What are the arguments against the ETH?

[kevinjwoods]

It seems to be that the ExtraTerrestrial Hypothesis has been thoroughly debunked and is now so wrong that anyone believing it is a fool.
But can anyone tell me what are the convincing arguments against it apart from:
There are no aliens; obviously if there are no aliens they can't be flying UFOs but how was it proved that Aliens are impossible after all they are finding new planets all the time.
FTL travel is impossible; obviously 21st cntury ideas and technology is the upper limit for the entire universe after all "there is nothing new to be invented".
Why would they be doing the things they do; which relies on EVERY SINGLE REPORT being true.
Why have they not landed on the White House lawn; is there any point in the last 100 years when this would not result in them being shot/arrested/interviewed on Fox.

I'm not defending it I just want to know what is the one piece of evidence that genuinely proved the Hypothesis is wrong?

 

[PeniG]

There isn't one, and the majority assumption in the US is the ETH - UFO *means* "extraterrestrial spacecraft" here to most people. You can't prove a negative, as usual.

It's just that there's no particularly good evidence for it, either, and it's not at all parsimonious, since it explains an inexplicable by means of an unknown. I am not aware of a single bit of evidence (but then it's not my specialty) that isn't explained at least as well by some other hypothesis.

Basically, the ETH is unfalsifiable. No possible test can eliminate extraterrestrial intelligences as causes of all UFOs, because there will always remain some residue of weird cases. "UFOs are not caused by extraterrestrial intelligence" is at least falsifiable, because if you can produce an extraterrestrial intelligence, it's disproved. Only it's one of those just-barely-falsifiable propositions, because in the absence of the saucer on the White House lawn (and btw wouldn't UN HQ be a better choice?) it's always possible to construct an alternate explanation that doesn't involve extraterrestrials.

And this is why so much UFOlogical discourse is so pointless and repetitive.

 

[Graylien]

1) None of the scant physical evidence retrieved from alleged UFO landing sites has ever proven to be of non-terrestrial origin.

2) There is too much variety in the descriptions of UFO occupants. We are apparently being visited by blonde Venusians, hairy dwarves, little humanoids, greys, blobs of jelly, and a dozen other varieties of alien. Yet this menagerie of species has been infesting our skies for the last 50 years without leaving so much as a carelessly disgarded cigarette butt by way of physical evidence.

3) The principal themes of UFOlogy - abductions, lights in the sky, encounters with bizarre beings - can be traced back through the folklore of past ages. Before flying saucers, we had Phantom Airships. Before Phantom Airships, we had fairies and goblins. Is it more likely that fairies are really aliens, or that aliens are really folklore?

4) The majority of "evidence" for the ETH in the last 30 years has been retrieved from witnesses under hypnotic regression. Studies have shown (see Lawson) that people are quite capable of deliberately lying under hypnosis, or of spinning elaborate fantasies which seem quite at odds with their normal everyday persona. (See also Remembering Dangerously for a look at the controversy surrounding the use of "recovered" memories of satanic abuse)

5) Aliens speak English remarkably fluently. (Except when they land in France, when they seem to have no problem speaking French instead. Or in Brazil, where their Portuguese is flawless...etc, etc)

6) According to our current understanding of the Universe, faster-than-light travel is impossible. You simply can't zip back and forth between Earth and Zeta Reticuli in the way proposed by ETH advocates.

7) 80% of UFO cases which are properly investigated turn out to have a mundane explanation. Is it more likely that the other 20% are alien spacecraft, or that the investigators simply were not privy to all the information needed to solve the case?

8) Many alien encounter episodes have undeniable parallels with experiences such as NDEs, shamanic visions, or common-or-garden dreams. They therefore seem more likely to be generated by altered states of consciousness than by interstellar explorers.

 

[Anonymous]

Great post GA, but I think that in addition:
9) People's knowledge and memories are not as accurate as they and their friends believe. Patterns, perception etc. I wish I could remember the Asimov quote, but it's something like 'people don't what something is and thus because they don't know what it is, manufacture an answer from ignorance and then believe the ignorant result. He phrased it much better, but the gist, I think, is about the same.

 

[JamesWhitehead]

There is also the argument that the number of sightings under favourable conditions - places, times of day, population - had to be multiplied by a very large factor to give a conjectured number of total earth visitations.

It certainly didn't fit the notion of scientific explorers but I guess it leaves open the possibility they are package-tour, thrill-seeking 18-30 aliens, seeking sun, sea and a recreational bit of cattle mutilation. :?

 

[Anonymous]

Yes...I remember somebody trying to work out (based on nuts and bolts tech) in relation to sightings and alleged abductions, how many ships were around the earth. Working on the notion of 24 hour coverage since the late 1950's, I seem to recall that 20,000+ ships were needed. Damn! that's quite a lot - wonder who has to mine, refine, produce, invent, pay etc for all these ships? Perhaps, the Earth is the ultimate 'reality t.v.' experience :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[wembley8]

Perhaps the piece in the latest FT (202) on p29 has the killer argument.

In the 1950's, only two per cent of the aliens reported were grays, then 7% in the 70's, 31% in the 80's and 61% in the 90's.
It's hard to square this kind of culture shift with actual aliens.

The ETH falls down not because its impossible but because it isn't any more plausible than a hidden advanced civilisation etc. It's popular because of the model presented by sci fi; in other societies, angels would be the popular explanation.

 

[Anonymous]

Perhaps the piece in the latest FT (202) on p29 has the killer argument.

In the 1950's, only two per cent of the aliens reported were grays, then 7% in the 70's, 31% in the 80's and 61% in the 90's.
It's hard to square this kind of culture shift with actual aliens.

The ETH falls down not because its impossible but because it isn't any more plausible than a hidden advanced civilisation etc. It's popular because of the model presented by sci fi; in other societies, angels would be the popular explanation.

Donning the hat of the Devil's Advocate (which is probably available on eBay) I wouldn't say this was that "killer" an argument. Imagine the scenario if America was followed to the moon by the Chinese and then an African country.

You could argue that the tall, fair skinned visitors that were first sighted then appeared to arrive in a whole wave in a few short years, were replaced by shorter, different coloured humanoids with dark, almond shaped eyes, only for these to be superceded by another tall humanoid race who looked very different than those who originally came before: different language, facial features, skin tone.

 

[Anonymous]

6) According to our current understanding of the Universe, faster-than-light travel is impossible. You simply can't zip back and forth between Earth and Zeta Reticuli in the way proposed by ETH advocates.

But that's a major downfall in scientific reasoning: science is incredibly provisional. The understanding of very fundamental concepts change in a relatively short space of time and things undergo constant revision. I think a scientific equivalent of agnosticism makes more sense. Instead of just closing the door shut on the possibility of 'nuts and bolts' visitors, just leave the door open for the possibility; whilst we don't know how it's done, it wouldn't mean that someone else wouldn't.

 

[Yithian]

In the 1950's, only two per cent of the aliens reported were grays, then 7% in the 70's, 31% in the 80's and 61% in the 90's.
It's hard to square this kind of culture shift with actual aliens.

This assumes all aliens are the same kind of aliens and have some kind of connection with each other (common history/technology/motive/origin). Could these statistics not be simply explained by saying the kind dubbed 'greys' are being encountered more than before?

In fact even this can't be assumed with just those statistics. Without actual figures indicating precise numbers of sightings Greys could be being encountered at precisely the same rate but yet as other types are on the increase their 'percentage share' of the total sightings has lowered.

If i were to truly start speculating in non-anthropomorphic ways i may hypothesise even more broadly that without knowing of their physiology how do we know a single species aren't evolving and a (Humanly relative) fantastic rate and that the Greys are in ascendancy...

...or that the Greys - for whatever reason - are better suited, more commonly selected, or more inclined towards earthly visitations.

In short, i suppose i'm saying that those figures and the associated argument mean very little.

 

[barfing_pumpkin]

I go with Carl Sagan's formula: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

And the evidence just simply isn't there.

 

[uair01]

If I consider the amount of evidence for rare and strange phenomena like:
- ball lightning
- electrical sound from meteors
- orchids that stay underground all their life
- mars meteors
then I think that some evidence can be found for *every* real phenomenon, however rare.
Then I think that by now we would have some of this evidence for UFO's too.

 

[Twin_Star]

6) According to our current understanding of the Universe, faster-than-light travel is impossible. You simply can't zip back and forth between Earth and Zeta Reticuli in the way proposed by ETH advocates.

Just to pick up on one point i know is misleading, that is oft touted as fact re: Einsteinian GToR, relating to interstellar travel etc:

The best answer scientists in the know have regarding the thorny issue of photon mass can be found Here, and Here

Ad libbing them: "we don't know"

 

[Graylien]

Photons may not have mass, but spaceships certainly do. So surely they are constrained to travel at less than light speed? Or are you suggesting that spaceships could somehow be 'converted' into photons, then converted back again (a la Star Trek)?

Incidentally, I'm not claiming that extraterrestrial visitation is utterly impossible. Just that it hasn't happened yet.

 

[wembley8]

"Donning the hat of the Devil's Advocate (which is probably available on eBay) I wouldn't say this was that "killer" an argument. Imagine the scenario if America was followed to the moon by the Chinese and then an African country."

That hat doesn't really suit you :spinning

Point taken, but the different aliens don't vary by just skin tone, and they claim to have come from all over the place...and the grays are supposed to have been around for thousands of years.

Yes, it's possible that aliens follow national boundaries so you get different types on North and South America, it's possible that they all happened to evolve to be capable of dealing with our gravity, temperature and atmosphere, it's possible that they all speak the various languages of Earth where they happen to be, and it's possible that the huge surge gray sightings in places where they were popularised by the media...and it's equally possible that alien sightings are just a trick played by the flying pink elephants.

 

[wembley8]

"Could these statistics not be simply explained by saying the kind dubbed 'greys' are being encountered more than before? "

And that they simply like to go to the places where they have been made famous by Spielberg & co? Possible, of course, but any time a phenomenon starts shaping itself to human expectations you have to start getting suspicious (don't you?)

 

[Yithian]

fair.

 

[Anonymous]

but any time a phenomenon starts shaping itself to human expectations you have to start getting suspicious (don't you?)

I don't think it's weird or suspicious at all. We all do it in human communication anyway. I think we're all 'social chameleons' to an extent, modifiying the way we communicate (body language, verbal language, etiquette, clothing) for different situations, often subconciously but often quite conciously too; acknowledging expectations and conventions and meeting them. Imagine if we had the ability to transform and modify more than what we do already. I can't see how that wouldn't be as 'natural' as what we do now.

On a related note, if anyone has read the epic Earth X, Universe X and Paradise X series of graphic novels, look how the Norse pantheon adapted and behaved when they first came into contact with man and their first worshippers.

 

[eburacum]

The increase in sightings of Greys could be a deliberate policy decision by the ET's, who probably look nothing like humans at all, and manufacture bodies at will to fit the psychological preconceptions of the witnesses.

Or, more likely, none of the ET's exist except as psychological phenomena of various kinds.

------------------------
My argument against the ETH is twofold;
Firstly there has been no good archaeological evidence of ancient extraterrestrial visitation; from an examination of the galaxy using the viewpoint of Fermi's Paradox, the galaxy should have been civilised millions, if not billions, of years ago; an galaxy-spanning civilisation should have found our unusual oxygen rich biosphere bearing planet long ago, and visited it repeatedly.
If they did they left no evidence behind.

Second, I agree with Freeman Dyson-
If a civilisation of any magnitude existed in our galaxy, the results of advanced technology would be visible- dyson spheres, megastructures, stellar engineering and stellar shepherding; nothing like that has been seen, so there are probably no advanced civilisations up there.

 

[wembley8]

" Imagine if we had the ability to transform and modify more than what we do already."

Again, not actually impossible, but look what you're doing: inventing new traits to deal with new objections. If pink elephants could transform and modify then they could explain the grays too...

 

[Anonymous]

" Imagine if we had the ability to transform and modify more than what we do already."

Again, not actually impossible, but look what you're doing: inventing new traits to deal with new objections. If pink elephants could transform and modify then they could explain the grays too...

I'm not "inventing new traits" at all. Isn't this what rationalisation is about? Using the known and the familiar to offer a potential explaination for the unknown and the unfamiliar?

 

[rynner2]

Perhaps the piece in the latest FT (202) on p29 has the killer argument.

In the 1950's, only two per cent of the aliens reported were grays, then 7% in the 70's, 31% in the 80's and 61% in the 90's.
It's hard to square this kind of culture shift with actual aliens.

When I was a child in west London, I don't recall seeing many (if any) coloured people. But now that particular area is an Asian stronghold.

In fact, I don't recall meeting any coloured people in the flesh until I went to Uni in the 60s.

So does this 'killer argument' tell me there are no real coloured people in the UK now, only figments of the popular imagination?

Ebaracorum says:
"Second, I agree with Freeman Dyson-
If a civilisation of any magnitude existed in our galaxy, the results of advanced technology would be visible- dyson spheres, megastructures, stellar engineering and stellar shepherding; nothing like that has been seen, so there are probably no advanced civilisations up there."

But on Astronomical News recently
http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewt ... &start=105
I posted:

Quote:
The stars form a very flat disc that is only one light year across. An elliptical disc of older red stars surrounds it, spanning about five light years. Since the two discs appear to be in the same plane, they are probably related, but no one yet understands how either disc came into being.

Perhaps this an example of stellar engineering by an advanced life-form... :shock: :shock: :shock:

(OK, it's not in our galaxy, but in Andromeda - near enough!)

 

[Rrose_Selavy]

One thing somes to mind which was actually remarked by none other than Spielberg. Why with all the proliferation of camera, video and now instant digital with the general population - all this alleged ET activity have there been no real substantial evidence recorded apart from a few shaky shots - I think 150% is an underestimation. There are so many more potential opportunities to capture ET if he manifests but we have nothing to show.

And you know why I'm not as convinced right now? Because of the millions of video cameras that are out today that are picking up less pictures and videos of alleged UFOs than were being picked up in the 1960s and 1970s. Why is that, when there's like 150 percent growth of video cameras on the face of the planet? Why are we seeing less of what's out there? Maybe we are in a dry spell.

from http://www.randi.org/jr/070105quality.html

 

[Graylien]

When I was a child in west London, I don't recall seeing many (if any) coloured people. But now that particular area is an Asian stronghold.

In fact, I don't recall meeting any coloured people in the flesh until I went to Uni in the 60s.

So does this 'killer argument' tell me there are no real coloured people in the UK now, only figments of the popular imagination?

If you only remembered seeing Asians after you had been hypnotically regressed by David Jacobs, then I'd agree that they might indeed be imaginary. But you don't. You see them in normal everyday life, and if you wanted to, you could collect a mountain of physical evidence to prove their existence.

When you look at the reports featured in Albert Rosales Humanoid Database you'll see that people are actually still encountering a wide variety of unlikely entities. I would suggest that the apparent dominance of the "classic grey" is the result of the influence of a handful of prominent researchers who use hypnotic regression as a tool to impose a uniformity on the phenomenon which it does not actually possess. Recollections of any other kind of alien are dismissed as mere "screen memories" and the abductee is pressurised into remembering the 'correct' type of alien in order to gain the researcher's approval.

 

[rynner2]

If you only remembered seeing Asians after you had been hypnotically regressed by David Jacobs, then I'd agree that they might indeed be imaginary. But you don't. You see them in normal everyday life, and if you wanted to, you could collect a mountain of physical evidence to prove their existence.

David Jacobs? Wasn't he a sports reporter back when I was a kid, when there were no 'aliens' in my part of London?

But my point is not about what I saw after hypnotic regression (which I've never undergone), but about a real change in the make-up of the UK population, especially since the last war.

In other words, if human populations can change dramatically within decades, why not accept the possibility that alien populations can also change in the same time scale, for reasons unperceived by us?

 

[Graylien]

In other words, if human populations can change dramatically within decades, why not accept the possibility that alien populations can also change in the same time scale, for reasons unperceived by us?

I accept that it's possible. The problem is that if we're going to bring "reasons unperceived by us" into the equation then anything is possible.

 

[rynner2]

The problem is that if we're going to bring "reasons unperceived by us" into the equation then anything is possible.

Ferzackerly!

Anything to do with aliens has got to be - well - alien!

 

[wembley8]

"I'm not "inventing new traits" at all. Isn't this what rationalisation is about? Using the known and the familiar to offer a potential explaination for the unknown and the unfamiliar?"

To me, you appear to be inventing a shapechanging ability in the aliens, along with an ability (and desire) to anticipate and respond to human expectations.

 

[PeniG]

Y'all are talking past each other.

Evidence is the eyewitness accounts and physical remains. These can be interpreted with a number of logical possibilities.

Anti-ETH people regard it as important that there is no evidence giving more weight to the ETH hypothesis than to any other, and that the ETH has to get pretty complicated in order to cover that evidence. They are concerned with not theorizing too far ahead of the data, picking the most parsimonious and testable (scientific) theory, and provisionally believing that.

Pro-ETH people are having fun figuring out ways in which the ETH can cover the evidence, and correctly reason that the most testable theory is not necessarily the one that will be proved right in the long run. They prefer an interesting theory to a scientific one. (Personally I find the ETH as normally presented, dull - but that's personal preference, not science.)

Nobody can prove anything at this point.

 

[rynner2]

Y'all are talking past each other.

That's what we're best at!


(You should have been around in the run-up to the current war in Iraq...! )