Instigator / Pro
User_2006's avatar
14
User_2006
1470
rating
50
debates
40.0%
won
Topic
#1994

UFO(Unidentified flying objects) have existed in human history

Status
Finished

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

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

After 2 votes and with 8 points ahead, the winner is...

User_2006
Tags
Miscellaneous
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
6
nmvarco
1536
rating
19
debates
55.26%
won
Description

No information

Round 1
User_2006's avatar
User_2006
Pro
#1
I understand that the burden of proof may be on me.

However, things may not be the case.

By definition, An UFO is an unidentified object that can fly. Alien flying saucers are examples of UFOs, as it can fly, obviously, and no one knows what those really are.

By definition, "Unidentified" is different from "Unidentifiable", as that everything that is pre-identified has no extracted information defined yet, meaning that before this thing is identified, it is unidentified.

So in definition, anything that is flying that hasn't been recorded is a UFO. 

Before you ask, human brains have no prior knowledge of whether what a plane is, or what a bird is. Before when humans could name and distinct things, everything that is flying is a UFO, until they could.
nmvarco's avatar
nmvarco
Con
#2
Forfeited
Round 2
User_2006's avatar
User_2006
Pro
#3


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.

The argument above is from my other debate about this subject. 

Since These two are proving the same thing(which if I can prove that it exists now, it exists in history because it has been existent at one point), and I don't want to type everything all over again, I choose to copy-paste. There isn't a lot of new things I can do.

Also, Fellow debaters can award me conduct points because my opponent forfeited the last round. 

I look forward to the debate being brought after this!
nmvarco's avatar
nmvarco
Con
#4
PRO= User_2006 = UFOs have existed in human history
CON = nmvarco = UFOs have not existed in human history
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 HAVE EXISTED in HUMAN HISTORY

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.