Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Falcon Lake Incident

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. –Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone 17:57, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Falcon Lake Incident[edit]

Falcon Lake Incident (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

This "incident" based on the eyewitness account of a single person is sourced through RCMP reports and a small file in the DND that has been all but ignored. Has not generated the press attention of other big-name UFO incidents. Any useful content can be merged into Falcon Lake, Manitoba. ScienceApologist (talk) 19:24, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep--Notability: Chapter 12: The Falcon Lake Incident. Although not all the sites in a Google search can be use as reliable sources and some of them are mirrors of Wikipedia, the search is evidence of the notability of the subject.--Jmundo (talk) 20:06, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per the source linked by Jmundo which is independent and in-depth. --Oakshade (talk) 20:14, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Independent of what? Looks like it's written by UFO crazies to me. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:27, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Independent of those who were the subject of the article. Your opinion that they are "UFO crazies" is noted, but doesn't mean they aren't independent of the topic.--Oakshade (talk) 21:47, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Credulous reports are not independent, by definition. Otherwise, Weekly World News would be an "independent source" that could confer notability. ScienceApologist (talk) 04:37, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The source meets the WP:reliable: "The Canadian UFO Report will pique the interest of many teen readers, making it a useful addition to a public or school library collection. (Elizabeth Larssen CM Magazine )1. The book was published by "The Dundurn Group", one of the largest publishers of adult and children’s fiction and non-fiction in Canada. 1--Jmundo (talk) 20:45, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A listing in a librarian's supplemental review journal (which reviews literally thousands of books a year with pithy one-liners like that) hardly confers "independence" on said book. I'm sure plenty of children and teens will love to read the accounts of UFO crazies too, that doesn't make the source independent by Wikipedia's standards. Puh-leeze. It's enlightening that the publisher often publishes fiction. It's perhaps a good way to characeterize this particular "incident". ScienceApologist (talk) 20:49, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Independent by Wikipedia's standards means written or approved by somebody who isn't the subject of the article. I've spent a lot of time hanging around the talk pages of WP:V and (when it was a policy) WP:ATT, so I think I understand these policies. "Written by somebody specialising in the same field of interest as the subject" doesn't make something not independent. JulesH (talk) 21:27, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry, but you're wrong, or at least, you are completely forgetting that reliability of the source must be established before we declare anything "independent". Otherwise, I could simply write a website about this incident on geocities and declare it to be an independent source. A book by a UFO enthusiast is not a reliable, third-party independent source. That's a non-starter. ScienceApologist (talk) 04:39, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Jules is right. If the Source is in the same field as the subject it doesn't neccesarily mean they're not independent. Case in point (no, not this point). If Scientific American and Nature (journal) write about the same subject they're still independent sources, regardless of the fact both of the editing staff can be assumed to be science enthusiasts. Whether the the publication is reliable is another question, but they're certainly independent. - Mgm|(talk) 22:14, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. The last thing we want to be doing is merging details from ufology articles into the places where the supposed events took place. JulesH (talk) 21:27, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete The article says a man consumed some beer, then had a close encounter with a UFO which landed, and that it was investigated by the police. Many things make it into police reports which do not deserve encyclopedia entries. Lacking is significant coverage of this unverified claimed UFO encounter in multiple reliable and independent sources. Wikipedia is [[WP:NOT#NEWS], not that this really made the news to any significant extent. UFO fancier magazines do not constitute reliable sources, in my view. I see nothing here which requires merging into an article about the location. Edison (talk) 00:09, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You're leaving out a lot of important details. He claimed to have been burned by the craft's exhaust vent which was covered by an ovular grid, for example. And he had "unexplained" health issues afterwards. Coincidence? And what about "RCMP officers together identified a semicircle on the rock face at the scene, 15 feet in diameter, where the moss had been somehow removed." Fifteen feet in diameter! ChildofMidnight (talk) 01:27, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't believe these details say anything about whether or not this article should exist. Until the Wikipedia:Semicircle moss absence size notability criteria guideline is written. As soon as we write that, I'll probably go remove a 15 foot in diameter semi-circular moss ring from Riverside Park and write about the Riverside Park Incident. In other words, ChildofMidnight is pulling our collective legs. ScienceApologist (talk) 04:36, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
He claimed the UFO had an "ovular grid?" I know of no guideline saying that extraordinary unverified claims make something notable. He could have said he saw JFK and Amelia Earhart in the UFO dancing the foxtrot, and it would not add one bit to notability or verifiability. Lots of people have "unexplained health issues." Lots of people have the technical ability and physical strength to remove some moss, or even to make a crop circle. Edison (talk) 05:17, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete If this example is notable, where are the other references to it outside the primary sources, the self published book, and the one book chapter? There are hundreds of works of UFOs from all sort of perspectives. Do none of them cite it? If some of the major ones do--even those major ones from UFO-believers-- then certainly keep it. But not if those mentioned here are all there is. No prejudice against re-creation if anyone finds some good sources. DGG (talk) 04:45, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lack of citations is not a valid reason to delete an article. --BarkerJr (talk) 04:47, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes it is. If there are no citations and none forthcoming, then the article must go. ScienceApologist (talk) 05:08, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • See WP:ATD. There is no proof of attempts to locate references. --BarkerJr (talk) 23:49, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Sources establish notabiity and look good enough to me. Gandalf61 (talk) 10:31, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - sufficient sources have been found to justify keeping article. Springnuts (talk) 09:46, 11 January 2009 (UTC) Delete - has only one good source and WP:RS is clear that sources means more than one. Find another and it should stay. Springnuts (talk) 16:43, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • You're confusing WP:RS and WP:N. One good source suffices. Our notability guidelines are indicated in WP:N. That there is an "s" at the end of "secondary source" is simply an affectation.--Oakshade (talk) 17:25, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - I disagree, though on occasion of course it is appropriate to ignore all rules. Let's see what the consensus is here. Springnuts (talk) 18:49, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Fails WP:RS, no indication improvement possible. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 16:54, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per WP:N. Has not received significant coverage in reliable sources. --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 18:41, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep While I don't worry about UFOs, this apparently is notable in that community [1]. It won't take a little green man to add sources to this. Mandsford (talk) 19:29, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep Just because a lot of coverage is by UFO enthusiasts, doesn't mean the coverage doesn't meet WP:RS. If said enthusiasts wrote about it (and not simply copied the existing material) it's reliable and independent. Besides, no matter what sources you draw from, if you dig deep enough, at some point all the information is going to be based of the eyewitness reports no matter how far it got. That applies to everything; not just UFOs. More importantly (for anyone who agrees with me on that), I also found coverage that is unrelated to UFOlogists. 1) HowStuffWorks covered it. The site is maintained by an individual who does extensive research on everything he writes; anything not written by him is written by experts or people doing extensive research as much as he does. 2) There's coverage in the CBC.ca archives. 3) A Google search on "falcon lake UFO" suggests more potential sources exist and I haven't even looked for paper resources. - Mgm|(talk) 22:08, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Has some notability. Might be worth merging into a list of Canadian UFO incidents or some such article if one exists, but worth including in the encyclopedia. We shouldn't bury this kind of thing, it makes for entertaining reading. And we're one mothership away from realizing these kooks were right after all. ChildofMidnight (talk) 22:27, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Seems plenty notable to me. Passes the search engine test and is published by the media. --BarkerJr (talk) 23:49, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Not a notable UFO incident. If it were the incident Fire in the Sky was based on, then I'd say keep. This, however, is one of hundreds of UFO sightings reported each year. Not every one of those is notable. A book reporting a UFO case is 'unsolved' is also no indication of notability; how many cases are considered 'solved'? ThuranX (talk) 23:00, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • It doesn't matter to WP:N that the secondary source considers it "unsolved," but that the secondary source covered it.--Oakshade (talk) 23:04, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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