RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
I've witnessed to more people through an interest in UFOs than I have by ambushing random strangers on the street and pumping them for a conversion experience. No, this book does not believe that ET is real. It makes a strong case against it. It ends up being a manual on spiritual warfare.
Samples and Ross cogently argue against any sort of “alien visitors” while acknowledging the reality of eye-witness reports. They are able to maintain this tension by reducing the question from “UFOs” to “residual UFOs” (RUFOs). With this move they are able to move the questions regarding abductees from the scientific realm to the spiritual realm. They are quite successful.
Samples and Ross suggest it might be better to speak of “UFO phenomena” rather than “UFOs.”
1. It is hard to distinguish between UFOs and the phenomena.
2. Paradoxically, in attempting to define a UFO we are defining that which isn’t identified.
3. We can’t do a direct study of a UFO.
4. The meaning of the terms change over time.
Types of UFOs.
Most of the UFO sightings can be explained away. But that still leaves thousands of RUFO (residual UFO) sightings that aren’t so easily explained. Making matters worse, there is still overwhelming evidence against “extraterrestrials.”
The problem with interstellar travel:
Traveling at half the velocity of light, it would take nine years to reach the nearest star. But we aren’t going to the nearest star. We have to find an earth-like one that could support life. That would take at least fifty light years.
The faster you move through space, the more damage debris does to the craft. The slower you move, the longer it takes. That’s the insurmountable problem. If you armor the craft, then you need extra propellant. That makes the craft faster, which means you need more armor, which means you need extra propellant for the extra propellant.
Kenneth Samples does an excellent job outlining the supposed UFO experience, tying in “contactee” accounts with similar accounts by Swedenborg and Blavatsky. Ross and Samples note that the contactee accounts sound almost identical to demonic oppression. They end with a fervent evangelistic appeal.
Those who promote UFOs are almost always following occult literature from Blavatsky onward.
Samples and Ross cogently argue against any sort of “alien visitors” while acknowledging the reality of eye-witness reports. They are able to maintain this tension by reducing the question from “UFOs” to “residual UFOs” (RUFOs). With this move they are able to move the questions regarding abductees from the scientific realm to the spiritual realm. They are quite successful.
Samples and Ross suggest it might be better to speak of “UFO phenomena” rather than “UFOs.”
1. It is hard to distinguish between UFOs and the phenomena.
2. Paradoxically, in attempting to define a UFO we are defining that which isn’t identified.
3. We can’t do a direct study of a UFO.
4. The meaning of the terms change over time.
Types of UFOs.
Most of the UFO sightings can be explained away. But that still leaves thousands of RUFO (residual UFO) sightings that aren’t so easily explained. Making matters worse, there is still overwhelming evidence against “extraterrestrials.”
The problem with interstellar travel:
Traveling at half the velocity of light, it would take nine years to reach the nearest star. But we aren’t going to the nearest star. We have to find an earth-like one that could support life. That would take at least fifty light years.
The faster you move through space, the more damage debris does to the craft. The slower you move, the longer it takes. That’s the insurmountable problem. If you armor the craft, then you need extra propellant. That makes the craft faster, which means you need more armor, which means you need extra propellant for the extra propellant.
Kenneth Samples does an excellent job outlining the supposed UFO experience, tying in “contactee” accounts with similar accounts by Swedenborg and Blavatsky. Ross and Samples note that the contactee accounts sound almost identical to demonic oppression. They end with a fervent evangelistic appeal.
Those who promote UFOs are almost always following occult literature from Blavatsky onward.