Is Absence of Evidence, Evidence of Absence?

April 17, 2020April 21, 2020 MaryS 0 Comments accounts, disclosure, evidence, reports, witness

If You Have Never Seen a UFO

No one that you know has witnessed a UFO. The concept is too far “out there” to give it much thought.

You have not witnessed a UFO.

You might have to look long and hard throughout your own life to find even any interest in the idea of intelligent life in the universe. Perhaps all you see in your past is some mild curiosity or fond interest in science fiction at a young age.

Even there, you see the witness to a phenomenon, at least, in the human consciousness: the possibility of competition among races in the universe and an alien intelligence interfering in our world.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

If you yourself have not witnessed an anomalous event (like craft operating in maneuvers not possible according to the limits of science as now understood), there is an absence of evidence to your own personal, eyewitness perspective.

When absence of evidence is a matter of limited perspective

If there are other eyewitness observers making claims about evidence, you can only disqualify those other perspectives to maintain a claim to an absence of evidence. Qualifying the other eyes, then, is the case that must be made for anecdotal evidence.

Individual perspective limited, selective–ever involving some denial and compartmentalization

Any narrative you endorse–and it is necessary to endorse a perspective, in order to have a “jumpoing off point”–is as if to “choose your own adventure” in creating a platform to accommodate the unexplained phenomena.

Endorsing a point of view regarding intelligent life in the universe will require, along the way, a thorough review of all indications–all evidences–even spurious or fictional evidence of the unexplained phenomena, to ensure that we do not ignore, minimize or ridicule all conscious awareness of anomalous phenomena.

Other Reliable Witnesses

Do your own research and you will find all kinds of respectable people speaking openly, on respectable platforms, of sightings or at least the very idea of extraterrestrial intelligence and its presence here on Earth.

Military pilots–trained, practiced–making highly credible reports of sightings.
Academics in good standing among their peers.
Recognized and respected politicians.
Ordinary people with stories of abduction and contact.
Pre-eminent news sources, dedicated journalists.
Some kooks and pretenders, some delusional

And Fantasy

Whence come imaginary accounts? Is there any basis at all for the presence of aliens in human stories?

How long have aliens been present in human stories and legends–are they seen in pre-historic records?

When Evidence Is Absent Because Suppressed

Perhaps there are people you know who have seen things they can’t explain. Are you the kind of person they can talk about these things with?

Or has the subject been sufficiently ridiculed beyond mention? Does this not represent an erasure, an absence of a presence, nothing where there should be something? What we don’t talk about–here is evidence of absence, a topic avoided, for fear of breaking the taboo of ridicule.

Ask within yourself whether the human encounter with life in the universe feels like a suppressed memory in your own consciousness. Wait to hear within any mental associations or connections to the idea of intelligent life in the universe, any curiosity or question left unanswered.

Evidence Ignored Because Incomprehensible, Beyond Human Scope of Understanding

“If I hide my eyes, I’m invisible.”

“If I think positive, all will be well.”

“No fear.”

It is hubris, or naiveté, to think as long as you do not look that you are not seen. What we don’t know could hurt us in ways and by means unimaginable.

Demanding Disclosure for Evidence in Plain View

Every person alive today has grown up with the consciousness of being among the first generation to contemplate space exploration.

For those with eyes to see, disclosure has already occurred. Disclosure will occur gradually, as the aperture of human awareness opens to the light of the reality and nature of competition in the universe.

“These things can only be known.”

Certainty about the great unknown comes through training in discernment–the art of recognizing what you don’t know.

One technique: learn whom to trust. If you cannot know anything beyond your own experience, know who speaks the truth, whose testimony is reliable, how to evaluate sources you trust the most, the most carefully “vetted” for reliability.

The Shock of the New

The consciousness of not being the most advanced species in the universe is one difficult threshold to acknowledge, accept and adapt into the sphere of our understanding of the universe.

The existence of the concept of alien intelligence is evidence enough of the need to evaluate every hint, every scrap or thread and limit of understanding to approach the magnitude of what we don’t know that could indeed be detrimental to us.