UFOs (UAPs): Explanations?

[DaveC426913]

That's nonsense. You're saying a live and moving 3D observation of a ufo by a present witness is no better than a 2D still picture of a ufo?

No, I'm saying if all these witness are seeing these picture-perfect, long duration, super-closeup, multi-angled, clear-skied, range-referenced sightings, why is it that - just by sheer probability - not a one of them ever had a camera with them?

It's such a pity that the very perfect thing we need to settle the question once and for all - is these craft that are happy to parade back and forth - showing all their undergarments right under the very noses of all these witnesses - yet they magically retreat halfway to the horizon and go all fuzzy the moment one of those witnesses produces a camera. Darn it.

 

[Magical Realist]

No, I'm saying if all these witness are seeing these picture-perfect, long duration, super-closeup, multi-angled, clear-skied, range-referenced sightings, why is it that - just by sheer probability - not a one of them ever had a camera with them?

It's such a pity that the very perfect thing we need to settle the question once and for all - is these craft that are happy to parade back and forth - showing all their undergarments right under the very noses of all these witnesses - yet they magically retreat halfway to the horizon and go all fuzzy the moment one of those witnesses produces a camera. Darn it.

Why do most ufo accounts not include photo evidence iow? It's just the nature of reality. Way more people out there who can see a ufo than there are people out there with a camera ready to take a picture of a ufo. But it's not like that never happens: https://www.liveabout.com/ufo-photographs-4123245

 

[James R]

Magical Realist:

Nope..all those things would make it an IFO, since at that point you have identified what they are. A UFO as defined cannot be identified as a familiar object.

Is a craft a familiar object?

According to you, since all UFOs are "craft", that would make them all IFOs, wouldn't it?

Illusions and hallucinations aren't sighted.

Sure they are. Search "illusion" on the internet and you'll immediately find many examples you can sight. As for hallucinations, the experience of a hallucination is that it seems like a real experience. That's what a hallucination is. If you experience a visual hallucination, you can't tell that it's not real just from the vision alone.

Thousands of well documented cases in which ufos display the characteristics of being a craft that is intelligently piloted and behaves beyond anything we have seen in the world.

Why is the UFO cultism still a fringe belief, if these "craft" are as well confirmed as you claim?

Precisely. A flying object that is unidentified and NOT the planet Venus or a meteor or a plane or swamp gas, etc etc..

No. There's nothing in the USAF definition that you quoted that says that a UFO could not be the planet venus or swamp gas.

On the other hand, that definition is a little off, don't you think? For instance, I take issue with the requirement that the "airborne object" in question "cannot be identified". One possible reading of that is that identification must be forever impossible. A better wording would have been that the object has not yet be identified as a familiar object or, if you prefer, that the object cannot be identified as a familar object in the absence of further suitable evidence.

Do you agree this would be a better wording of the definition? Maybe you should forward my suggestion to to the USAF. I give you my permission.

Since nobody could ever know that something will remain forever unidentified, to read the original definition as requiring no possibility of future identification would be silly, wouldn't it? Still, it would be better to clarify the definition to eliminate the confusion. Do you agree?

You believe that a UFO sighting is "resolved" when nobody has a clue what it is?

Right..which rules out identified flying objects and unidentified non-flying objects and non-objects.

It make a mockery of the word "resolved", if you ask me.

But let's sum up your position, shall we?

You say that all UFOs are "resolved" when nobody has any clue what they are. But, at the same time, you assert that they are all "craft", which suggests that you have a clue what they are. How is that not inconsistent?

Yes,..That's what ufo means. An object that is not a familiar object or a conventional manmade craft or missile.

Not according to the USAF definition you approved. That definition allows for the possibility that the object is familiar but cannot be currently identified. That is, unless you want to read the definition as requiring that identification be forever impossible.

IOW, not a familiar object. NOT a mirage or an atmospheric effect or a hallucination or any other kind of non-object.

At what stage in your investigation do you conclude that a given sighting is not a familiar object?

Is it possible for a UFO to be later identified as a familiar object, or does your preferred reading of the definition rule out that possibility before you start investigating the sighting at all?

Here's a hypothetical for you:

An eyewitness reports seeing a white object in the sky that she says is moving incredibly fast. She took a photo of it. The photo shows an out-of-focus white object of unusual shape. At this initial-report stage it is impossible to identify the object in the photo. Its shape does not conform to any presently known aircraft or missile type.
​

Is this an example of a UFO, or not? Or can't you say? If you can't say, what further information would you require in order to classify it as a UFO?

NOT a familiar object. It's right there in the definition. If it turns out to be a familiar object it is no longer a ufo.

So it is possible for a familiar object to be a UFO at some point, then later to lose that status if it is found to be a familiar object?

Could the UFO then also transition from "craft" to "non-craft"?

That would make it [a mistaken sighting of the planet Venus] an identified flying object.

Would you know from the start (e.g. initial eyewitness report) that a mistaken sighting of the Planet Venus was not a UFO? How would you know?

So you are denying that ufos as defined by the USAF can even exist.

I don't know where you got that idea from. In this post, I'm trying to clarify your understanding and usage of the USAF definition.

Like 40 ft long tics tacs and metallic disks and spinning tops and black triangles ETC...

Venus isn't very much like a 40 ft long tic tac, although I suppose it could be mistaken for one under suitable conditions.

It is in the sense that it is identified as a ufo with typical characteristics and behavior that it shares with many other sightings.

The USAF definition doesn't have any requirement that a sighting conform to previous sightings in order to be called a UFO. Is this a requirement that you personally add to the USAF definition?

 

[James R]

(continued...)

That moment will never come because a ufo cannot be identified as a familiar object. A flying metallic disk or a 40 ft long tic tac are NOT identifiable as familiar objects. Hence it is a ufo.

It sounds like you require that identification be impossible in order to classify something as a UFO.

How can you tell in advance that identification will remain forever impossible?

It only takes a few moments of observation to know if a flying object has wings or not. We can, iow, ascertain factual states in the world thru sight.

When you view a high-flying jet aircraft from the ground, does it take you only a few moments of observation to know that it has wings?

Suppose the aircraft in question appears as a bright light in the sky with a trail of something behind it as it moves across the sky. Please tell me how you manage to infallibly determine whether it has wings or not, through sight.

See, I think you're just making up this supernatural wing-spotting sense you claim that people have.

All this polemical effort to turn ufos into ifos seems rather desperate to me.

Tell it to the USAF. Tell them to stop investigating, because if they keep going they risk turning UFOs into IFOs. That would make Magical Realist sad.

It's like the entire body of evidence and reports of ufos being craft that are beyond our present technology doesn't even exist.

Why have you been unable to produce any good evidence of such "craft" on this forum, if there's such a massive and well-confirmed body of evidence?

It's just another feeble attempt by skeptics to undermine the accounts of ufos given by eyewitnesses. It's often paired with that other skeptical objection that all these accounts are just "anecdotal", as if people describing what they saw is de facto questionable and unreliable.

Everything people report seeing is de facto questionable and potentially unreliable. There's no guarantee anything is reliable until it is corroborated or confirmed. People make mistakes all the time. Human senses are imperfect. Memory is not a video recorder.

And yes, stories about what people claim to have seen are anecdotes. Look it up.

Ofcourse that throws into doubt just about everything people tell us they saw and experienced in the course of normal everyday conversation.

There's always some doubt, I agree. Basically, the more far-flung and wacky the story is (kidnapped by aliens!) the more cause there is to doubt the ancedote.

Imagine someone at work describing what they did over the weekend and a skeptic there objecting to it all because "the senses are so unreliable" and "your account is merely anecdotal".

Imagine somebody saying they were kidnapped and probed by aliens over the weekend. Imagine the UFO nut failing to question the account at all because human senses are perfect and all accounts, no matter how insane-sounding, must be true.

It's an example of how out of touch the skeptic view really is, always demanding evidence and scientific peer consensus even in the face of someone's own firsthand experience.

Right! Why not believe the guy who says he went for a spin with the aliens in their spaceship on the weekend. Nobody likes a party pooper!

That object is identifiable to anyone physically present to it.

Interesting.

Tell me, Magical Realist. If you believe that people have to be "physically present" at the UFO sightings in order to identify anything, why do you bother posting account after account of such sightings? By your own admission, even you have no basis on which to decide whether the account describes anything real or not. You weren't physically present, so you couldn't know. This is your own standard of evidence.

And yet, time after time, you say you know the accounts represent "real" UFOs. How can you do that, without your having been "physically present to it"?

Most ufo accounts are by physically present witnesses who actually saw the object.

There are two things in play here. One is what the "physically present" witnesses know. The other is what you know. Since, by your own admission, you weren't "physically present", you can't ever identify what the witnesses saw. So how can you claim that they "actually saw the object"? That word "actually" implies that you know they saw it. How do you know? You weren't physically present.

 

[Magical Realist]

Magical Realist:


Is a craft a familiar object?

According to you, since all UFOs are "craft", that would make them all IFOs, wouldn't it?

Not if it's an unfamiliar craft.

Sure they are. Search "illusion" on the internet and you'll immediately find many examples you can sight. As for hallucinations, the experience of a hallucination is that it seems like a real experience. That's what a hallucination is. If you experience a visual hallucination, you can't tell that it's not real just from the vision alone.

Search the skies and you won't come up with one sighting of an illusion or a hallucination.

Why is the UFO cultism still a fringe belief, if these "craft" are as well confirmed as you claim?

Argument ad populum--if more people believed in it, then it would be true.

No. There's nothing in the USAF definition that you quoted that says that a UFO could not be the planet venus or swamp gas.

"cannot be identified as a familiar object."

On the other hand, that definition is a little off, don't you think? For instance, I take issue with the requirement that the "airborne object" in question "cannot be identified". One possible reading of that is that identification must be forever impossible. A better wording would have been that the object has not yet be identified as a familiar object or, if you prefer, that the object cannot be identified as a familar object in the absence of further suitable evidence.

Nope. That's the definition. Cannot be identified as a familiar object, In other words, a ufo.

Do you agree this would be a better wording of the definition? Maybe you should forward my suggestion to to the USAF. I give you my permission.

Nope. Can't make up new definitions to suit your skeptical agenda.

Since nobody could ever know that something will remain forever unidentified, to read the original definition as requiring no possibility of future identification would be silly, wouldn't it? Still, it would be better to clarify the definition to eliminate the confusion. Do you agree?

No..it is precisely the case. These are real objects that cannot be identified as a familiar object because they are ufos. As in 40 ft long tic tacs, metallic discs, spinning tops, black triangles, etc.

But let's sum up your position, shall we?

You say that all UFOs are "resolved" when nobody has any clue what they are. But, at the same time, you assert that they are all "craft", which suggests that you have a clue what they are. How is that not inconsistent?

Identifying it as a ufo is not having no clue about what it is. In our culture and popular parliance ufo has become synonomous with an unknown craft of some sort that is beyond the technology that we currently have. OTOH, if we say it is really the planet Venus or a weather balloon we have reduced it to an IFO.

Not according to the USAF definition you approved. That definition allows for the possibility that the object is familiar but cannot be currently identified. That is, unless you want to read the definition as requiring that identification be forever impossible.

If the ufo is ever identified as a familiar object then it is no longer a ufo but an ifo. That's the definition.,

At what stage in your investigation do you conclude that a given sighting is not a familiar object?

When the object's characteristics and behavior exclude being anything familiar to us. Like a 40 ft long tic tac, metallic disc, etc.

Is it possible for a UFO to be later identified as a familiar object, or does your preferred reading of the definition rule out that possibility before you start investigating the sighting at all?

No..a ufo is not an ifo. Never has been, never will be. See http://www.sciforums.com/threads/in-defence-of-space-aliens.160045/page-176#post-3614910

Here's a hypothetical for you:

An eyewitness reports seeing a white object in the sky that she says is moving incredibly fast. She took a photo of it. The photo shows an out-of-focus white object of unusual shape. At this initial-report stage it is impossible to identify the object in the photo. Its shape does not conform to any presently known aircraft or missile type.
​

Is this an example of a UFO, or not? Or can't you say? If you can't say, what further information would you require in order to classify it as a UFO?

That would be by definition of a ufo.

So it is possible for a familiar object to be a UFO at some point, then later to lose that status if it is found to be a familiar object?

Could the UFO then also transition from "craft" to "non-craft"?

Nope. A ufo identified as a familiar object is no longer a ufo but an ifo. How many more times do I have to repeat this?

Would you know from the start (e.g. initial eyewitness report) that a mistaken sighting of the Planet Venus was not a UFO? How would you know?

The planet Venus would be ruled out as part of the investigation if it is a ufo.

Venus isn't very much like a 40 ft long tic tac, although I suppose it could be mistaken for one under suitable conditions.

In a pig's eye,

The USAF definition doesn't have any requirement that a sighting conform to previous sightings in order to be called a UFO. Is this a requirement that you personally add to the USAF definition?

The definition is rather old and came out before ufos were found to be more common than they thought. Over the decades ufos have acquired their own identifying characteristics of shape, size, luminosity, and flight behavior that makes them a category in themselves.

 

[Magical Realist]

(continued...)


It sounds like you require that identification be impossible in order to classify something as a UFO.

How can you tell in advance that identification will remain forever impossible?

Because the investigation has ruled out the ufo being an ifo. A ufo can't be unidentified and identified at the same time.

When you view a high-flying jet aircraft from the ground, does it take you only a few moments of observation to know that it has wings?

Yes..especially with a pair of binoculars.

Suppose the aircraft in question appears as a bright light in the sky with a trail of something behind it as it moves across the sky. Please tell me how you manage to infallibly determine whether it has wings or not, through sight.

Sound of the roar of a jet as it flies over.

See, I think you're just making up this supernatural wing-spotting sense you claim that people have.

It's called human vision.

Tell it to the USAF. Tell them to stop investigating, because if they keep going they risk turning UFOs into IFOs. That would make Magical Realist sad.

And yet ufos still exist. Don't believe me.. Go to a bookstore and check out the ufo section,

Why have you been unable to produce any good evidence of such "craft" on this forum, if there's such a massive and well-confirmed body of evidence?

I have presented numerous compelling cases in this thread of ufos. Go back and read the thread to refresh your memory.

Everything people report seeing is de facto questionable and potentially unreliable. There's no guarantee anything is reliable until it is corroborated or confirmed. People make mistakes all the time. Human senses are imperfect. Memory is not a video recorder.

No matter what they say, their reports are unreliable? Could've visited their grandmother over the weekend. Could've seen a movie at the theater, Could've seen someone get hit by a car, It's de facto questionable and unreliable because they say they saw it? Bullshit..

And yes, stories about what people claim to have seen are anecdotes. Look it up.

All eyewitness accounts are stories. So that effectively eliminates all news reports, historical records, court testimony, biographical data, etc. All dubious because it's stories. I don't think so.

There's always some doubt, I agree. Basically, the more far-flung and wacky the story is (kidnapped by aliens!) the more cause there is to doubt the ancedote.

You never said the anecdote has to be wacky. You said it simply has to be an anecdote to be doubtful. So that means everything everyone says they saw and experienced is doubtful just because it's anecdotal. What an uncertain little world you must live in!

Imagine somebody saying they were kidnapped and probed by aliens over the weekend. Imagine the UFO nut failing to question the account at all because human senses are perfect and all accounts, no matter how insane-sounding, must be true.

In your world that somebody could say they just fell off a ladder or ran over a rabbit and they would be doubted simply because it is all anecdotal. IOW, all accounts given by anyone of their own experience are suspect no matter what the account is about. That's the skeptic's meaning of anecdote isn't it?

Right! Why not believe the guy who says he went for a spin with the aliens in their spaceship on the weekend. Nobody likes a party pooper!

In the very least, it would be an interesting thing to look into. Why does he believe this for example? And does the experience compare to other similar claims made by other people?

Interesting.

Tell me, Magical Realist. If you believe that people have to be "physically present" at the UFO sightings in order to identify anything, why do you bother posting account after account of such sightings? By your own admission, even you have no basis on which to decide whether the account describes anything real or not. You weren't physically present, so you couldn't know. This is your own standard of evidence.

I never said people HAD to be present to a ufo to decide if it really exists, I just said eyewitness accounts are by people who were present at the sighting. And an eyewitness account is compelling and reliable evidence of the existence of ufos, particularly when it is backed up by other eyewitnesses, radar, photos, video, or physical trace evidence.

And yet, time after time, you say you know the accounts represent "real" UFOs. How can you do that, without your having been "physically present to it"?

Because eyewitness accounts are reliable and compelling.

There are two things in play here. One is what the "physically present" witnesses know. The other is what you know. Since, by your own admission, you weren't "physically present", you can't ever identify what the witnesses saw. So how can you claim that they "actually saw the object"? That word "actually" implies that you know they saw it. How do you know? You weren't physically present.

Eyewitness evidence again. OTOH, how do you decide what an eyewitness saw or didn't see not having been there to see it? How does your firsthand experience of not seeing the ufo trump their firsthand experience of seeing it?

 

[Magical Realist]

A sampling of definitions of the word UFO...

"UFO
(juː ef oʊ) A ufo is an object seen in the sky or landing on Earth which cannot be identified and which is often believed to be from another planet. UFO is an abbreviation for 'unidentified flying object'.
There has been a surge of UFO sightings in America."----https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/ufo

UFO
/ˌyo͞o ˌef ˈō/
noun

1. a mysterious object seen in the sky for which, it is claimed, no orthodox scientific explanation can be found.
   
   Similar:
   flying saucer
   
   
   foo fighter"---- https://www.google.com/search?q=define ufo&rlz=1C1CHZL_enUS699US699&oq=define ufo&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l7.5191j1j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

UFO
[ yoo-ef-oh or, sometimes, yoo-foh ]SHOW IPA
noun, plural UFO's, UFOs.
any unexplained moving object observed in the sky, especially one assumed by some observers to be of extraterrestrial origin.:''---- https://www.dictionary.com/browse/ufo

" ,,the UFO is simply "the reported perception of an object or light seen in the sky or upon the land the appearance, trajectory, and general dynamic and luminescent behavior of which do not suggest a logical, conventional explanation and which is not only mystifying to the original percipients but remains unidentified after close scrutiny of all available evidence by persons who are technically capable of making a common sense identification, if one is possible." (The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry by J. Allen Hynek, Henry Regnery, Chicago, 1972, p. 10.)

 

[Magical Realist]

Saucers over Oklahoma, 1965.

http://thislandpress.com/2015/02/04/saucers-over-oklahoma/

"Saturday morning, July 31, 1965, at 1:05 a.m., Officer Lewis Sikes of the Wynnewood Police Department reported sighting a bright object in the sky a few miles northeast of town. He described the object as having a blue-green center, with a rotating light circling the midsection. The object abruptly rose into the night sky, where it hovered for a few minutes before it began to lose altitude and then move off to the north. The sighting was also confirmed by the Murray County Sheriff’s Office. Tinker Air Force Base picked up an unidentified blip on their radarscope at the same time as the Wynnewood sighting. The object was tracked at an altitude of 8,000 feet until it disappeared from their screen approximately 15 miles southwest of Midwest City. It was later learned that Carswell Army Air Force Base in Fort Worth, Texas, had also tracked an unidentified object on their radar screen earlier that evening. A UFO had been witnessed by many people, including members of law enforcement, and tracked on radar by military personnel at two different air force bases; this was only the first night...."

Continued at:

http://thislandpress.com/2015/02/04/saucers-over-oklahoma/

 

[DaveC426913]

Saucers over Oklahoma, 1965.

Maybe MR would be better to conclude that - if there were UFOs all over the planet - they left over a half century ago.

 

[sideshowbob]

if there were UFOs all over the planet - they left over a half century ago.

They have a long trip home.

 

[DaveC426913]

They have a long trip home.

Not in MR's view.
He has ... ideas about where/when they're from.

 

[James R]

Magical Realist:

I'll start with the the obvious problems with your definition of "UFO".

It sounds like you require that identification be impossible in order to classify something as a UFO.

How can you tell in advance that identification will remain forever impossible?

Because the investigation has ruled out the ufo being an ifo.

How can any investigation possibly hope to rule out the possibility of ever being able to positively identify a UFO?

The only thing I can think of is that the evidence that can be collected is of such poor quality and/or is so lacking that no definite conclusion can be reached as to the identity of the sighted object.

But what about future investigations? How can you guarantee that new evidence won't come to light to show conclusively that the sighting was of the planet Venus, or a weather balloon, or whatever?

It seems to me that, by your own standards, something is only a UFO if you decide in advance of any investigation that it will never be an identified or identifiable object. Which means, of course, that you're not really interested in finding out what these things are through investigation. I think you already have some beliefs about what they are, and you prejudge every case.

In case there's any future doubt about your position on this, I include your own words here, for the record:

Since nobody could ever know that something will remain forever unidentified, to read the original definition as requiring no possibility of future identification would be silly, wouldn't it?

No..it is precisely the case. These are real objects that cannot be identified as a familiar object because they are ufos.

What's also fascinating about this is the flow of causation: they "cannot be identified ... because they are ufos" (my emphasis). Not "they are ufos because they cannot currently be identified".

What this clearly shows is your prejudice that UFOS are all, as you say explicitly "40 ft long tic tacs, metallic discs, spinning tops, black triangles, etc.".

When presented with an eyewitness report of something he describes as "like a 40 ft long tic tac", it is clear that your methodology in the first instance is to say "Okay. That fits one of the objects on my Wall Chart of Acceptable Alien Spacecraft Shapes. So, it's a UFO. Therefore, it can never be identified as anything else." It cannot be identified because you've already decided it's a UFO (namely a "craft" whose apparent characteristics comport with your requirements about how alien spacecraft ought to look and behave).

To contrast: an unbiased observer would look at the same report and say "This is a UFO because it has not yet been identified as a familiar object. Let the investigation begin, to see whether we can work out what this eyewitness actually saw!" And then, later, when it turns out after suitable investigation, with high confidence, that the sighting was of the planet Venus, the unbiased observer says "This is now a 'solved' UFO case. We managed to identify it as the planet Venus." Note that this doesn't mean it was never a UFO in the first place. It started as an unidentified object in the sky; now we know it was Venus. There's no prejudgment in this; we just followed where the evidence led.

See how different the two approaches are?

----
Having removed any doubt as to your bias when it comes to categorising UFOs, I will move on to consider other matters raised in your posts.

 

[James R]

(continued...)

Search the skies and you won't come up with one sighting of an illusion or a hallucination.

As usual, you put the cart before the horse.

When an eyewitness reports seeing something in the sky that conforms to your prejudice about what a UFO ought to look like, you immediately discount the possibility that the eyewitness could have seen an illusion or that he could have had a hallucination. Your assumption is that if it conforms to your wall chart of alien spaceships, then an illusion or hallucination is impossible.

Once again, you have the causation backwards. The truth is that the sighting is unidentified. All we have is an anecdote about what the eyewitness says he saw, and we can't rule out illusion or hallucination until we investigate the circumstances of the sighting and the witness himself more closely. If it turns out that the witness has a history of mental illness, for instance, it could well be that his searching the skies did come up with a hallucination of one of your "alien craft". To discount the possibility out of hand, just because the report fits your preconception of what a UFO sighting is supposed to look like, is to reveal your own bias, again.

Argument ad populum--if more people believed in it, then it would be true.

No. My argument is that prudent, intelligent, unbiased people who are suitably equipped to evaluate evidence, would be willing to accept that space aliens are visiting us, given sufficient evidence. My assertion is that there are many millions of such people in the world. My conclusion is that UFO fanboys such as yourself have not made a convincing case for the existence of your alien spaceships, or else those prudent, intelligent, unbiased people would agree that your little green men are real.

I ask you to consider what is more likely: that prudent, intelligent, unbiased people are all wrong about alien visitation, or that people with a proven bias who are reckless about evidence - such as yourself - are overzealous in their acceptance of (or wild-eyed enthusiasm about) the hypothesis?

Identifying it as a ufo is not having no clue about what it is. In our culture and popular parliance ufo has become synonomous with an unknown craft of some sort that is beyond the technology that we currently have.

Why do you now choose to rely on a pop-culture definition of UFO? Is it because you now realise that the USAF definition - limited as it is - is too restrictive to accommodate your biases?

If the ufo is ever identified as a familiar object then it is no longer a ufo but an ifo. That's the definition.,

Using your definition, as I summarised in my previous post, no UFO can ever be identified, because you define a UFO explicitly as something that has not and cannot ever be identified as a familiar object.

Here it is in your own words, again:

Is it possible for a UFO to be later identified as a familiar object, or does your preferred reading of the definition rule out that possibility before you start investigating the sighting at all?

No..a ufo is not an ifo. Never has been, never will be.

This confirms that once you, MR, have decided that a given sighting shows a "craft" of a description that you find acceptable, you will forever regard that sighting as an alien "craft", regardless of any investigation that might turn up evidence to the contrary.

If there's any doubt at all that this is your approach to this stuff, we need only refer to the many actual cases we have discussed on this forum. Once a UFO, forever a UFO, to you.

 

[James R]

(continued...)

Let us now turn to my hypothetical as an example. I wrote:

An eyewitness reports seeing a white object in the sky that she says is moving incredibly fast. She took a photo of it. The photo shows an out-of-focus white object of unusual shape. At this initial-report stage it is impossible to identify the object in the photo. Its shape does not conform to any presently known aircraft or missile type.

Is this an example of a UFO, or not? Or can't you say? If you can't say, what further information would you require in order to classify it as a UFO?​

You said:

That would be by definition of a ufo.

Keep in mind that all UFO are craft with pilots, that can never ever be identified, by your own definitions.

My follow-up question was:

So it is possible for a familiar object to be a UFO at some point, then later to lose that status if it is found to be a familiar object?

Could the UFO then also transition from "craft" to "non-craft"?​

and you, consistent with everything I've written about your attitude on sighting and UFO reports, said:

Nope. A ufo identified as a familiar object is no longer a ufo but an ifo. How many more times do I have to repeat this?

Now, I had in mind for my hypothetical that the eyewitness saw a funny-shaped cloud. You know, a regular cumulo nimbus fluffy white cloud.

What you have told us all, unequivocally, is that this cloud is a UFO, and that there is no possibility that it could ever lose its status as a UFO. In other words, you just decided that an ordinary cloud was an alien spaceship, and you're unwilling to change your mind about your initial assessment no matter what.

It says it all really, doesn't it?

"But what about the unusual flight characteristics that the eyewitness reported?", I hear you complain. Well, guess what? The eyewitness made a mistake. She saw the cloud in the sky and it was closer than other clouds and being blown along by the wind. Misjudging the sighting distance, she concluded that it was an object travelling at an enormous speed. And the photo doesn't help us to determine whether the reported speed was right or wrong.

Of course, in the Magical Realist universe, eyewitnesses never make mistakes, so probably my claim that this was an ordinary cloud is just a skeptical lie that I created to doubt the holy eyewitness. Once a UFO, always a UFO, according to Magical Realist.

 

[James R]

(continued...)

The [USAF] definition is rather old and came out before ufos were found to be more common than they thought. Over the decades ufos have acquired their own identifying characteristics of shape, size, luminosity, and flight behavior that makes them a category in themselves.

Now you sound like you want to swap the USAF definition for a different one. Why did you bring that one up in the first place, if you believe it to be outdated and unhelpful?

I think you have realised that this one doesn't suit your purposes and biases, so you now want to shift the goalposts again.

Now, let's discuss your idiocies about the perfection of human senses, once again.

When you view a high-flying jet aircraft from the ground, does it take you only a few moments of observation to know that it has wings?

Yes..especially with a pair of binoculars.

You make the idiotic assertion that all witnesses to UFOs automatically have a pair of binoculars at hand. But you and I both know that's just a lazy attempt to avoid addressing the question I asked.

The truth, as you know, is that if a jet aircraft is flying high enough above you, it can just look like a bright point in the sky. You can't see wings, and you certainly can't see them with "only a few moments of observation". Human sight is limited - just like all our other senses.

You must think your readers are stupid if you expect them to accept your assertion that human senses are all-powerful, perfect percievers of reality in every circumstance.

I also asked you, as a follow-up question:

Suppose the aircraft in question appears as a bright light in the sky with a trail of something behind it as it moves across the sky. Please tell me how you manage to infallibly determine whether it has wings or not, through sight.​

You couldn't even manage an honest response to that one:

Sound of the roar of a jet as it flies over.

Let's ignore the fact that you tried dishonestly to distract by mentioning sound when I asked about sight, because this response nevertheless gives us further insight into your methodology.

A sound can't tell you whether something has wings, under any circumstances, unless you make a whole bunch of assumptions in advance about what is causing the sound. So, what this response tells us is this: if Magical Realist hears something that sounds like a jet plane, Magical Realist will conclude that it must be a jet plane, and that no further investigation is necessary and no revision of this initial assumption is possible.

See how there is no room for mistake or misperception in this? There's no room for mistaking a thunderclap for the sound of a jet. There's no realisation that a high-flying jet might make no sound that is perceivable from the ground. The assumption is that the witness can't be wrong, and that all the witness's senses are perfect and infallible. But the main assumption - the one that overrides all else - is that the witness saw what Magical Realist wants the witness to have seen.

And so, we turn again the reliability and fallibility of witnesses....

No matter what they say, their reports are unreliable? Could've visited their grandmother over the weekend. Could've seen a movie at the theater, Could've seen someone get hit by a car, It's de facto questionable and unreliable because they say they saw it? Bullshit..

If somebody says they visited their grandmother the Saturday before last, is that necessarily reliable? What if there's evidence from somebody else that they visited on Sunday rather than Saturday? What if you ask somebody if they have seen Jaws 3 and they say "I think so. That's the one where the guy on the boat ends up blowing up the shark by shooting a scuba tank in its mouth, right?" Is their recollection of seeing Jaws 3 reliable? Can you even be sure they saw Jaws 3?

Do you honestly expect us to believe that you think that people can never be mistaken about what they say they saw?

Of course you don't. This is just a desperate and transparent act you put on to try to prop up your own faith that aliens exist. You play the fool, but you're only fooling yourself in the end.

All eyewitness accounts are stories. So that effectively eliminates all news reports, historical records, court testimony, biographical data, etc. All dubious because it's stories. I don't think so.

I think so. This is why corroborating evidence is so important in historical records, court testimony, biographical data, etc. - all the things you mention, funnily enough. But you already know this. You're still playing the fool.

You never said the anecdote has to be wacky. You said it simply has to be an anecdote to be doubtful. So that means everything everyone says they saw and experienced is doubtful just because it's anecdotal. What an uncertain little world you must live in!

Thinking you already know everything is a character flaw that is likely to hurt you in the long run. I'm aware of the traps. You pretend that you aren't, but I think that's an act. For whose benefit? is the question.

In your world that somebody could say they just fell off a ladder or ran over a rabbit and they would be doubted simply because it is all anecdotal. IOW, all accounts given by anyone of their own experience are suspect no matter what the account is about. That's the skeptic's meaning of anecdote isn't it?

No.

People falling off ladders or running over rabbits are usually not remarkable stories. Besides, people who fall off ladders often have the bruises to show for it, and there are dead rabbits to be found if we want to go looking.

It's all well and good for you to pretend that seeing a 40 ft flying tic tac is as commonplace as falling off a ladder, but who are you really fooling? Is it really the case that your standards of evidence are the same for both experiences? If so, then you have a serious problem.

In the very least, it would be an interesting thing to look into. Why does he believe this for example?

You're not telling us we should look into it. You're saying that in the first instance we should believe everything that an "eyewitness" claims to have seen. What's this sudden change in you that you're suddenly interested in investigating the claim?

And does the experience compare to other similar claims made by other people?

Argument ad populum? Didn't you mention that earlier? Did you forget?

I never said people HAD to be present to a ufo to decide if it really exists, I just said eyewitness accounts are by people who were present at the sighting. And an eyewitness account is compelling and reliable evidence of the existence of ufos, particularly when it is backed up by other eyewitnesses, radar, photos, video, or physical trace evidence.

So the guy who comes into work and tells you he was kidnapped by aliens on the weekend is compelling and reliable evidence that he was actually kidnapped by aliens on the weekend. Because all eyewitness accounts are reliable and compelling. Got it.

OTOH, how do you decide what an eyewitness saw or didn't see not having been there to see it?

I consider all the evidence that I'm aware of, independent of what that eyewitness says she saw. I evaluate that evidence in light of my own experience in the world and in the light of the sum total of human knowledge and experience that I am aware of. I also consider the possibility that the eyewitness could be wrong, for many different reasons.

How do you do decide? No, no need to tell me. I already know. All eyewitnesses are perfect and people don't ever make mistakes or tell lies. Right. And no matter how bizarre the story, it must be true, as long as it's on the UFO wall chart.

 

[James R]

A sampling of definitions of the word UFO...

One or two of them problematic...

A ufo is an object seen in the sky or landing on Earth which cannot be identified and which is often believed to be from another planet.

There's the same problem with "cannot be identified" as in the USAF definition. Does it mean it can't currently be identified, or it can't ever be identified?

It does get it right that common usage of "UFO" often includes the unjustified assumption that it is from another planet.

a mysterious object seen in the sky for which, it is claimed, no orthodox scientific explanation can be found.

I have no real problem with this one. UFOs are very much about what people claim, even if those claims turn out to be baseless.

any unexplained moving object observed in the sky, especially one assumed by some observers to be of extraterrestrial origin.:''

Again with the assumptions!

" ,,the UFO is simply "the reported perception of an object or light seen in the sky or upon the land the appearance, trajectory, and general dynamic and luminescent behavior of which do not suggest a logical, conventional explanation and which is not only mystifying to the original percipients but remains unidentified after close scrutiny of all available evidence by persons who are technically capable of making a common sense identification, if one is possible." (The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry by J. Allen Hynek, Henry Regnery, Chicago, 1972, p. 10.)

This one is kind of okay. The only problem is that we can't call something a UFO until a full investigation has taken place, if we use this definition. What should we call reports of objects in the sky that haven't yet been investigated by technically capable persons?

 

[Q-reeus]

Saucers over Oklahoma, 1965.

http://thislandpress.com/2015/02/04/saucers-over-oklahoma/

"Saturday morning, July 31, 1965, at 1:05 a.m., Officer Lewis Sikes of the Wynnewood Police Department reported sighting a bright object in the sky a few miles northeast of town. He described the object as having a blue-green center, with a rotating light circling the midsection. The object abruptly rose into the night sky, where it hovered for a few minutes before it began to lose altitude and then move off to the north. The sighting was also confirmed by the Murray County Sheriff’s Office. Tinker Air Force Base picked up an unidentified blip on their radarscope at the same time as the Wynnewood sighting. The object was tracked at an altitude of 8,000 feet until it disappeared from their screen approximately 15 miles southwest of Midwest City. It was later learned that Carswell Army Air Force Base in Fort Worth, Texas, had also tracked an unidentified object on their radar screen earlier that evening. A UFO had been witnessed by many people, including members of law enforcement, and tracked on radar by military personnel at two different air force bases; this was only the first night...."

Continued at:

http://thislandpress.com/2015/02/04/saucers-over-oklahoma/

I seldom reproduce passages from an article and generally link to it with precise 'directions' unlike many lazy members at SF. But the distinct pattern shown below, lifted from MR's linked article in #3508, is imo worth reproducing here:

Oklahoma was not the only state to experience UFO activity on that hot summer night. By midnight, the UPI wire service reported thousands of UFO reports from Dallas, Texas. Similar sightings were reported in Kansas, New Mexico, Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming.

By Monday’s morning light, August 2, tens of thousands of people from seven different states had witnessed UFO activity. At least two U.S. Air Force bases had tracked the strange lights on radar at the same time they were observed by members of the military and law enforcement. Had American air space been invaded by a foreign presence? Questions went up the Air Force chain of command until they reached the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

The flippant responses previously given by government officials to dismiss such sightings would not work in this case. But, they tried anyway.

By afternoon that same Monday, the Air Force had solved the UFO mystery of the previous two nights. An official response from the Secretary of the Air Force Office of Information stated: “The initial study of the majority of reports received thus far would indicate that observations were astrological in nature. The objects most likely observed were the planet or stars Jupiter, Capella, Belegeux, or Aldeberon, which are clearly visible in the eastern sky.

“The time of the reported sightings and azimuth and elevation of reported sightings supports this conclusion. There were no aircraft scrambled in an attempt to intercept the reported objects.”

The lights seen blinking and changing color were explained as a natural atmospheric phenomenon called scintillation, the same effect that causes stars to appear to twinkle.

The Air Force response concluded, “The investigation is continuing.”

Robert Risser, who was then the director of the Oklahoma Science and Arts Foundation planetarium, emphatically disagreed. He told the Oklahoma Journal, “That is as far from the truth as you can get. Somebody had made a mistake. These stars and planets are on the opposite side of the earth from Oklahoma City at this time of year.”

Risser suggested that someone may have read the star chart wrong, or had it upside down. He did concede that meteors and a touch of mass hysteria could have accounted for some reports, then added, “But that still leaves a number of observations still unexplained.”

In red - the initial reports of witnesses - very many in this case. Including military radar tracking.
In blue - the usual efforts at 'explaining' the above encounters by military or allied authorities as 'honest misidentification of mundane phenomena'. Yeah, right.
In green - the variously amused or incensed reaction to 'the official explanation', by knowledgeable folks who easily poke holes in such flimsy efforts to quiet things down.

The identical pattern applying to that famous though forgotten 1952 Washington Flap series of encounters:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_Washington,_D.C._UFO_incident

With the same but endlessly repeating general pattern here, albeit with even worse efforts at debunking by the local trolling skeptics.

 

[foghorn]

MR goes to all the trouble of cutting and pasting (#3508) without adding any personal comment. Q-reeus quotes MR's cut and paste and sets the scene for a ''debate''' with an opening line of calling people lazy, and a closing line of calling people trolls.
What's that whining noise? A ufo?

 

[Yazata]

That moment may never come.
It may never be identified as an aircraft.
Thus it remains a UFO.

That moment will never come because a ufo cannot be identified as a familiar object. A flying metallic disk or a 40 ft long tic tac are NOT identifiable as familiar objects. Hence it is a ufo.

If I'm holding a pencil in my hand, then I'm holding a pencil in my hand. That's not an argument that it's somehow impossible for me to let go of the pencil. If I do set it down, then I'm no longer holding it.

Similarly, a UFO is unidentified by definition. That doesn't imply that it's somehow impossible in principle to identify it, only that if it is identified, then it will no longer be a UFO.

This is one reason why I think that 'UFO' is a very diverse class.

There are UFOs that haven't been identified because not enough information exists. (I think that this might be the biggest class of UFOs.) But this doesn't imply that they couldn't be identified if more information became available.

There are transitory UFOs that were unidentified for a short time, then were identified and stopped being UFOs. There are many of these too. (I've seen some myself.)

And there's a residual class of persistent UFOs that seem to resist identification. This is the smallest but by far the most interesting class of UFOs. These are the cases that suggest (but don't prove) that we might be experiencing a new kind of phenomenon.

 

[Magical Realist]

LOL! James R is still all up in arms over that USAF definition of a UFO and the fact that it isn't an IFO like a weather balloon, a plane, a meteor, etc. It blows his mind that UFOs not only exist physically as real objects with distinct characteristics but that UFOs exist semantically as well. What's he so scared of? Every investigation he insists that hasn't reduced the UFO to an IFO must forever remain open until it does simply because he believes UFOs are all really IFOs. That's alot of faith to place in a mere belief: "One day all UFO accounts of 40 ft tic tacs and metallic discs and spinning tops and black triangles COULD be identified as something familiar." The accounts of saucers of Oklahoma not ufos but some mundane objects we could one day identify them as.

After griping obsessively for several tiring posts of mental acrobratics about this, James then informs us that eyewitnesses again are always unreliable and should be doubted whenever possible. That further makes ufo accounts impossible because once the compelling eyewitness account is dismissed automatically, there's virtually nothing left but a tall tale to be shared around campfires. The defensiveness and overkill here to deny ufos is almost pathological, in spite of all the convincing accounts of ufos already given. So not only are ufos nonexistent, not only are they semantically impossible, but any eyewitness account of such is unreliable. And yet as anyone who doesn't live under a rock knows, ufos are a well-known and well-evidenced phenomenon for over 70 years now, as the 4 definitions I posted of ufo make abundantly clear. And so I inevitably remain the "fool", the "idiot'', the "fanboy", the "dishonest liar", who is once again pushing my groundless belief in aliens and "little green men" on the vulnerable masses.