[ExI] Retired military officers come forward about UFO visitations

[Henrique Moraes Machado]

On Sat, Oct 23, 2010 at 7:17 PM, Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:
> 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*).

Don't get me wrong. I don't dismiss the phenomena. What I dismiss is
the interpretation of it.
One thing is when you see (or anyone sees) a UFO. A UFO is something
that you see flying and cannot identify. But when someone comes and
says that this is an extraterrestrial ship watching over us for some
reason I must say... c'mon...
And even if the top air force boss would come and say that or the
president or even Stephen William Frakking Hawking himself I still
would reply with "show me some hard evidence or show yourself the
door".