Sunday, April 18, 2010

Altruism and Apple Pie

Former MUFON director, James Carrion, writes:
Maybe Joe should volunteer his counseling skills at the local NYPD precinct and see how welcome his soft skills would be on the police beat where everyone is innocent until proven guilty or at least caught in the act.
Really?  Are we to treat possible UFO witnesses in the same way possible felons are treated?  What exactly is the connection between police investigation of CRIME and Ufology?  I suppose the world isn't big brother enough, perhaps we should make every UFO witness have to prove their sighting in court.  Being that probably 99% of UFO sightings are never even reported because people are afraid they wouldn't be believed -- I think treating them like possible felons is just what is needed to get rid of that pesky 1% that actually have the nerve to report it.

Damn Joe Capp!  He is soft on crime again!  Someone throw him out of his posh office!  Yes, posh!  Because we all know that Ufologists are some of the richest people on earth, that is why everyone is trying to lie their way in with their stories of seeing strange objects in the sky ~eyes rolling~ and why those people must be treated with an iron fist.  We must keep all the riches and glory among those that deserve it.

Read the rest of James Carrion's post here -
Follow The Magic Thread: Altruism and Apple Pie

12 comments:

ericswan said...

Breaking a seemingly unbeatable arcade record that stood for a staggering 28 years, gaming enthusiast John McAllister is today the proud owner of sore fingers, heavy eyelids and, more importantly, the high score on coin-op classic Asteroids.


The new record was set by 41-year-old McAllister after a brain-melting 58-hour session of asteroid destruction, during which the Seattle-based locksmith racked up an approximate score of 41,338,740 points – surpassing the 41,336,440 points amassed by now-deposed Asteroid master Scott Safran back on November 13 of 1982.

Although McAllister has (tentatively) set a new record, his achievement has not yet been officially rubber-stamped by the boffins at Twin Galaxies, the “worldwide authority on player rankings, gaming statistics and championship tournaments,” who are presently pouring over the marathon session to ensure everything is above board.

Unfortunately, we won't see Safran attempt to reclaim the record as he died in 1989 after plunging six floors from his apartment balcony while trying to rescue his cat, Samson.

Alfred Lehmberg said...

Another anxious comparison of apples and oranges from the enfeebled failure, Mr. Carrion? Capp's struck a nerve, it seems! Go Joe!

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Bruce Duensing said...

This is yet another tale of entanglement, that is a distraction in the never ending story.As if there could be a right or wrong in personal motives when viewed by another "accurately".I take no side in this party game, because it is a game.Maybe a game within a game. My words are better than your words, or yours better than mine is what it boils down to. Calling one Jesus Christ and the other, a cop. Blah, blah, blah. Win\lose\Up\down and so it goes says Mr Vonnegut.

Alfred Lehmberg said...

Well, no good deed shall go unpunished as much as no strutting popinjay shall be allowed to prosecute his valueless and increasingly irrelevant untested faith as if it was the final word on the manner, too, eh? Pissin' and moanin' — it's not much but it's all we have.

LesleyinNM said...

Sorry, I have no patience for those that get all stuffy about UFOlogy. I think they miss the overall significance while they are trying to make rules about how best to study it, like it can be put under a microscope and enough investigation will yield all the answers or any answers.

Of course, Bruce is right - it is a game and I likely waste too much time caring what such people think just like they waste their time trying to come up with rules and formulas for investigations.

Deirdre said...

Ignoring the jabby words (that both James and Joe use in regards to each other), I don't disagree with a lot of what Carrion said in his article(s). I think his theory about Roswell did fall flat because many people have made up their mind and don't want to consider that it could have been something else. Would Stanton, having spent so many years investigating and arguing Roswell as an ET event, be thrilled about entertaining the idea that he was wrong for almost 40 years? Of course not. I am willing to bet a whole lot of people didn't even really look into James' theory because they didn't want tot disrupt their idea of what happened.

Also, While I don't think we need either to police the field or police how investigations are run, but I would certainly like to see the bullshit sorted from the legitimate cases, better than it has been (I totally resisted saying 'signal from the noise' - Ha!). The phony stuff that has slipped through over many years has only made things that much harder to sort out and significantly helped give UFOLogy it's notorious stigma.

LesleyinNM said...

I am willing to entertain most theories on Roswell. However, I just haven't seen any compelling evidence for Carrion's. As far as non-ET theories, I think Redfern's has much more evidence. I don't think it was that people didn't and haven't (even before Carrion) considered that theory, but as I said there just isn't much evidence to back it up.

But you can't and never will be able to sort the BS, except for yourself. It is kind of personal responsibility for everyone that is seriously interested enough to care, which isn't really very many people. A lot of people are mildly interested in Ufology as more like entertainment -- they don't really care what is BS and what is real. I am not sure what stigma Ufology has. Most scientists I talk to believe there are real unexplained sightings. It isn't a stigma of Ufology that keeps them away, it is needing to make a real living and there really not being much tangible evidence to study. The media likes to laugh it off, but once again that is because they are too lazy to do real research into the subject as I mentioned in Grey Matters last week. They are even too lazy to investigate whether there are really WMDs in Iraq, which if they had we may have never had that war. Basically I think Ufology spends too much time worrying about what certain groups of people think of them, you can't force people that are not willing to dig below the surface to take you seriously and if they aren't willing to do that - why should you care what they think? I don't know, I have just never understood what the big deal is about being taken seriously, especially by the media - the same people that can roll with Anna Nicole Smith or Brittany Spears for days on end. They can find out exactly what plastic surgery Brit had done and when, but actually trying to find out if there is something to that UFO stuff - too hard.

Deirdre said...

Right - Carrion certainly wasn't the first to propose the idea that Roswell wasn't ET. But despite how convincing his theory may or may not have been, I'm sure a lot of people didn't even bother to look into it because they didn't like what it implied. But that isn't just with his ideas, but with anyone who suggests Roswell was purely human in origin.

As for me, I still don't know what I think about that case, but I do know I don't think it happened they way James presents.

And you're right about separating the BS. There's no way to completely control that, even if everyone stuck by "strict" investigation techniques. People will absolutely still slip through. Hell, police investigations have stuff that slips though all of the time, and they have all kinds of strict techniques -- but I'm still glad of those who do their best to adhere to them, even if it's not a perfect system.

Re: The general public's perception of UFOlogy: Of course, no one should really care what anyone thinks or says unless it directly affects their life, but as far as UFOlogy's stigma, it has left a rift of ignorance in it's wake. People are lead to believe UFOs are products of mental illness, substance abuse, hoaxes, etc., and because of that, many never delve into the research. And not even because they're worried about what people will think -- but because the stigma itself has told them "There's nothing to see here."

LesleyinNM said...

You know, for a long time I never told anyone about my interest in UFOs. I mean people that I actually know or meet in person, rather than internet peeps. I actually believed that most people thought people that were interested in such things were crazy or something like that. Britton started telling people (which irritated me at first), but except for 1 person I have always been pleasantly surprised by people's reaction. Normally they get kind of excited and within a couple minutes they are telling me a story about a UFO they saw or about a UFO someone they trust saw. I am still surprised by it every time it happens.

Deirdre said...

Same here. What has surprised me the most is that a few of my local friends who I thought would just shake their head at me, have been really supportive about it and engage me in a way that isn't condescending or insulting.

Which is always nice. Even my mom thinks it's cool -- and I way wasn't expecting that.

Erik said...

Beyond my presence on the internet, My wife and kids and my dad and brother are the only ones that know about my involvement in the paranormal although as of recent events, perhaps that is all about to change. I suppose I should prepare for that in some way although I'm clueless as to what that might look like.

Deirdre said...

I don't know that you can prepare for it that much, other than allowing yourself not to be surprised if someone finds out. I worried about how it might affect my business for a good while, and was wary of putting my name to things because of that. But after much discussion within my own head and also with Maggie, I realized I do not want to sacrifice my interests over some silly concern... and I'd really not want to work with anyone that would snub me because them.