"Everywhere, by Stealth"
by Richard Dolan
by Richard Dolan
“Every day, spectacular events occur in the skies, in space,
in the oceans, and on the ground. Astonished witnesses around the world see
them. For many, the shock of something so extraordinary, so inexplicable, is a
consciousness-shattering experience, never forgotten. Yet few of them tell
anyone at all of what they saw, save perhaps a close friend or family member.”
“The things they see
are of some variety, but which often fall within one of several categories.
Here is a report that is typical. It describes an event that occurred in Hydes,
Maryland, on May 15, 1976, but wasn't reported until twenty-three years later
to the National UFO Reporting Center, on the World Wide Web. The witness who
wrote about this was with five other people, all adults and professionals,
lying on the front lawn of a farm after dinner at about 7 p.m. To their great
surprise, they saw an enormous, round craft approach slowly from the horizon,
perhaps at 30 or 40 miles per hour. It slowly rotated in counter-clockwise
direction; white lights were visible on the outer edges. The witness estimated
the object's diameter to be 1,000 feet, although it was hard to notice details,
due to the sunlight at the time of day. When the object appeared over them, it
stopped and split into four smaller, wedgent”d shaped craft. Then, in the
"blink of an eye," the objects zoomed away to the North, South, East,
and West. There was never a sound during the sighting. "To this day,"
writes the witness, "we have never spoken about this to anyone, not even
ourselves."
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About R.Dolan’s
article.
"The UFO Evidence: Burdens of Proof"
by Jim Giglio and Scott Snell
by Jim Giglio and Scott Snell
Examine the sighting report that Richard Dolan
(Commentary 1) regards as typical and informative. The report was submitted to
the National UFO
Reporting Center in 1999 and refers to an event that allegedly
occurred in 1976 near Hydes, Maryland:
it was dusk that day. we saw this round craft come out
of the northeast over the horizon. it was slowly rotating counter clockwise.
white lights only, were on the outer edges. it moved slowly, maybe 30 to 40
miles per hour. it came directly over us. we were on a horse farm, laying on the
front lawn just after dinner. this craft was just below the sunlight that was
left in the sky. we could not see any details. when it came over us, it
stopped. then separated into four smaller craft. then at the blink of an eye,
they shot over the horizon. each ship went directly north, south, east and west
respectively. there was absolutely no sound from this craft. we learned the
next day that there were sightings over peachbottom atomic plant that day. the
same direction that our craft came from. to this day, we have never spoken
about this to anyone, not even between ourselves. there were 6 of us. two music
teachers, a medical lab tech, a texas instruments tech, police officer, a
kindergarten teacher.
As scientific evidence, this statement has numerous
"red flags" hanging all over it. The writer, supposedly a
professional, seems not to want to bother with the standard capitalization
rules for English sentences. The statement is only semi-coherent, with
sentences describing various aspects of the incident tumbling over each other
in a rush; with 23 years to think about the incident, it ought to have been
possible to organize the description into a coherent narrative. (S)he reports
that no details of the object could be seen, yet states that it was 1000 feet
in diameter and traveling 30 or 40 miles per hour. How these size and speed
determinations were made is unspecified, nor is there an explanation for an
inability to resolve details when it was possible to
determine size and speed. Accepting the size and speed estimates leads to
another problem. Hydes, Maryland is located near a number of heavily-traveled
highways and air transportation corridors. Near-by observers should have
numbered in the thousands and generated numerous newspaper headlines; we are referred,
instead, to some alleged sightings at a nuclear power plant located a
considerable distance away.
Mr. Dolan informs us that this kind of report is typical.
He's quite right; it is typical, but as scientific
evidence it's worthless. Individuals and organizations adhering to the notion
of ET visitation accumulate reports like this by the thousands and periodically
present them to the public to support their position. There's a logical fallacy at work in this constant piling-up of
reports, the fallacy that large amounts of bad evidence somehow add up to good
evidence. They don't. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear,
nor can you make one out of 10,000 sow's ears. The Colorado investigators were
right; despite their volume, reports such as this, which had contributed
nothing to science as of 1968, have yet to contribute anything in the
intervening 33 years.
The fact that
Mr. Dolen gives credence to this flawed statement illustrates an aspect of the
UFO issue that ought to trouble proponents of the notion that this issue is a
serious scientific problem. We refer to an apparent unwillingness, on the part
of far too many of these proponents, to apply even a modicum of critical thinking
to such reports.
