[ExI] Retired military officers come forward about UFO visitations

[Damien Broderick]

On 10/23/2010 3:53 PM, Henrique Moraes Machado wrote:

>> >  In a court setting, the personal testimony of these many men, due to
>> >  their excellent individual reputations&  military service as officers,
>> >  would win the case!

> Fair enough. But we're not in court and what these people are asking
> us to believe demands more than a mere testimony. You just made an
> argument of authority.

I don't think John did. It looks like an argument from (apparent or 
purported) credibility. Authority, misused as an argument, seems to me 
to connote power extraneous to the assertion. Credibility derives from 
expertise, long experience, absence of duress, history of honesty, etc.

Whether such UFO testimonials by former military are credible on these 
grounds remains uncertain. It's obviously not true that there is *no* 
evidence brought forward; Col. Charles Halt (then deputy base commander 
of Bentwaters RAF base) famously has a voice tape that he claims records 
events in Rendlesham forest during a close apparent anomalous craft 
sighting. Others have challenged that explanation of what he and his 
team saw, but I don't think anyone is saying the tape was fraudulent (or 
non-existent--it can be heard online, after all, so it clearly *exists*).

Damien Broderick