by Terry 24 Replies latest jw friends
So everyone who has seen a UFO has not "seen" a UFO, but has "seen" something else?
If so, then what has the person actually "seen", because if you say that what they have "seen" is not what they have "seen", then you must tell them what they actually saw.
Now, seeing as you were not there when they saw what they saw, how in the world can you say that they saw this or that, but they really didn't see what they saw?
NightOwl
So everyone who has seen a UFO has not "seen" a UFO, but has "seen" something else?
People see something they cannot identify (correctly) due to ignorance of the conditions which produced the sighting. Popular magazines, movies, legends, etc. give them a sensational option : Flying Saucers. They go with the more exciting one.
In the 1900's there were the Cottingley Fairies. Ever heard of them? It was a hoax perpetrated by two little girls who photographed fairies in her garden.
It caused quite a sensation.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was pretty much convinced, after considerable examination, that nothing had been faked.
Kodak's experts could not find any trickery on the photographic plates but were too embarassed to certify the photos as genuine.
Only many years later it was all pieced together from partial admissions.
In a 1985 television interview on Arthur C. Clarke's World of Strange Powers, Elsie said that she and Frances were too embarrassed to admit the truth after fooling Conan Doyle, the author of Sherlock Holmes: "Two village kids and a brilliant man like Conan Doyle – well, we could only keep quiet." In the same interview Frances said: "I never even thought of it as being a fraud – it was just Elsie and I having a bit of fun and I can't understand to this day why they were taken in – they wanted to be taken in." [ 32 ]
There is a distinction between UFO incidents which are honest observational mistakes (with embellishments), and deliberate forgeries.
Then there is the further problem of people who create inadvertant forgeries becuase they are such true believers as to delude themselves.
I think that the book of Mormon was the simple form - deliberate forgery. There is a recorded history of this with it.
What the New Testament was is lost to history.
So many things that fill our everyday life with noise are background hiss taken seriously and passed on until the mistake is practically carved in granite as TRUTH.
So everyone who has seen a UFO has not "seen" a UFO, but has "seen" something else?
Terry, I think Night Owl's question is warranted. You cannot, and I reapeat, cannot say that "everyone" who claims having seen a UFO has not seen a UFO. The mere name UFO implies that it is a flying object that cannot be identified. Implying that "always" when people see something that you do not believe in, or cannot understand or explain with what we already know from the world "at this point in time" is not what they saw, is simply a bit arrogant.
It is true that "mostly" when people refer to UFOs, they are thinking of alien crafts but that is not the case "always" if we go by what the acronym UFO stands for. I guess my point is that there are, in fact, objects in the sky that cannot be identified or, in other words, they cannot be paired with known objects that, according to our knowledge at this time, could be found flying in the sky. Now, if you are referring to the "interpretation" that this people give to what they saw, then you might have a point.
Here is one example of several people seeing something that they could not explain. What did they see? If you remove the interpretations, there is always the fact, that they saw what they saw, even on a radarscope, and could not explain it, therefore UFOs
Forgot the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_Washington_D.C._UFO_incident
Terry, I think Night Owl's question is warranted. You cannot, and I reapeat, cannot say that "everyone" who claims having seen a UFO has not seen a UFO.
The point of my topic is how something NOT IDENTIFIED becomes....not only (imaginatively) IDENTIFIED....but, passed along with more and more details added.
In the case of UFO's nobody is doubting somebody saw "something". But, the "U" in UFO remains just that: Un-identified.
When those vague descriptions turn into solid ideas the process is not clarification or additional evidence at work.
Humans demand a good story. They prefer juicy, exciting, mysterious details that emotionally move them.
When people pass information along they tend to "clarify" and "help" the details be better understood.
This was just as true of the Jesus story. Nobody is accusing the Apostles or disciples or copyists or redactors or translators of anything more
than TRYING TO HELP. But, that process disturbs, corrupts, changes, colors, alters, modifies and erases the original.
At any point True Believers jump in and commit Pious Fraud.
That is when the original is totally lost to Big Fantasy.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pious_fraud
Life is stranger than you think and stranger than you can think.
A ufo is a UFO its unidentified.
We are all sheep lead here and there. Translated we are consuming units to be harvested.
I have never paid attention to any ufos I have seen, and I dont pay attention to other people seeing ufos.
But if someone told me they saw a flying saucer, I'd start to note.
Now its no longer unidentified. Its been identified as a saucer that flies.
If the saucer could jump up and down and sideways at incredible speeds, that is more of a description
and identity.
If there were some excellent videos in this information age where every young person has a computerized
camera in their pocket that would be even better.
Back to your point, Terry
The point of my topic is how something NOT IDENTIFIED becomes....not only (imaginatively) IDENTIFIED....but, passed along with more and more details added.
You can take 20 people in a controlled enviroment and whisper a sentence in the first persons ear
and have each person whisper the sentence when it gets to the 20th person the sentence will
be unrecoganizable.
Human beings have a very difficult time communicating.
Terry I agree with the above 100%. That happened back then in Bible times and keeps happening up to our times.
My main issue was only with the fact that your answers sounded too absolutist for my taste. I do believe that context, circumstances, personality and experience will always color information provided. That, however, happens even in many scientific circles and is one of the reasons why peer review exists.
I think one problem in the UFO discussion above had to do with the impression that UFO = Aliens, when in fact the acronym UFO implies very clearly "unidentified".
vivalavida
Too many people find it a big hoot to fabricate false evidence to ever get to the bottom of popular hoaxes.
A good example is the original Bigfoot candid film which has been thoroughly busted without putting a dent in the faithful believer's continued search.
Crop circles too. The first guys who perpetrated the hoax have come clean on the matter while others have ventured out to create more and more.
The UFO situation is well known. Never has one topic generated so many hoaxers! Stories change and get passed along even when bogus "evidence" is busted.
Too much fun is to be had telling a weird and exciting story!
Ghost stories in old hotels and seaside Inns work to create a Tourist trade.
The town next to Area 51 was nothing until it became the Mecca of alien chasers.
I personally know of a fellow who claims he spoke to the guy who confessed to shooting JFK. Lordy, Lordy it never ends!
The bible stories were just a warm up for all the crazy stories circulating on the Internet.
Do you know how many paranormal magazines are on the market? Check it out next time you're at the newstand.
Nostradamus sayings are a never ending source of idle fascination to some people.
And the beat goes on...
