Disclosure has begun

[ArMaP]

I believe they have been here all along.  

[b]Earth formed ~2–3 Myr (million years)

Are those numbers right?

[quintessentone]

Are those numbers right?

From what I've read, it has been claimed that aliens have been around here for 2-3 million years.

What ANNEE was referring to may be this:

"Earth formed ~2–3 Myr (million years) after Jupiter’s early runaway growth phase began, but both are part of the same ~4.6 billion-year-old solar system.  And that's only our solar system."

[SteamyAmerican]

If I could just have someone explain what the orbs that appear and then fade into the night sky north of VSFB over the Pacific without BS, that’d be a start.

They are fascinating! Like fireflies. Both in flight and resemblance from afar. They seem to “materialize” from nowhere and they show up outta nowhere, “fly” for a bit and then fade or glow brighter before fading. It is not like how aircraft turn and the lights glow or fade depending on if they face you or not. If they are aircraft, the trajectories are all wrong from my novice knowledge as they move in flight patterns that aren’t just straight or flat. And if they are aircraft, they are exotic for sure.

[ArMaP]

From what I've read, it has been claimed that aliens have been around here for 2-3 million years.

What ANNEE was referring to may be this:

"Earth formed ~2–3 Myr (million years) after Jupiter’s early runaway growth phase began, but both are part of the same ~4.6 billion-year-old solar system.  And that's only our solar system."

I have a Megalodon tooth that is at least 3.5 million years old.

[ReturnofBroccoli]

I have a Megalodon tooth that is at least 3.5 million years old.

Thats neat

[quintessentone]

I have a Megalodon tooth that is at least 3.5 million years old.

Cool.

[Astyanax]

I never liked that observation, as you never know what kind of evidence may exist for any claim, extraordinary or ordinary.

Can you explain how, in your opinion, an extraordinary claim could be substantiated by ordinary evidence? If evidence for something is commonly available, how could it be extraordinary?
 

I never liked Carl Sagan either.

People who believe in things for which there is no solid evidence are rarely fond of the late Dr Sagan. Clearly you are one such person, or your loyal and sterling work in support of ATS and DI would not exist.

I regard you as one of the more intelligent and sensible people here, as you were on ATS. But neither this site nor that one was particularly notable for steel-trap minds, so it’s a nuanced compliment at best.

Reconsider – if, that is, you are emotionally equipped to do so – the point you are making in the context of the supposed function of this board, and of ATS. Both sites were predicated on the acknowledgement that mysteries exist to be solved. Isn’t that why some of you regard the ‘intellectual property’ generated by these sites as worth preserving? Somewhere in it may lie to solutions to several famous mysteries. Or so you believe.

But neither you, not anyone else, is going to get to the bottom of any mystery by gazing in wonder at the skies, or at their smartphones, and going ‘golly gee’ at every fantastical revelation. Neither will anyone do so by sharing yet another claim or theory backed by no tangible evidence and arguing for pages and pages with people who have no evidence for their claims either. To solve mysteries you need solid evidence, and the stranger the mystery the harder the evidence needed to solve it. You’re not going to get it by mollycoddling member testimony. You’re going to get it, if at all, by subjecting that testimony to serious, hostile scrutiny. If it passes, then you have something worthwhile.

Absent a genuine effort to find, lay out, analyse and above all disprove that evidence, all these sites provide is a place for believers in various unconventional propositions – for instance, that aliens are visiting Earth and probing human lower gastrointestinal tracts – to make public what they believe, claiming whatever nonsense they care to in connexion with or in support of that, and then argue testily with others who disbelieve with them or make extraordinary claims of their own. What is the final outcome? A big fat zero. ATS and Deny Ignorance have existed for over twenty years in total. Have they solved, or even narrowed down the investigative scope, of one single, tiny mystery? Of course not. That is not their real function, which is to provide a place where credulous folk entertain themselves and one another.

And here you are saying you don’t like extraordinary evidence. Well, of course you don’t. It spoils your fun.

You know that ordinary evidence isn’t good enough to explain stuff that sounds like a Twilight Zone or X-Files script. When something is claimed to defy Newtonian mechanics, as the so-called ‘tic-tacs’ do, what ‘ordinary evidence’ could possibly explain that?

The fact is, most here would rather keep the mystery alive and not solve it, because life is more fun that way, and it makes them feel special and ‘in the know’. Face it, ArMap, no-one here is interested in reality. This is a playground for fantasists, nothing more.

[Astyanax]

Quintessentone: So as you dismiss others' extraterrestrial claims of contact/abduction so you too are dismissing the UAP videos recently released even though they are labelled as unexplainable by the top government military and scientists. Isn't this extraordinary evidence in a sense?

I acknowledge that the videos exist – at least, I see no reason to doubt they do. They are, as you say, inexplicable by governments, scientists and the military. And as extraordinary phenomena, they may well be evidence for something extraordinary. But what that is, we do not know, and there is absolutely no justification to conclude that, because these videos exist, they are evidence of aliens visiting Earth.

Come on, quintessentone: you don’t need me or anyone else to explain this to you. It’s obvious.

[SteamyAmerican]

Personally I think the extraordinary claim is that we and the rest of the lineages of life are the sole sum of it all, intelligent or otherwise housed on our floating ball of chlorophyll, rocks, and water.

Seems dubious to think that in all the Cosmos, we are it. And if that’s the case, it certainly brings into more questions than answers. At least for me. And sure, while this isn’t evidence, nor do we have the tech or means to verify this, it’s been pushed by all the powers for all of history to state this as fact. Religious or otherwise. Seems to me that there should be evidence to substantiate this claim. Otherwise math rules the day in terms of planetary systems or even the void itself housing life.

Shit. We don’t even have all the life here catalogued.

Then I suppose we ought to ask what’s so special about “the now” that TPTB would acquiesce to the inquiry to end them all.

Hell. The CIA barged into Tulsi’s office just to incinerate some files they didn’t want let aired out. So why indeed at all would they trifle with disclosure, soft or otherwise?

In other words, regardless of what is offered up, I refuse to believe we are the exception. And even if that were true, it means the Creator skipped out to lunch or a smoke break before we were polished in Their image. Ya know?

[Astyanax]

Can’t prove God - angels - demons - or biblical Jesus. 

Science can’t prove what causes Left-handedness either.

Lots of things defy ability to prove without a doubt. 

Someone tells me they walked across the street to the donut shop. 

Didn’t happen cuz I didn’t see it.

Not all evidence is scientific. For example, there’s forensic evidence – detective work – which does not rely on any scientific laws or principles.

Nor is it possible to prove all statements scientifically. Philosophically speaking, it is, in fact, ultimately impossible to prove any statement scientifically. The best we can do is establish a very high probability of truth.

In philosophy, we speak of something called inductive evidence, which is based on past experience; all scientific conclusions are inductive conclusions. But there is also deductive logic, which commences with some a priori truth and derives a conclusion from it without the help of any experience at all. Philosophers traditionally regarded this as the most reliable way of getting at the truth. You’re probably familiar with a famous illustration of deductive logic: ‘Socrates is a man, all men are mortal, therefore Socrates is mortal.’ We don’t need to observe anything to reach this conclusion, because in each proposition the subject already contains the predicate. Being mortal is part of the definition of being a man; being a man is part of the definition of being Socrates.

Still, some statements are, we know from experience, are less likely to be true than others. Intelligent people remain sceptical about such statements. Deductive logic has no place here, though, and inductive logic clearly tells us the statement is likely untrue. If we are smart, we will speak and act as if it is untrue; but always only provisionally. Show us evidence that you visited the doughnut shop – a cashier's bill, say, or testimony from someone you spoke to there – and we’ll happily believe you. The same applies to claims that you talk to aliens, or that Trump won the 2020 election.