to bother with.

Any particular case that you think Jim was unfair on?

[psyche101]

TheMacGuffin, on 09 July 2012 - 11:35 PM, said:

I actually signed a petition to our Attorney General here in the U.S. on behalf of Gary McKinnon, as did quite of few other people from my...background.  We thought that he didn't do anything really harmful to the country, and pointed out that there has been quite a debate going on for years behind the scenes over how much UFO-type information should be disclosed to the public.

At any rate, I wouldn't put him in nearly the same category as Gacy and Manson, who certainly deserved the death penalty inasmuch as anyone ever did.

He is not a sicko like Gacy and Manson, I agree but he is a bonafide criminal. One of the real people to be concerned about not the "snakes" Zoser fears. Personally I would never sign a petition to help him get off scott free for outright breaking the law. From an IT point of view he is a petty thief. What he did was simple break and enter with intent to vandalise. Also from an IT point of view he could easily have disseminated any proof such as he claimed to the entire world with one keystroke, and he did not follow any rule of IT and backup, also his ISP's hold no records of his wild claims. As far as I can see all the evidence convicts him rightly as a lying vandalist petty thief. I have zero sympathy for McKinnon and his crimes.
If anything, the UFO crowd should be chastising McKinnon, he took the entire community for a fool in my opinion.

Edited by psyche101, 10 July 2012 - 12:01 AM.

[psyche101]

quillius, on 09 July 2012 - 03:24 PM, said:

my number one on the wish list would be my old friend Mr E Mitchell

LOL, I will have to leave you with that one, I would not like to debate Ed Mitchell at all. I think it would be a pointless debate that would go nowhere. I find the debates he has had with Bill Nye are very disappointing. In them I find Ed to be rude and to have no pertinent information whatsoever, and a constant reminder that his tale requires the crutch of an appeal to authority to stand up. Looking at past debates, I believe that the media has taken all of his objectivity away. He is just a show pony nowadays. Any argument goes on to refer to anonymous old timers and unnamed officials. It's getting a bit long in the tooth I find. There is only so many times one can lean upon appeal to authority before it starts to weaken and fall apart. As we all know, all Ed has is second hand claims the rely on an appeal to authority that he puts faith in. A great man, a great life, amazing accomplishments. To me it is sad to see him leave the world this way. The man who advocates Bob Lazar and requires his laurels as foundation. It's beneath his stature IMHO.

[DONTEATUS]

psyche101, on 10 July 2012 - 12:13 AM, said:

LOL, I will have to leave you with that one, I would not like to debate Ed Mitchell at all. I think it would be a pointless debate that would go nowhere. I find the debates he has had with Bill Nye are very disappointing. In them I find Ed to be rude and to have no pertinent information whatsoever, and a constant reminder that his tale requires the crutch of an appeal to authority to stand up. Looking at past debates, I believe that the media has taken all of his objectivity away. He is just a show pony nowadays. Any argument goes on to refer to anonymous old timers and unnamed officials. It's getting a bit long in the tooth I find. There is only so many times one can lean upon appeal to authority before it starts to weaken and fall apart. As we all know, all Ed has is second hand claims the rely on an appeal to authority that he puts faith in. A great man, a great life, amazing accomplishments. To me it is sad to see him leave the world this way. The man who advocates Bob Lazar and requires his laurels as foundation. It's beneath his stature IMHO.

I agree on all counts here But for one .BillNye needs as much help as the next guy as far as actual facts in research into aerospace , His brief work  with Boeing was short lived, mechanical and design background other that his T.V. show,I would too Love to See some real Tantalising Testimony ! justDONTEATUS !
HE did go to Cornell !so that means he`s a Pot HEad !

Edited by DONTEATUS, 10 July 2012 - 01:34 AM.