I often hear the "no explanation" argument. So much is read into that admission by people who desperately want the object they see to be some specific thing like a ghost or an angel or an alien spacecraft. The inability to precisely identify a speck or streak in some grainy photo doesn't mean the skeptics are stymied, nor does it necessarily prove the speck is an angel or a streak is an interplanetary interceptor missile.

The fact is that any spacecraft will be surrounded by a cloud of crap. Literally in some cases; but bits of packaging, insulation, dislodged ice, bits of frangible fasteners, squib covers, and all that detritus floats around the spacecraft and is frequently kicked around by the spacecraft's manuevering jets.

When I'm shown a video of a single moving white pixel, I can't tell if it's a piece of an explosive bolt, or a crystal of ice, or some flake of paint or insulation. You just can't tell that from a single dot. So I'm not going to authoritatively say, "it's ice," or "it's a bit of insulation." I don't have any evidence for either of those.

But, I will surely say that it's likely to be one of the various things I've mentioned. So don't anyone dare take my announcement that I don't know for sure what it is, and try to convey the notion that I haven't the foggiest clue what it is.

Those who argue it's a ghost or an alien Cadillac have the burden of proof to show that it is that. They can't just assume that's what it is because of someone's inability to precisely determine what he thinks it is.

In this case it's very likely to be a piece of typical debris.

Another thing that strikes me over and over is what poor spatial reasoning skills most conspiracists and UFO buffs seem to have. A bolt head floating just outside a spacecraft is perceived to be a mammoth alien spacecraft miles away flying at impossible speeds. Just think of how much perceptual intuition you have to ignore in order to leap to that conclusion. It's very hard for people laboring under that delusion to see why their opinions are regarded with so much amusement.

But to the unfortunately undeluded, the rapid apparent motion and immense apparent size suggest relative proximity. And that makes a wholly consistent view which, unfortunately, isn't very exciting. But the UFO enthusiast sees something "necessarily" very far away and consequently "impossibly" huge and "unbelievably" fast -- a whole chain of unsupported and implausible supposition.

Therein, I believe, lies a key element of the conspiracist psychology. Instead of settling for the most parsimonious conclusion, they intentionally reach for the interpretation which maximizes the severity of the implications. The result is a world reinvented to be a whole lot more engaging (at least to some people) than seen traditionally.

And there are people like Bart Sibrel and David Percy who will gladly take these people's money.

Sibrel is absolutely right: people will see what they want to see, regardless of who they are. The question is how well that view can be supported by truth which isn't dependent on perception. We prefer a world in which what we observe can be described and predicted in rules. And we like it this way, because understanding the rules helps us manipulate the universe in useful ways.


_________________
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: JayUtah on 2003-01-23 15:18 ]</font>