I’ve recast this article so that the original commentor, who was undoubtedly being sincere, is hopefully not offended and will allow these comments to be made. They express our own wish to be permitted a place in public discourse without being ridiculed for unconventional beliefs and are not directed to the original commenter.
I’ve also taken down the original comment so that the identity of the person is not known. In fact thank you for the comment which has unwittingly spurred what I hope was a useful discussion.
As our readership increases, I encounter some requests that quite frankly I don’t have a great deal of time to satisfactorily respond to.
One new reader called himself a skeptic and asked me to prove to him that UFOs exist.
Let me address that request a little more generally. Hopefully addressing it once here will allow me not to have to address it a dozen times individually. Pardon me if I sound a little weary of a conversation I’ve had a few times now.
In addressing it, let me say that the question is asked by some skeptics sincerely and by others insincerely and my response is really intended for the insincere.
This entire website is proof that UFOs exist … or, as I prefer to call them, spaceships. I really don’t know where I’d start to “prove” the matter. But, if you’re sincere, begin anywhere and start reading articles or watching videos.
The “proof” consists of witness testimony, photographs of spaceships, artifacts, etc. The witnesses are contactees like Billy Meier and Alex Collier, and Miriam Delicado and people who worked with galactics like Dan Burisch and Clifford Stone. Or they are people who haven’t been contacted but have seen spaceships up close and personal. Their photographs and videos fill these pages.
Or they consist of people who have studied artifacts, records, alien bodies, etc.
One problem with “proving” something to an insincere skeptic has been explained by psychologists since the Sixties, who speak of games called things like “Why Don’t You Yes, But” or labels like “help-refusing complainers.”
The insincere ask for help in understanding and then defeat attempts to help them. They ask for suggestions (”Why Don’t You”) and then find reasons why they can’t take the suggestions up (“Yes, But”). Just watch Bill Nye the Science Guy on Larry King Live if you want to see a professional skeptic doing all he can to defeat those who agree to help him. One gets no biscuits out of responding to an insincere appeal.
While the original commentor would not know it, most of us here have been roughly handled by friends and relatives who don’t have any use for extraterrestrials. Others have dealt with the subject for so long that they don’t want to drop back and pick up people new to the subject.
To take care of that, we’ve amassed a literature (I say “we” because this literature is as much yours as mine – you send in constant suggestions of what to post) and now leave the rest to you.
What follows now I say exclusively to the insincere and not to the original questioner. It’s meant as a general statement and I ask the original commentor’s kind indulgence in allowing me to say it:
If anyone is here to tie us up in knots, I’ve appointed myself gatekeeper and it would be my job to suggest you go elsewhere. The standard response of insincere skeptics is that I’m opposed to the truth coming out. We happen to think that the existence of spacecraft and galactics IS the truth, but we also realize there is no convincing those who are opposed to that particular truth.
Where the rubber meets the road is whether you allow us our little corner of the Internet universe where we can congregate and swap news and stories. This corner is not meant for you. It’s meant for us. It doesn’t cater to you. It caters to us.
If you wish to congregate with other skeptics, the Internet provides the same resources for you to get together and swap news and stories.
I’ve said this many times, but it bears endless repeating. Mahatma Gandhi knew that humans can use the “truth” as a weapon so he put harmlessness (ahimsa) ahead of truth (sat). Given that humans can do some pretty thoughtless and even cruel things and justify it as truth-seeking, I personally value maturity ahead of truth.
The mature thing to do is to allow other people to hold their views unmolested – whether they are Muslims or Bahai, New Age people or stamp collectors. As long as their activities don’t harm others, we as a civilization have agreed, in charters like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to allow others to pursue their dreams and projects freely, without molestation.
We allow freedom of religion, for instance, and don’t say to those who hold different views than us and wish to do so unmolested that they are not interested in the truth.
Trample on our human rights and you lose your human rights. That’s the way a free society operates.
So to the skeptic I say: please be aware that we’re pursuing our conversation here and allow us to continue. Listen in, read the documentation, view the videos, but don’t obstruct. Your pursuit of truth does not permit you to stand in the way of our pursuit of the truth. Where we don’t agree, in a free society, the way we usually handle it is to agree to disagree and give each other berth. If we allow each other to co-exist, each of us benefits.