UFOs and Other Improbable Things

Humans in general seem to have a very stubborn skeptical streak that is often taken to an extreme.  I am not just talking about UFOs.  I am talking about a large range of "supernatural" claims for which there is significant supporting evidence.  I am also talking about scientific claims sometimes even backed with fairly strong evidence.  Humans like to reject anything that seems improbable, despite whatever evidence exists.  Ironically, this extends to religion, but it can go both ways.

First I want to discuss UFOs.  Personally, I am a skeptic, but I am not a militant skeptic who gets verbally abusive when people think differently.  Several years ago, I watched a show on Discovery about UFO sighting and ancient evidence of alien visitors.  It changed my perspective entirely.  Now, I am not saying I suddenly believe in all of the alien visitor theories or anything, but I certainly don't think that everyone involved is crazy.  The thing is, there are a lot of people who claim to have observed alien activity.  These are not just run-of-the-mill crazies either.  There are astronauts, scientists, politicians, and military leaders who claim to have observed evidence.  Further, there are incidents on public record that not only have no explanation, but the records also state that those present claimed to have observed alien presence.  These incidents are not only on US records either.  There are recorded incidents from a range of countries, some of which had limited contact with other countries at the time.  The number and consistency of the claims is staggering.  Further, there is potential evidence of records of alien visits from a rather large number of ancient societies, again, with an amazing level of consistency.  The consistency of the records and various evidence is far greater than even the consistency among world religions over time and distance.  In short, the evidence supporting the theory that aliens have visited the Earth in the past, and may still be visiting regularly, is many times stronger than the evidence supporting the existence of Jesus Christ.

There are plenty of other "supernatural" theories that most people summarily dismiss without ever considering supporting evidence and lack of opposing evidence.  Alternative medicine is largely dismissed because of lack of evidence that it works, but because no one has seriously tested it, the lack of evidence is practically meaningless.  There is equally little evidence that it does not work.  Bigfoot has still not been disproved, largely because everyone searching wants to believe.  Without unbelievers getting involved, because they thing the whole thing is crazy, we cannot have evidence against it.  Things that are not supernatural are subject to this problem as well.  Many people don't believe that global warming is even real, despite some pretty solid evidence, largely because they don't want to believe.  They cannot see the rising temperatures with their own eyes, so they call those who believe crazy.  People seem to dismiss inconvenient ideas regardless of evidence, when the perceived probability is low.

Religion is affected by this problem as well.  Over the last several millenia, humans have used religion to explain things that they could not otherwise explain.  They attributed things they could not control to God, and sometimes they attributed things that were inconvenient for them to control to God.  Now, it is getting more common for people to summarily dismiss the idea of religion, despite claims from many civilizations that, while less consistent than alien theories, still have many common threads.  It is not unreasonable to be skeptical of religion and even to disbelieve in God, but it is completely unreasonable to deny any possibility that God could exist.  The supporting evidence for religion may be weak, but the opposing evidence does not exist at all!

The point of all of this is that believing the evidence supporting alien visitors is more rational than believing that all of the believers are crazy people.  There is no call for insulting people who are basing their beliefs on actual evidence, especially when you have no evidence that they are wrong.  And, if you are religious, consider that the evidence supporting alien visitors is far stronger than the evidence supporting your religion.  Personally, I remain skeptical, but I am not so deluded as to assume that anyone who believes differently is crazy.