UFOs (UAPs): Explanations?

Magical Realist said:
What I actually said:

"It's a matter of trusting the eyewitness's firsthand experience over the vague and adhoc possibility of some generic optical illusion or misperception."
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I think that's reasonable if we interpret "trust" not as total credulity, but as assuming some significant possibility that the eyewitness account is reasonably accurate. That doesn't exclude the possibility of error, but it suggests that error mustn't just be speculatively assumed because the eyewitness account might conceivably be of something that an individual is reluctant to accept.
 
Metallic-looking orb captured on video over city of Mosul Iraq by a U.S. Spy plane in April 2016. An image of the video was declassified and released to the Daily Mail by Jeremy Corbell. Hey! Maybe it's the planet Venus!:rolleyes:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11666549/Classified-spy-plane-video-UFO-Iraq.html

"The briefing video describes it as a 'short clip of an unidentified flying orb that appears to have a metallic shine on its surface', and shows the strange object flying over the city of Mosul in northern Iraq with the background of the shot showing the streets below.

It is the first publicly revealed image from the US government's ongoing UFO investigation showing an unidentified craft over a conflict zone.

A UFO flying around where the US military is operating has sparked security and safety concerns at the Department of Defense, with military officials worried it could endanger pilots and ground troops...

"...In a four-second video titled 'Mosul Orb' included in the briefing, the UFO appears for one second as it flies alongside the MC-12 spy plane.

Intriguingly, the object appears to have no apparent flight surfaces like wings, or discernible propulsion.

An intelligence source with operational knowledge of the footage said it was filmed using 'FMV [full motion video] by DGS-1' – implying that the plane sensors captured infra-red and other data when it filmed the UFO.

DailyMail.com understands that officials who assembled the briefing video believe the 'orb' was under intelligent control...."

jzNhdlQ.jpg
 
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Yazata said:
I think that's reasonable if we interpret "trust" not as total credulity, but as assuming some significant possibility that the eyewitness account is reasonably accurate. That doesn't exclude the possibility of error, but it suggests that error mustn't just be speculatively assumed because the eyewitness account might conceivably be of something that an individual is reluctant to accept.
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Yeah..it's the "motivated reasoning" that perception is just so unreliable therefore the eyewitness must be wrong in what he thinks he saw. It just seems too ad hoc and contrived, a ploy or excuse to dismiss the account entirely or else to cherry pick it to support the alternative interpretation they want to propose.
 
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Magical Realist said:
Metallic-looking orb captured on video over city of Mosul Iraq by a U.S. Spy plane in April 2016. An image of the video was declassified and released to the Daily Mail by Jeremy Corbell. Hey! Maybe it's the planet Venus!:rolleyes:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11666549/Classified-spy-plane-video-UFO-Iraq.html

"The briefing video describes it as a 'short clip of an unidentified flying orb that appears to have a metallic shine on its surface', and shows the strange object flying over the city of Mosul in northern Iraq with the background of the shot showing the streets below.

It is the first publicly revealed image from the US government's ongoing UFO investigation showing an unidentified craft over a conflict zone.

A UFO flying around where the US military is operating has sparked security and safety concerns at the Department of Defense, with military officials worried it could endanger pilots and ground troops...

"...In a four-second video titled 'Mosul Orb' included in the briefing, the UFO appears for one second as it flies alongside the MC-12 spy plane.

Intriguingly, the object appears to have no apparent flight surfaces like wings, or discernible propulsion.

An intelligence source with operational knowledge of the footage said it was filmed using 'FMV [full motion video] by DGS-1' – implying that the plane sensors captured infra-red and other data when it filmed the UFO.

DailyMail.com understands that officials who assembled the briefing video believe the 'orb' was under intelligent control...."

jzNhdlQ.jpg
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While these may not be space aliens, I’m starting to feel that there are a little too many unsolved UFO “mysteries” that could be security threats for the US, or any other country dealing with sightings like this. I think the Pentagon stated as much when the tic tac video came to light.

I’m not afraid, but there seem to be unsolved cases springing up more often, and it’s unnerving.
 
Magical Realist said:
Metallic-looking orb captured on video over city of Mosul Iraq by a U.S. Spy plane in April 2016. An image of the video was declassified and released to the Daily Mail by Jeremy Corbell.
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Assuming that it isn't some kind of camera artifact, I wonder how big it is and how close to the aircraft it was. Was it maneuvering to fly alongside the MC-12 aircraft?

And I wonder whether it was detected by aircrew visually or whether it registered on any other detection instruments. In other words, is this photograph (which I assume is a screenshot from a video) all there is, or was it detected by multiple modes of observation?

I would have more confidence that something was really there if it was detected in more than one reasonably independent way.

Hey! Maybe it's the planet Venus!:rolleyes:
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It's swamp-gas MR! What's the matter with you??
 
I don't think it's a camera artifact as it was captured on video and , as per the article, on infrared as well. The lighting and shading of it also matches up with the objects on the ground. That supports the probability that is was a physical 3D object that was actually there. I wish we could see the video so we can see how it was moving. Flying alongside the plane would rule out a balloon: "In a four-second video titled 'Mosul Orb' included in the briefing, the UFO appears for one second as it flies alongside the MC-12 spy plane."
 
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Yazata said:
It's swamp-gas MR! What's the matter with you??
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:)
As you seem to imply, a single photo, as currently released, is not much to go on, especially when you can't even infer height, speed, capabilities etc.
As to what this may be... it looks mundane. Internet balloon (Loon?)
perhaps. It just doesn't look interesting enough to seem non-mundane. :)
Seriously, though, a single still image is not really going to answer anything. Let's see the full, lengthy, 4-second video and see what that offers.
 
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/na...eives-350-new-reports-ufo-sightings-rcna65631

Following demands from Congress, the top intelligence agency released its first report on UFOs in 2021, which looked at 144 reported cases. Officials found no evidence that the reported sightings indicated signs of extraterrestrial life or new breakthrough aircraft or weapons by foreign adversaries.

Although the report cited no evidence that UFO sightings could be linked to foreign adversaries, government agencies “will continue to investigate any evidence of possible foreign government involvement in UAP events."

Well, 'no evidence' doesn't mean that these cases are closed. I find it strange though, how so many people are mistaking weather balloons for something more advanced. Hopefully, there will be definitive answers someday, but I wonder if the government would share its findings with the general public, if it was determined that some of these UFO's are/were being operated by foreign governments. It would likely cause widespread panic, but I believe we have a ''right'' to know.
 
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The quoted Daily Mail article describes additional encounters with metallic orbs included in the ODNI (Office of Director of National Intelligence) report:

"The ODNI published a second report this month, which said it has analyzed 510 cases up to August 30, 2022.

In October last year DailyMail.com revealed information from the classified version of this report sent to Congress.

One source who had seen the report described dozens of videos on classified servers showing metallic-looking orbs captured by US spy planes or drones in the Middle East – similar to the image released today.

'These drones operate 20-25,000 feet up in the air and they're flying around. We're keeping an eye on bad guys all over the world,' the source said.

'An operator will be zoomed in looking at a town in Syria. And all of a sudden, a little orb will go flying through the viewfinder.

'The operator's like, ''What the hell?'' And so he starts focusing on it and he just watches the orb for a while. We might get it for 30 seconds, we might watch it for 10 minutes. And then it will do something remarkable, like suddenly bolt off the screen.'"

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11666549/Classified-spy-plane-video-UFO-Iraq.html
 
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Yazata said:
But I have to say that I'm increasingly put off by how science is moving away from being a tentative self-critical quest for understanding, towards being enshrined as another Biblical-style source of revealed authority, towards being doctrines that must unquestioningly be believed, on pain of being condemned as being "anti-science" or a "denier". That's one of the places where 'science' crosses the line and turns into 'scientism' in my opinion.
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This is not a description of anything "science" is doing.
I don't know why some people are so hostile to the idea of other people believing differently than they do. What's wrong with just agreeing to disagree? We are told over and over that we must "celebrate diversity", right? So why does celebration of diversity always stop at diversity of opinion? Isn't freedom of thought supposed to be a good thing?
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Do you think it is possible for people to be wrong about things?

If so, then does it not follow that some beliefs refer to true things, while others refer to false things?

Is there something wrong with identifying errors, including beliefs about things that aren't true?

I mean, democracy of opinion is all well and good, but at some point it becomes a question of fact as to whether Trump won the last Presidential election or Biden won it.

Too much respect for the sanctity of people's wrong beliefs can ultimately lead you into a lot of trouble.

Isn't it better to call out the bullshit for what it is, rather than trying to wrap it in a protective woolen blacket, where you can nurture and care for it?
But as I said above, the Fortean in me makes me think that our current scientific worldview is a work in progress, inherently limited by our limited perspective in space and time, and by our finite cognitive powers.
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All working scientists appreciate that science is a work in progress. You don't have to buy into any woo to acknowledge that.
 
wegs said:
Great points, Yazata. Do we consider something real only if it can be proven by using the scientific method (to understand it)?
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Something is real if it exists, regardless of whether we can prove it exists or not. Science, for the most part, is rarely capable of proving anything. Science is about describing observed phenomena and making conceptual models which enable us to make useful predictions about how things are likely to behave when observed in future.

There are gradations of "real" when it comes to UFO reports. An eyewitness statement is "real" insofar as the eyewitness really is reporting something. The extent to which the contents of that report comport with an objective reality can vary a lot from eyewitness to eyewitness and from case to case. That kind of thing can only be tested by looking at evidence other than the eyewitness statement itself.

The processes for deciding whether something is "real" ought not be very different for UFOs, compared to deciding whether anything else in the world is "real". How do you know your car is real? Is it because science has proved it is real? Would it be a problem at all if you were the only person who believed your car is real? What if 3 people say they saw your car, yet there is no radar record of it? What if there is a radar record of it, but nobody saw it? What if somebody reported that they saw your car spontaneously turn into a turnip? Would that be real? How would you go about investigating that report?
 
Magical Realist said:
Isn't that the whole purpose of the term "woo"? To automatically denigrate the views of others as superstitious foolishness so that you can dismiss all their claims from the outset?
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Yes.
If you want me to be better James then make your points without ad homing me as some sort of inferior being.
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You made your own bed. Now lie in it. Or get out of it. Up to you.
And quit speaking down to me as someone to be instructed.
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Just as soon as you stop acting the fool. Or being a fool. Whichever it is. Show me that you don't need instruction.
 
Magical Realist said:
The quoted Daily Mail article...
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A reputable source if ever there was one!
One source who had seen the report described dozens of videos on classified servers ...
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Yeah yeah. So secret that we only get to see one frame from a putative 4 second video, out of all these dozens of supposed classified videos on the oh-so-secret servers. It's a government cover-up, obviously!
'The operator's like, ''What the hell?'' And so he starts focusing on it and he just watches the orb for a while. We might get it for 30 seconds, we might watch it for 10 minutes. And then it will do something remarkable, like suddenly bolt off the screen.'"
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Why don't we get to see the 10 minute video, then? Why one frame extracted from what is claimed to be a 4 second grab?
 
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