Friday, February 4, 2011

The Jerusalem UFO: A Hoax or a Warning to Humans from the ETs?


The world is even more abuzz with the Jerusalem UFO sightings than the mass Washington, DC sightings of 1952. The skeptics are also having a hard time dismissing the sightings because so many have made them including using high tech video cameras. See e.g.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Xb9JoGyy98

That the object or Light hovered over the Dome of the Rock may be even more significant since this site represents a confluence of three major competing religious influences in a city that’s been torn by religious discord ever since the Romans occupied it.

At one point, in the video , one hears an American woman who validates the rarity of the experience in a thick Southern accent:

"We've seen 'em in Mississippi like this, but never like … never like this."


She is likely referring to sightings that occurred in her state, near Gulfport, some 20 years ago, and around the same time as the famous Gulf Breeze sightings in Florida.

On cursory inspection the videos look all too real and mayhap advanced ETs are trying to send us a message to act right. Or are they? What we do know are:

Videos 1 and 2 were allegedly submitted by two people standing near each other on a hill on the other side of Jerusalem. The authenticity of these two videos is undetermined.

Video 3 is a PROVEN HOAX. It is crude CGI over a Background still image of the Dome of the Rock. The background image was taken from a pre-existing image on a Wikipedia page. It is fake, period.

Video 4 was allegedly taken from a vantage point near the Dome. If it is CGI, it is craftily executed, as it shows the environment around the UFO being affected by its light. The authenticity of this video is undetermined

The authenticity of the event could be determined by contacting stores with security cameras in the area of the flash. If their security cameras recorded the flash at that moment, the videos are real

Of course we can always apply the David Hume test for a “miracle” or in this case the ET test: "No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to establish."

For example, which is more likely applied to the alleged biblical miracle of Jesus walking on water:

1) That he actually walked on the water, or

2) The the Hebrew word 'al' (meaning 'by') was mistranslated to mean 'on'. Simple error but makes a world of difference, from "walking by the water" to "walking on the water".

From the Hume test, (2) is more likely.


Now, which is more likely then for the Jerusalem UFO:

1) That a group of people got together for the purpose of creating a hoax for internet consumption and web attention (and have many people fooled because it's not apparent how they created the hoax)

OR


2)Advanced aliens from a distant solar system, with technology far in advance of our own have elected to make themselves known by dispatching a holographic light or object to hover over the Dome of the Rock.

Well, on the face of it (1) would appear to be more likely - but don't forget that there are many assumptions afoot, including the assumption that a real UFO sighting is literally almost impossible.

However, one would do well to apply the further test (for the unreasonable skeptic for skepticism's sake or doctrinniare) invented by the great cosmologist E.A. Milne. One takes any given proposition and assesses its probability like a bead sliding along a wire:

0)-------x (b)-------------(1

The bead (b)can be moved anywhere between 0 (zero probability) and 1 (certainty) but as Milne observed, the true rationalist and scientist never allows his bead to be precisely at either. Maybe very close, but not exactly at either.

If both 0 and 1 are therefore ruled out it means that whether we like it or not the Jerusalem sighting must be classified as a "UFO" by Prof. J. Allen Hynek's definition:

"A UFO is the reported perception of an object or light seen in the sky, the appearance, trajectory and general dynamic behavior of which do not suggest a logical, conventional explanation and which is not only mystifying to the original percipients but remains unidentified, after close scrutiny of all available evidence by persons who are technically capable of making a common sense identification, if one were possible.”

A common misperception is that UFOs are “flying saucers” or space ships. However, this is actually only one possible hypothesis among several. The main thrust of Hynek's definition is one must not automatically jump to any conclusion that conflates the UFO with an extraterrestrial craft.

Until ALL the Jerusalem sightings-videos are either proven to be hoaxes (suspicion isn't enough) or proven real- authenticated as extraterrestrial, it must be regarded as a UFO.

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