the Belgian UFO Wave is best Explained as Aliens

Thanks daley. Okay, firstly I'd like to point out even if one was to accept all of my opponent's arguments as fact (which I certainly don't), the only conclusion that could be made is that something happened which defies conventional explanations of known natural phenomena. The resolution however, refers specifically to aliens. In order to fulfil his burden, Pro should be attempting to establish why aliens are the most plausible explanation, not merely saying 'something really freaky happened'. I am under the impression that my opponent is a devout Christian, so why isn't a hypothesis of a miracle or a sign from God a more plausible explanation than aliens? For another example, my opponent is apparently a sceptic of the science of evolutionary theory, although it is the vast majority consensus of biologists. This would seem to suggest that he doesn't believe that humanity has by any means a complete understanding of all natural phenomena on Earth. So why is something unexplainable automatically aliens? I can totally understand why, if someone has a pre-existing belief that extra-terrestrials regular visit planet Earth, hard to explain events such as these would seem to confirm their expectations. However an open minded person exhibiting rational scepticism would not make the same conclusions. ___________________ A lot of Pro's arguments still consist of bare assertions and clear exaggerations and misrepresentations of the data. It seems that the only source he is using to back up his claims is Wikipedia, and while I'm no wiki hater, I think a few additional, original sources would perhaps give some his claims more weight. In referring to statements of ground witnesses, Pro keeps repeating the figure of 13,500 and making the implication that these huge numbers of people are all confirmed as witnessing exactly the same thing. This is clearly false. Pro's sole source makes it clear that this figure is a mere estimation and a small fraction of that number actually made proper statements. Regarding assessments of speed (and other details) from witnesses, Pro needs to establish how many people actually made these claims as well as considering their inability to make accurate judgements. Suggesting that it is my responsibility to prove inconsistency is a blatant attempt to shift the burden. Pro is claiming that this many people all saw the same things but has made no attempt to prove it. Quoting wiki stating that an unspecified number of witnesses "broadly corroborate" is vague and insubstantial. http://www.skepticreport.com... The report mentions that at one point the object seen on radar didn't change its relative position as the aircraft turned, this is particularly characteristic of equipment failure. Radar is far from perfect, for articles describing the many kinds of entirely natural phenomena that can give misleading radar data (known as clutter, or sometimes as angels) see these: www.foia.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-091007-151.pdf, http://www.radartutorial.eu... Pro: "So let's get this straight; 13, 500 people all hallucinated seeing the same things, moving in the same places in the same way?" This is not only an attempt to reduce my argument to absurdity, it is also a complete straw man (I referred to hysteria, not hallucinations) and a total misrepresentation of the data. As observed above, there are far less than this number of witness statements and no certainty that the statements that do exist match each other. Note also in the paragraph this is taken from that Pro has abandoned the vague phrasing of his source ("broadly coroborated") for his own interpretation: "matched exactly". As my previous links have shown the Belgian ufo enthusiast group SOBEPS were publcising a lot of spurious material around this period, creating a buzz around the idea of aliens swarming over Belgium .Referring to unscientifically minded individuals, I should explain that I didn't mean the witnesses themselves but rather SOBEPS and Meessen, who's analysis of the sightings is examined at length here: http://www.skepticreport.com... When I talk about the people on the ground suffering from mass hysteria, I am not suggesting that they all hallucinated similar objects that weren't there. I'm saying that, with this notion of aliens at the forefront of their mind, they were quick to jump to the conclusion of aliens whenever they saw anything remotely strange in the sky. This type of self-delusion is confirmation bias, if you observe something expecting a certain result, then sooner or later, you are likely to see something minor that you can attribute to your pre-existing expectations. The response to the helicopter hypothesis is another blatant straw man. I never claimed that the cause of the radar readings was helicopters, rather that a lot of the aircraft described in the witness statements bear a striking resemblance to helicopters. It is interesting that Pro chooses to sidestep the evidence such as the artist sketch and switches the focus back to the radar. Now remember, it is not my burden to prove what these lights or objects may have been, merely to cast reasonable doubt on aliens being the probable cause. I'm not denying that there were objects and/or lights in the sky on that night, or any other occasion. These things are common. Pro needs to explain why it is more likely that these were aliens, rather than any other explanation, from balloon lanterns, to fireworks, meteors, remote controlled aircraft, military experiments, atmospheric conditions, disco laser lights, reflection from surface lights, those little infra-red beam devices, birds with wet feathers that reflected light, box kites, helicopters, hang gliders, fireflys, fairies, pixies, witches, demons, Jesus, the devil or anything else. I shall leave it there for now and hand back over to daley. Thanks.