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This tells us that scientific proof is an ambivalent notion, but can we do without it? We owe most of humanity’s progress to the commitment of scientists to formalizing and deducing the laws of nature by con- stantly going back and forth between their thoughts and the facts they observe. Epistemologists know that our instruments of reason must be adjusted: logicism, formalism and intuitionism do not have any uni- 1 versal scope. Thus, the traditional proof of the existence of a phenomenon does not lie in the phenomenon itself, particularly if it is unique (e.g., the unique SN1987A supernova in the large Magellanic cloud; was it a case of double standards?), but in the way we conceive it. In other words, proof is a fragmented approach towards the reality of an event that does not diminish the latter. Proof and phenomena are two separate 1 a aoa c . aod ea categories because the modalities of one category are not always fol- lowed by the other. Hence the complementary importance of eyewit- ness accounts. Unfortunately, these are the mere prism of incarnated consciousness and therefore limited. The problem is that we expect to see events occurring in the framework of what we already know. Everything that does not fit the description causes a problem. This is why theoretical science created a repertoire of models, different for each discipline, that can be validated or not by the facts. Of course, one menu (a theory) does not constitute an entire cuisine (reality). These models are considered seriously only if they have some predictive power from which man can draw a reproduction potential. Prediction and reproducibility are the paragons of the hard sciences, i.e., disci- plines related to matter and its wave derivatives. Explaining and understanding are not enough when the means to produce or verify a phenomenon remain inaccessible. This is often what happens in cos- 1 4 . 1 mology and quantum mechanics. The French magazine La Recherche therefore suggests that “proof is eventually reduced, not to the beauty of an explanation or a model, not to common sense that evolves over time, but to the production and ver- ification of a fact.” Implicitly, this restriction holds us back because it ” wtoaat trond aad 1" implies that the necessary means are available to meet these condi- tions. Producing equals, in fact, reproducing. Verifying equals seeing it in tangible form. If we make innuendos all the time, we do not under- stand things in the same way anymore. In other words, even the for- mulation of the research of proof is threatened, because the means are material! However, whereas the model goes well beyond this material requirement, it cannot be proven by using the current canonical 88 The Science of Extraterrestrials: UFOs Explained at Last * Eric Julien