There was a well-reported UFO sighting by at least two airline pilots, as well as passengers, near Guernsey in the Channel Islands a few years ago: link (pic is not of the object in question).
Another link: The Guernsey UFO
Although it hasn’t been completely explained, the most likely explanation seems to be reflections of the sun on the large glasshouses on Guernsey, shining on a layer of atmospheric haze.
Another relevant factor is that in many contexts, the term ‘alien’ is routinely used to suggest that something may possibly have foreign origins. For example, if you look at the ‘work’ of popular UFO enthusiast Tim Good, you’ll see he often gets very excited over official US airforce transcript of pilots referring to ‘aliens’ and so on. He writes such things up as if they constitute proof that we have been visited by beings from another part of space, and that the authorities know it. In fact, all he’s got are transcripts of pilots saying, in effect, ‘Hmm, maybe that thing isn’t American’.
In a forum ostensibly devoted to fighted ignorance, it would be a sweet and beautiful thing if this erroneous assertion could be killed off once and forever. Instead, it seems to crop up in every single discussion of the sceptical approach to weird things. I’m as sceptical as anyone, but I do wish people would stop parroting ‘you can’t prove a negative’. First of all, it just isn’t true, and secondly it hands ammunition on a plate to the opposition. Example:
Conclusion: this figure is not a triangle.
It’s a negative, and I’ve just proved it.
When people say, ‘you can’t prove a negative’, what they mean is that in debates pertaining to whether or not something exists, you cannot point to the absence of evidence as proof that something doesn’t exist. The reason is that ‘absence of evidence’ can always support at least two conclusions if not more: the thing doesn’t exist, or it exists but we just haven’t detected it yet.
A good way to summarise this would be ‘absence of evidence is not evidence of absence’. A bad and inaccurate way would be ‘you can’t prove a negative’.
Though I concur with your well-phrased post, I can quibble with this. It would be more accurate to say ‘absence of evidence is not proof of absence’.
For example, if you look for a certain printed document in someone’s desk and in 30 minutes fail to find it, that is in fact evidence (though not proof) that the document isn’t there.
Yep, fair quibble.
I suppose the version I cited appeals because of the chiasmus.
Also, remember I was referring to questions about whether something exists, not whether something can be found in a given place. When ‘existence’ is the issue, rather than ‘location’, I believe this lends a different complexion to the ‘evidence of absence’ quote. But if you were to suggest to me that this is all rather pointless nit-picking, I would agree most emphatically!