Portage County/Ravenna UFO chase 1966

Discussion in 'UFOs, Ghosts and Monsters' started by Magical Realist, Dec 8, 2016.

Page 6 of 16
  1. Magical Realist

    Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Then why did you threaten to close to my thread. Are you the only poster in this forum with something to say on this topic?

    Your insinuation that I'm stupid or have ADD is noted. Do you think this sort of personal insulting makes you the kind of person I want to correspond with?

    Oh? How often do people do that kind of thing to you? Maybe you should take that as I sign to be more concise and to the point. Like me.

    You are the one that has been cherrypicking the accounts to support your assumption that it was a light in the sky, a helicopter, or whatever new thing you are trying to dismiss it as. That requires denying the evidence of the account itself in it's particulars. Denying it was as big as a house, that it was 300 ft in the air, or that it hummed like a transformer. All you have been doing is denying details of the accounts in order to support your conclusion that it couldn't possibly be a ufo, which in fact all the evidence points to.

    Then why are you assuming this sighting is not of a ufo as witnessed and photographed thousands of times all around the world?

    You're going to tell me what I believe now? lol!

    No..it was a shitty analogy only proving further the absurdity of dismissing 4 eyewitness accounts of the same event. It failed miserably.

    Oh, so now we go from the shitty analogy of me being seen to fall in the pool by 4 eyewitnesses to the weighted analogy of a magic trick deceptively performed by a magician. Am I to assume here that you believe this sighting involved some sort of elaborate illusion performed by some hidden magician? You must because that's the only way this analogy would apply.

    They are all independent in their moment of witnessing the event. Each sees it with their own eyes without being told or suggested anything.

    An audience knows it is a trick. They don't believe what they saw at all.

    No..I'm saying it is a ufo precisely because there is no known mundane explanation for it. None of them fit at all. And you torturing the accounts to squeeze out something other than a ufo demonstrates this perfectly.

    Everybody starts with the assumption that the magician is doing a trick. That's why we pay him money. To show us his tricks and to bedazzle us.

    Because UFOs exist as witnessed and photographed thousands of times all over the world. The evidence all points to it being one of these.

    UFOs were being spotted in the 1940's before there were any movies and stories about flying saucers. Hollywood invented the lore based on the actual accounts of ufos. They were in our skies long before they were on our theater screens.

    I already told you there's no such thing as just a bright light in the sky. It's got to be an object emitting that light or reflecting it from another source. Light doesn't just float around in the sky in elliptical or saucer shapes.

    The account says the object became so bright it illuminated the whole area. It could easily be estimated in size and height at that point.

    Right..I'm not going to pretend to not know what the moon is just so your analogy works. You really should take a course in analogy construction sometime. You suck at it.
     
    Last edited: Dec 22, 2016
    Magical Realist, Dec 22, 2016
    #101

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  3. Magical Realist

    Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    They saw it floating over the trees. They said it was as big as a house. It hovered right over them. Ofcourse they could judge its size at that proximity.

    Right..then you've failed to prove it is mundane rather than a ufo. Sinking in yet?

    What other possibilities? The planet Venus again? A helicopter that hummed like a transformer? Ball lightning that traveled 70 miles with cops chasing it. Give me a break. There is no other possibility here. It meets all the criteria of being a ufo which has displayed these exact same characteristics thousands of times to thousands of witnesses.

    And I told you that I don't respond to your bullshit game of 21 questions on points you know full well won't be answered and serve only to distract from the compelling nature of the accounts themselves. Why do you do that? Do you think being pedantic and anal is something to be proud of? Is this you showing off?

    LOL! Who said they were aliens?

    The ufo flaps of the 40's and 50's preceded the Hollywood craze of the 60's and 70's. That's a matter of historical record.
     
    Magical Realist, Dec 22, 2016
    #102

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  5. Magical Realist

    Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    You could just say ufos, as defined numerous times before for you as an aerial anomaly that cannot be explained by known causes or phenomena. What's so hard about that? Ufologists do that all the time.

    What if it isn't what you term "woo"? What if it IS a natural phenomena we haven't discovered yet, or an aspect of consciousness we have yet to explore? I think you using the term "alien ship" or "woo" is your attempt to invalidate the ufo phenomenon from the outset. As if it is some sort of impossible object like a married bachelor or a square circle. Obviously it is not. They exist and display typical characteristics.

    Hey "woo" is your special term. If you're having trouble applying it to real phenomena in the world then maybe you should dispense with it.

    I don't have a settled belief in what ufos are. But I know they exist. Just like dark energy and other unknown phenomena exist.

    I don't use your term woo. That's your own made-up predefinition for stuff you don't want to believe exists. I have no use for a term like that. I prefer ufo.

    You're the one sticking to the alien spacecraft definition. Now you're pointing out it's inconsistency with the term ufo? lol!

    Not from 300 up to 1000 feet in the air they don't.

    LOL! And it doesn't surprise me you are challenged in the area of gut instinct.

    I've quoted dozens of compelling cases here and elsewhere ready for anyone to examine them. You're only one sticking to the Portage County case obsessively like there's some secret evidence that is waiting to be found that will debunk it.

    You have totally failed to debunk this case at all. That makes it even more compelling to me as solid evidence for the existence of ufos.

    We have around 6 accounts now of the same object on the same night with enough detail and commonalities to infer it was a real object and was NOT the planet Venus or a helicopter or a hallucination or the rising sun or whatever else you want to go with next.

    If the evidence for pixies was as good as it is for ufos, you bet your ass I'd investigate it.

    Because there are photos and videos of ufos on record that explain what the accounts of Portage County are referring to. Thousands of them. Why should I disregard all that good evidence in my decision on what those cops saw and chased on that April night in 1966.
     
    Last edited: Dec 22, 2016
    Magical Realist, Dec 22, 2016
    #103

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  7. James R

    James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    Magical Realist:

    You keep reading in stuff that isn't there. I never threatened to close your thread. I haven't threatened you with anything.

    Again, you seem to want to go out of your way to take offence. I have explicitly stated on many occasions that I think you have the intellectual capacity to think critically about UFOs and other things. It is a choice on your part that you don't do so. As for ADD, I'm not in a position to comment on that, and I certainly have not mentioned it at any point.

    Often enough that I have come to recognise the pattern. When a person runs out of arguments, they often start repeating previous assertions, making one-line posts, trying to change the topic, or simply ignoring posts completely.

    Getting information across often demands careful explanation, and cannot be done in a one-line post.

    Again with your rush to read in stuff that isn't there.

    I keep telling you that I'm making no assumptions, and you keep ignoring that. Why?

    We haven't ruled out that it could have been a helicopter or other aircraft yet. And it was a light in the sky; that's exactly what the witnesses described.

    I have dismissed nothing, other that your unsupported claim that you have proven that it was aliens/woo.

    Who said it was as big as a house?
    As for the 300 ft in the air thing, how was that measured?

    Did somebody just assume it was as big as a house, then use that to guess at its height? Or did they guess at its height, then deduce that it must be as big as a house? Or were both of those things guesses? Or were both somehow measured accurately?

    It was a a UFO in my terms - that is, an unidentified sighting of something in the sky. In your terms ... well, you haven't established anything like that, and the evidence certainly doesn't support that conclusion.

    Because many of the other UFOs witnessed and photographed around the world are different from the one reported here, for starters. We obviously can't assume all UFOs are the same, because based on accounts they clearly are not.

    And even if you did somehow manage to prove that some other account was an alien spaceship or whatever, that in no way proves that this account involves an alien spaceship or whatever. Can't you see that?

    ???

    You shut your eyes to this useful illustration of what is and what is not compelling evidence of something. As usual.

    You missed the point again. You have been saying all along that we should take eyewitness accounts at face value. Ergo, if something seems like magic, then it is magic, unless proven otherwise.

    If this is your general method of evaluating evidence, I'm puzzled as to why you don't apply the same method to magician performances and to Elvis sightings. Is there something that distinguishes an Elvis sighting from a UFO sighting? Some important differences whereby eyewitnesses to Elvis are unreliable but eyewitnesses to UFOs must be taken at face value?

    Please explain.

    You missed the point of that example. See above.

    In the Portage County case, collusion on a hoax story would be more likely, in my opinion, than an elaborate illusion. But a hoax may not be the correct explanation, either way.

    But we don't get the story for them as they witness it, do we? We only get it after the fact, after they have all had a chance to talk to one another and agree on the basics, if not the details, of the story among themselves.

    How do they know it's a trick? They can't rule out the possibility of actual magic, can they? Based on the evidence, I mean.

    And this thing about not believing what they saw ... I'm interested. How often do you not believe what you see, Magical Realist? And how do you know not to believe what you see?

    You mean, because you're not aware of a mundane explanation and can't think of one yourself, you're going to assume it's woo. That's not the same thing as there being no mundane explanation. Understand?

    None of them? You've examined every possible mundane explanation and personally ruled them all out, have you?

    How did you do that with such a paucity of evidence available to you?

    Torturing the accounts?

    I see. You know the eyewitnesses to the magician are wrong because of your prior assumption that the magician is a fake.

    And similarly, you know that eyewitnesses to UFOs are seeing aliens/woo because of your prior assumption that UFOs are aliens/woo.

    So, it's not really about the inherent trustworthiness of eyewitness testimony at all. It's mostly about what you, Magical Realist, bring to the table in terms of prior beliefs.

    Correct?

    I understand that there are photos of witnesses to UFOs in my terms - unidentified lights in the sky etc. But there's nothing to say any of those are aliens/woo, as far as I can tell.

    I'm not so sure that (a) "flying saucers" were ever spotted before the Kenneth Arnold case, or (b) that there were no movies or stories about alien beings and the like prior to the 1950s.

    Really? What about people like Percival Lowell? What about Jules Verne? What about H.G. Wells and H.P. Lovecraft? Didn't all of those people live prior to 1950?

    I'm quite sure that people saw unidentified lights in the sky before 1950, but that doesn't mean there were ever alien flying their spaceships around the place.

    Right. So, for example, the planet Venus is a bright object in the sky. So are the moon and the sun. Birds reflect light. So do clouds. Then we have various atmospheric effects like mirages. Then there are human-made aircraft, artificial satellites, weather balloons. Then there are fireworks, flares and other items that can be launched into the sky. These days, we can add things like drones to the mix. In short, there are lots of things that can cause lights in the sky.

    And we haven't even touched on psychological illusions, mistakes of vision, optical illusions and the like.
     
    James R, Dec 22, 2016
    #104
  8. James R

    James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    (continued...)

    Could it? Tell me how you estimate the size of a bright light while it is shining into your eyes, Magical Realist.

    You missed the point again. You suck at getting the point.

    You can start to guess at the distance from the Earth to the moon, provided you already know something about the moon - like its actual diameter. And you get that information from somewhere else - not just by looking up at the moon. Alternatively, if you already have the distance to the moon from somewhere else then you can start to work out its size by looking up at it. But in the absence of prior knowledge, how can you work out the size of the moon or its distance from you? Answer: you can't - not unless you're rather clever, and a very careful observer besides.

    So we turn to unidentified lights in the sky. Do we know a priori how big any such light is? No, because it's unidentified. Do we know a priori how far away it is from us? No, because to even begin to guess at that we'd need to know how big it was.

    And yet, time and again, we get these accounts from eyewitnesses that the UFO was the size of a house, and it was 30 kilometers away, and it was travelling at 130 kilometers per hour, and it was at a height of 30000 feet - and all of this just by looking up at the sky. How do these people do that? Does this not give you the slightest cause for concern?

    Who said it was as big as a house? And how did they know how proximate it was?

    I had that at the start. I haven't claimed to have proved anything.

    And you? You say you know this thing can't be explained by anything mundane - even stuff you haven't thought of. How do you know that? Answer: you don't - it's a faith-based assumption.

    You've failed to prove the Portage County UFO is alien/woo. Sinking in yet?

    It is possible that the entire thing is a hoax concocted by a few policemen among themselves. I don't think that's the most likely explanation, but we can't rule it out. Have you no interest at all in ruling out a hoax? If not, why not?

    On the other hand, if we assume the witness accounts are honest, then it seems unlikely to me that it was the planet Venus, given all the available information. A helicopter or other human-constructed aircraft seems much more likely to me. Since this seems quite a likely explanation, it would be particular useful to obtain records of conventional aircraft flying around Portage County on the relevant date. That would tend either to confirm or disconfirm that hypothesis. Have you no interest at all in testing this hypothesis? If not, why not?

    Ball lightning, being the rare phenomenon it is, seems to me to be an unlikely explanation. On the other hand, we don't know much about the weather conditions on the night in question, do we? We might be able to definitively eliminate ball lightning if we had that information. Have you no interest at all in eliminating that possibility? If not, why not?

    As for other possibilities, could it have been a hoax perpetrated by somebody else? For example, could it have been a balloon or floating lantern launched by an unknown third party? It is hard to tell from the information available to us.

    Consider the single photograph. Have you no interest at all in determining whether it was the same object described by the policemen, or something else? If not, why not? Are you interested at all in investigating the possibility that the photo is either faked and/or unrelated to the case under examination? If not, why not? Ruling out fakery in the photo would help your case.

    Regarding the humming, I think we only have one witness attesting to that. Was there anything else at the scene that might hum like a transformer - say nearby power lines or ... a transformer? Have you no interest in investigating that? If not, why not? Eliminating the possibility of some mundane thing would strengthen your case.

    What about group delusion/mass hysteria? Is that possible? Is it worth investigating, in order to rule it out? Have you no interest in checking this? If not, why not?

    Why do I ask questions about the evidence that you can't answer? One reason is to highlight how much you don't know about this case, and in particular to point out all the things you're making unwarranted assumptions about.

    You've barely scratched the surface of this case, and yet you assume you already have all the necessary information to come to an informed judgment about it. The fact is, you're making a judgment based on faith, nothing more. That's confirmation bias if ever I saw it.

    Do I think applying basic critical thought and analysis to extraordinary claims is something to be proud of? You bet I do. Am I bamboozling you with all my difficult questions, so you're feeling off-kilter or something? Are you finding it hard to cope? I mean, the questions I'm asking are the kinds of stock-standard questions any competent investigator would ask about the case. Why hasn't it occurred to you to ask them yourself?

    There's that bait and switch of yours. If aliens look unlikely, then switch to interdimensional beings, or ghosts, or time travellers from the future - whatever best avoids the inconvenient facts.

    This is why I said I don't actually care what you think UFOs are. However you look at it, you think they're some kind of magical woo, and that's really all that matters.

    What's so hard about that is that it begs the question - that is, it assumes from the start what you really ought to be trying to prove.

    If I say "Oh look at that bright white light in the sky! I don't know what it is, so it must be a UFO!" and I apply your definition, my statement translates as "Oh look at that bright white light in the sky! I don't know what it is, so it must be an aerial anomaly that cannot be explained by known causes or phenomena."

    You see no problem with this? Because I see a glaring, obvious abuse of the available evidence.

    What if that bright white light is actually the planet Venus but I don't know it? Venus is obviously not an aerial anomaly, nor does it have no cause or conventional explanation.

    Do you understand the issue I take with your definition of UFO yet?
     
    James R, Dec 22, 2016
    #105
  9. James R

    James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    (continued...)

    That's all well and good, if it turns out we can eliminate all previously-discovered natural phenomena.

    No. I'm quite open to examining any evidence for actual alien ships or paranormal phenomena. I just want to be sure we're not jumping to conclusions without good evidence.

    The fact that there are culturally conventional images of alien spacecraft and the like, in and of itself, is no indication that alien spacecraft are real.

    In past centuries, people described unidentified lights as angels or demons or whatever. These days, Americans are more likely to describe them as alien spacecraft. That's a matter of culture, not necessarily a correct identification of the phenomenon that was observed.

    Recall that it is you who wants to define UFOs are something that "cannot be explained by any known cause of phenomena". I'd say it's you who is having trouble applying critical thinking to real phenomena. Instead, you turn to wishful thinking and fantasy.

    You know all about unknown things. Amazing that you can do that.

    You might be interested to know that I'm personally not convinced that dark energy exists, other than as a place holder for "there's something going on here that we don't understand yet".

    As I said, you can use whatever term you like for it. The important point is that your UFOs are, by your own definition, paranormal. Magic.

    LOL indeed. An alien spacecraft is not a UFO, as I have already explained. An alien spacecraft is an identified thing, and UFO means unidentified flying object. Alien spacecraft is therefore not what I mean when I write "UFO". UFOs are unidentified, so I don't claim to know what they are - not until they're identified.

    ???

    Insults aside, gut instinct is a lousy way to investigate anything. Like I said.

    I'm just picking that case at random as an exercise to show you how a real examination of evidence works. I hope that you'll eventually pick up the technique yourself and apply some critical thinking to the other woo you believe in.

    There's nothing that makes the Portage case stand out as unusual. It's a fairly run-of-the-mill UFO case, built on anecdotes and sub-standard evidence. Dig just a bit and you discover there's not much more to find that isn't superficially available.

    The lack of available evidence increases your faith in the case? Not surprised. It should rightly decrease your confidence. The reason it has the opposite effect is because you start from the assumption of aliens. But it worries you that the evidence might not be solid enough to stand up to close scrutiny. So, if it turns out to be so sketchy that it's unfalsifiable, that makes you more confident in your initial assumption. The best woo of all is unfalsifiable woo that is not susceptible to scientific investigation. With that stuff, you can just believe, and rest easy that no nasty skeptic will destroy the fantasy for you.

    I'm not convinced we've ruled out the possibility of a conventional aircraft, such as helicopter, yet. In fact, based on the available evidence, I'd say we can't rule out that possibility.

    So there were lots of flying ice cream cones or hamburgers or ellipses around at the time of the Portage County case, were there? Got any other examples from the same general vicinity and time period?
     
    Last edited: Dec 22, 2016
    James R, Dec 22, 2016
    #106
  10. James R

    James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    Here are the best sources of documentation on the Portage County UFO that I have found so far.

    First, for a general summary that presents a lot of the relevant documents:

    http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread986208/pg1

    Second, there's the NICAP site, which conducted a separate (civilian) investigation of the incident. Unfortunately, the report by William Weitzel is not on the site in its entirety (and I have to wonder why it isn't).

    http://www.nicap.org/portagedir.htm

    In terms of primary documents (newspaper clippings, witness statements to the Air Force and the like), I discovered that some of Project Blue Book is available online, here:

    http://www.bluebookarchive.org/

    This is well worth a look. I recommend a search for "ravenna", but if you're looking for particular witness statements and the like you can also search the names of individual witnesses, such as the names of the police officers in the case. There's about 100 pages or so of documents on the site relating to the case. I doubt that many of the UFO enthusiast/conspiracy web sites have actually taken the time to go through all the stuff here properly. If anybody is really interested in summarising the Blue Book investigation, this is the place to start.
     
    James R, Dec 22, 2016
    #107
  11. James R

    James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    Magical Realist:

    After a little more research, I have discovered some interesting factoids about the Portage County case. I would like your reaction to some of this information. Would any of the following items make any difference to your belief that the Portage County chase involved something not explainable according to any known causes or phenomena?

    Suppose I were to tell you, for example, that for several months in 1966, prior to the big chase on 17 April 1966, UFO sightings were all over the media, and that, in particular there were many widely-reported sightings in March of 1966 in Michigan. UFOs were a topic on everybody's lips in the region. Could that possibly contribute at all to the officers' beliefs that they saw an alien spaceship, do you think?

    What if I were to tell you that a number of other police officers, not involved in the Portage incident, had reported seeing bright lights in the sky that they thought were spaceships, and that several of these reports were actually debunked by Dr Hynek, the astronomer, who had rushed to the region in the wake of all these reports and was actually on the scene himself in several instances where police officers radioed reports of UFOs? This is the same Hynek, by the way, who was credulous about the Portage County UFO. What do you think these police officers saw, that they thought was a UFO? Any ideas?

    What if I were to tell you that the report that initially led Officers Spaur and Neff to go look for the UFO was filed with the police by a woman who lived west of Portage County, who reported a strange bright object that was heading east towards Portage County? She described the object as "higher than a streetlight but lower than an airplane". Any ideas what this woman might have seen in the sky?

    I'll start you off with a hint. Spaur and Neff received the report on police radio at 4:50 am. This was under an hour before sunrise. The sky was clear and slowly brightening in the east.

    Also, let's start to consider Spaur and Neff's movements and their initial UFO sighting. At 4:50 am, they were attending a traffic accident near Atwater Center, Ohio. Since they had finished with the accident, they then headed west towards the place where they reported starting the UFO chase. At that place they found an old car by the side of the road. They U-turned and got out to investigate the car. At this point, their patrol car was facing east.

    Spaur says he saw the UFO coming up from the trees to the west. He called to Neff, who also observed the object. And this is where Spaur reports the "humming" noise, too. Spaur initially reported being "mildly surprised" to see the object coming from the trees, and he immediately thought that maybe this was the UFO he had heard a lot about from all the media and other police etc. He and Ness were both frightened, so they got back into their car. They both then reported seeing that the object, large and glowing, had stopped directly ahead of the car, in the east.

    Now, before we go any further and get to the "chase" proper, let's consider this initial sighting. By now it was about 5:10 am. Spaur reports that the entire area around the car was lit up as they sat in the car.

    What are we to make of things so far?

    Spaur reports a low-flying UFO passing over the car. Remember how I questioned how he could judge the height and size of the object? Well, suppose I were to tell you that Project Blue Book contains a report filed by a woman in Vandalia, Ohio, over 100 miles to the southwest of where the officers were, describing a starlike object travelling "swiftly" across the sky from west to northeast at approximately the same time as the officers first saw the UFO. Would you say that this report likely describes the same object the officers saw, or a completely different object?

    Let's stop here for now.
     
    James R, Dec 22, 2016
    #108
  12. James R

    James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    Oh, one more thing. Remember how I asked earlier whether there was any possible nearby source of that "humming" noise that Spaur reported hearing when the UFO went over? It turns out there was just such a source.

    Guess what Spaur said in his earliest statement, taken only a few hours after the chase.

    He said it made a noise like an "overloaded transformer". And ... wait for it... he said the noise "might have come from a power line."

    What do you think of that, Magical Realist? Does it reduce the significance of the humming noise for you at all? Or do you still think it was the UFO humming?
     
    James R, Dec 22, 2016
    #109
  13. Magical Realist

    Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Wow..you mean other ufos were being spotted around the same areas around the same time as this one? Great! That just makes the case better that what they saw that night in Portage County WAS a ufo, does it not?
     
    Magical Realist, Dec 22, 2016
    #110
  14. Magical Realist

    Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    If it wasn't humming that makes it even more amazing. It was a hovering craft that made no noise at all. Definitely not anything we humans have invented yet. Wouldn't you agree?
     
    Magical Realist, Dec 22, 2016
    #111
  15. Magical Realist

    Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Liar. You said this in post #272:

    Bye!

    (OK to close this thread, then?)

    Hey you're the one commenting on me like I'm incapable of concentrating. Why do that? Does that make you feel superior. That you can fixate longer on the case longer than me and come up with absolutely nothing to debunk it. Yeah James, you're a great inspiration to me. If only I could do that some day! lol!

    I think you are seeing the responses of people bored from reading your rambling digressive posts that typically respond to every sentence rather than to every point. That's why your replies get longer and longer, now reaching here up to 3 posts! Don't you think it rather odd to people that the more they explain to you the more they have to explain to you? That's the opposite trend of conversation. People don't typically anticipate having to make grueling 2 hour long replies to posts that only get longer and longer. You like to think you've intimidated them with your pedantic questioning, That they are somehow fleeing from your obsessive hairsplitting. But actually they are just fed up with it. It doesn't mean you're some great analyst that has defeated them. It means you have overwhelmed them with the tedious task of responding to too many points. People don't typically like making those sort of commitments. And you need to accept that and adapt accordingly.


    Sometimes more information isn't necessary to draw a conclusion. Sometimes there's just enough to make a rational and informed judgment on the matter.

    Yes we have ruled out a helicopter or aircraft. It was right overhead the cops at 300 feet and made no noise like a helicopter would. And no it wasn't just a light. It was a self-illuminated elliptical shaped object.

    They did. Go back and read the report.

    ""P-13, Dale, do you have your 44 Magnum with you?" "I do," Spaur replied. "Take a shot at it!" Wilson suggested. Spaur thought this over briefly. From what he had seen so far, he was impressed, and didn't want to risk irritating the object. It was as big as a house, and looked quite solid. It could easily come back and settle on the car, squashing it like an egg. "I don't think I want to do that," he radioed back, and repeated his description of the object. "Listen, Bob," he added, "this thing's a monster! It's like looking down the middle of hell!""---http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread986208/pg1


    Comparison with surrounding trees. It was right above them.

    Now you're just repeating yourself. I already told you size comparison and the fact that it was right over them was enough to determine size and height.

    Yes it does. From examining dozens of similar cases we know these objects exist and exhibit the same characteristics over and over again. We call them ufos.

    Some are different. Some are the same. Glowing and metallic elliptical shaped objects is one common trait we see over and over again. Compare this to the Levelland Texas case, where on one night dozens of cars were powered down by encountering a large disc shaped glowing object near the road.

    LOL! Who says it was an alien spaceship?

    Your analogy actually proved the compelling nature of multiple eyewitness accounts. It totally backfired on you!

    But nobody at a magic show believes it is magic because they know a magician uses trickery. There is no trickery involved in the Portage County case.

    Give me thousands of sightings of Elvis and photos and I'll believe he's alive just like I believe in UFOs.

    Right..a hoax now. lol! This is getting amusing. Are you that desperate now?

    People don't make up seeing things by talking to other people who saw the same thing.

    LOL! Because everyone knows what a magician is and what they do.

    Only when I go to magic shows. Just like you and everybody else.

    Then give me this mysterious mundane explanation I'm somehow missing that explains all the facts of this case. I'm waiting..tick tick..

    Yes..I've gone thru them all. There aren't that many after all. And none explain what was seen that night.


    Because I take the accounts as given. I don't assume they are lying or making shit up like you evidently do.

    Right..
     
    Last edited: Dec 22, 2016
    Magical Realist, Dec 22, 2016
    #112
  16. Magical Realist

    Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,713
    Just as you know the eyewitnesses aren't seeing ufos because of your prior assumption that ufos don't exist.

    Right..like I said...it's always about the assumptions we make. In my case that ufos exist. In your case that ufos don't exist.


    We have hundreds of accounts of these things landing in fields and beings coming out of them. What would you say they are? The planet Venus?

    a)There are cases going all the way back to the Roman days, many that are spherical and disc shaped.

    b) I know of no fiction prior to the 1940's involving flying saucers.

    Nothing about flying saucers.

    Right..people saw ufos before 1950. That's what I said.

    Oh so they're causing light in the sky, but their not actually lights by themselves in the sky just floating around. Thanks for clarifying that.

    Aww yes. The infinitely deep rabbit hole of ever unreliable brain spasms, spontaneous hallucinations, optical illusions, etc. lol!
     
    Last edited: Dec 22, 2016
    Magical Realist, Dec 22, 2016
    #113
  17. Magical Realist

    Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,713
    When I squint at it I can just make out a shape and it's size. Can't you?

    You should learn how to make points without using shitty analogies.

    Right..and the same applies to any known object. A balloon, a cloud, a airplane. We always have a preestimate of their size.

    They saw it floating just above the trees. That's certainly enough to tell the size and the height. I'm not going to repeat this again.

    Movement and comparison to nearby objects.

    I just told you..

    Right..all this talking and you haven't proven a thing. When are you going to give up and move on to the other two compelling cases I posted?

    Tell me what I haven't thought of. Go ahead..I'm waiting..


    I didn't have to prove anything. The evidence proves it's a ufo, And your failure to prove it was a mundane cause also proves it.

    Improbability. Plus you can't hoax a glowing then metallic elliptical object as big as a house that hovers and then smoothly takes off going up 100 mph along a highway for 70 miles. And especially not in 1966.

    The reports rule out helicopter or conventional craft. It was as big as house, hovered over the trees, was as bright as the sun, made no noise or only a gentle hum, and was elliptical shaped.

    Ball lightning never lasts more than a few seconds. Ruled out..

    A balloon that took off down a highway going 100 mph? LOL! uh no..

    If it wasn't humming it was then totally silent. That fits with almost all ufo reports. They are usually totally silent.

    Mass hysteria occurs in response to some sort of event. There is no mass hysteria about the planet Venus or a helicopter.

    We know enough based on the accounts to make a rational and informed judgment.

    No..I'm making a judgment based on the accounts given and not cherrypicking out of them only what I want to be true. That's rational empirical analysis unbiased by assumptions that it can't be a ufo.

    But you aren't an investigator and haven't investigated this case at all. That would require interviewing the witnesses themselves and that's not going to happen. You are creating a pretense of investigating for your own agenda-laden debunkery. Just as all skeptics do who have nothing to explain a ufo sighting with. But so far you have debunked nothing. Is that what I'm supposed to admire?

    Nope..ufo is just fine.

    Ofcourse you care. That's why you continuously lie that I think it is alien spacecraft. So you can mock that and make me appear stupid and gullible.

    Or you could research this phenomenon of a bright white light in the sky that silently hovers and speeds away at tremendous speeds and compare other cases where similar things were witnessed. Then you would be a ufologist, investigating a phenomenon we can at best only know to be UFOs.

    You said yourself you don't think it was the planet Venus. Now you are saying it might be? What about the accounts makes you say this? Or are we back again to ignoring the account details to support your own preconclusion?
     
    Last edited: Dec 22, 2016
    Magical Realist, Dec 22, 2016
    #114
  18. Kittamaru

    Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    13,938
    The thing is... we KNOW those exist and happen: case in point, I suffer from occasional ophthalmic migraines with visual aphasia, fortunately, normally, without the pain of a classic migraine. I had one just two hours ago, while working on a testing script - the vision in my right eye went extremely hazy with a visible aura. At the same time, it became intensely difficult to focus on the programming code - I could "see" the words in front of me, but comprehending them took actual effort.

    Thankfully, such things only last a few minutes (typically under half an hour) - and mine are considered mild. I can easily see how more severe cases (which at the neurological level can mimic stroke or seizure type activity in the brain) can lead people to think they are seeing aliens... I know the first time I had one, I was scared out of my mind (I was sitting in front of my computer at a previous job, and my vision started to rapidly deteriorate, becoming very fuzzy, and then the visual disturbances started. A few quick google searches cleared it up for me after the event passed... I wasn't sure at the time what was going on).

    These kinds of events can cause all sorts of weird symptoms, including hearing / seeing / feeling things that aren't there.

    We know these events happen and can detect/measure them with proper equipment.

    Aliens/flying saucers capable of traversing interstellar distances... well, simply put, we haven't been able to definitively analyze one as of yet.
     
    Kittamaru, Dec 22, 2016
    #115
  19. Magical Realist

    Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,713
    That's basically already been done for us by the investigators who actually went there and interviewed witnesses.

    Good. Then you're going to examine the hundreds of other compelling cases that prove the existence of ufos as aerial anomalies that cannot be explained by known causes or phenomena?

    Who said alien spacecraft are real?

    Right..which is why we stick to the term UFO instead of assuming alien spacecraft.

    Prove me wrong. Prove it is something that can be explained by a known cause or phenomena. Prove it is an IFO.

    I know unknown things exist.

    Much like the placeholder "ufo" wouldn't you say?

    Could be paranormal. Could be natural. We don't know yet.

    I don't claim to know what they are either. But I know they aren't identified causes or phenomena.


    LOL! Tell that to well-seasoned police detectives...

    So far your so called technique has totally failed in explaining the Portage County ufo as something mundane and identified. I guess you're teaching me how to fail miserably. Good job!

    Right..and yet you're the one on this dubious quest to find the missing evidence that will totally debunk the ufo as something mundane and known. Why keep searching if there's nothing much more to find?


    No..the evidence of it being a ufo increases my confidence, as well as your inability to come up with any other explanation that remotely accounts for the event as described by the accounts.

    The silence or humming of the object immediately rules out conventional craft.

    I thought you just quoted those. Do you really want to go into the dozens of other cases of ufo sightings that were occurring around the year 1966 in America? Wouldn't that only strengthen the case for the existence of ufos?
     
    Last edited: Dec 22, 2016
    Magical Realist, Dec 22, 2016
    #116
  20. Magical Realist

    Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,713
    Yes..we know about brain-generated lights, flashes, scintillating scotomas, etc. But these are very random, brief, and brain specific. Multiple brains are not going to hallucinate the same elliptical illuminated object in the sky at the same time that was chased by police officers for 70 miles.
     
    Magical Realist, Dec 22, 2016
    #117
  21. paddoboy

    paddoboy Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    27,543
    No, that's a totally false assumption on your part. They labeled them as UFO's simply because they were not sure of their origins/causes.
    Remember as much as you chose to obfuscate, the "U" in UFO means "Unidentified" it does not automatically mean from another world and/or dimension.
    Just because something is unable to be explained by "known causes" whatever that means,

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    does not mean that the cause of said anomaly is not a natural phenomena.
    That's why they are determined as UFO's.

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    You keep saying that while at the same time denying all possible natural phenomena and causes, and insideously and not so secretly inferring Aliens or inter-dimensional craft, in the hope that it will hide your gullibility in accepting that which you try and hide from.

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    If others are not confused by your obfuscation, then they are far better and perceptive then I.

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    As you have been informed countless times, scientific theories and such are never about proof. As far as Alien or interdimensional craft are concerned, we simply do not have the required evidence to confidently confirm that.
    Yes.
    Yes, again; and that's why they remain as UFO's.

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    Even well seasoned Police Officers, and similar can have delusions, illusions, or witness unexplained atmospheric anomalies, or unexplained unknown natural physical events.


    My confidence is as solid as ever, in that a UFO was observed, which may have had at its cause any number of possible and as yet unexplained atmospheric or other natural phenomena, including even Aliens or inter-dimensional craft.
    But of course we have no conclusive evidence to as yet support any of those possibilities.
     
    paddoboy, Dec 22, 2016
    #118
  22. Kittamaru

    Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
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    They don't have to - one person says "oh my God, what's that *insert description here*" and people who see something unusual but without having any preconceived notion as to what it is will subconsciously latch onto it.
     
    Kittamaru, Dec 22, 2016
    #119
  23. Magical Realist

    Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,713
    No..people who hallucinate don't make other people hallucinate the same thing just by describing it. That's nonsense..
     
    Magical Realist, Dec 22, 2016
    #120
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