The Extraterrestrial Hypothesis for the UFO phenomenon should be taken seriously.

Thanks to my opponent. Lets me just say, I think this debate seems to me to be heading to a point of what evidence is acceptable to convince either of us of UFOs existence. I affirm I have not seen any credible evidence, yet my opponent deems some of the evidence presented as credible. However, it seems though we disagree we can at least be rational and this is truly a good way for us to proceed.Regarding your comments relating to the chances of another civilization, I meant without the dark ages they would be more advanced and I apologize if this came across wrong so I do agree with you on this hypothetical point. However, regarding taking UFO reports and examining them more carefully, I would say that is exactly what is happening. The difference is that the conclusions that the air-forces, scientists, military advisors, NASA etc. are coming to is not the conclusion that UFO believers want to hear.Now let me turn to some important points that need to be addressed. The following statements in your rebuttal I have to take exception with.(a)"but to suggest that this causes them to experience hallucinations of metallic or glowing balls that fly for miles in formation with their bombers and that they all share the hallucination, pushes credibility more, in my opinion, than that they saw something that science is at a loss to easily explain."This is demonstrably false from all the reports I have read, there are never glowing balls flying in formation with the aircraft in question. Also, the pilots do have differing reports of events, with even pilots and co-pilots/navigators not agreeing on the events. Again these "sightings" can be explained by war stress, oxygen deprivation or instrument failure.(b) "These were reported very commonly by Allied, German and Japanese crews(3), and each government believed (wrongly, all but conspiracists now believe) them to be a secret technology in use by their enemies."Why are the governments wrong, the fact is this is a biased assumption based on facts that UFO believers want to believe the government is covering something up like Area 51.(1) Interestingly, these sightings were at night and always following aircraft so how accurate are these pilot sightings for something behind them. Additionally, see point (a)(c) "Making a judgement either way in a case like this, is unscientific. Pursuing possibilities until they have been exhausted is what should happen. If you don't reach a conclusion, fine. Add it to the pile."I agree that's why these cases are explored by various agencies and have been shown to not be attributed to aliens.Regarding Cognitive Dissonance, I agree Haines and every scientist/person can be guilty of this. However, lets look at the facts the largest proportion of scientists do not agree in UFOs even after all the years and all the sightings. Scientists follow information and take it seriously if it is good evidence. So far the evidence is lacking and so it is not too be believed. Remember, billions of people worldwide believe there is a god, and there is no proof for a god.(2)The Belgium Sightings peaked over 2 nights between 30 and 31 March 1990, so this could be attributed to mass hysteria effect similar to the Salem witch trials.(3) I think it may also be important to put a picture here that is attributed to the UFO in this Belgium debate here. As you can see the picture is extremely poor quality. http://upload.wikimedia.org...; width="328" height="185" />Picture source.(4)Now if I had not said this was a "UFO" what would you have thought? More likely than not you would think its a UFO as I mentioned it, but this is called confirmation bias.(5) Not surprisingly, this photo above was taken before the mass sightings of the same UFO and the photographer admitted in 2011 that this photo was a hoax. This together with cognitive dissonance is in fact what people attribute to the famous case of the sun movements witnessed at Fatima in Portugal on 13 October 1917 and witnessed by upwards of 30,000 people (upper limit 100, 000).(6) Here, is another picture of a "UFO" with a higher resolution. http://upload.wikimedia.org...; width="298" height="186" />Picture source.(7)Actually, this is just a cloud, but I am hoping it made you think twice.I am glad my opponent agrees with me about fairies not been rational. I think this is strong evidence for mass delusion and cognitive dissonance playing a role in people seeing what they want to see i.e. UFOs. This is why I brought this point up in the previous round.The Lakenheath incident, I am glad my opponent agrees with my analysis that there are huge discrepancies. Additionally, I want to highlight again that the reports from the British who actually observed the stationary object (pilots) vary a lot from the Americans who did not observe the object (radar). It is also important to point out again, that the object was stationary, and could have really been anything even a reflection. I agree with my opponent, that the pilots could be mistaken, but there report has not changed in all the years. It is again that the British and the American report are different and as such should be reason enough to dismiss.In closing, my opponent says we should not discard the UFO possibility unless there are other rational explanations. These explanations are what I have tried to show. These explanations are what various agencies and air forces have shown. Theses are the explanations that the UFO community refuses to accept.I hand the debate back to my opponent.(1) http://science.howstuffworks.com...(2) http://rationalwiki.org...(3) http://www.csicop.org...(4) http://en.wikipedia.org...(5) http://www.sciencedaily.com...(6) http://en.wikipedia.org...(7) http://en.wikipedia.org...