Here is a skeptical evaluation of the incident.
Brazil’s Roswell: The Varginha UFO
I especially appreciated this:
“While some say that the Varginha UFO story is the most compelling proof of alien visitation, I come to a different conclusion but I’m still willing to grant it “most compelling” status. It is the most compelling example of a case where literally nothing at all happened that was remotely unusual, and was magnified into a case considered unassailable proof of alien visitation by many. To those believers, I would suggest recalibrating where you set the bar for quality of evidence.”
Although I’m skeptical that there is intelligent life in the universe, I’m not adverse to the possibility. However, up until now I’ve seen no proof. We do have eyewitness accounts, which as we all know, are not necessarily reliable. People can and do testify to all sorts of things that they claim happened to them personally or that they saw.
I liked the sci fi episode where earth people finally realized that the aliens were in fact people of earth from the future who had discovered how to time travel and had changed in form compared to the standard earth person
And were trying to warn the standard earth person not to make the mistakes that led to war and other sufferings that they had experienced
So they were not space aliens but time aliens.
Robert
You’re able to read allegory into Josephus, Steefen, but you cannot perceive the gist of your own contempoaries’ remarks?
Steefen
I’m perceptive which means I perceive the remarks of others. People get answers wrong. People go to school, take classes and exams. Sometimes people get answers right, sometimes people get answers wrong.
Robert
You believe in many things, Steefen, that the rest of us do not.
Steefen
I know things that others do not know.
Some of these things are facts.
Some of these things are arrived at through reasoning. That’s why undergraduates take Philosophy/logic/reasoning classes, Speech classes, Writing classes.
Robert
That’s OK. People believe in whatever they want to believe in.
Steefen
That’s part of the reason we have the results we have in culture through voting.
Some candidates win. Some candidates lose.
Robert
That’s one of the things that makes discussions interesting.
Steefen
Discussions can be used for the search for truth, sometimes they cannot. At some point its about the individual rather than the search for the best available knowledge.
Robert
There used to be a follower of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon on this forum. We could respect his right to his own beliefs without sharing them.
Steefen
Some diversity is not harmful. Some diversity is.
Robert
I can remember when you used to complain that others did not share your attempts to find meaning in Christianity,
Steefen
That’s right and when I wrote my journey in Historical Accuracy, people can follow my journey.
Robert
despite the fact that you did not believe in the historicity of the person of Jesus of Nazareth, crucified by Pontius Pilate.
Steefen
There is meaning in the first part of Jesus’ ministry.
It’s not important from where Jesus came, Nazareth or fiction.
Were the people being too literal and missing the point? The synoptic gospels contain examples where Jesus’ point about having integrity beyond the letter of the law to the humanity that is required to love thy neighbor.
Robert
Now you want to move on.
Steefen
Yes.
Robert
Beliefs change sometimes. Yet you still believe in many things that others do not.
Steefen
I have my lessons in being an editor in journalism.
Being a former newspaper editor, one has to be patient for a wide variety articles to consider for publication.
There are many things I will consider that people who are not or have not been editors would consider.
Second, I’ve had debates and have judged debates. There are things I’ve had to consider in that endeavor as well that others would not.
Robert
If you aren’t able to change they’re minds, that doesn’t make them adversaries.
Steefen
Shared knowledge and values. Culture. Society. Belongingness. Togetherness.
Robert
Yet you feel insulted and disrespected.
Steefen
Families have the wisdom of the elderly.
If we cannot come to agreement, someone is insulted and disrespected and the other person will have to learn via another method.
Reject the elders, disrespect them, insult them, experience the harm of their warnings.
Robert
Live and let live. Relax. Enjoy the show.
Steefen
No. The elders also loved those who became dysfunctional.
Many students go through learning journeys without turning against the wise teachers.
Some do not.
Goodbye.
It is the most compelling example of a case where literally nothing at all happened that was remotely unusual, and was magnified into a case considered unassailable proof of alien visitation by many.
This account reminds me of the so-called “miracle of the Sun” at Fatima. Three young children supposedly had a vision of the Virgin Mary, who predicted an upcoming miraculous event. A crowd of between thirty and one hundred thousand people gathered and witnessed the sun change colors, spin, and even appear to fall towards the earth. A famous appearance of the BVM in Catholic folklore.
However…if you actually go back and look at contemporary accounts, only one of the children actually claimed to have seen the BVM. Newspapers reported that thousands who were present saw absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. like Woodstock, the size of the crowd and the number of people who were witnesses got bigger every year.
There is a psychological mechanism described as conformity bias where members of a group who share an experience shape their stories to reflect the views of the majority. It can even affect personal memory. When one source is considered credible or authoritative and begins to present a consistent version of events, individuals alter their own recollection to match, smoothing out contradictions and discrepancies in the narrative.
Steefen asked,
Were the people being too literal and missing the point?
Yes you were.
Goodbye.
Are you really leaving us? I will miss your contribution whether you believe it or not. But I am doubtful. What other forum is going to provide you with such a platform to start threads and post thousands of comments over the length of time you have done here?
Do you want to know why I enjoy your content, Steefen? You provide me with a point of view that is sure and certain which I consider completely divorced from reality. But I don’t condemn you because you disagree with me! Far from it. I ask myself, “What cherished opinions do I possess that are similarly divorced”? You remind me that the senses both accept signals and screen them out. Your point of view is different from mine and therefore useful. (To always be surrounded by others who agree is to be blind.)
Don’t go. But if you must, for god’s sake will you take Colin with you?
ps Was Gillian Anderson ever that young? Was I? I moved to Wash Dc from Atlanta before the X-Files series ended and afterwards lived the TV-free life so I have no idea how the show ended. I’m not sure I really want to know. Looking back the stand-alone episodes were the best. The UFO “mythology”, with its focus on abductions and conspiracies, became rather tiresome. Like the “real” thing.
The thing that makes the miracle of the sun hard to dismiss out of hand is the report of Avelino de Almeida (an atheist, who had previously mocked the apparitions in his articles) who was present and covered the event for O Seculo.
I once tracked the article down, and, as I recall, he did seem to describe something very strange happening, and not just in mockery.
But my memory is weak and finding the original is not trivial.
For anyone interested, ** you do not have permission to see this link ** a translation of an excerpt from de Almeida’s account.
** you do not have permission to see this link ** Wikipedia article has some possible explanations for what occurred.
Professor Auguste Meessen of the Catholic University of Louvain has ** you do not have permission to see this link ** on it.
Comment 68 from Stephen
The IPM report even successfully identified the creature seen by the three young women. The place where the creature was spotted was the home of Luiz Antônio de Paula, about 30 years old and intellectually disabled, who lived there with his parents and family. As de Paula was nonverbal, locals had nicknamed him Mudinho, which means “little mute.” Mudinho was known to the neighbors to spend his time crouching and examining small objects he found, like cigarette butts and sticks. There are photographs of him floating around the Portuguese language Internet — very skinny, hunched over, squatting as he studies a twig, and apparently wearing a diaper. At last report, Mudinho still lives there to this day, and still continues his favorite activity. The lead author of the IPM report, Lt. Col. Lúcio Carlos Pereira, wrote:
The more probable hypothesis is that this citizen, probably dirty due to the rains and crouching next to a wall, was mistaken by three terrified girls for a ‘space creature’.
– Brian Dunning author of the artical Stephen shared: Brazil’s Roswell: The Varginha UFO
Steefen
The image of the alien does not look like a human being.
The thing that makes the miracle of the sun hard to dismiss out of hand…
I don’t deny that people have religious visions (I have) or that people see UFOs (I have). What I question are their interpretations of these events.
Writing about Fatima reminded me of my own brief encounter with the apparition of the BMV.
** you do not have permission to see this link **
Conyers was only about 25 miles away so I managed to talk a couple of my friends into driving over one day to hang out. The whole thing fascinated me. It fascinates me still. I didn’t expect to see anything; I didn’t. But it provided a glimpse into another world. A world you might think died a thousand years ago but is with us still. The reactions of my friends was interesting. One grew up Catholic. She went through the experience unfazed. My other friend grew up Baptist like me. Not particularly pious, he was nevertheless visibly nervous. He had been taught like me that RCs were idolaters and some of the public “art” by the crowds seemed to freak him out. I think he expected demons to attack at any moment. I’m not sure what I expected. A vision? Not really. I was attracted to the energy, the “vibe”, to use the old Hippy term. One thing I did come to realize. Faith is simply not enough. People need to see things, to hold things in their hands.
Steefen, welcome back!
As a dedicated Seeker after Truth I’m sure you had the same response to the Lake Baikal video as me. Where are those “Russian Reports”? The video showed someone skimming through heavily redacted documents. (I tried pausing the video but because of the focus it is hard to read anything but the big red секретно stamp.) And the commentators got their info somewhere. Of course the writing is in Russian but fortunately I can read Russian! секретно (sekretno) is primarily used as an adverb but it does have an adjectival form in phrases like “Это секретно” (This is classified/secret). The ever efficient clerical mind simply drops the demonstrative and the linking verb. So from your own no doubt extensive personal investigation of the claims in this video can you tell me where to find these reports? I would dearly love to read them myself.
Robert
Some of the things you claim to know seem rather bizarre and incredible and are based on other people’s testimony. For example:, I just watched the first video you posted above.
Steefen
I shared a video from Redacted.
Robert
I just watched this YouTube video you posted of the interview of Niara Terela Isley and started watching the second one. Do you really believe that she is credible source? Why do you find her story credible? She recovered these traumatic memories through hypnosis–isn’t that a very suggestible process?
Steefen
I remember her saying she was a sex object. Without going into trauma of that statement. I think it is credible that she was used in that capacity.
Second, I remember her saying she was sharing information with the interviewer about her time in the military.
I remember her saying she worked with aliens. If you say she said an alien or a reptilian piloted the ship, you watched the video more recently than I have. A reptilian piloting the ship is not as important to me as 1) she was the sexual entertainment and that entertainment, in the experience, was traumatic and 2) although she liked archaeological work, she worked alongside aliens.
Have people made bizarre and incredible claims? Yes. After not requiring Abraham to kill/sacrifice his son, God sacrificed his son.
The Synoptic gospels have no account of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead but the Gospel of John recounts it. The Synoptic gospels have no account of Jesus being one of the Creators, the Logos but the Gospel of John recount Jesus being a pre-existent Creator fulfilling the function of Logos.
The Gospel of John was written between 90 and 100 CE.
If John was 20 when Jesus had the Last Supper, John would have written his gospel at the age of 60 to 70.
100 -30 = 70 years later
90 – 30 = 60 years later
The author could be anonymous.
The author has a developed understanding of Jesus’ divinity.
Jesus said, “Before Abraham, I am.”
Jesus was the Messiah/Savior after Rome put down the Jewish Revolt and put down Temple Judaism. That’s bizarre and incredible.
Jesus did nothing to stop the horrible events of the Jewish Revolt? He didn’t stop a mother from cannibalizing her son?
Not only does God sacrifice his son, a mother named Mary eats her son (half of her son and offer the other half. Jesus and his Heavenly Father let that happen. Just as Jesus and his disciples did not stop Judas, God and the pre-existing and existing Jesus did not stop the rebels attack the Romans, then the politics erupted in The Jewish Civil War. The God of Temple Judaism let his Son get crucified and let his Temple be misused by rebels and let his Temple be destroyed. In the Bible, Mary, mother of Jesus said God is her Savior. God didn’t maintain his religion of Temple Judaism. Isn’t that incredible and bizarre?
I agree. I didn’t know he had so many books.
Here is the one to which I made a reference:
USO: Unidentified Submarine Object
The video, I thought told of two incidents: 1) with the six submarines-spaceships and 2) the Russian researchers who were on a diving expedition and discovered the aliens underwater. One of them tried to capture an alien which resulted with all of the researches being forced to the surface, too quickly, resulting in the bends.
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Patrick Gunn is certainly prolific.
Jeepers, no kidding. All around 150 pages or less and published since January. What tells me these are probably collections of social media posts?
Looking at the table of contents of The Lake Baikal USO Incident I note that fully 1/3rd of the book is about the environmental characteristics of Lake Baikal, 1/3rd surveys the entire USO phenomenon such as it is, and a 3rd describes the incidents in this particular case. The chapter entitled ‘Declassified Documents and Evidence’ is four, count’em four pages. No appendix.
Lest Steefen think I’m giving this account short shrift, I did a bit of online research myself. Nothing but hearsay. I even went to the CIA site (yes you can do that).
** you do not have permission to see this link **
ничего!
One does have to wonder how it is possible to put together 184 in such a short span.
One reviewer suggests a possible answer in their extremely succinct review of The Maury Island Incident (1947): “AI Slop.”
I’m not saying this is what was done, but I did a little experiment:
“I can absolutely expand this into a full-length book—think 40,000 to 60,000 words or more—depending on how deep you’d like to go.”
I won’t bore you with the details, but here’s the first paragraph of the intro:
“The year was 1947. The world had just emerged from the most devastating conflict in human history. World War II had left behind a trail of destruction, but also ushered in a new era of technological advancement, geopolitical tension, and existential uncertainty. The United States, victorious yet wary, stood at the precipice of the Cold War. The atomic age had begun, and with it came a new kind of fear—one that looked not just across borders, but up into the sky.”
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