Triggering a debunker
Diorama at International UFO Museum, Roswell, NM.
Photo by me.
I've had an interest in UFOs since I was a kid. In fact, I know exactly when my interest started: in 1973.
That year-- and I know what year it was because I moved a lot as a kid and know where I lived when this happened-- a classmate told me and others that his grandfather had told him of the time he saw pieces of a crashed "flying saucer" when they were brought to the military base he was stationed at in Ft. Worth, Texas, following its crash in New Mexico.
This was my first introduction to the story of the 1947 Roswell UFO crash... even though the kid never mentioned Roswell, but just said: "New Mexico" (I knew of the town of Roswell for other reasons).
Recently, including on Quora just a few days ago, the standard debunking approach has been the claim that after the initial buzz and headlines, the Roswell "crash" was satisfactorily explained and forgotten until the late '70s or early '80s. when it was revived and sensationalized to sell books and TV shows.
Back to the Quora "debunking". An ex-military guy was explaining away the story and dredging up the tale about it not being spoken of again after July 1947, for 30 years or so.
I replied that I knew, first-hand, that this wasn't true, and told what I knew from 1973.
The guy almost flipped out on me. He said this wasn't "first-hand knowledge" at all, that I had been fooled by the conspiracy theory like everyone else.
Never mind that I clearly stated that I wasn't saying the debris was extraterrestrial or anything, just that I knew when I had heard the story and it didn't match the debunkers' claims. Maybe it was a weather balloon test dummy mishap Project Mogul balloon. Or not. That wasn't part of my claim.
My first-hand knowledge is that I heard the story before the story was supposedly revived and sensationalized, so that specific claim can't be true. That's all. I have no first-hand knowledge of any other part of the event (or non-event). Yet this one small point triggered him.
I saw in his over-the-top reaction the same reaction I get from statists when I point out the errors in their thinking and claims. Any reality which doesn't match what they are desperate to believe is met with hostile denial.
Of course, the guy's Quora profile says he is "ex-military" so he may have an agenda to promote.
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cue X-Files theme
Clearly he is hiding something!
But seriously, while I have seen no credible evidence of recent extraterrestrial visitation or ancient aliens manipulating/guiding humanity since the dawn of time, I enjoy the stories. Claiming someone's anecdote, whether first-hand or 17th-hand, is a complete fabrication from the get-go still isn't a sound response.
I feel the same way about cryptids and ghosts, though not about UFOs. Admittedly, that's probably because the vast majority of "UFOs" I've seen have been blurry pictures of easily-identifiable objects, such as oddly-shaped balloons or ultralight aircraft obscured by cloud cover, and I'm not easily fooled. As a result, I'm not quite as mystified by those stories as I am by the others.
Actually, now that I think about it, I've listened to many odd anecdotes in my life about ghosts and out-of-place artifacts, and I have to wonder if I should just nod my head when listening. Denying their validity outright is just plain rude, but sometimes the storyteller doesn't remember things correctly, and certain details tend to send up red flags in my mind. I don't like truth getting turned into myth because of poor memory, and I've grilled people before about as many details as possible, particularly when the subject is out-of-place artifacts. Is this something I should be doing?
You should look up Billy Meyer
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Yeah, I know about him, too.
I watched 3 of the 4 or 5 documentaries about him, very incredible. First one I watched was called The Silent Revolution, then And Did They Listen and the last one I think was a prequel to And Did They Listen.
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