UFO "flap" over Britain

To be honest I do not trust neuroscience that much. It always ends up with the usual theme of reality manipulation/substitution of reality which to me looks like a giant headsplitting version of The Matrix ("reality is just electrical and chemical impulses stimulating the brain" fair enough for me but we'd better be careful not to get entangled in very long and sterile debates). If we start question what look anomalous, why not question what looks normal? That's always the danger with using neuroscience and psychology (for which I have absolutely no sympathy, but that's a personal matter), as well as denying us the opportunity to study and understand physical phenomena, which are undoubtely part of the whole scene.

When is a UFO not a UFO........when it is the Moon. Check this out

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7489457.stm

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To my mind, the big question is why humans have had "otherworldly" experiences - regardless of era - that have intriguingly consistent aspects. For example, there are apparent links between fairies and aliens in both the "green" aspect and behaviour. This isn't really new thinking but it's a very important thing to consider, both in terms of our internal machinations and possible external factors.

I think this is an important factor brought up by Matt, about similar aspects of experience regardless of belief/time frame. The link between fairy experiences and UFO abductions is an old one but is not much discussed.

I read a book recently by Graham Hancock called Supernatural. I know he is an author who writes from the genre of psuedo science and mystery, but, this book was interesting as it mentioned shared experiences when under the influence of mind altering plant hallucinogens used by old world shamans, these were similar to shared shamanistic visions but he also experiences UFO type experiences, I was wondering if anybody had read it and had any comments on it as it is food for thought on many things that are discussed within this area, although it is a long read and not easy to condense some of his ideas here. i.e. you would have had to have read it to comment.

Mauro wrote:

To be honest I do not trust neuroscience that much.

I don't understand how you can 'not trust' neuroscience. It is reproducible, testable science like physics, astronomy, geology etc (unlike psychology, for instance, where results aren't always so easily reproducible). You can go into a laboratory and test it for yourself.

You can't pick which bits of science you trust and which you don't. Many people are uncomfortable with quantum physics (Einstein never liked it) but experiments keep proving it correct. Psychology can seem a bit imprecise because it describes human behaviour, which is highly variable. Neuroscience, on the other hand, is about how the brain works. Everyone's amygdala does the same thing irrespective of their personality (unless they're ill). Similarly, everyone's visual perception works in the same basic way (including substituting objects for things from memory when they're not seen well).

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If we start question what look anomalous, why not question what looks normal?

Absolutely! People see things that are 'not really there' all the time but only a few report them as anomalous phenomena. That's because most of the time we just don't notice or, if we do, put it down to 'just one of those things' or too many beers. It is often quoted that 90% of paranormal cases (or some other arbitrary high figure) turn out to have natural causes. Things like misperception may account for a large part of those cases. How can we ignore what is likely to be the biggest single cause of paranormal reports?

Did I miss anything?
Sorry for the disappearance but there are times when a man... has no time for "surfing the Web".
Still not convinced about neuroscience and, possibly, will never be. To be honest it seems that ever since finishing university I have been steadily losing faith in pretty much all areas of science (or perhaps I am losing faith in the persons using them).

If you have no faith in science, which is based on evidence, experiment and reason, what DO you put your faith in? I can't think of any other field of philosophical enquiry that puts such effort into establishing the truth, whatever that might be.

For me, there's a world of difference between genuine scientific investigation and the current scientific establishment. Witness Robert Winston's misguided and ill-informed comments on the paranormal last year.

matt.h wrote:

For me, there's a world of difference between genuine scientific investigation and the current scientific establishment. Witness Robert Winston's misguided and ill-informed comments on the paranormal last year.

I take it that doesn't mean you have lost faith in science, like Mauro, does it?

To jump back a few comments (sorry!) I agree that an awful lot of UFOs get sighted over scarcely populated areas. Any possibility that light pollution plays a role in this? I can see a few stars over my home, but UFOs are almost certain to be planes circling the airport.

mysteryshopper wrote:

matt.h wrote:

For me, there's a world of difference between genuine scientific investigation and the current scientific establishment. Witness Robert Winston's misguided and ill-informed comments on the paranormal last year.

I take it that doesn't mean you have lost faith in science, like Mauro, does it?

Well, I've no formal training in the philosophy of science. As far as science means the fair studying and appraisal of all evidence then I've no issue with it.

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To be honest it seems that ever since finishing university I have been steadily losing faith in pretty much all areas of science (or perhaps I am losing faith in the persons using them).

I don't think Mauro meant he had lost faith in all science, just some scientists.

Good point about light pollution Wombat. I don't really study UFO's that much so I haven't given it much thought.

Well, this is becoming quite philosophic, ain't it? I won't delve in the personal part but there's a "paranormal" connection.
I won't name the persons but I strongly suspect two otherwise respectable researchers from the physics department of a well-known university of having tampered with a "ghost photograph" or, at very least, not to have told the whole story. I am not saying that they "debunked" the aforementioned photograph (actually it's an IR image) but quite the contrary. And I am stopping there.
Another problem is how researchers present themselves to the public. This Winter I attended a UFO seminary and one of the speakers acted in front of the crowd like your average "TV debunker". Need I say more? I had the occasion to talk to him after the symposium and, as he recognized me as be more informed than the classic UFO enthusiast, we had a very interesting conversation about advanced physics, the French GEPAN program and some "very impressive" cases. I regret to this day of not asking him a question "why did you act that way in front of people? Why are you not talking openly about this?". I walked away with the firm impression that he was a secret believer (he surely believes in little green men WAY more than I do) but he somehow felt compelled by his status to act like someone would expect a "serious researcher" to act. And that's the core of the problem.

Mauro wrote:

I am not saying that they "debunked" the aforementioned photograph (actually it's an IR image) but quite the contrary. And I am stopping there.

Do you mean they manipulated a photo to make it look more ghostly? Seems weird!

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Another problem is how researchers present themselves to the public. ... And that's the core of the problem.

When I talk about scientific research I'm refering only to what's in refereed journals, not pop science books or TV (which is frequently wrong or inaccurate). Scientists will obviously have their own views on their subject which may go way beyond the evidence, which they may tell people on TV, but in peer reviewed journals they have to stick to what is demonstrably true. I mentioned neuroscience earlier because I believe its recent results have profound implications for paranormal (and UFO) research. The neuroscience research, when it was done, had nothing whatever to do with the paranormal directly, which is why I think we should have confidence in its accuracy and review its implications.

Surely a problem with peer-reviewed journals is the possibility that they only represent the consensus of a dominant group within that branch of science?
When a postgraduate at uni I found it quite revealing how certain "fashionable" topics seemed to be more heavily covered in the leading journals than others. I certainly wouldn't use this as a basis to either reject peer-based journals, or conversely to claim "fringe" claims are widely and deliberately marginalised, but we do have to be very careful about how we treat the mainstream view of any discipline.

Believe it or not that's just what I meant (or at very least they turned a blind eye on the forgers themselves).

I read Jenny Randles in Fortean Times and she, as I am, are still fed up with the media loving a good mystery but not interested in solutions - UFO's fill the skies, a few more copies of the paper are sold featuring tales from readers, but any explanation that the sighting was of chinese lanterns isn't interesting so myths are perpetrated. Suddenly Britain is in a big wave of UFO's. Luckily however, this may spur on some genuinely strange sightings - maybe things will get wierder.

As I pointed out in the past a light in the sky, even if we cannot exactly point to its origins, means absolutely nothing.
It can be a star, a planet, a flare, a Chinese wedding lantern, an airplane, a secret flying machine, an alien spacecraft, a space-time anomaly, an angel carrying an oil lamp...
But this light can become interesting if it behaves in a way which becomes very hard to explain using known physical phenomena. Chinese wedding lanterns and ballons will behave pretty much naturally, being born by wind currents. But as you rightly pointed out nobody seems seriously interested in doing any serious research anymore, it's just the "shock value" that counts. Add the fact that the press is only interested in bringing out the wide-eyed witness and the sneering armchair skeptic and you'll see how far we get.