Randi's Prise a Catch 22?

[lonewulf]

gwiz said:

I don't think he investigates UFOs. His prize is for a demonstration of "paranormal" phenomena.

I'm not surprised, and that seems perfectly fine for me.

I was more of making the point of how difficult it would be to investigate stuff like "UFOs" with his testing style, even if he was willing to.

[PeterB]

Lonewulf asked:

...how exactly can Randi test UFO footage?

I mean, the majority of UFO footage is just a picture or video footage of something shiny in the sky. There's not really that much you can do to objectively look at the photo and say "It's real" or "It's a weather balloon".

From memory, Randi has dealt with a couple of UFO claims on his weekly commentaries.

IIRC, one case had clear video of a flying saucer filmed passing behind a couple of skyscrapers maybe a kilometre away. In that case, it was possible to raise questions such as: how is this the only sequence captured; why is the UFO in focus throughout the footage; why does the footage stop so soon. The implication was that if it was genuine footage, it wouldn't have looked like this. It's a similar process of questioning the alien autopsy footage - it just wasn't filmed the way such an event would be filmed for real.

In another case, filmed from a Mexican air force plane, a little bit of investigation of where the plane was when the footage was filmed, and the nature of the film, suggested that what was seen was actually distant oil rigs illuminated by their burn-off flares.

So, in response to your question, the solution appears to be to start with the assumption that there's a mundane explanation, and work from there. If all the mundane explanations you can come up with seem to fail, then you might have a case of a genuine space alien.

Look at it this way, if someone showed you a video of a jiggling point of light, would you assume it was a space alien, or someone who couldn't hold a camera steady while filming Venus or a plane?

[lonewulf]

peterb said:

Look at it this way, if someone showed you a video of a jiggling point of light, would you assume it was a space alien, or someone who couldn't hold a camera steady while filming Venus or a plane?

Er... that's about as subjective as an issue as you can get, it sounds to me. You'd have to take it to analysts who specialize in such things (video analysis and such). But even then, it sounds like a subjective issue of "I believe", and "I don't".

As for generic debunking, sure; but if it was up to my personal choice, I wouldn't allow such a thing for the million-dollar challenge. Too much at stake for something that's a little too hard to "prove", even with the most convincing of footage.

[echnaton]

One could certainly test the ability, as some have claimed, to call UFO’s to a certain area at a certain time. However like most of these types, the inability to state specifically what will happen is a liability to claiming victory. Dealing with UFO’s is an art after all.

[lonewulf]

echnaton said:

One could certainly test the ability, as some have claimed, to call UFO’s to a certain area at a certain time. However like most of these types, the inability to state specifically what will happen is a liability to claiming victory. Dealing with UFO’s is an art after all.

[/u] [/quote]

(Emphasis mine)

That's my point; it's an art, not a science.