UFOs (UAPs): Explanations?

[James R]

Right..the corroboration of the witnesses' testimony by other witnesses, by the pilots, by the ship's radar, by the jets' infrared cameras, by the jets' radar, and even by the ship's sonar makes their accounts nearly impossible to refute.

At this stage, we've gone a long way towards refuting the alien spaceship hypothesis, just in this thread.

The most immediately convincing information that has been presented is the infra-red video footage that kicked up this whole fuss in the first place. But, as we've seen above, there is a perfectly credible explanation of all the features of the object seen in the video. The most sensible conclusion is that it was a jet aircraft. All the "puzzling" features of the image - the apparent rotation, the apparent speed, the "aura" around the object, the apparent saucer-like shape, have been accounted for and shown to occur in infrared images of normal, everyday jet aircraft.

Radar, you say? Well, if these were normal jet aircraft, it's hardly surprising that they appeared on radar, is it?

And the eyewitness accounts? Mostly those are people trying to interpret the infrared image without the benefit of the knowledge that we have about the images. There's also some water-cooler gossip about supposed men in black trying to cover things up, but none of that has been remotely verified.

So, what are we left with? Not much in the way of alien spaceships. The most likely explanation appears to be unidentified jet aircraft. But then again, we don't even know that they were unidentified. Chances are that the military worked out exactly what they were long ago.

What about these "tic tacs"? Well, sightings of those are from a small number of supposed witnesses. Seagulls and whales seem like a likely explanation for the ones in or above the water. We can probably put the rest of the visual sightings down to eyewitness error.

Just saying they could be wrong or they could have seen an artifact on the radar doesn't match the facts of the case.

They could have been wrong, despite your demonstrated inability to admit that witnesses can ever make mistakes.

As for the radar, if it was jet planes, there's no need for artifacts. However, the point about some of the radar systems being new and unfamiliar to operators still stands as a plausible and unrefuted explanation.

Multiple eyewitnesses rule out human error...

Ha! Don't make me laugh. Especially when the witnesses are not independent.

... and multiple detection systems picking up the objects, as well as them being seen by pilots and radar operators aboard the ship, rule out a radar artifact.

Wrong again. See above.

There is simply no basis whatsoever to doubt the accounts given.

Fortunately, we don't need to doubt most of the features of the accounts. They are explainable through mundane means, without any need to postulate little green men in spaceships.

The evidence is that good and, one might even say, quite extraordinary.

It's extraordinary that a few people on this forum have managed to debunk your latest enthusiasm with so little effort. A dash of common sense and critical thinking, combined with a little research, is really all it takes.

 

[James R]

No government secret military aviation tech could remotely explain the multiple accounts from highly trained, highly responsible military personnel.

Luckily we don't even need secret military aviation tech to explain this one. Ordinary, known, jet aircraft do the job just fine.

Not to mention encounters of a similar general nature going back decades to well before cgi or PhotoShop style tech existed. Washington 1952 flap incidents being a premier example. And many other troubling encounters witnesses by many trained personnel at e.g. US strategic nuclear missile silos especially in 1960's and 1970's.

Obviously you're trying to muddy the waters by bringing in separate incidents. We'd need to examine each of those separately.

To dismiss it all as secret but ultimately mundane human technology at play would indeed logically imply a conspiratorial cover up at the highest levels in military circles and even higher.

It's a good thing nobody does that then, isn't it?

I have no such conflicting viewpoint - UFO's as other than secret military craft or 'interstellar space aliens' makes best sense, AND nasty government level conspiracies and cover ups/disinfo are normal practice. Have been for a long time.

Non-secret aircraft certainly makes best sense in the case we're discussing here. If you want to imply that this can't have a mundane explanation because government conspiracy of whatever, you need to show some evidence for your new theory.

 

[Magical Realist]

The most immediately convincing information that has been presented is the infra-red video footage that kicked up this whole fuss in the first place. But, as we've seen above, there is a perfectly credible explanation of all the features of the object seen in the video. The most sensible conclusion is that it was a jet aircraft. All the "puzzling" features of the image - the apparent rotation, the apparent speed, the "aura" around the object, the apparent saucer-like shape, have been accounted for and shown to occur in infrared images of normal, everyday jet aircraft.

Backpeddling from the radar artifact explanation so soon? My..that didn't last long. So now it's supposed to be a jet seen from the rear? Problem with that ridiculous explanation is the pilots said they saw a whole fleet of them. This is something that would readily have been known to be other jets flying in the area. Like they wouldn't know that already. Plus the image in the Gimbal video is well defined as a consistent top shape that rotates not as an infrared blob that doesn't rotate. Plus other pilots report seeing spinning tops and tic tacs. Try again?

 

[James R]

wegs,

To those disagreeing with MR - are you not agreeing with the ''evidence'' that MR is offering as being acceptable, or do you simply not believe that UFO's/aliens might exist?

Whether not we believe that UFOs/aliens might exist should be irrelevant to evaluating this kind of thing. If you assume at the start that you're likely to find aliens - like Magical Realist does - just because you already believe in them, then you're prone to a whole host of errors. You go looking for information that tends to support your prior belief that it must be aliens, while ignoring or downplaying the importance of information that tend to refute the idea. It's called confirmation bias.

In extreme cases - as exemplified by Magical Realist - you end up throwing common sense and critical thinking out the window, so that everything starts looking like an alien spaceship or a ghost of the Loch Ness Monster, just because those things are what you want to see.

Skeptics get a bad rap from people who don't understand skepticism. Skepticism means keeping an open mind and looking at the evidence on its merits. You don't go in with a pre-determined conclusion (cf. Magical Realist). You do what a scientist does - you test multiple hypotheses that might explain the ascertainable facts, to the extent that it is possible to do so. If, in the end, you can't reach a definite resolution based on the available evidence, then you're not left with "it must have been aliens", but with "we don't know what it was (yet)". Aliens is not a default explanation (if we can't explain a sighting, it must be aliens). The default position is we don't know.

Having said that, we can often do better than "we don't know", as you've seen in this thread. While we can't be certain that the infrared footage shown here is a normal jet aircraft, there are certainly lots of good reasons to think that's what it probably shows.

It is possible that aliens are visiting Earth in spaceships. It is also possible that tiny pink dragons live in an unexplored cave in Antarctica. But both those claims are quite extraordinary. There's no good evidence that either of them is true, based on decades of data. The philosopher David Hume advised that in the case of extraordinary claims we ought to ask what is more extraordinary - that the claim is true or that the people making the claim are telling lies or are mistaken? To decide the answer to that, the only way is to look at all the available evidence, in the context of everything that we already know about the world.

Do you feel that eye witness accounts such as what MR posted here, aren't credible enough?

There are many problems with eyewitness accounts. Eyewitnesses make mistakes all the time. That is not to say that people are totally unreliable. Much more commonly, some elements of an eyewitness's account of an event can be perfectly accurate, while other elements can be mistakes of interpretation or mistakes of perception or mistakes due to other factors. Also, like it or not, some "eyewitnesses" actually tell lies for various reasons.

The most commonly reported UFOs turn out to be sightings of planets, such as Venus, in the sky. The witness descriptions of what they saw are usually accurate. They get it right as to what the object they saw in the sky looked like, and where it was in the sky and what time they saw it, approximately. But their interpretation that was an alien spaceship, or other unknown object (secret military aircraft, for example) is completely wrong.

Are we waiting for scientists to give us permission to believe?

You don't need scientists' permission for that. You can believe whatever you like. It's a matter of personal taste as to whether you prefer to believe what is true, or to live in fantasy world like Magical Realist does, or a world of dark conspiracies like Q-reeus does.

Skeptics aren't telling you what to think. We are urging you to apply some common sense and critical thinking, rather than to jump to conclusions because they are attractive or comfortable.

Magical Realist typically whines about how skeptics like myself are all closed-minded and have an "agenda" to debunk his fantasies. But we're not telling him what to think any more than we're telling anybody else what to think. What irks him more than anything else is that skeptics dare to challenge his assumptions, which threatens the cozy fantasy world he has chosen to build his identity around. His anger at the skeptics is displaced anger at the discovery that his core beliefs are built on shifting and unstable foundations.

I don't believe all eye witness accounts, but this latest one that MR posted seems credible.

Lots of accounts seem credible. We should never rely solely on the attested good character of a witness in order to accept that what he or she reports is true. This is not to accuse eyewitnesses of lying - a mistake that Magical Realist repeatedly makes - but to recognise that eyewitnesses are imperfect human beings like the rest of us. Human beings aren't video recorders. Our memories are not a film. Even our perceptions are susceptible to all kinds of illusions and distortions.

Maybe we are too afraid to believe?

Mostly, it's the opposite. We're far to ready to believe stuff, based on flimsy evidence. We do that for all kinds of reasons. It's part of being human.

 

[James R]

(continued...)

Big Foot, I don't believe exists. lol But, ghosts...UFO's...

Okay, so why ghosts and UFOs but not Bigfoot? I'm guessing that it's because you think there's better/more evidence for ghosts and aliens than there is for Bigfoot, possibly bolstered by your prior estimate that it is more likely that aliens could exist, as opposed to a Bigfoot. It's certainly true that there's more in terms of sheer volume of reports of UFOs, by orders of magnitude, but lots of reports aren't necessarily better than a few when it comes to establishing the existence of aliens. What matters is the quality of the evidence, overall. It's now about 70 years since the "modern" UFO flap started, and in all that time nobody has managed to produce anything really convincing. Think about that. It's not for a want of people looking for such stuff.

But, the 'tic tac' shaped flying object had never been seen by anyone, before.

It's a common-enough shape for flying saucers. These days, people tend to report UFO shapes based on what is "expected" of such reports. The most common shapes reported (if they are more than mere lights in the sky) include saucers and cigar-shapes, but the "tic tac" shape is not unusual. Believers, of course, will tell you that there are many reports of similar shapes because those are the shapes the aliens prefer. Skeptics would suggest that, by now, we have culturally indoctrinated certain ideas of what an alien spaceship sighting should look like, so that's what people tend to report.

I think that hallucinations and such were ruled out, if I'm not mistaken.

They can't ever be ruled out. However, hallucinations shared by more than one person are very rare.

Now, could the 'tic tac' flying object have been something else, entirely? Sure, I guess so. But, what does it hurt to believe this story?

In one sense, it might not "hurt" to believe anything that isn't true. It can even be comforting or exciting or fun to believe stuff that isn't true. The idea of alien visitors is exciting, intriguing, and fun. If some people think you're a little weird for believing in little green men, does it matter? Maybe not.

But in a wider sense, do you think it's good to believe anything somebody tells you, without question? That's what Magical Realist says he does, though I doubt he's telling the truth (see what I did there?). You are sensible enough and experienced enough to know that people make mistakes and that people don't always tell the truth, I'm sure.

This particular story is unlikely to have any serious impact on your daily life, so it probably doesn't matter much whether you believe it was aliens or not. Believing one way or the other won't threaten you. It won't cost you anything, most likely. But if you make it a habit to believe stuff that isn't supported by reasonable evidence, then I think you end up losing something important. You end up all at sea in a fantasy world, like Magical Realist. It's a choice whether or not you want to go down that road.

The difference though is that it seemed to ''take off'' and just vanish. The pilots were following it for a while, and then it just disappeared. I don't know of any aircraft currently that can accelerate like that. Did you watch the video?

It's very hard to judge the apparent size, speed or acceleration of an object by eye, especially when you don't have any familiar objects nearby to compare it to. This is the typical situation of aircraft in the sky.

My ''position'' is that we don't know, what we don't know. That said, we shouldn't rush to believing anyone and everyone who claims that they've seen UFO's, or possible alien life. That would be silly. But, I also think we'd be foolish to dismiss all claims, as well. Not all claims have equal merit...

That sounds like a reasonable position to me. Notice, though, that nobody dismissed this story without examining it. Magical Realist believed it without examining it, but he'll believe anything. At the end of the day, we still haven't dismissed it, even if we conclude it was probably a regular jet, for example. We don't know what it was, for sure. The best we can do is to make an informed judgment about what it probably was, and leave it at that until/unless new data comes in that can take us further.

True that a''UFO'' needn't be an alien spacecraft. It could be something else, entirely. It could be a government weapon...and a conspiracy to keep it quiet. That thought is actually scarier than believing in alien life lol

The same advice regarding critical thinking and examining the evidence applies to conspiracy theories. We shouldn't conclude a conspiracy unless and until there is good evidence to show that there is, in fact, a conspiracy.

Needless to say, some gossip about people supposedly removing data after the event is not, in itself, persuasive evidence of a grand government conspiracy.

Why must other people see/experience what we see/experience, in order for it to be true? Paddoboy tells of an experience that he had, but became doubtful of it when he realized no one else had witnessed the same thing. Granted, I'm not suggesting we start believing all eyewitness accounts as I've mentioned above, but if you are drug-free, sober minded, competent, intelligent, and an otherwise rational person - why choose to (always) cave in to your doubts? Can't we cherish an experience and consider it ''real,'' without popular acceptance?

There are different types of "true". Something may be "true" for you in the personal sense of making you feel good, or conforming to your personal beliefs about the world. You can cherish that if it makes you happy. But the other sense of "true" brings in what everyone else can agree about. That is, can you convince anybody else that what is "true" for you is objectively true? If that's not important to you, then fine. Believe what you like. But one reason you might care - other than wanting other people on your side - is that you might prefer for yourself to believe stuff that is really true, regardless of whether it makes you happy or comfortable. If you realise that you're not an infallible observer or recorder, even of your own experiences, then it follows that the only way to work out what's really true is to compare notes with other people.

 

[James R]

Backpeddling from the radar artifact explanation so soon?

No. Go back and read what I wrote.

So now it's supposed to be a jet seen from the rear?

Very likely.

Problem with that ridiculous explanation is the pilots said they saw a whole fleet of them.

Like a squadron? Or a flight of several aircraft. That never happens, does it?

This is something that would readily have been known to be other jets flying in the area.

Would have been? So you're saying you don't know, and you're assuming again. Okay.

Like they wouldn't know that already.

Wait! This isn't you making shit up, is it? You wouldn't do that, after all your whining about it. That would be hypocritical.

Plus the image in the Gimbal video is well defined as a consistent top shape that rotates not as an infrared blob that doesn't rotate.

It's not well defined, and its apparent (not real) rotation has been explained. Watch the explanatory videos that have been posted for your education.

Plus other pilots report seeing spinning tops and tic tacs. Try again?

Pilots using the same system would no doubt see similar things.

Next!

 

[James R]

Oh, and Magical Realist? Can you answer the following questions yet?

1. Do you think it's possible for an eyewitness to reach a mistaken conclusion about what he saw?
2. Do you think it is possible for a radar to register something that looks like a solid object on the radar but isn't?
3. Do you think it is possible for a radar operator to misidentify an object on radar?

A simple "yes" or "no" to each question will suffice. Shouldn't take more than a moment of your time.

Ta.

 

[Magical Realist]

Skeptics aren't telling you what to think. We are urging you to apply some common sense and critical thinking, rather than to jump to conclusions because they are attractive or comfortable.

Liar. That's exactly what skeptics do, insisting that ufos are radar artifacts, seagulls, jets seen from the rear by stupid pilots, the planet Venus, weather balloons, swamp gas, or whatever explanation makes them feel most comfortable. Wegs, you should check out James' thread on the Ravenna County ufo. Thru some sort of twisted thinking he concluded that that well documented ufo was a meteorite, the planet Venus, and a weather balloon all mistaken for one ufo by policemen driving on the highway. If that isn't telling you what to think I don't know what is.

 

[James R]

Liar.

You sound angry again/still.

That's exactly what skeptics do, insisting that ufos are radar artifacts, seagulls, jets seen from the rear, the planet Venus, weather balloons, swamp gas, or whatever explanation makes them feel most comfortable.

No they (we) don't.

Exhibit A: look at what I've said regarding the incident we are currently discussing.

Have I "insisted" on any particular interpretation of the data? No, I have not. You can believe whatever you like about it, like I said. I don't insist you apply common sense or think critically. You are quite welcome to remain irrational if that floats your boat. Just don't expect to bring anybody else along on your ride, apart from other irrational people.

Wegs, you should check out James' thread on the Ravenna ufo.

Yes. Highly recommended. Thanks, Magical Realist! That's a great example of my good sense pitted against your irrational prejudice. Very instructive as to how these things should be approached.

Thru some sort of twisted thinking he concluded that that ufo was a meteorite, the planet Venus, and a weather balloon all mistaken for one ufo by policemen driving on the highway.

What I concluded was: we don't know for sure, but the most probable explanation is that two of the policemen involved, at least, were chasing the planet Venus in their squad car, believing it to be a flying saucer. For a couple of the other observers/observations tied up with that case, the Venus explanation doesn't work, but those are really loose ends more than the central issue. For reasons I explained at some length in the thread, the weather balloon and/or meteor explanations fit the known facts pretty well.

Rather than repeat, though, I strongly urge anybody who is interested to read that thread. Here's the link:

http://www.sciforums.com/threads/portage-county-ravenna-ufo-chase-1966.158484/

 

[James R]

How's it going with answering those three questions I asked you, by the way, Magical Realist? Can we expect any progress from you on that in the near future, or is it all proving to be a little too challenging for you?

 

[dumbest man on earth]

I inferred that he points to a host of other possibilities: light illusion, mirage, radar glitch, etc.

I got the impression he thinks everybody jumped a little too quickly from 'we saw something / imaged something' to 'it's a real object'.

So, why would he Post :

Far be it for me to spoil your dabbling into the supernatural and/or paranormal,

How could anyone infer "dabbling into the supernatural and/or paranormal" from :

Please note, Gawdzilla Sama, that I both noticed and note the 'definitively determine'

Could it possibly be just another Logical Fallacy(ad hominem)... : https://thebestschools.org/magazine/15-logical-fallacies-know/

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I guess, for clarification, I must ask, Gawdzilla Sama, were you "dabbling into the supernatural and/or paranormal" when you Posted the above quoted question?

Why do you suppose that anyone would infer that from the 'definitively determine' in your question?

Eh?

 

[paddoboy]

Eh?

Eh indeed! As I said my mate dmoe cannot see the forest for the trees, and sometimes misses those trees as well.
He like another sits straddling the fence, never quite supporting outright Alien origin UFOs in so many words, and then when dragged from the closet, will deny it on those grounds.
My comment re the forest and the trees, is best illustrated in another thread.....

Not sure of the use of the word "we" in " did we go to the moon", but if the use of "we" includes me, then No, "we" did not go to the moon!

However, I am fairly certain that a few people have went to the moon!

But I would say "they" went to the moon, not "we" because I, myself, did not get to go!
...no one even asked if I wanted to go!

I do not offer the following as any definitive determination or "proof" that "they" went to the moon, but I have been party, on numerous occasions, to active Lunar Laser Ranging utilizing three(3) of the five(5) different retro-reflectors that were placed on the moon during the Apollo Program.
Cannot figure how those retro-reflectors got on the moon if "they", or in your vernacular, "we", did not put them there!

He also tried to pull that silly nonsense over at SFN and was quickly admonished for it.
Other evidence supporting the forest and trees comment and his straggling the fence is also illustrated many times with his attempted debunking of my posts, and yet not once comment on the main fact that stems from this sighting and all others that are not readily explained by atmospheric anomalies or some other natural means, that simply put, they are just more garden varieties UFOs, with the emphasis on Unidentified.

 

[Q-reeus]

Ooooh, ahhhh! nasty government cover ups! Take that with your other paranoid accusations/excuses such as me having some sweet deal with the mods here...me having a similar sweet deal with the mods at SFN where you are banned....mainstream science being incalcitrant and unable to accept one of your favourite speculative gravity hypotheticals among more then a dozen or thereabouts....your claim 9/11 was a conspiracy, and it becomes very obvious that your reputation is in tatters and worthy of the cesspool.

Q-reeus, the facts of the matter at this stage of the game is that this incident along with a small percentage of other incidents, is just another vanilla variety UFO....emphasis on the U. do not compound your generally nonsensical conspiracy orientated claims by equating Unidentified with of alien origin.
Take it easy old friend!

Thankfully MR and dmoe have done my work for me and quite well. Since you have no sense of shame, correcting your frequent gaffes is wasted effort.

 

[Q-reeus]

Luckily we don't even need secret military aviation tech to explain this one. Ordinary, known, jet aircraft do the job just fine.


Obviously you're trying to muddy the waters by bringing in separate incidents. We'd need to examine each of those separately.


It's a good thing nobody does that then, isn't it?


Non-secret aircraft certainly makes best sense in the case we're discussing here. If you want to imply that this can't have a mundane explanation because government conspiracy of whatever, you need to show some evidence for your new theory.

Given your ignorant failure to reply to this p112 post:
http://www.sciforums.com/threads/in-defence-of-space-aliens.160045/page-112#post-3581446
, why should I bother with your mere assertions here? As for 'muddying the waters' charge, don't make me laugh. Shall we do a count of how many times both you and paddoboy have 'muddied the waters' this thread? It would be a very high tally for each. But do carry on as usual with long, entirely predictable psyop replies that give you such a buzz.

 

[dumbest man on earth]

Eh?

When I responded to your question :

When did we definitively determine that UFOs were actually tangible objects?

My response was met with the following :

Far be it for me to spoil your dabbling into the supernatural and/or paranormal, but again, check your local news tomorrow and it will still just be a garden variety of UFOs, that the gullible like to blow out of all proportion and illogically extrapolate to....wait for it! Alien craft!!!!

Since I was not under the impression that you were in any way alluding to " dabbling into the supernatural and/or paranormal " when asking "When did we definitively determine that UFOs were actually tangible objects?"
And since my answer had nothing to do with " dabbling into the supernatural and/or paranormal ", I simply was seeking clarification :

I guess, for clarification, I must ask, Gawdzilla Sama, were you "dabbling into the supernatural and/or paranormal" when you Posted the above quoted question?

Why do you suppose that anyone would infer that from the 'definitively determine' in your question?

So, again I ask simply for clarification, Gawdzilla Sama, were you "dabbling into the supernatural and/or paranormal" when you Posted that question?
If you were not "dabbling into the supernatural and/or paranormal" when you asked/Posted that question, then why or how do you suppose that anyone could or would infer that from the 'definitively determine' in your question?

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

But I didn't post that shit.

 

[dumbest man on earth]

Grok'd.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Thou aren't god.

 

[paddoboy]

Thankfully MR and dmoe have done my work for me and quite well. Since you have no sense of shame, correcting your frequent gaffes is wasted effort.

SADLY MR and DMOE, have both shown themselves to be gullible in the extreme, in entertaining this shit at all...just as you have, and why the three of you are never going to admit that at best it's just another UFO and unidentified, and to extrapolate that do of alien origin is unscientific and ludicrous. That my friend is it in a nut shell. The fact that at least two of you also entertain other supernatural/paranormal or conspiracy nonsense is another red flag. The fact that at least two of you have been banned or are handcuffed at other science forums, and the third would not even attempt such nonsense on other science forums, speaks for itself. And of course the most important issue is the doubt in official circles re this incident and the evidence so far pointing to what I and others have been saying. In essence, that is at best ignoring the evidence or lack thereof, and as I previously said, dabbling into the supernatural/paranormal, and conspiracy crap.