RESULTS

After years of study on the phenomena associated with ufo, and hundreds of interviews with primary witnesses from all walks
of life, I have arrived at some results that may be useful to those who are searching for the truth.  My results follow:

#1  Some people experience common, or uncommon physical, or optical phenomena such that they retain memories of these as notably unusual.  Fact.

#2  Due to the saturation of the ET-story, some people "tag", at least tentatively, their experience as ufo, or ufo-related where the ufo is defined as vehicular in nature.  Saturation Postulate... "Reports are generated"  Fact.

  J. Allen Hynek, PhD

From Hynek's Ratio:  For S/R = 1  => p(ufo) = 1;
 where S ( quantity of high quality details ), and R ( quantity of highly credible reporters )

Miller's Filter:  p(UFO) = [ 1 - p(A,D) / p(ufo) ] * [1 - p(M) / p(ufo) ];
  where A( mental disfunction ), D( deception ), and M( mistaken )
Domain research is where p(UFO) = 1,  and is called "qualified"
 
 

#3  The quality of described features of qualified "sightings", when given in non-interpretive language, are indistinguishable from those generated by #1, above.  The Uniqueness Postulate... " ... a rose, by any other name still smells as sweet..."

#4.  The quantity of qualified ufo reports is less than  the expected quantity from #2, above.
The Enumeration Postulate... this is your basic signal to noise ratio.  The sheer amount of sighting reports amounts to merely the expected "noise" of mundane phenomena.  This is so, consistantly, year by year.  There is no "signal" in the numbers.  This suggests that "they" are not there.
 

#5.  The Origin Postulate collects three powerful arguments together:  Drake's Equation ( local result ), Fermi's Paradox, and Sagan's Paradox.

  Frank Drake, PhD

Basically, Drake's Equation gives a probability calculation to the likelyhood of intellectually, and technologically capable civilizations to exist, other than our own.  Generally, Drake's equation uses numbers spanning the entire observable universe.  The equation returns p = 1, that is there should exist other sentient creatures such as our own in the universe.

Of course, Fermi's Paradox states that a truely capable civilizaton will move off-planet as quickly as possible to attempt to imortalize itself against random catastrophies presented by the universe.  Also, another valid reason for a capable civilization to develop interstellar travel would be to account for rapid population growth.  Fermi demonstrates that such a colonization-front can, and would spread across the galaxy within one million years.  Then, given the age of the universe to be between 15 billion to 20 billion years, and the relatively short time to develop a capable civilization ( exponential learning curve ) to be about one million years, if there are capable civilizations other than ours, we should be able so observe their presence to be everywhere around us already.  So, where are they?

Also, Sagan's Paradox states that if intelligent life is rare, then our own "life"- activities have not reached out far enough into the galaxy to be seen yet, or at least answered... our radio-radius is only 100 light years.  Then, there is no "answer" to our call, and no visitors.  On the other hand, if intelligent life is abundant, and everywhere around us, then our presence would not be uncommon-enough to be concerned with.  Then, again there would be no "answer" to our call, and no visitors.  Hence, there are no visitors.

  Carl Sagan, PhD

#6.  The Truth Proposition:   Truth is all of the Testimony and Evidence working together to form an actionable judgement... a satisfying, decisively convincing and compelling argument. ( V = E/T )
 The Extraterrestrial Hypothesis is plagued with a lack of measurable truth.  The ETH can be described as a Wealth of Testimony and Poverty of Evidence.  Basically, Validity approaches Zero ( V==> 0 )  case-by-case, region-by-region, year-by-year, and indeed it is so when taking the ufo-phenomenon in its entirety.

 Even worse, the components of the phenomenon, which present themselves as animal mutilation, crop circles, and alien abductions,  can be described as the Poverty of Testimony and the Wealth of Evidence.  Algebraically,  their validity (V) is reciprocal to ufo-type events, which is very difficult to grasp.  An example of this:  if one finds a gun, recently fired, does one assume it to have killed someone?  No.  Without testimony, there is no pattern to such evidence, hence there is no measure of actionable truth.

#7   The ideas presented by the ETH do not survive basic analysis such as:  logical fallacies, Vallee's Pitfalls, Occam's Razor, the presence of counter-intuitives and the use of expert knowledge.  There are also other excellent propositions available which are MUST reading for anyone who wishes to get to the Truth of the phenomenon.  These include:  Menzel's Completeness Theorem, Randi's Proposition, Anthropomorphism, Klass's Plasma Proposition,  and Moore's Synthesis.
For now, I'll leave the acquisition, and study of these as an exercise for the reader.

  Enrico Fermi, PhD

Summary

It seems to me that, given all of the ideas above working together, there is little to be said for the ufo phenomenon.  There
are precious little facts, a great abundance of stories, but comparatively little by way of evidence.  If there is physical evidence, then it is accompanied by little or no testimony by way of explanation.

    We, who interest ourselves in this material, are always on the lookout for partial results, and useful information that
we can apply in the world.  I have a hunch that these stories and materials hold clues to processes in our society
that need research and improvement.  The compilation of "Hynek-Ratio" cases ( excellent sighting testimony taken from
sources of high reliability ), and cases with high TRUTH values ( V > 0 ) should continue to be collected and databased.
 

    While extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof,
    it is also true that extraordinary events demand extraordinary attention!

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