believing in something with sparse proof is, I'm afraid, an example of a closed mind, not an open mind.

I will let Wolfgang answer questions in his own way, but in my reading of his posts, I saw nothing to indicate that he claims to KNOW that there are no alien visitors coming here, only that he does not, like me, accept there there are based on scattered reports by others. This is not a denial, it is merely a tighter definition of what constitutes 'proof'.

Those, (like me), who consider themselves sceptics in the careful, scientific sense of the word, seem to spend an inordinate amount of time defending and explaining the rationale and definitions of certain positions against equivocation and "straw man" arguments.

There is no way I, or anyone else, can absolutely prove that alien ship are not 'here', or that psychic phenomena do not exist, or that certain religious tenets are not true, or that there are no elves 10 miles below Ireland......NOR ARE WE TRYING TO.
...The burden of proof for ANY of these ideas is on the assertor, and sceptics (the careful, fair type) are merely testing these various claims in a bit more demanding way than many of the claimants. If, we can have...as Escamillo, says, "a UFO brought into the laboratories" then we will indeed "celebrate whatever we can discover." and no one will be more interested than the sceptics to find out what the truth is.

Wow...what if the 'truth' turns out to be that there ARE no 'ships', but that the elves under Ireland are master of mind control! Far-fetched, I guess, but I'll BET with a little creative seeding of stories you can find someone who'd believe it.