MARK L. BAKKE'S
Night Owl Mk. II




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REPLY #1 TO
"UFOS"



Boldfaced statements are parts of the original essay (or a subsequent reply) to which the respondent has directed his comments.

Italicized/emphasized comments prefaced by (R) are those of the respondent and are presented unedited.

My replies appear under the respondent's comments in blue text and are prefaced by my initials (MB).

(R) My good man, of course flying saucers exist. They have been witnessed by men for as long as there have been men on earth.
(MB) Men have been "witnessing" all make and manner of things, both known and unknown, ever since they first picked up a rock. Improvements in our knowledge dispense with or successfully explain most of it. The rest is likely to be pure nonsense.


(R) You go back 4000 years and they were never called UFO's they would have been known as IFO's "identified flying objects" and men would have known that these craft were being flown by the gods.
(MB) Too bad there's no record of these "IFOs" to help us poor, modern-day slobs understand them better.


(R) It has only been since the gods chose to leave earth that man has had so much trouble dealing with such things as UFO's etc.
(MB) We would have no trouble dealing with such things today if one actually appeared. We *want* to believe that they exist. It is profoundly disappointing that no evidence for them has yet been uncovered.


(R) Although the gods left you and I can both be assured they will be returning. By their time-scale they have been gone about six or seven months.
(MB) Which "gods" are these? How do you know about this time scale with such certainty?


(R) You really do need to do more investigating you know, I don't know your age but I remember being exactly at your level of understanding when I was 15.
(MB) As of this writing, I am 40. So, what happened to decrease your level of understanding since you turned 15? ;-)


(R) It doesn't matter what age you achieve before you attain certain understandings but it is important that you continue to search until you do achieve that level.
(MB) It is always important to continue the search for understanding. It is also important that one doesn't lose his grip on reality in the midst of his search.


(R) I get the impression you are sort of stuck at the intellectual-acceptable science level and believe me the scientists have a long way to go.
(MB) Or, so goes the mantra of the New Age crowd, the Bible thumpers, the paranormalists, the metaphysicists, and the other intellectual snake-oil salesmen. While all ideas are welcome, they must have some sort of evidential support in order to be taken seriously. Most of the aforementioned nonsense fails that test rather miserably.


(R) You know old Ben Franklin was a firm believer in reincarnation at the age of 22. He was asked again at the age of 79 if he had altered his views and he had not. But then we can't all be Ben Franklins can we?
(MB) There was, needless to say, much more to Ben Franklin than an unsupportable belief in reincarnation.



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