Instigator / Pro
User_2006's avatar
4
User_2006
1470
rating
50
debates
40.0%
won
Topic
#1982

UFOs exist

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
0
6
Better sources
0
4
Better legibility
2
2
Better conduct
2
2

After 2 votes and with 10 points ahead, the winner is...

nmvarco
Tags
Society
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
2
Time for argument
Two days
Max argument characters
10,000
Voting period
One week
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
nmvarco's avatar
14
nmvarco
1536
rating
19
debates
55.26%
won
Description

UFO has a defined definition: An unidentified flying object.

Round 1
User_2006's avatar
User_2006
Pro
#1
This debate is similar to the other one. However, I am arguing in a plane(pun intended) more inclined to the present.

The most present "evidence" of a UFO is of the Pentagon Release of 2020. Video link below.


Since the term, UFO is synonymous with Extraterrestrial flying saucers such as the artwork depicted here, and I don't want to deduct debate points by manipulating definitions and playing with semantics and completely ignoring the pragmatic sense of this term, I will not only argue that UFOs exist, but extraterrestrial spacecraft exist as well.

This evidence already justifies my claim in a semantic sense, as there is something flying in the air and we don't know what that is(hence UNIDENTIFIED). If it is identified in any sense, it is identified as a UFO, which also supports my claim. However, pragmatically, I am not done yet.

This cannot be proven to be made in any place on Earth, so it is "extraterrestrial". I know the possibility that it could be made by some Russian agency, but come on, it is impossible to prove as even if Russia made it, it is a top-secret project. Russia would not admit that these things are made by them, nor any other nation will. That is enough evidence that this thing is not made on Earth. You could say that the government is incorrect and that it is made on Earth, however how are you going to prove it? If you fail to prove that this thing is made on earth, then it is an ET UFO. Neither of us has evidence yet, but it is to be agreed upon that this thing is unidentified and it is flying. 

So we got:
1. These aircraft are not identified
2. These aircraft are claimed to be extraterrestrial
3. My claim is justified.

Keep in mind, I don't need to prove why some UFOs are from outer space because anything that is flying and no one knows what that is count as a UFO. I would like for my opponent to refute all my points:

1. Some aircraft cannot be made on Earth
2. These aircraft are not identified by anyone

nmvarco's avatar
nmvarco
Con
#2
PRO= User_2006 = UFOs exist
CON = nmvarco = UFOs do not exist
R# = Round #
A# = Argument #

R1: UFOs EXIST
  • OBJECTION: Ambiguous thesis. PRO’s thesis sentence is poorly constructed and does not seem to fully describe the debate. PRO’s R1 argument claimed that these aircraft are extraterrestrial in addition to being unidentified. PRO’s R1 argument claimed that these aircraft could not be produced by any government agency. CON offers the following reframe of thesis:
  • EXTRATERRESTRIAL UFOs not CREATED by any GOVERNMENTAL AGENCY EXIST

R1: Definitions
a UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT [UFO] is “a mysterious object seen in the sky for which, it is claimed, no orthodox scientific explanation can be found.” [1]
  • OBJECTION: This definition is not applicable to the debate. PRO’s R1 argument claimed that these aircraft are extraterrestrial in addition to being unidentified. PRO’s R1 argument also claimed that these aircraft could not be produced by any government agency. CON offers the following reframe of definition:
  • a UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT [UFO] is “a mysterious extraterrestrial object not produced by any governmental agency seen in the sky for which, it is claimed, no orthodox scientific explanation can be found.”
to EXIST is to “have objective reality or being.” [2]

GOVERNMENTAL describes something “related to or denoting the government of a country or state.” [3]

an AGENCY is “[often with adjective or noun modifier, in this case GOVERNMENTAL] a business or organization established to provide a particular service.” [4]

EXTRATERRESTRIAL [adj] describes something “of or from outside the earth or its atmosphere.” [5]


R1: Opening Statements
I thank PRO for a productive and civilized debate so far. Yet, I have an objection.

BURDEN of PROOF
PRO has not specified the BoP, so it is assumed that the BoP is shared.
  • OBJECTION: BoP should be on PRO. Before the Roswell and Mount Rainier incidents in the 1940s, it was status quo that UFOs did not exist. To this day, large doubt is cast upon claims of UFOs, and numerous stories and pieces of footage have been debunked as false. Making a claim that extraterrestrials have interacted with us is quite extraordinary, and should be backed up with adequate information. Therefore:
  • BoP is on PRO

R1: A1
There is no evidence for existence of extraterrestrial life that is capable of building spacecraft. 
  • No planets have been found to have evidence of extraterrestrial life.
  • No one has ever seen an extraterrestrial.
  • No one has ever seen a UFO.
  • People have claimed to see extraterrestrials and UFOs, but these claims have been debunked as false [6][7][8].

R1: A2
The assumption that no governmental agency could have created such a spacecraft is not backed up.
  • The SR-71, which currently holds the record for fastest aircraft, was designed in secrecy in the 1950s [9], and was only unveiled to the public almost ten years later in 1964 [10].
  • The SR-72 [11], a aircraft currently being developed by Lockheed Martin, has been kept relatively secretive and not a whole lot is known about its development or testing.
  • There are many other unknowns relating to aircraft development by governments around the world, especially secretive ones, like China or Russia, and any of these spacecraft could be the ones being labeled “UFOs.”

R1: A3
Objects that are labeled UFOs usually end up not being UFOs at all.
  • The supposed Roswell UFO was a weather balloon [12].
  • The supposed Tehran UFO was a couple of inexperienced pilots chasing “celestial bodies” (there was a meteor shower at the time) and one of them had a radio failure, a common incident in aircraft [13].
  • The supposed Mantell UFO was a secret weather balloon that ended up being chased by a pilot who was not aware of the secrecy and who blacked out of oxygen at high altitude [14].
  • The supposed Phoenix UFO was a series of flares dropped by an A-10 Warthog [15].
  • These are just a few sighting that have been debunked out of the thousands [6].

R1: Closing Statements
There are too many unknowns about these craft to claim that they are extraterrestrial. The number of possible objects they could be is countless and there is no evidence extraterrestrials exist or have the technology to build such craft.


R1: Sources
[8] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_reported_UFO_sightings (NOTE: This source is meant to show UFO sightings as a timeline and then individually unwrap them, with most being revealed as false or atmospheric happenings.)

CON passes the talking feather to PRO.
Round 2
User_2006's avatar
User_2006
Pro
#3
Using the same strategy, I can say the following:

Con R1: UFO's cannot be created by governmental agencies
  • Objection: Truth observed by humans are subjective and varies. People see things from their eyes, listen with their ears, etc. They don't get firsthand information from thinking, and what they see is not firsthand information.
  • Contention: Nothing is identified until it is. Taking a picture of something floating in the sky and you try really hard to identify it, then it is the ISS. the ISS is not a UFO, of course. However, this picture does not include the ISS until the user(or someone else that did works such verifying and identifying this thing) knows that this is the ISS. The picture contains only pixels of simple colors until someone could piece out info from these pixels, because to something that has printed and stored these things digitally, such as a computer, an image of an ancient skull, an image of a sexy girl sitting, and an image of television static means the same to the computer, except the colors are in a different order. To our human eyes, we can easily see the differences between these 3 photos and it can be of different values because of our interpretation. To our subjective information and interpretation, the ISS is not identified until it was. Our subjectivity is within our belief: 2000 years ago it was God casting earthquakes, and now it was a geological phenomenon that caused such things.
  • Conclusion: Since no governmental agencies have accepted to have the reputation of making this thing, it means that in our perspective, The object did not come from the earth. The fact it has not been explained by modern science would mean that this thing still keeps its UFO status. When it has been discovered that it was made on Earth, or that it has been explained using modern science phenomena, it will not be a UFO anymore. However, based on the new video about the Pentagon UFO[1], neither has it been discovered at being on Earth, nor was it explained by modern phenomena. I give my opponent 2 days to prove at least one of these:
    • The object is made on Earth and you have to prove what model is it, because if you can't, it will be deemed not made from earth, thus extraterrestrial.
    • The object can be explained. Unless you are a professional physicist, you are most likely not going to explain it.
    • The object is fabricated and edited. This is how you prove why the UFO does not exist. 
  • Conclusion: I don't have the burden of proof consider everything that cannot be explained using human knowledge and is an object flyin' around the sky is considered a UFO. 
Con R1: There is no sign for life that could support UFO
  • That is why it is a UFO. If such life exists, then an explanation is inevitable, causing the object not to be a UFO at all, when after discovered so. 
  • Conclusion: A lack of evidence on extraterrestrial life doesn't disprove the existence of UFOs, consider they could easily manipulate wormholes, and they certainly could use techniques that are unimaginable by the human brain, just like the animals didn't expect humans would burn down their dwelling locations. 
  • Such techniques can include wormholes[2], time travel[3], and other techniques. 
Pro Closing: 
  • Everything that cannot be proven to be made on earth and can fly in a non-orthodox method is an extraterrestrial UFO, based on the definition itself.
  • The lack of existence of found extraterrestrial life does not disprove UFOs, consider they, if not discovered to be made on Earth, are still UFOs. 
Pro Sources:
[3]ibid

Pro passes the talking feather to Con and wishes him good luck on the final argument.

nmvarco's avatar
nmvarco
Con
#4
Counter 1: UFOs cannot be created by governmental agencies
  • The ISS Example: If things aren’t identified until they are and there are so many unknowns, then wouldn’t it be a reasonable guess to assume that the dot you saw in the sky was human-made? I fail to see how we go from, as PRO put it, “pixels on a screen” to UFO. Using my argument from before, which PRO has not and will not rebut, no one has ever seen an UFO, so it would be safe to assume that the thing in the sky is a UFO, as one single isolated strange event does not ensure the existence of a UFO.
  • PRO has not rebutted my point that a governmental agency could have made this craft, and jumped to the conclusion that no agency has a “reputation” for making things like it.
  • PRO has shifted his definition of a UFO from an extraterrestrial, non human-made craft to something that has not been explained by “modern science.” This seems to show that PRO has tried his hand at the semantics argument, which states that “because we don’t know what it is it’s a UFO.”
  • I don’t have to tell PRO what model it is, where it was made, how to explain it, etc. The burden of proof is on him for taking an isolated event (yet so far, as PRO has only sourced the Pentagon video) and jumping to the conclusion it is a UFO.
  • PRO has not rebutted my point that many UFO claims have been debunked.
  • PRO has not rebutted my point that objects in the sky which have been reported to be UFOs end up being planes or weather balloons.
Counter 2: There is no sign of life that could support a UFO
  • Con seems to have set up a paradox here. Here’s a list of his claims.
  • 1) UFOs exist
  • 2) UFOs are made by extraterrestrials
  • 3) If extraterrestrials exist, then the object that they have made is not a UFO
  • 4) Therefore, UFOs do not exist?
Conclusion
  • In PRO’s conclusion, he yet again shifts his definition of UFO from extraterrestrial to simply something we can not identify. 
  • I thank PRO for a productive debate. VOTE CON.