I respect that we have a differing point of view, but I refrain from calling those who deny the phenomenon "hilariously uninformed" but rather of a different point of view based on a different set of knowledge and conclusions.
Would you join me in working towards a somewhat neutral or even positive comment environment?
That's a good point, thinking of it I'm a bit surprised he doesn't go into the possibility of more people stepping forward - I have the impression at least the rumors of more whistleblowers is commonly known in the UFO community.
the Wandjina site
That's pretty interesting. While depictions like that might be too abstract to give us an accurate depiction, I think it might show us some of the general visual impressions the artist was left with. But after what? Meeting aliens or tripping on shrooms in front of a camp fire after listening to stories about spirits?
When there's echoes in history like you mention about the Ariel School episode, I think it's worth looking in to, or at least be aware of. I've heard about the encounter, but not in relation to any ancient stuff.
That's a great example. I've seen it before but forgot how detailed it was and how many saw it.
There’s a surprisingly good chance that the whole aliens thing is a phantom in the human gestalt
Absolutely. And it doesn't even have to be a social phenomenon, I'm not dismissive of social engineering as cover ups for i.e. hyperadvanced but very human military technology.
There's a long line of explanations based mostly in the knowledge or superstition of the time, revised with every new bit of knowledge or commonly accepted superstition. My conclusions might very well be a product of this.
I'd still argue there's a difference in the approach of "modern" historians, investigators and the likes. Where we used to have a belief, confirmed by observable phenomenons, we (or at least more than before) now have a lack of belief with our worldview built upon observable phenomenons and verification through reproducibility.
Yet we're in the intersection between the differing worldviews; I think those who hold the possibility of extraterrestrial, intelligent origins for unknown phenomenons are closer to the truth than those who know it's aliens.
There's still a lot of superstition in modern Ufology.
There’s reasonable evidence that they are descriptions of known phenomenon
From the descriptions of the vimanas of ancient India to the depictions of celestial crafts in meso-america, I'd argue there are quite a lot of material that falls outside of "reasonably explained". I'll even argue that disputes over the original function or intention of ancient objects are not uncommon, even outside the "potential alien stuff" category.
I'm also a bit surprised you put both UFO's and angels/demons in the same category. Would you not agree that there's a lot of evidence accepted by modern science for UFO's, not so much for angels and demons?
A very powerful cross-standpoint argument I've not really considered since it's not my tax dollars.