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

Thank you for taking the time to go through at least part of the information I presented and give it some consideration. This is further than many people are willing to go in a debate on this topic. First, I apologize for making an error with link #1, which I'll clarify below, but before I get to that, I'm not sure I agree that it is unimportant to this debate that, statistically, were we: a 19,000 day old space-faring culture, to make contact with another space-faring culture, we would very likely be the less advanced of the two, given that such a civilization would likely be millions of years older than ours, again, statistically speaking (as you pointed out, this isn't a "definitive answer," but I think unless Con can present a plausible argument for why the average hypothetical civilization we would make contact with would be around 19,000 days old as well, then we should defer to the experts in the field who have an overwhelming tendency to espouse the notion that, as Carl Sagan put it, "The chance of receiving a signal from a civilization exactly as advanced as we are should be miniscule. . .The most likely signal would come from a civilization much more advanced." (Contact, p. 77 - also see refs (1) & (2), as well as ref (3), by Michio Kaku which I include simply as relevant to our discussion) In originally typing out my list, I had summarized each event I intended to reference much more thoroughly, but after editing for length and removing extended summaries, I forgot that the link to item 1 pointed to an entire chapter instead of to the actual event I intended to reference, which unfortunately was the only one Con didn't provide an argument to, citing that it was classified as a balloon. I really wish I hadn't made the mistake because I would rather debate the merits of that case and some of the other more interesting ones I had referenced. Again, I apologize. As Con wasn't able to get to the other 9 main cases I presented, I would like to take issue with some of the arguments he made in dismissing the author and the validity of a few of the reports ("sub-cases") from the link to Case 1. Again, with the exception of sub-case 9, these weren't intended for consideration in this debate. First, upon reaching sub-case five, Con indicated his doubt in the "validity of the author," stating "I do not deem this as a credible source at all, as it has been shown the author either has bias, is a liar, or is not proficient in the English language." As I hope to show below, I think that Con misunderstood a few things from some of the reports and took this to mean that the author was misleading us somehow. The author of the book is Richard F. Haines, Ph.D. He is a leading expert on how factors of vision, perception and cognition influence how the human body and nervous system interfaces with aeronautical and astronautical technologies. As such, he may be among the most qualified people on earth to scientifically study UFOs. From 1967, he worked on the Gemini, Apollo, Skylab and other NASA programs, as well as extensive aeronautical work at NASA and served as Chief of the Space Human Factors Office at NASA-Ames, as well as doing consulting work for NASA after his retirement from Government work in 1988. He has also spent about 40 years collecting and analyzing sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena by pilots(4). You can see an interview with Haines, discussing this subject here: http://youtu.be... (If you'll forgive the manipulative music and cutaways added to the interview, I think you'll find that he is quite rational and uses scientific language and reasoning in his discussion of the subject.) Although I have some disagreements with con about his analyses of sub-cases 1-3 (esp. 1, I feel that an argument about it would require some understanding of human radar and radio jamming capabilities in 1950, and because these cases fail to meet other criteria I set forth), I will not go into it. I would like to take issue with Con on sub-cases 4 and 5 however. Con seems to have misunderstood what Lt. Commander Davies (correctly identified by Con as being a Naval rank, as opposed to an AF rank, although I don't understand how this is relevant, as it isn't referred to as an Air Force rank anywhere that I can see) reported, saying that he believes what Davies meant was that "the target was 14 in number." I can only see one reason why Con may infer this as it simply isn't what Davies said ("I reported the target [singular] to the ship and was informed that the target [singular] was also held on the ship's radars [plural], 14 in number . . ." I assume that Con may be suspecting that a ship would only have one radar set, which is not necessarily the case. So although Davies was very clear in his report about what was singular (target) and what was plural (radars) on multiple occasions in the report, I am surmising that Con believed Davies to have mis-stated and meant that there were 14 targets, simply because con doesn't think a ship would have 14 radars. I may be misunderstanding, as I failed to understand what con meant in some of the arguments I'll get to below. I truly mean no offense to Con, I am simply indicating what I was and wasn't able to understand and what I suspect has led to what I see as Con's misunderstanding of Davies' report. Haines indicates that Davies served on a carrier at this time and was an experienced pilot, a fact which con seems to have missed as he refers to Lt. Commander Davies as a "non-pilot." It should be noted that naval ships, especially aircraft carriers, have (and had at the time) multiple air radar systems. including SC and SK air radar(5), height finding radar(6), fire control radar(7), and others, with redundant sets of some types (e.g. Essex class carriers, in use at the time, had 21 radar sets on board according to this wikipedia entry (see right column) http://en.wikipedia.org...). In any case, I don't think a Lt. Commander and pilot with 4,000 hours experience needs to have his testimony questioned in terms of number of targets vs. radar sets. As far as the vagueness of the date of the report, it was filed by Davies in 1957, six years after the event, when Davies was an instructor at the Naval Air Station in Jacksonville (8), so it is understandable that he was unable to provide a date. But again, this case fails to meet certain criteria (we only have the testimony of one witness and no other documentation, that I know of, and although the witness seems credible, and may have seen a genuine UAP, there isn't enough data to make this case worthy of debate). In sub-case 5, Con seems to have misunderstood a number of points as well, and/or I have. Though I appreciate his effort, I am not seeing what Con's analysis of the distance between Wonson & Sunchon and how long it would take to fly that distance has to do with the report, which only mentions Wonson & Sunchon as descriptors for the general vicinity in which the events took place. Con does mention that the event may have been two events, which I take to mean, events inspired by separate phenomena, because indeed, the reported events did occur to two separate air crews. I do not see how airspeed and travel times factor in to that though, unless maybe con is assuming a constant rate and direction of travel for the phenomena. I really am not sure what con is getting at, but I don't know where he gets the number 144 mph, which doesn't seem to appear in the text. I also want to mention that nowhere in the text does it say the UAP fired at an aircraft. It says the UAP was observed shortly after the aircraft began taking flak. Con may be unaware that flak refers to explosions of shells from a particular kind of ground-based, anti-aircraft cannon, with a very distinctive audio and visual signature and is very easy to distinguish from machine gun fire originating from other aircraft. I'm also unsure why Con feels that confirmation by the US Air Force that sightings of this type are "not abnormal," and that "a multitude" of similar sightings of "objects that could not be identified or explained" being reported by aircrews over Europe and Asia in World War II, somehow bolsters his case. I won't go into the other sub-cases mostly because I am running out of space, but again, I thank Con for taking the time to look them over and give his thoughts. I do want to touch on Case 1 (re-designated "sub-case 9" due to my error). The events, as reported, by the pilot, his radar operator, and written up in the conclusion by Brig. General Banliff do not describe a weather balloon, but at least two separate objects, both tracked by at least one radar set, and one apparently achieving a 20 G acceleration to 6,420mph. The pilot in his signed statement, the radar operator in his, the radar itself (verified as functioning properly both before and after the flight), all agree on this point, and as the Deputy for Intelligence points out, "this rate of acceleration is much more than the human body can stand for more than a fraction of a second." Not a smoking gun of course, but one of hundreds of reports that (esp. taken together) deserve to be looked at seriously in light of what available data tells us about the prospects for intelligent life in the universe. Occam's Razor may more easily cut away prosaic explanations in some of these cases than the extraterrestrial hypothesis, which is consistent with current, reasoned scientific speculation. (1) http://www.atnf.csiro.au... (2) http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net... (3) http://mkaku.org... (4) http://www.ufoevidence.org... (5) http://www.history.navy.mil... (6) http://en.wikipedia.org... (7) http://en.wikipedia.org... (8) http://www.nicap.org...