General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Luis Elizondo and why aliens are absolutely visiting us... [View all]Orrex
(67,153 posts)3 and 4 are, at the moment, entirely unsupported by concrete evidence.
Option 5 is conventional natural phenomena misinterpreted by witnesses. Option 6 is hitherto undocumented natural phenomena misinterpreted by witnesses. And so on.
None of these options requires the witnesses to be deceptive, as you have previously declared me to assume.
Even heartfelt, cautious witnesses are easily misled, as James Randi has irrefutably demonstrated to occur. All it takes is a motivated trickster, as is the case with the iconic Loch Ness Monster photo and innumerable Sasquatch footprints.
Further, people have been faking photos since shortly after photography was invented, and long before Photoshop. As such, photographic evidence is insufficient proof of fantastical phenomena. Arthur Conan Doyle was famously deceived by photographs of "fairies," which were in fact the most rudimentary of amateur hoaxes.
Regarding your invocation of eyewitness testimony leading to imprisonment or execution, how many of those cases hinged upon the factual reality of fantastical phenomena? Setting aside the very real problem of corrupt prosecutors and judiciary, even sincere eyewitness testimony is superseded by concrete, verifiable physical evidence.
The solution here is simple: present physical, independently verifiable evidence of these purported unidentified craft.