The trap of dogmatic skepticism

[James R]

I think that both the Nimitz 'tic tac' reports from off San Diego and the reports from aviators off Norfolk would seem to qualify as Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, as defined.

I disagree.

Nobody measured the accelerations of these objects. Hypersonic velocities were not measured. Transmedium behaviour was not observed. Nobody was able to examine the "lift" characteristics or any "signature management". So, they don't appear to meet any of the criteria. I guess that makes them TNOs (or TNAOs, or whatever acronym you want to use for them).

In fact, I get the impression that the more extraordinary features of those particular cases helped guide the drafting of the list of defining characteristics in (21)(A) above.

The legislation appears to be poorly drafted. Get some lawyers to give it the once-over, maybe.

And I assume that there are additional cases that display similar characteristics, some very good (multiple observers, radar confirmation etc).

I'm not aware of any cases in which anybody has got close enough to measure the lift characteristics or the signature management capabilities of any unidentified object. Are you? I can't imagine how that could happen.

And obviously, if they really do have crashed and recovered vehicles in secret laboratories somewhere, it's a whole new ball-game.

Well, yes. If somebody has an identified alien spaceship stashed away somewhere and we all get to hear about it from a trustworthy source, then it's a whole new ball game. So far, nothing on that front.

I remain skeptical (in the sense of doubtful) about that, but I don't totally reject the possibility.

Nobody totally rejects the possibility.

It's definitely something that needs to be followed up on, and I applaud these Senators for doing that.

You know, I'm not convinced that this is the best use of the US Senate's time and resources.

Why not wait until there's some solid evidence for something truly "anomalous"? After all, it's been 70 years since the first UFO flap and nothing has come of it, so hasn't the Senate got more pressing issues to deal with?

Just from its style, the Senate UAP criteria appear to have been drafted by attorneys, not philosophers.

Not competent attorneys, if you ask me. If somebody really wants to make this silly change official, the language in the legislation could do with tightening up.

I would hope that Sciforums participants can find it within themselves to discuss this material intelligently, without all the personal insults and our always dividing up into angrily battling 'sides'.

Done!

So if we might always be wrong, and none of the information that we are presented with is totally reliable, where should we begin? I'd say to begin with reports as given. If radar clocked a contact accelerating from a standing start to the speed of sound seemingly instantanously, that satisfies the UAP criterion right there. So does ascending to and decending from space in a matter of seconds.

In your opinion, should the proposed list of 5 criteria be applied exclusively, without applying any common-sense attempts to establish such basics as, for instance, that the radar is actually detecting an "object" in the real world, that the radar is operating correctly, that the radar operator is interpreting the radar data correctly, and so on?

How are you going to distinguish this bona fide UAP from the "temporary non-attibuted" radar-traced object it might otherwise turn out to be, once it is correctly "attributed"?

The thing is: the idea of "anomalous" was appropriately captured already in the prior usage of the term UAP, in my opinion. The idea was that the common-sense checks had already been applied and what was left was something whose cause cannot yet be positively identified. Hence, there is de facto "unidentified", "anomalous" (i.e. out of the ordinary), "phenomenon" of some kind, that may or may not turn out to have a perfectly ordinary explanation tomorrow.

Obviously evidence of radar malfunctions might be forthcoming that throws all that into doubt. So I would say that we have to accept the possibility that cases can subsequently be removed from the UAP category, provided that a convincing case can be made for doing so.

It sounds like you want to start from a place where you assume that unidentified objects are "anomalous" in the required senses, until and unless proven otherwise. Somebody's first impressions or "initial attribution" seems to be good enough to assume hypersonic flight, lift without aerodynamics, instantaneous acceleration and so on. That looks like putting the cart before the horse to me.

So we are back at the question of weighting evidence. Some evidence just intutively seems stronger than others. Unfortunately, I don't know of any way to make that determination objective.

Traditionally, if one wants to be sure that an object exists, the gold standard of evidence is to be able to walk up to it and examine it in detail - to touch it, to interact with it and such. If it's an alien spaceship, the gold standard would be to walk up to it, to touch it, to go inside it, to pull it apart piece by piece to see how it works, in detail. Failing that, one should at least be able to organise a demonstration of its hypersonic or signature-evading capabilities in front of a large audience of dependable and trustworthy expert witnesses.

This isn't rocket science. A lot of it is just plain common sense. We shouldn't believe in things when the evidence for their existence is flimsy at best. If we suspect there's a "there" there, then we should, of course, do our best to investigate the matter as objectively as possible. If our investigations are inconclusive, then we should wait until better evidence becomes available.

We shouldn't jump to conclusions. When the available evidence for infinite acceleration is the word of a single radar operator who had trouble determining what a certain trace on his screen might represent, then maybe it would be better to wait for better data than to jump to the conclusion that the radar operator detected ET.

 

[James R]

Really? What about the Naval encounter with the 40 ft long tic tac that occurred near Catalina Island in 2004?

You know that nobody has identified that UAP as actually being anything like a 40 ft long tic tac. All we have is some video in which something that looks a bit like a tic tac is seen. Nobody measured the length. Nobody got up close enough to see if it was made of real tic tac stuff. It remains a UAP. Unidentified. That means that it hasn't been identified as 40 ft long, or as anything tic tac-like.

Seems to meet all 5 of the criteria for being a UAP as now defined.

Which criteria are you referring to? Not the 5 in post #52, above, surely? It hasn't met any of those.

I don't think all these criteria necessarily define each and every UAP case.

The suggestion is that any one of the criteria would be sufficient, on its own. Which means, basically, there aren't any UAPs, so far, just lots of TNAOs. Once their temporariness has been sorted, they'll either become AOs or identified anomalous phenomena, at which point the "anomalous" becomes almost unnecessary because they will have joined the ranks of the identified "prosaic" things.

There are some in which just some of the criteria may be met. No wings or rudders or control surfaces.

There are lots of TNAOs that have no wings or rudders or control surfaces, as you know.

No heat exhaust or visible means of propulsion and lift.

Lots of ordinary aeroplanes are sighted under conditions in which there is no visible means of propulsion or lift, as you know.

The encounters described by Navy pilot Ryan Graves off the coast of Virginia Beach are good cases of that.

Yes. Ryan Graves did not observe a lot of things.

The 1-4 meter metallic spheres that make "very interesting maneuvers" and that are seen "all over the world" are also good examples of that.

What metallic spheres? Has even one of the "mystery" spheres been confirmed to be metallic (and "non prosaic")?

 

[Magical Realist]

No UAP video has ever been analysed in such a way that all known mundane phenomena can be ruled out.

For as long as a UAP remains U (unidentified), nobody can know that it won't turn out to be a known mundane phenomenon.

Sure they can. That's why after eliminating the mundane possibilities they define the object as an "unidentified ANOMALOUS phenomenon". No more mundane rationalizations. A true uap. And often a uap that fits one or more of the new criteria for being a uap.

(A) In General. --- The term "unidentified anomalous phenomena" means any object operating or judged capable of operating in outer space, the atmosphere, ocean surfaces or undernsea lacking prosaic attribution due to performance characteristics and properties not previous;ly known to be achievable based on commonly accepted physical principles. Unidentified anomalous phenomena are differentiated from both attributed and temporarily non-attributed objects by one or more of the following observables:

(i) Instantaneous acceleration absent apparent inertia.

(ii) Hypersonic velocity absent a thermal signature and sonic shockwave.

(iii) Transmedium (such as space-to-ground or air-to-undersea) travel.

(iv) Positive lift contrary to known aerodynamic principles.

(v) Multispectral signature management.

 

[Magical Realist]

You know that nobody has identified that UAP as actually being anything like a 40 ft long tic tac. All we have is some video in which something that looks a bit like a tic tac is seen. Nobody measured the length. Nobody got up close enough to see if it was made of real tic tac stuff. It remains a UAP. Unidentified. That means that it hasn't been identified as 40 ft long, or as anything tic tac-like.

Sure they have, The pilots who saw it that day identified it as looking like a 40 ft long tic tac. That is an eyewitness observation by trained and experienced pilot observers. And so that's what it appeared as. Unless you somehow have new data that it appeared like something else to eyewitnesses? Do you? I didn't think so.

Oh lookie! Here's a video of a UAP that looks like a tic tac now!

UFOs (UAPs): Explanations?

You're skating on very thin ice. And I see you've become all fatalistic about it: what will happen will happen. No doubt you (pretend to) believe in the Tarot. You've played your cards. Now you wait. You don't scare me with your bullyish threats. Everyone can see what a relentless and abusive...

www.sciforums.com

 

[Magical Realist]

What metallic spheres? Has even one of the "mystery" spheres been confirmed to be metallic (and "non prosaic")?

Yes.. they appear to be metallic and are described as such by AARO head Sean Kirkpatrick. Do you have some new data showing them to not be metallic?

"At a historic NASA briefing on UFOs — “unidentified anomalous phenomena” (UAP) in government parlance — a key Defense Department official made a striking disclosure. Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, director of a new UAP analysis office, stated that U.S. military personnel are observing “metallic orbs” “all over the world.”---- https://thehill.com/opinion/nationa...metallic-orbs-making-extraordinary-maneuvers/

 

[Magical Realist]

Yes. Ryan Graves did not observe a lot of things.

Really? So tell me exactly what Ryan Graves did not observe or else just admit you're making shit up again.

Here's video of an interview with Ryan Graves confirming he actually saw the uaps himself as he was flying. Start at time mark 2:05..

 

[Magical Realist]

No heat exhaust or visible means of propulsion and lift.

James said: Lots of ordinary aeroplanes are sighted under conditions in which there is no visible means of propulsion or lift, as you know.

Really? With no wings or rudders or propellers and no heat signature on FLIR? I think you're lying again.

 

[James R]

No UAP video has ever been analysed in such a way that all known mundane phenomena can be ruled out.

Sure they can.

An empty, unsupported claim that you are simply repeating mindlessly, like a troll. If you had a counter-example you would have given it, but you do not. Hence, my statement stands unrefuted.

 

[James R]

You know that nobody has identified that UAP as actually being anything like a 40 ft long tic tac. All we have is some video in which something that looks a bit like a tic tac is seen. Nobody measured the length. Nobody got up close enough to see if it was made of real tic tac stuff. It remains a UAP. Unidentified. That means that it hasn't been identified as 40 ft long, or as anything tic tac-like.

Sure they have

Nothing you have written says that the UAP is actually an IAP. You have merely confirmed the accuracy of what I wrote.

The pilots who saw it that day identified it as looking like a 40 ft long tic tac.

What an interesting turn of phrase. They "identified it as looking like ..."

They didn't identify it. They just named something that what they saw reminded them of.

That is an eyewitness observation by trained and experienced pilot observers.

The pilots weren't experienced in identifying what something that looked to them like a tic tac might actually be. Nor were they ever trained in identifying such things.

And so that's what it appeared as.

To them. Yes. So what?

Unless you somehow have new data that it appeared like something else to eyewitnesses? Do you?

No. I have no "data" that suggests that it looked different to them, compared to how they described how it looked to them.

It remains the case that neither they, nor anybody else has identified the UAP in that case, as far as you and I are aware. That's why it has the label "UAP". It remains unidentified. Get it?

 

[James R]

Has even one of the "mystery" spheres been confirmed to be metallic (and "non prosaic")?

Yes.

Don't tell lies, Magical Realist.

.... they appear to be metallic ....

So, we have descriptions of how they appear. But no confirmation as to what they are.

I will ask you one more time. Try not to lie this time.

Has even one of the "mystery" spheres been confirmed to be metallic?

... and are described as such by AARO head Sean Kirkpatrick.

He summarised some features that are often reported by observers. He described the reports.

Do you have some new data showing them to not be metallic?

No. Do you have any data showing them to be metallic? I thought not.

Really? So tell me exactly what Ryan Graves did not observe ...

Don't be silly. Where would you want me to start? There's an endless list of things Ryan Graves has never observed.

Here's video of an interview with Ryan Graves confirming he actually saw the uaps himself as he was flying.

You mean here's a video of Ryan Graves talking about what he thinks he actually saw.

 

[James R]

Really? With no wings or rudders or propellers and no heat signature on FLIR? I think you're lying again.

Nobody is as stupid as you pretend to be. What a troll you are.

In blurry videos and photographs taken from a great distance, the wings and tail fins of regular airplanes are often not visible.

Check it out for yourself.

Of course, you're just pretending not to be aware of this, aren't you? What a clown.

 

[Yazata]

I think that part of the problem here is that people seem to be misunderstanding the intent of the classification system in the proposed Senate amendments above.

The amendments (to the annual defense appropriation bill) concern reporting requirements requiring disclosure of UAP information held by government departments or government contractors. (They state that upfront when they state the purpose of the amendment at the very beginning.) They aren't about determining in any final manner what these things really are.

It also seems to me to be a triage system to separate out those reports requiring special scrutiny. (Note, it's about the contents of reports, not the nature of objects, since their true nature remains unknown.

They have thousands of sighting reports, but not all of them justify the same level of attention, assuming they even had the resources to devote to all of them. So they divide the reports into three categories:

1. 'Attributed' - the ones that have already been identified with a reasonably high degree of confidence. (But not immune from error.) The proposed amendment pays little attention to these, because they aren't the focus of attention which is the unidentified ones.

But there are still thousands of unidentified reports, and the initial problem remains. So they divide the unidentified reports into two categories, depending on whether the reports describe the objects as displaying one or more of a set of 'anomalous' characteristics.

2. 'Temporarily non-attributed phenomena' - the unidentified reports that don't display any anomalous characteristics and hence remain consistent with familiar explanations, even if no such explanation has been decided upon yet.

3. 'Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena' - the unidentified reports that do describe objects as displaying anomalous characteristics as defined in the legislation.

It's this latter class that's subject to the reporting requirements and arguably worthy of additional scrutiny.

I don't see anything wrong with them doing this. While the proposed legislation may indeed be badly written, I wouldn't say that this is the reason.

Clearly the 2. 'temporarily non-attributed phenomena' category is subject to its contents moving either way, if additional information becomes available. These might be assigned mundane explanations and move to 1. 'attributed'. Or they might actually turn out to be 3. 'Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena' (as defined here) that simply weren't displaying their anomalous behaviors at the time. Both of those moves will require more information than is in the reports, which is why they are 'temporarily non-attributed'.

3. 'Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena' seem more resistant to downgrading to 1. 'Attributed' because their anomalous characteristics make them seemingly inconsistent with mundane explanations. It can still be done, I guess, by arguing convincingly that the attribution of anomalous qualities in the reports was in fact a mis-attribution. But that too will require evidence.

I sense that our 'skeptics' will want to argue that 3. 'Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena' must of some as-yet unjustified necessity be an empty set and that all attributions of anomalous qualities will necessarily be mis-attributions. Which might arguably be the case, but it requires evidence and argument. In the meantime, the reports (some of them very good in my opinion) do attribute anomalous qualities to the objects in question, so these reports are subject to the reporting requirements as set out in the legislation.

 

[Yazata]

I think that both the Nimitz 'tic tac' reports from off San Diego and the reports from aviators off Norfolk would seem to qualify as Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, as defined.

I disagree.

I guess we will have to agree to disagree about that.

Nobody measured the accelerations of these objects. Hypersonic velocities were not measured. Transmedium behaviour was not observed. Nobody was able to examine the "lift" characteristics or any "signature management". So, they don't appear to meet any of the criteria. I guess that makes them TNOs (or TNAOs, or whatever acronym you want to use for them).

They were observed on radar which I assume was recorded. So it should be possible to read accelerations off that. And when experienced combat aviators (whose lives depend on keeping track of enemy aircraft) say an object was 'here', then suddenly it's over 'there', I take what they say seriously. When multiple aviators are saying much the same thing, it's even more credible.

And when objects appear to be flying with extraordinarily high performance, but without wings, rotors or detectable heat exhaust, that certainly suggests anomalous aerodynamics.

My point is that the nature of the reports justifies the reports' inclusion in the "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena" category.

That's true even if we hold the prior belief ("woo!" "bullshit!" "impossible!") that if we truly understand the nature of these objects, then all the accounts of anomalous characteristics will prove to be false and the "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena" category will be an empty set.

In your opinion, should the proposed list of 5 criteria be applied exclusively, without applying any common-sense attempts to establish such basics as, for instance, that the radar is actually detecting an "object" in the real world, that the radar is operating correctly, that the radar operator is interpreting the radar data correctly, and so on?

Yes. For the purpose of classifying reports for legally required reporting, and presumably for additional study.

And regarding that further study, I'm not persuaded that our criterion for acceptance should be the exclusion of all possibility of error. I'm a fallibilist, remember? The possibility of error will always be present as long as we are human. Making elimination of all possibility of error the criterion for acceptance sounds like intellectual nihilism to me. We would never accept anything.

It sounds like you want to start from a place where you assume that unidentified objects are "anomalous" in the required senses, until and unless proven otherwise. Somebody's first impressions or "initial attribution" seems to be good enough to assume hypersonic flight, lift without aerodynamics, instantaneous acceleration and so on. That looks like putting the cart before the horse to me.

For the purpose of classifying reports into those that report anomalous behavior and those that don't, the deciding factor should be the content of the report. Were anomalous qualities reported?

Traditionally, if one wants to be sure that an object exists, the gold standard of evidence is to be able to walk up to it and examine it in detail - to touch it, to interact with it and such. If it's an alien spaceship, the gold standard would be to walk up to it, to touch it, to go inside it, to pull it apart piece by piece to see how it works, in detail. Failing that, one should at least be able to organise a demonstration of its hypersonic or signature-evading capabilities in front of a large audience of dependable and trustworthy expert witnesses.

Just imagine if that criterion was applied to the idea that dinosaurs once roamed the earth. Today, if we want to establish that a particular animal species exists, ideally we capture living specimens, or at least acquire dead ones to dissect in a laboratory. If all we have to go on is fossil evidence, many additional sources of error will arise.

This isn't rocket science. A lot of it is just plain common sense. We shouldn't believe in things when the evidence for their existence is flimsy at best. If we suspect there's a "there" there, then we should, of course, do our best to investigate the matter as objectively as possible. If our investigations are inconclusive, then we should wait until better evidence becomes available.

Ok, can't argue with that.

We shouldn't jump to conclusions. When the available evidence for infinite acceleration is the word of a single radar operator who had trouble determining what a certain trace on his screen might represent, then maybe it would be better to wait for better data than to jump to the conclusion that the radar operator detected ET.

Concluding that it's "ET" would indeed be jumping to conclusions. But acknowledging that a report described an object seemingly displaying anomalous characteristics is just acknowledging the facts.

As to whether that ascription of anomalous characteristics was in fact mistaken, and if not, what the object so described actually was, remain open

 

[Magical Realist]

Nobody is as stupid as you pretend to be. What a troll you are.

In blurry videos and photographs taken from a great distance, the wings and tail fins of regular airplanes are often not visible.

Check it out for yourself.

Of course, you're just pretending not to be aware of this, aren't you? What a clown.

After a tedious litany of quibblesome posts about the meaning of phrases like "appear as" and "metallic orbs" and what exNavy pilot Ryan Graves "thinks he saw", our exemplary administrator blurts out his three favorite ad homs of me: stupid, troll, and clown. Ahh words words words. Mere puffs of warm air. How shall I ever recover? lol

 

[Magical Realist]

James R said: We shouldn't jump to conclusions. When the available evidence for infinite acceleration is the word of a single radar operator who had trouble determining what a certain trace on his screen might represent, then maybe it would be better to wait for better data than to jump to the conclusion that the radar operator detected ET.

Actually there were quite a few eyewitnesses of the ship radar screens on the day of the tic tac encounters. And there were lots of traces, which only showed up clearer when the radar system was taken down and recalibrated by a technician:

“Once we finished all the recalibration and brought it back up, the tracks were actually sharper and clearer,” Voorhis says. “Sometimes they’d be at an altitude of 80,000 or 60,000 feet. Other times they’d be around 30,000 feet, going like 100 knots. Their radar cross sections didn’t match any known aircraft; they were 100 percent red. No squawk, no IFF (Identification Friend or Foe).”

You can read all about the other eyewitnesses' accounts here:

"The five men share an easy rapport with each other, playfully ribbing one another while also communicating a deep sense of mutual respect. It’s clear they all share the bond of having once served in the armed forces. Yet for Gary Voorhis, Jason Turner, P.J. Hughes, Ryan Weigelt, and Kevin Day—assembled together in a private group chat by Popular Mechanics—something much bigger ties them together beyond simply serving in the U.S. Navy.

These men also share a connection of being witnesses to one of the most compelling UFO cases in modern history: the Nimitz UFO Encounters, an event that the Navy recently confirmed indeed involved “unidentified aerial phenomena.”

Largely overshadowed by a grainy black-and-white video, and a former Topgun fighter pilot eyewitness, these veterans offer new and intriguing details on what occurred with the Navy’s Strike Carrier Group-11 as it sailed roughly 100 miles off the Southern California coast in 2004—details that a former career intelligence agent who investigated the Nimitz Encounter while at the Pentagon can neither confirm, deny, or even discuss with Popular Mechanics.

Ultimately, these five men—the “other” Nimitz witnesses—could be key to understanding an event that a leading aviation defense expert says “likely wasn’t ours.”

Cont'd here:

The Navy UFO Witnesses Speak Out Years Later

What exactly did the Navy encounter 15 years ago off the Southern California coast? These men were there⁠—and it's time they tell their side of the story.

www.popularmechanics.com

 

[Magical Realist]

Nobody measured the accelerations of these objects. Hypersonic velocities were not measured. Transmedium behaviour was not observed. Nobody was able to examine the "lift" characteristics or any "signature management". So, they don't appear to meet any of the criteria. I guess that makes them TNOs (or TNAOs, or whatever acronym you want to use for them).

Tell me James, can you tell the difference between a car going 50 mph and a car going 200 mph without having to measure their speeds? Ofcourse you can. Experienced pilots can do the same thing, only with flying craft.

As far as uaps are concerned, we have precise estimates of such speed and behavior based on the accounts of such trained eyewitnesses and radar data. And we also have eyewitness accounts of transmedium travel. Here's a summary of what was initially observed in the tic tac incident. I know you are well aware of all this, but you keep lying and dismissing it like it never happened. So I will just keep reposting it for anyone out there who wants to know the real truth after coming out of the fog of your deceptive obfuscations and deliberate distortions of the facts..

"The most famous incident was in 2004 where pilots who were attached to the USS carrier Nimitz had this encounter that has been described as the “Flying Tic Tac.” They were out flying over the ocean, and they looked down and they saw what appeared to be whitewater on the surface of the ocean, where the surface was troubled or roiling in some kind of a way. They look down and atop this spot in the water they see this object that they’ve described as looking like a capsule—which is where the flying Tic Tac analogy comes from. It was moving very erratically, seemingly very randomly over the surface of the water, doing all kinds of things that a plane doesn’t do. It doesn’t appear to have wings. It doesn’t appear to have a propulsion system like a jet or a propeller. And then it just disappears. There’s been some reporting that it’s then picked up two seconds later, many, many miles away by the radar systems on the carrier. So these people are describing—and the sensors are backing them up—some kind of physical object that appears to be moving at rates of speed and demonstrating aerodynamic properties and characteristics that don’t match what we understand as human technology."---- https://slate.com/technology/2021/07/shane-harris-interview-uap-ufo-report.html

 

[James R]

Yazata,

I think that part of the problem here is that people seem to be misunderstanding the intent of the classification system in the proposed Senate amendments above.

I have read nothing about the intent behind the legislation, up until this post of yours explaining it. It is quite possible, therefore, that I have made an incorrect assumption about what legislators want this legislation to do.

The amendments (to the annual defense appropriation bill) concern reporting requirements requiring disclosure of UAP information held by government departments or government contractors. (They state that upfront when they state the purpose of the amendment at the very beginning.) They aren't about determining in any final manner what these things really are.

It also seems to me to be a triage system to separate out those reports requiring special scrutiny. (Note, it's about the contents of reports, not the nature of objects, since their true nature remains unknown.

I see. So the idea is that reports are given a quick once-over look and somebody decides that the report will probably turn out to be (1) easily attributed to a mundane, known cause, (2) most likely attributable to a known, mundane cause following a more through investigation, or (3) difficult to attribute to a known cause.

Something that has at least one of the five characteristics listed for "UAP" will be put in the "probably difficult to attribute" bucket and perhaps investigated properly at some later date?

3. 'Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena' - the unidentified reports that do describe objects as displaying anomalous characteristics as defined in the legislation.

It's this latter class that's subject to the reporting requirements and arguably worthy of additional scrutiny.

I don't see anything wrong with them doing this. While the proposed legislation may indeed be badly written, I wouldn't say that this is the reason.

Okay. I don't disagree with you, if the aim of the legislation is, in effect, to focus the most intensive investigatory effort on those cases that appear after some kind of initial cursory assessment to be the most puzzling ones. It makes sense not to bog down paid government or military investigators in loads of the most common kinds of UAP reports - the ones that often turn out to be ordinary aircraft or the planet Venus and such.

Of course, any triage system is going to make errors some of the time. Some cases that might have had very puzzling elements won't get put in the "UAP" inbox because they superficially seem like they might be easy to identify. Other cases that seem puzzling at first glance will end up in the "UAP" inbox, although that's not as big an issue since they will be easily solved once the dedicated, experienced and professional investigators see them.

Nevertheless, the occasional false negative or false positive probably isn't as important as making the investigatory workload manageable. (Potentially, false negatives could potentially have serious consequences down the line - the aliens were here all along but nobody noticed!)

3. 'Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena' seem more resistant to downgrading to 1. 'Attributed' because their anomalous characteristics make them seemingly inconsistent with mundane explanations. It can still be done, I guess, by arguing convincingly that the attribution of anomalous qualities in the reports was in fact a mis-attribution. But that too will require evidence.

At the end of the day, with the UAPs, one of two things will happen: either (1) the UAP will be found to be a previously-misattributed "temporarily non-attributed phenomenon"; or (2) the UAP will be found to be an actual alien spaceship (or similar) and will become an IAP, following which somebody will become rather famous.

I sense that our 'skeptics' will want to argue that 3. 'Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena' must of some as-yet unjustified necessity be an empty set and that all attributions of anomalous qualities will necessarily be mis-attributions.

Essentially, any cases in the UAP inbox at any given time will necessarily be unidentified, right up to the point where they are identified as something. If the apparent "anomalous" qualities pan out - i.e. if there is sufficient evidence for something actually "anomalous" (new to science and/or previously undiscovered by human beings) - then those "anomalous" qualities will become part of the scientific canon. Scientists (and others) will want to know a lot more about them. If, on the other hand, the apparent "anomalous" qualities turn out to be mistakes of one kind or another, then the UAP will be put into the outbox as an attributed mundane thing.

In the meantime, the reports (some of them very good in my opinion) do attribute anomalous qualities to the objects in question, so these reports are subject to the reporting requirements as set out in the legislation.

Fair enough. If the aim of the legislation is just to set out who has to report what, then provided the cursory examinations of cases are moderately competent this could be a useful triage system, as you say.

 

[James R]

I guess we will have to agree to disagree about that.

If the intent is simply to put the case into a category of "warrants further attention", in effect, then I think we can agree it would be okay to classify the case as a "UAP". If I understand you correctly, no assumptions will be made about what the "answers" will turn out to be when the data is examined in detail by competent experts - something that I assume will occur at some later date. All that is being said is that something looks out of the ordinary and doesn't seem like it will be easily explainable with reference to mundane or immediate explanations.

They were observed on radar which I assume was recorded.

Wasn't there some story about the relevant recordings going missing, or being taken by the Men in Black? All I know is that we have never seen any recordings, and I am not aware that military or government investigators have ever said publically that they have any, either. Correct me if I'm wrong.

So it should be possible to read accelerations off that.

If recordings are available, certainly they could be analysed. Any such analysis would have to also consider possible radar glitches and malfunctions and so on - i.e. things that might explain the data other than extraordinary accelerations.

The end result of any such investigation will be either (1) the radar seems to have detected actual extraordinary acceleration by an actual object, as far as we can tell (interesting, to say the least!), or (2) something was wrong with the radar, or (3) something else affected the radar (e.g. atmospheric or other external effects) and actually the "detection" was spurious, or (4) the radar actually detected a real object, but some external effect affected the radar in such a way that the object's motion was incorrectly registered/recorded.

Obviously, I'd be interested to know the outcomes of any such investigation, if one is ever carried out.

And when experienced combat aviators (whose lives depend on keeping track of enemy aircraft) say an object was 'here', then suddenly it's over 'there', I take what they say seriously. When multiple aviators are saying much the same thing, it's even more credible.

I'd say that they have been taken seriously. Their accounts have been heard (a lot!) and are on the public record. It does not automatically follow that because their perception was that an unidentified object was "here" and then it was "there" that therefore there (a) actually was an "object" or (b) that the sightings "here" and "there" were necessarily of the same object and so on. All those conclusions require more data. Extraordinary claims etc etc.

And when objects appear to be flying with extraordinarily high performance, but without wings, rotors or detectable heat exhaust, that certainly suggests anomalous aerodynamics.

It suggests that's how they appear, certainly. There's a ton more work that needs to be done to suggest that appearances correspond to the reality of anomalous aerodynamics in some actual object.

My point is that the nature of the reports justifies the reports' inclusion in the "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena" category.

That's true even if we hold the prior belief ("woo!" "bullshit!" "impossible!") that if we truly understand the nature of these objects, then all the accounts of anomalous characteristics will prove to be false and the "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena" category will be an empty set.

Like I said, if the aim of the categorisation is just to sort through a huge pile of reports and move them into three boxes marked "discard", "maybe look at this later" and "this looks interesting; examine in detail as a priority", then I have no objection. Like you, I am only concerned if people are jumping to conclusions about what things are before a thorough investigation even starts.

And regarding that further study, I'm not persuaded that our criterion for acceptance should be the exclusion of all possibility of error.

No triage system will ever exclude all possibility of error. The aim of any such system is to prioritise things so as to make the most effective use of limited resources.

Anything classified provisionally as a UAP, under these criteria, will need to be investigated until either the thing is identified as something or the investigation hits a brick wall due to lack of sufficient data.

For comparison, police investigations work in a similar way. The police have a list of "unsolved cases". They aren't closed, because new evidence can come to light, sometimes years later. But they are assigned lower resources and deprioritised. Active investigations cease, for the most part, unless some new evidence comes to light.

In the UAP context, lots of cases are likely to end up in the "unsolved" basket. They won't be marked "case closed", because new evidence might come to light at some later date. But those UAPs will remain unidentified, for the time being.

Recall that the NASA and AARO investigations both made a big point about how quality data is needed to solve UAP cases, and they noted that, very often, the available evidence is of very low quality.

For the purpose of classifying reports into those that report anomalous behavior and those that don't, the deciding factor should be the content of the report. Were anomalous qualities reported?

In other words, somebody - whoever is manning the desk at the UAP Investigation Office today - gives a report the quick once-over and puts it into one of three piles, based on taking the report more or less at face value, informed by the desk jockey's prior experience in dealing with such reports and based on the guidelines about how the reports are to be classified, as determined by the legislation and presumably by in-office working procedures. Then, at regular intervals, those reports that have made the "UAP" pile get passed on to experts for further detailed examination.

Correct?

Just imagine if that criterion was applied to the idea that dinosaurs once roamed the earth. Today, if we want to establish that a particular animal species exists, ideally we capture living specimens, or at least acquire dead ones to dissect in a laboratory. If all we have to go on is fossil evidence, many additional sources of error will arise.

Yes. And, indeed, many errors were made, historically, in correctly assessing the evidence of dinosaurs that was available at the time.

The dinosaur example is instructive. People jumped to a lot of hasty conclusions that turned out to be quite wrong, because they weren't based on evidence. For instance, consider the following historical claims: dinosaurs were cold blooded; dinosaurs were like "giant lizards"; dinosaurs had no fur, feathers or other such features (they had 'scaly' lizard-like skin). All wrong.

It is only by gathering further evidence that some of the previous errors have been corrected and our collective confidence that we are correct about what we think we know about dinosaurs has increased.

 

[James R]

After a tedious litany of quibblesome posts about the meaning of phrases like "appear as" and "metallic orbs" and what exNavy pilot Ryan Graves "thinks he saw"...

It comes as no surprise at all that you regard these important observations as "quibblesome". It is precisely because you pay no attention to such distinctions that you end up jumping to unjustified conclusions so often.

(At this point, after years of your nonsense, I'm confident that you're fully aware that such distinctions are important. You're just pretending you can't understand this rather obvious point. You continue to play the village idiot, because what the troll wants is the reaction to his clowning. Correct?)

Ahh words words words. Mere puffs of warm air. How shall I ever recover? lol

Nervous again? You should be.

 

[James R]

Actually there were quite a few eyewitnesses of the ship radar screens on the day of the tic tac encounters.

According to the article you posted, about 5 people have come forward to talk about what they say they saw on radar screens. Quite a few? Well, I guess 5 is quite a few.

You can read all about the other eyewitnesses' accounts here:

One interesting titbit is that Fravor disputes some aspects of the accounts of some of these people who claim to have seen the radar and/or observed the Men in Black taking the recorded data away in a helicopter.

So, even among the celebrated "eyewitnesses" there is some dissension in the ranks.

Ultimately, these five men—the “other” Nimitz witnesses—could be key to understanding an event that a leading aviation defense expert says “likely wasn’t ours.”

What would be more useful would be the radar recordings. But it seems that nobody has those. Right?

What we have, instead, is a bunch of anecdotes, some aspects of which are disputed among the various eyewitnesses.