This
last summer I participated in a UFO documentary via Skype that dealt with some
of the latest issues in the field, including what had happened with the Roswell
Slides. We discussed the fallout from that and how it will affect UFO research
in the future. The film will premiere at
London’s West End on September 24 and I mention this in case some of our
colleagues in England wish to see it. For those who wish additional
information, here are some of the links:
For
the record, because some people believe that there is no motivation in the UFO
but money, I was not paid for my participation, I didn’t get a free trip to
London, and had to use my own electricity to power my computer so that I could
be interviewed via Skype.
59 comments:
I looked at the preview on Vimeo and it doesn't seem to be about the Roswell slides and the aftermath at all. It just seems to be another pro ET Roswell film, with the same cast of characters I have learned NOT to trust: Schmitt, Carey, Dolan and Mausin (sp?).
Worst of all, you are not in it (well not in the preview anyway). You are the best Roswell investigator on the planet! Period. And they don't get any footage of you?
Actually it's a good thing if you are not in it considering the other company you would be associated with.
I can understand how some might misconstrue the nature of this film from the trailer - it was not created for the 'ufo crowd' as such, and does not give anything away in terms of what to expect in the full feature documentary. Best not to judge a 75 minute film that has a theatrical release before seeing it.
This film was made over a two year period and was produced to start a wider discussion on the ufo subject other than just those who believe they know everything there is to know about the phenomenon and/or people who work in the field. Maybe after learning these facts 'ufo people' may give it more of a chance, but I certainly didn't set out to make a film everyone likes, In fact I would be disappointed if they did.
Simon Sharman
Writer/Producer/Director
Cosmic Whistleblowers
Thanks for the info.
I wonder why it is premiereing in London and not somewhere in the US.
Because it was made in England which explains why I was interviewed on Skype when I would have preferred to have a trip to London.
Sharman himself is a strong supporter of the 'Roswell Slides'!:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1429561667/cosmic-whistleblowers/posts/1129404
It is sad that Kevin has allowed himself to be sucked back into the whole Slides debacle...
Well, I am hopeful that Simon decided to be a filmmaker over being a UFO believer. The trailer gives zero indication of this.
Lance
I was asked about the status of UFO research, if things like the Roswell Slides damaged UFO research and how we had reached this state. My interviews were conducted after the great reveal so that I have all the information that was supplied by RSRG and named some of those who were instrumental in uncovering the truth... not to mention the reservations that many of us had before the great reveal... and haven't we learned not to judge a book by its cover or a film by its trailer. I was asked to supply some counterbalance to the Roswell Slides fiasco.
From the Raindance feature films program guide for Sharman's 75-minute documentary:
"What do you think happened in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947? The U.S. government has put out four different explanations in the last 50 years. Fuelled by this obfuscation is one of the earliest and most well-known conspiracy theories: the Roswell UFO incident. ‘Cosmic Whistleblowers’ follows filmmaker Simon Sharman’s personal journey into the world of UFOs and government cover-ups. A self-confessed believer, Sharman gains access to the esoteric group of UFO hunters in the U.S., headed by Don Schmitt, and films interviews with a wide array of witnesses, ex-military personnel and others connected to the Roswell case. Truth and evidence are twisted by both sides of the debate in this intrepid documentary. On the one hand, the ‘ufologist’ conjectures and years of scouring the New Mexico desert for metal fragments (without much success) come across as well-meaning, but misguided. On the other, Sharman presents damning evidence of government cover-ups and misdeeds that is not hard to believe in the light of more recent scandals. Perhaps the wisest line in the film is spoken by NASA historian and astrophysicist Steven J. Dick, paraphrasing Carl Sagan: “Keep an open mind, as long as your brains don’t fall out”."
See: http://calendar.raindancefestival.org/films/cosmic-whistleblowers
And: http://calendar.raindancefestival.org/features-2015/
I looked into the Kickstarter campaign Simon Sharman, the writer/director of "Cosmic Whistleblowers," started early this year to fund his modest film, and I found several elements of the funding, orientation, and topics of this film to be prospectively somewhat troubling, but I think the real issue or way to determine the overall quality, honesty, and objective integrity of this film, or lack thereof, is to not only watch it before making too many prejudgments either way, but also to see how the conflicting issue of how Carey and Schmitt are portrayed, or what conclusions the filmaker came to regarding his coverage of the Roswell slides and the aftermath of the May 5th "reveal" will, to me at least, be a significant indicator.
Well the trailer does indeed seem aimed at the UFO crowd by fact those portrayed are the main characters. One does not produce a trailer that excludes the main characters.
It also carries the written header "In 1947 people were threatened with their lives if they spoke of the Roswell UFO crash. Most stayed silent. Until now."
That implies a pro-ET stance.
In any case, I think it hilarious that Cary is seen in the trailer saying "We have significant proof for the Roswell event as an extraterrestrial event" when he claimed AFTER and even slightly BEFORE the slides' release that they had not associated the slides with Roswell.
More evidence of hucksterism.
Steve,
Yes.
I also spoke with Simon as did Tim P. And Chris R.
It seemed to me that he had a dynamite story as his subject revealed himself unambiguously to be perhaps the worst researcher on earth (which means he's great in UFO terms).
Simon seemed focused on boring witness tale tales, the stock in trade of bargain basement scholars like Carey/Schmitt. Who want to see that crap? Especially when the real story is that he as filmmaker had invested so much time and energy on one of the biggest blowhards in UFOs only to see him spectacularly exposed for what he truly is.
I hope that's the story!
But I'll bet it isn't.
Lance
Steve Sawyer began a sentence above with this phrase:
"A self-confessed believer, Sharman . . . ."
I'm familiar with the skeptibunker practice of referring by the casual term 'believer'to those who hold out the possibility that the Roswell event and/or some other ufo events and interactions have presented major anomalies to those who witnessed them and many of those who have investigated them. The phrase "a self-confessed believer" is needlessly offensive in two ways, first in the implications of the qualifying adjective 'self-confessed', and second in the inadequately expressive noun 'believer'. I wonder if it has occurred to at least some members of the skeptibunking faction that these verbal behaviors are not just offensive but also irrational. Surely you've interacted with, if not read, enough serious ufo researchers to realize that the people you label 'believers' do not all believe the same thing. That indeed there are distinctions in their points of view and the grounds on which they hold them, from case to case and also in terms of each researcher's general accumulating conviction. And that not to take the time to find out what any individual researcher thinks and claims, and then to characterize it appropriately rather than slap on the label 'believer', is not just lazy and indifferent writing but a habit that continually gives offense to those you obviously want to interact with. Unless giving offense is the intention? If so, who in your faction actually wants to go ahead and cop to that? And if no one does, could that possibly change your writing practices if you stop to think about what you're doing?
So Steve is a skeptibunker then?
Hah...good to know.
"Surely you've interacted with, if not read, enough serious ufo researchers to realize that the people you label 'believers' do not all believe the same thing."
Oh God, yes. It's just that they ALL use the same lack of critical thinking skills to get to that point. That is the common thread.
"Unless giving offense is the intention? If so, who in your faction actually wants to go ahead and cop to that?"
You mean like calling someone a "skeptibunker"?
Hugs and kisses from a real skeptibunker (just like Steve!)
Lance
'Lance' said:
"Oh God, yes. It's just that they ALL use the same lack of critical thinking skills to get to that point."
What point? They all get to the same point despite the differences among them? Can you be specific and state that point?
Hi Jeanne,
To the point that I consider their claim for something extraordinary to be unsupported by actual evidence and instead supported by blind faith.
Lance
Lance wrote:
"To the point that I consider their claim for something extraordinary to be unsupported by actual evidence and instead supported by blind faith."
You mean like your blind faith in Mogul Flight #4 explaining Roswell without any support by the actual evidence proving that it never existed?
Skeptibunkers are credulous "believers" themselves when they accept stupid if not impossible theories for UFO cases.
Jeanne, you've misread and misinterpreted what I actually wrote.
The phrase "self-confessed believer" is not mine, but derives from the blurb I quoted from the Raindance film festival catalog listing. Note the quote marks and source links supplied above. Also, these kinds of film blurbs are usually supplied by the film makers themselves or are based on input they supply to be rewritten for promotional purposes.
Sharman can speak for himself here, but you should know I'm neither a "skeptibunker" nor a pseudo-skeptic. Please do not make the mistake of lumping me in with Lance, Brian, or CDA. They are debunkers, not me.
I'm a "ufo agnostic," as I've noted several times now both here and elsewhere over the past few years. Learn what that means, as I define the term, by googling my name and that phrase. I don't like the term "believer" either -- experiencer or witness is more accurate and less pejorative in my opinion.
I'll have a bit more to say later tomorrow about this, but just wanted to get this out there for now before any further unjustified comments about my perspective on ufos are presumptively and erroneously claimed.
"You mean like your blind faith in Mogul Flight #4 explaining Roswell without any support by the actual evidence proving that it never existed?"
And here we see the worst kind of true believer/conspiracy hack.
He equates the possibility that a prosaic thing happened with the idea that his flying saucer fantasy happened. In his world, the two are equal in plausibility.
With Mogul 4, David is primarily arguing semantics. We KNOW for sure that something was launched that night/morning.
He brings up good indications as to why this may not be the stuff we see in the famous photos but this evidence isn't conclusive AND there is additional evidence that suggests the opposite proposition and contradicts some of his claims.
But there is zero shading in fantasy conspiracy land. Everything is exactly as the conspiracy buff imagines it to be always.
I don't have blind faith that my conclusion is correct. I simply am not too blind to see that it is a possibility. And in the real world the prosaic possibility trumps the OMG Flying Saucer!! one.
Lance
All -
Just how in the hell do we move from a short little notice about a documentary that might be of interest to those who visit here to another of the endless discussions of Flight No. 4. It is clear that no one is ever going to agree because if Flight No. 4 actually flew, then it might provide an explanation for the debris and if it was cancelled, then it leaves the debate open to what might have fallen... which again, is not the same as saying it was alien.
Steve Sawyer wrote:
"Jeanne, you've misread and misinterpreted what I actually wrote.
The phrase "self-confessed believer" is not mine, but derives from the blurb I quoted from the Raindance film festival catalog listing."
Yes, I see that now. I apologize for assigning that opinion to you. I was in a hurry when I read your post (and others) and then posted to you reactively. I should have realized that you are not a debunker because I've read and been impressed by the thoughtfulness and rationality of your posts here in the past and even made a mental note of your name last Winter so as to investigate your thinking further. That must have been one of my mental notes that blew away in the wind. Again, I apologize.
'Lance' wrote:
"Hi Jeanne,
To the point that I consider their claim for something extraordinary to be unsupported by actual evidence and instead supported by blind faith."
Fascinating, except that what you 'consider' and what you can prove are far different things.
"Fascinating, except that what you 'consider' and what you can prove are far different things."
Sure, but perhaps you aren't in the best position to be lecturing anyone on that idea. Particularly in this thread.
Lance
Kevin: You wrote.
".....then it leaves the debate open to what might have fallen... which again, is not the same as saying it was alien."
Well my experience has been you aren't interested in exploring alternative prosaic theories other than No. 4. And your opinion still is that it was ET.
If you want the discussion to broaden you'll need to be willing to discuss alternatives to No.4 and aliens.
The sad thing is the new film (from what I can see) doesn't even venture into that realm and sticks to the ET vs. balloon theory because that's what the stars of the film usually discuss anyway...the balloon coverup....which is probably what sparked the recent posts.
Thank you for the explanation and apology, Jeanne.
That was both most gracious of you and much appreciated.
(BTW, aren't you also "rare phenomena lover" on some blogs?)
Anyway, I suspect Brian and Lance are most probably correct that Sharman's documentary will have a "pro-ET stance" and will likely _not_ expose the many grievous errors in logic and investigation committed by Carey and Schmitt, et al, in regard to the "Roswell slides" debacle. Too bad. I hope I'm wrong. That would have been very interesting.
Here's only a couple reasons why, using Sharman's own words, I'm rather skeptical that his documentary will be either objective or balanced:
http://kck.st/1OWD8LY (where Sharman references the "Roswell slides")
http://kck.st/1QCb66K (where Sharman was promoting & selling "Roswell dig samples")
[I dunno about you, but selling small glass vials of Roswell dirt in black metal boxes for nearly $50 each to help finance his film seems a bit outré to me.]
Nota bene: The phrase "self-confessed believer" comes from the review of the film posted on the Raindance site, and according to Sharman was written by the only person outside of his "edit team" that has seen the complete film before the premiere, so I had assumed Sharman was endorsing what the reviewer wrote for the festival's catalog listing, since he cited it:
"It also includes our first 'review' from the only person outside of my edit team who have seen the film so far, this can be seen here:
"http://calendar.raindancefestival.org/films/cosmic-whistleblowers."
See: http://kck.st/1NXRbBI
Re "self-confessed believer", ANYONE who promotes Roswell as an ET event (i.e. Kevin, DR, Carey, Schmitt plus endless others) is a self-confessed believer. Is this not evident? True, they may not regard some other prominent UFO events as ET, but this does not seem to diminish their faith in Roswell.
To date everyone I have seen or heard of who fervently believes Roswell to be an ET event can rightfully be labelled a "self-confessed believer". This does NOT mean that they necessarily believe every UFO case is ET. An example is Tony Bragalia (who has relapsed into silence since the slides fiasco). He is a fervent Roswell ET believer, but does (or did) at times denounce some other famous cases.
And yes Lance, DR's habit of hammering anyone who tries to propose Mogul 4 as a solution is the worst possible example of the antics of the pro-ETHers. This is because even without Mogul 4, 4a, 4b or call it what you will, disproving its existence IN NO WAY advances DR (and others') ET thesis one iota. The only thing that will advance their ET thesis is to obtain the real, hard evidence. In 68 years nobody has done this, and it is reasonable to predict they never will. (Yes I know, it is all secretly locked away, etc, etc...). Perhaps the Loch Ness Monster is locked away too.
"Cosmic whistleblowers" sounds far too much like the "Cosmic Watergate" as referred to so much by the great 'Roswell is ET' initiator Stanton Friedman. The very term 'cosmic' when referring to Roswell completely puts me off any films, books or documentaries.
Indeed Bragalia has retreated into the hole of silence. Tony, what do you have to say about this film?
Brian Bell whined:
Well my experience has been you aren't interested in exploring alternative prosaic theories other than No. 4. And your opinion still is that it was ET.
That is because your alternative prosaic theories (basically a still supersecret military experiment) have as much evidence going for them as the fictional Flight #4, namely ZERO.
Present actual evidence of such a project, then there is something to be interested in and consider.
Another fallacy of the skeptobunker crowd is that they don't have to present any evidence or do any work. If you propose an alleged prosaic solution to a UFO case, then there is indeed a burden of proof for you to back it up with actual evidence. Instead, the default position is that ANY prosaic "explanation", no matter how impossible, no matter how poorly it fits the facts, no matter how undocumented, no matter how STOOPID, is a better fit than something like the ETH. All it has to be is prosaic.
The problem is that very intelligent, experienced, actual expert analysts who have SERIOUSLY studied this subject for a living, analyzing hundreds if not thousands of UFO cases (e.g., French COMETA study, French GEPAN GEIPAN/SEPRA studies, Battelle Institute Project Blue Book Special Study #14) find that they can't come up with ANY SERIOUS prosaic explanation (any idiot can dream up STOOPID ones) for a very substantial fraction of UFO cases. That is why ALL the heads of the long-ongoing French UFO study GEPAN/GEIPAN/SEPRA have come out stating that there is a hard cord of cases (about 14% in their statistics) for which there is absolutely no prosaic explanation and the ETH is indeed the explanation that best fits the data.
@Steve Sawyer,
"...[I dunno about you, but selling small glass vials of Roswell dirt in black metal boxes for nearly $50 each to help finance his film seems a bit outré to me.]..." Yes.
.
It -is- Dirt from Roswell, and Roswell -is- a phenomenon. Whether it deserves to be phenomenon depends on ones viewpoint. In spite of everything, Roswell has become iconic, and, at least, an interesting sociological phenomenon.
. .. . .. o
I imagine Gilles will have something to say about the GEPAN/GEIPAN/SEPRA study.
One simple question: how can ETH be the explanation that "best fits the data" when science does not admit to such things as ETs at all? If a thing is non-existent, how does it best fit ANY set of data?
But I can see I may have opened a can of worms.
CDA wrote:
"One simple question: how can ETH be the explanation that "best fits the data" when science does not admit to such things as ETs at all? If a thing is non-existent, how does it best fit ANY set of data?"
I think it is a safe statement that the vast majority of scientific disciplines and scientists now accept the general idea that ETs do indeed exist, simply because of the enormous number of galaxies, stars, and planets (with about 5% of stars being long-lived dwarf stars like our sun), plus astronomical studies pointing to the building blocks of organic life (water, organic molecules) already existing in space in things like comets, meteorites, and dust, and modern advances in our understanding of molecular biology/biochemistry/genetics/etc. showing us principles of life and pointing to the near inevitably of life developing given the right conditions.
What isn't generally accepted is that ETs might already be here, but then few scientists take the time to actually study the UFO evidence. So the usual statement is that modern science generally accepts the existence of ETs but there is CURRENTLY no scientific proof of ETs existing.
If there were no such belief, than currently existing space probes and planned space probes designed to search for life in our solar system and extrasolar life in other stellar systems would not exist. The primary reason, e.g., for the Kepler Space Telescope searching for extrasolar planets is to find planets similar to Earth that might harbor life.
Twenty years ago I was hearing arguments from some debunkers that astronomers had yet to prove the existence of one single extrasolar planet, therefore they did not exist, we were the only solar system in the universe, hence ET's and UFOs could not exist.
Yes, seriously, that was the argument. I put it in the category of unbelievably STOOPID anti-UFO, anti-ETH arguments. All it proved is that we didn't have the instrumentation yet to DETECT extrasolar planets, not that they didn't exist. Put it in the category of absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. It seemed obvious to me that solar systems and planets were probably dirt common, if not the norm, and it was just a matter of time before such planets and solar systems were found.
Only 20 years later, Kepler is now up to nearly 2000 confirmed such planets, and even more sophisticated probes are on the drawing boards which will be capable of spectrally analyzing these extrasolar planets looking for signs of life (water vapor, carbon dioxide, oxygen) and even making crude images of what they look like.
The current rough estimate, based on the Kepler data (planets are everywhere around practically every star), is that there may be 40 BILLION earth-like planets in our galaxy alone. Even if only one in a million harbors advanced, intelligent life (and I consider that a conservative estimate), that would be 40,000 potential ET civilizations within the Milky Way alone.
"Twenty years ago I was hearing arguments from some debunkers that astronomers had yet to prove the existence of one single extrasolar planet, therefore they did not exist, we were the only solar system in the universe, hence ET's and UFOs could not exist."
Can you post a link to a few of these? Or reference them in some way? Would love to see evidence that a skeptic said that no extra-solar planets had been discovered therefore such planets didn't exist. Who said that?
C'mon David, show us your scholarly integrity and prove this claim.
Lance
Steve Sawyer said...
"Thank you for the explanation and apology, Jeanne.
That was both most gracious of you and much appreciated."
I'm glad to hear it, but I surely owed you an apology, Steve, and the least I could do was to provide one.
"(BTW, aren't you also "rare phenomena lover" on some blogs?)"
No, that's not me. May I ask what blogs?
cda said...
"I imagine Gilles will have something to say about the GEPAN/GEIPAN/SEPRA study."
The question is whether it will be as worth reading as what GEPAN/GEIPAN/SEPRA produce.
"One simple question: how can ETH be the explanation that "best fits the data" when science does not admit to such things as ETs at all? If a thing is non-existent, how does it best fit ANY set of data?"
Asked and more than well answered by D. Rudiak. (also, have you listened to Hawking or Kaku lately?)
"But I can see I may have opened a can of worms."
You only hoped to.
Hello,
Yeah, many things to say about the GEIPAN studies, Christopher. But in a blog comments section, well...
1) Brian stated 14% of GEIPAN unexplained cases. Dunno where he found it (that's possible, we can read all and nothing about GEIPAN statistics), but the actual page have 22 % (http://www.cnes-geipan.fr/index.php?id=196). Excepted the statistic is not the real one... It is not updated, you must go on the "dynamics statistics" (which are not updated again^^) : http://www.cnes-geipan.fr/index.php?id=197
Many PAN D are then not updated and will ou would be re-classified in A, B or C. The problem is that I have only French links, case by case, for example in our forum (some our members are close to GEIPAN, as GEIPAN takes into account our "counter-investigations) : http://ufo-scepticisme.forumactif.com/t1540-les-pan-d-du-geipan or about the PAN C and B : http://ufo-scepticisme.forumactif.com/f25-les-pan-du-geipan
2) GEIPAN means UAP study and information Group (in short), and GEIPAN then study and inform, they dont "conclude" in favor of something (ETH, SPH, etc.). It is not their goal. Sometimes former members speack for their own (Velasco, Patenet, etc.), personnally (giving their own opinion, not the one of the Agency).
Another must to read are the videos, papers, slides and abstract of the CAIPAN/GEIPAN/CNES worshop I was invited: Or how ETH, SPH, etc. can meet and work "together": http://www.cnes-geipan.fr/index.php?id=212
3) There exists a "famous" 1997 French book wrote by 3 my friends, but again in French adressing some famous GEIPAN PAN D cases and prior 1997 methodology, errors, etc. which is "a must to read": http://www.amazon.fr/Les-OVNI-CNES-officielles-1977-2007/dp/2915312109
Some chapters are free to read (but in French): http://www.zetetique.fr/index.php/dossiers/101-ovni-cnes
4) Concerning the COMETA report, it seems to be "a legend" for "foreigners" (the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence?), but it is only a privated paper, nothing then " French official". Many the UFO cases presented have received prosaic explanation or had mundane ones proposed (Tananarive 1954, Air France AF3532 1994, Cussac, Valensole, Trans-en-Provence, etc.) or are very weak as "proof" for ETH (anonymous pilot, not the version of the second pilot available when there were two, etc.)
After, each one may have his/her own opinion about such cases: personnally I find normal that there exists and will always exist "unsolved cases", as it exists unsolved cases for other corpora for murders, rapes, disparition, domestic (car, plane, refrigerators^^) incidents or accidents, house or forest fires, and many others. It is an expected "statut" and I'm not really surprised by it.
My own "big picture" (then a very must to read ^^) about Ufology is summerized in English in some the chapters of the following articles for those possibly interrested about the "French pragmatic School":
Space Re-Entry Stimulus as CE-3 Generator: The Example of a December 12 1987 case...
http://skepticversustheflyingsaucers.blogspot.fr/2015/01/space-re-entry-stimulus-as-ce-3.html
Cracking the 1896/97 Airships Mystery? Toward a Psycho-SocioCultural Explanation (Long Version)
http://skepticversustheflyingsaucers.blogspot.fr/2014/01/cracking-189697-airships-mystery-toward_11.html
Regards,
Gilles.
This is not the same movie -or a re edited version- of the Kodachrome film?
Edit: By 1997, I meant 2007 (for the "Les OVNI du CNES" book). Sorry.
I'm disappointed that the term "Roswell Slides" is still in use, as I thought that no one believes that there is -any- connection to Roswell.
May we use the term "Not Roswell Slides" instead?
. .. . .. o
Lance,
It was in debates with "Twitch", either Usenet alt.alien.visitors or alt.paranet.ufo, early days of Internet, only traces of these archives remaining after 20 years. Sorry, all I have our my memories of the debate. Such is life.
However, you don't have to go back that far to find similar extreme claims. E.g., one skeptobunker who frequents blogs recently claimed that no less than "science" itself says aliens don't exist, therefore they are nonexistent, therefore they cannot be behind UFO sightings.
Going to challenge me on that one as well? I suggest you go a few posts up, where CDA says:
"...how can ETH be the explanation that "best fits the data" when science does not admit to such things as ETs at all? If a thing is non-existent, how does it best fit ANY set of data?"
Maybe you can similarly challenge CDA to reference where "science" says ETs are "nonexistent" and how this was proven. (Maybe there is some secret headquarters of "Science" run my monks where all the unassailable truths of the Universe are kept in a ScienceBible.)
A small minority of scientists may now feel this way, such as "Rare Earth" authors Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee, who argue that complex, intelligent life requires a unique set of circumstances to arise and Earth may be unique in the Universe. But the vast majority of scientists in fields relevant to the question now believe planets like Earth are far from rare and the existence of intelligent ET's is almost inevitable. (Instead, what is usually said, is that there is currently no scientific proof of such ET's, which is something else entirely.)
I used the figure of 40 billion Earth-like planets in the Milky Way alone, an estimate by some scientists based on the early results of the on-going Kepler extra-solar planet survey, now showing most stars having at least one planet. Another website I came across places the number of Earth-like planets at 100 billion. Even if we are very conservative and assume this is off by a factor of 100 and there are "only" one billion such suitable planets in our galaxy, and be very conservative again and assume only one in a million of these evolves complex, intelligence life with a technological civilization, that still leaves 1000 such planets. Since nobody really knows the real numbers, one could use a less conservative number, like one in a thousand, in which case there could be one million such planets. If only a few of these makes the leap to space and interstellar travel, thus capable of colonizing other stellar systems, they could be all over the place, literally filling the galaxy in only a few million years of colonization (assuming steady colonization and exponential growth).
(The Drake equation makes no allowances for the possibility of interstellar travel and colonization, assuming this is impossible, not at all a scientific assumption. Maybe Drake, like CDA, consulted the holy ScienceBible at Science HQ when he arrived at this conclusion.)
David,
Your completely disingenuous post doesn't surprise me.
Although you used the plural to describe mythical debunkers who said something idiotic--you can only come up with one pseudonym and no quote. One doesn't have to work very hard to imagine that you misrepresent what was said 20 years ago just as you, I think, misrepresent what CDA says above.
CDA is right ET's are not proven. They are a possibility, likely a probability but that is it. Until we have actual proof of they can't be accepted by science because (unlike your flying saucer religion) scientists require real evidence, not the stuff you make up in your head.
CDA can answer for himself. But I know that I (and most UFO skeptics I am aware of) accept all of the basic boilerplate about the possibly of life elsewhere that you tediously post above. That has nothing to do with Flying Saucer Jesus.
Indeed, the low-rent religion of UFO's has nothing to do with actual science: it operates as a classic psuedoscience, unfalsifiable and, evidence-wise, stuck precisely where it was when it started circa1947.
Lance
@JR:
"No, that's not me. May I ask what blogs?"
Sorry about that -- my mistake -- I was misled by the fact that "rare phenomena lover" (who also sometimes signs her comments under that ambiguous blogger ID as "Jean" -- see http://bit.ly/1FAdU3I for an example) is apparently one of the few women who comment on UFO-related blogs, had a similar name (Jean, but not Jeanne), and similar writing style, so I erroneously thought that that she might be you, but realize now that's not the case. Mea culpa... Only sort of an odd "doppelganger" parallel. 8^}
Lance claimed:
But I know that I (and most UFO skeptics I am aware of) accept all of the basic boilerplate about the possibly of life elsewhere that you tediously post above.
That would be a great improvement. Skeptologists finally learning something. However, I am not convinced Lancie. One can still find skeptic weirdoes and ignorants referring to the "vast interstellar distances" purportedly avoiding other civilizations to reach us. Last of it was a poster named Parakletos in Rich-Reynolds' blog. Parakletos, seemingly an astronomer, was very aware of the large interstellar distances of our universe, but was somehow unable to acknowledge the existence of equally large quantities of time available for traveling such large distances.
Other guy, a french skeptic named Claude Mauge, posted a manifesto in the UFO Updates list (about 10 years ago) in which he claimed that is was likely that exoplanets similar to Earth were very rare because most ṕlanets found until that date were Jupiter sized giant planets. Of course, he blissfully ignored the already known fact that extremely large planets were much easier to detect, which countedfor the bias. Nevertheless, currect notion is that smaller planets largely outnumber large planets.
May it be that Mauge and our friend Gilles are cousins?
All (but especially the skeptics) -
I do not understand your negative reaction to the trailer for the documentary and here's why. You have Tom Carey saying, "We have significant proof for the Roswell event as an extraterrestrial event."
Now, this film was taken prior to the great reveal and prior to the reading of the placard, and while they were claiming that they were not making the connection to Roswell. It was the skeptics who had invented the name Roswell slides according to them. What we have are the disingenuous comments made by Carey and et. al. and we have the truth. I would think you all would delight in this sort of evidence... proof that they believed they had photographs of one of the aliens recovered at Roswell and now our knowledge that such was not the case.
And, I would think that you would wait to comment until you saw the documentary before passing judgement.
Kevin,
Well, its mainly because the trailer shows a ham handed lack of awareness of the facts you mention. We will see what Simon ended up with but the way he is marketing the film doesn't show that he allowed the story to take the turn that it deserved. Could he have left that idea out of the trailer? Sure. But that seems like a terrible choice since, with this trailer, it simply comes across as true believer hero worship for guys that the whole world knows are idiots.
In other words, it comes across as just another UFO documentary.
Simon seemed like a very nice guy and it is entirely possible that I am wrong...let's see.
Lance
Clearly Rudiak has been blinded by the ignorance of his believing crowd regarding the science of exoplanets and probability of life elsewhere.
I'm sure Rudiak has never heard of the Fermi Paradox which clearly stands as a solid road block to believers who insist advanced interstellar races have been and currently are colonizing the galaxy including earth and its neighboring planets.
And David regarding your comment:
"Present actual evidence of such a project, then there is something to be interested in and consider."
I don't need to because it's in the public domain even though you've never looked for it.
Namely there stands a very plausible alternative to Flight #4 in goverment documents clearly stating that aerial trials of both balloon and drone devices occurred in NM. Biological and radioactive contamiments were extensively tested from Los Alamos in 1947 and beyond as a possible high altitude weapon against the soviets.
If you go looking you will find it.
Kevin:
If the trailer showed some aspect of a balanced viewpoint I might agree. But it doesn't. And I hardly doubt that Simon would release a film where the approach is to attract believers then slam dunk them with an ending where Schmitt et.al. are painted as idiots. But we'll see very soon.
"Cosmic Whistleblowers" premiered at the Raindance film festival on Thursday, Sept. 24th and was also shown again at Raindance on Friday, the 25th, but as yet there's not a single review of the film online (other than the one I noted in the Raindance catalog of listings), and Sharman cites no other reviews, either on his Facebook page or his main site as yet.
Other than his single comment above here, I can find no other commentary online by anyone else who's seen the film or reviewed it, possibly because it was only just shown yesterday and the day before.
Perhaps Sharman, if he's still reading this thread, can tell us how one can either obtain a copy of it, or if an online streaming option is being considered, what online link anyone interested can go to in order to see the actual documentary for themselves to consider and evaluate the nature of it's content. I'd like to see the film myself, to see what it says and how the main participants are characterized.
Simon? Are you there? Can you help us out with what I'm requesting?
Brian said:
"I'm sure Rudiak has never heard of the Fermi Paradox"
Your claim is fully childish Brian.
I have been interested in ufology and astrobiology for about 15 years, and have read about the Fermi Paradox about dozens of times, probably hundreds of times, So I guess that the probability that David has not heard about the Fermi paradox is just ZERO.
BTW, Fermi paradox is just a question, just food for thought.
Don:
Glad to see you're now DR's official spokesperson and that you're authorized to speak on his behalf.
If Fermi is just a "question" then so is your massively ridiculous claim that the universe is teeming with advanced intellectual ET life.
You haven't proved it and you have no answer to Fermi unless I missed it.
- no alien bodies to show us
- no alien spaceship for us to examine
- no alien debris from Roswell to show us
- no proof of life on exoplanets
- no proof of life on Mars or Earth's moon
- no public communication with aliens
Nothing. Nada. If anything is childish about this its the fantasy world where you and others absolutely believe ET is here despite one iota of bonafied scientific evidence.
Steve Sawyer said...
@JR:
"No, that's not me. May I ask what blogs?"
Sorry about that -- my mistake --"
No problem, Steve.
Bell wrote
"If Fermi is just a "question" then so is your massively ridiculous claim that the universe is teeming with advanced intellectual ET life."
What? I did not claim that, but it may well be that way.
Oh, also please explain how in the world a claim can be a question?
Re ETs, yes I will answer for myself. I erred in my statement that science does not admit to ETs. This should be reworded: science does not admit to ETs visiting the earth. It certainly admits to ET's likely existence somewhere in the universe, but only because of the vastness of this universe and the likely number of stars/planets suitable for life, NOT because of any evidence of such life.
@ Don
Be honest Don, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that all of your posts are pro-ET on Roswell and other such UFO cases. Just go back to previous dialog you and I had on the definition of disk. "I never said that" is a cop out to avoid discussion.
Question? It is. The "question" of whether or not advanced ET societies exist is answered by your "claim" they are already here and they exist elsewhere.
Whether or not ET life exists remains a "question" unanswered by scientific proof and validation answered by your "claim" they exist.
I had already posted my comment earlier on this blog with the intention of putting any concerns to rest with regard to how I may have approached things overall. It clearly had no impact and I can see that some of you are very happy to judge me and the film despite not seeing it, and despite me having already explained that it has been made for a wider audience than simply a 'ufo' crowd.
A film trailer is designed to encourage people to want to see the film - not give away the entire plot. Unless you were in the audience last week then you will have no idea how my film tackles all of the issues, be they Roswell, the slides or the investigators themselves. But do feel free to keep on making assumptions about how I did it, that is entirely your prerogative!
I have no interest in making a film for skeptics - which I can see many of you are - and equally I have no interest in making a film for people who believe anything they are told. I am, believe it or not, someone with a brain in his head which is how I managed to make a feature documentary film about UFOs which made it to the cinema here in the UK, with no backing of any studio. You are welcome to try and do better if you can!
The film will be available for purchase sometime in the near future, and details of the release will follow to anyone who is interested.
Kevin, I'd like to thank you for posting the links here and getting the discussion going.
Simon Sharman
Simon Sharman's comment just above was posted only half an hour after I emailed him directly with a few questions about my concerns regarding his film. That he chose to obliquely reply here rather than directly to me via email, as requested, suggests a number of things, given the defensive nature of his comment.
Simon, if the purpose of your initial comment here was with "the intention of putting any concerns to rest with regard to how I may have approached things overall," you obviously did not succeed, and for some very specific and legitimate reasons.
I find that part of your comment where you say that unless we've seen your film "...you will have no idea how my film tackles all of the issues, be they Roswell, the slides or the investigators themselves" in apparent reaction to my concerns, due to the timing of your comment, both inadequate and somewhat disingenuous.
I think we actually can "assume" a few things about the likely "angle" or perspective you bring to the topics you note above in your film, based on many of your own prior online comments, articles, and endeavors.
Yes, it would be better if we who might be interested could view your full documentary in order to better judge its content and accuracy, but it appears that won't be possible until vaguely "sometime in the near future."
(I would have thought you'd have made arrangements to market it directly after the premiere to capitalize on the showings at Raindance instead of some indefinite later date, but maybe you're hoping to show it at other film festivals beforehand.)
I'll have more to say about this tomorrow, but let me ask you two direct questions:
Does your film, which was edited months after the May 5th "reveal" and the placard being deciphered by the RSRG, contain any interview or discussion by you with either Tom Carey or Don Schmitt about the fact that despite their continuing belief that the slides show an extraterrestrial body, linked by them to Roswell, the slides actually have been confirmed to show an Indian child mummy from Mesa Verde?
And if not, why not?
In fairness to Simon, he was put into a bit of pickle.
Setting aside the sad probability that he may have (initially?) fallen for the unsupported baloney that is C+S's stock in trade, he found himself, after the slides exposure, with a film that he has spent a lot of effort and money on but a film that spectacularly has bet on the wrong horse.
Prior to May 5th, Simon thought that he was nearing completion of his film.
Instead he was placed into a quandary: should he cut his losses and just finish up the original idea of the film (which I think was a fawning true believer worship of one of the worst idiots in UFOlogy) or should he spend more money and time and tell the very interesting story of what actually happened.
Both approaches have some legitimacy, I think, particularly business-wise.
I know that Simon made at least some effort (but limited in production values--presumedly filmed Skype calls) to do the latter. That is what a true filmmaker would have done so I applaud it.
But why wouldn't you at least HINT at the story change in the trailer? That would signal to a general audience that the doc was more than another silly UFO thing which one can see ad nauseum on cable TV.
Ah, well. I suppose we will find out.
Lance
FWIW -
The first contact that Simon made with me was long before the May 5 boondoggle. He was interested, dare I say it, in a different perspective for his film.
There are things I find interesting, one of which is that some believe that others owe them an explanation or answers to their questions. Do you have any idea how many times I get inquiries for specific information on specific cases... and my favorite was the request for copies of every UFO photograph I have with no offer to pay the costs of reproduction or to provide a stamped, self-addressed envelope.
And, I just love it when we get criticism for a work before those criticizing have even seen it. There is one guy who reviews my books based on two words on the cover but never bothers to read the books. There was another who bought one of the books based on the cover but didn't like the conclusions I drew on many of the cases (those were the ones in which I offered a mundane explanation).
So, I find it humorous to see the criticism based on a trailer which is designed to draw people to the product but is also designed not to give away the store... unless the store is pretty much empty. Here I think of the decades old movie, The Final Countdown in which a modern aircraft carrier is transported back to a point where it could intercept elements of the Japanese Imperial Fleet as it moved to attack Pearl Harbor. The trailer showed F-14s intercepting and destroying the Japanese aircraft. I went to the movie expecting to see a real fur ball (that's dogfight to those of you from the propeller era) but the trailer contained all the air to air combat. I was disappointed, but I was also in the theater.
Anyway, just thought I would mention all this to see if we couldn't become a little more tolerant until we actually saw the final product.
From one filmmaker to another, Simon, take it from me - you will never please everyone in the UFO subculture (it's like trying to herd feral cats), so your best bet is to just ignore any pre-release criticism and questions entirely and just let the chips fall where they may.
PK
Interesting last three comments here.
But, the point I attempted to make is that Sharman had the time and opportunity after the May 5th "reveal" to include in his documentary the fact that the body in the slides was of an Indian child mummy, and that Carey and Schmitt's role in promoting the slides ended in an awful debacle.
I'm convinced, without having seen the film, based on Sharman's prior activities, efforts, and statements online, that he is in fact a "self-confessed believer" and decided for various financial, ideological, and logistical reasons not to include the details of the slides denouement in his documentary, and Carey and Schmitt's role therein, because to do so would have contradicted the angle ("cosmic" whistleblowers on parade) and viewpoint he has, and has been promoting and filming for his crowd-sourced film from day one well over 2 years ago.
And, here's the only "outsider" review I've been able to find online by someone who did attend the premiere of the documentary at the Raindance film festival:
http://www.garbage-file.com/2015/10/documentary-cosmic-whistleblowers.html
The most telling line of this review is the last one:
"As entertaining and interesting as Cosmic Whistleblowers is, it doesn't offer anything new. The truth may be out there but it certainly isn't in here."
In effect, what I'm saying is that Sharman's documentary amounts to standard UFO fare with a disinfotainment twist, and as such it is an amateurish failure and essentially dishonest in presentation.
And no, I'm not "tolerant" of that kind of deception and superficial appeal to the gullible for profit. It's also boring and dumb.
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