UFOs (UAPs): Explanations?

Magical Realist said:
Noone's proposed alien spacecraft here--just ufos/uaps.
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DaveC426913 said:
Exactly. Mundane craft.
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What kind of "mundane craft" (your word) would be consistent with all aspects of these sightings?

I think that arguments favoring "mundane" explanations have considerable validity and persuasive power. (It's basically the same argument that David Hume deployed against religious miracles.) When confronted with unknown phenomena, it makes sense to favor explanations that in our experience are more likely. But that doesn't establish the certainty of the dismissive conclusion, since it remains possible that something seen in the sky wasn't the planet Venus at all.

While there might indeed be plausible 'mundane explanations' for this or that particular aspect of an event (the idea of 'mundane explanations' needs a lot more exploration and will probably turn out to be problematic, based as it is on one's preexisting expectations), it becomes less and less plausible to imagine that many such 'mundane' events came together in just such a way as to explain all the aspects of a complex and multi-faceted mysterious event.

The 'tic-tac' seems to me to be a paradigmatic example of this more puzzling kind of UFO case. Maybe the cruiser's radar was acting up and producing false contacts. (Plausible, radars sometimes do that) Maybe the weak contact that the E-2 got at the same location was spurious. (Plausible, except it was at that same location.) But this kind of dismissive speculation seems to be inconsistent with the visual sightings by pilots directed to the location of the contact. Maybe the water turbulence was indeed caused by frolicking whales. (Plausible) But that doesn't explain the correlation with the radar contact and with the pilots' observation of the 'tic-tac' with that same spot. Maybe a pilot was letting his imagination get carried away and was mixing up memory and imagination when describing the 'tic-tac'. (Plausible.) But multiple pilots reported seeing it. And what's more, it was even recorded on at least one of the aircraft's targeting pod's video., which presumably lacks enough imagination to confabulate.

Put it all together, and this is about as good a UFO sighting as one could possibly hope to have. The probability of multiple mundane explanations combining in just such a way as to produce it seems inherently less likely to me than the truth of the thesis that something was indeed physically there that showed up on radar, agitated the water below, was observable to the naked eye and recorded in visual light and IR wavelengths. It's Ockham's razor. (It's also consilience.)

I don't want to jump to the conclusion that it was space aliens. The conclusion that I favor (It's more of a lemma) is merely that this is a fascinating and puzzling report that strongly suggests that something was indeed physically there. What it was, I don't have a clue. (I did speculate about UCAVS earlier in the thread, but it's just a speculation and I'm not wedded to it.) Whatever it was, it does seem to be unusual and unexpected, hence extra-mundane. (Where 'mundane' means 'ordinary and not interesting'.)

I think that any intelligent person with an open mind should find these reports (the Nimitz report and similar later one) fascinating and puzzling. But instead there seems to be this reflexive knee-jerk reaction: UFO's! Bullshit! Minds snap tightly shut.

And that's supposed to be "science".
 
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Yazata said:
But that doesn't establish the certainty of the dismissive conclusion, since it remains possible that something seen in the sky wasn't the planet Venus at all.
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I'll just speak for myself.

I don't dismiss the possibility of extra-human origin; it is a possibility. Occam's Razor applies here. There are explanations that are more plausible than that which requires the creation of an entire civilization with advanced spacecraft.

We have precedents for every individual event that supports a mundane explanation. We know radar is not perfect, we know even the best observers don't see objectively, we know IR sigs don't necessarily look like the aircraft. While it is unlikely for all these things to converge at the same time, resulting in a mystery, it is till far more likely than an explanation that depends on an unprecedented existence of an alien civilization with craft that are visiting us.

Yazata said:
it becomes less and less plausible to imagine that many such 'mundane' events came together in just such a way as to explain all the aspects of a complex and multi-faceted mysterious event.
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Yet still orders of magnitude more plausible than alien spacecraft, of which the extant examples are: zero.

Yazata said:
Put it all together, and this is about as good a UFO sighting as one could possibly hope to have.
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A good UFO sighting would be close-up photos and video of a craft sitting on the ground, in a field, with scientists, reporters and a hundred civilians with their ubiquitous cell phones.

If they are real and extant and flying around all over the place, why is it that the best you expect is fuzzy radar images and eyewitness reports?

One of the most elusive animals alive - the Snow Leopard - is sitting in a zoo.


Yazata said:
I think that any intelligent person with an open mind should find these reports (the Nimitz report and similar later one fascinating and puzzling.
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We do. That's what we're all doing here.

But frankly, where do we go from here? I'm a fan of "show me the evidence". This mystery is a mystery, but it's ambiguous. Seventy years, and there's still not a single account that is unambiguously alien in origin. That is very implausible.
 
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meta-discussion:

Yazata said:
But instead there seems to be this reflexive knee-jerk reaction: UFO's! Bullshit! Minds snap tightly shut and little or no thinking ensues. Just lots of the sarcastic little one-line posts and way too much discussion board bullying.And that's supposed to be "science".
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I think you've got that turned around. It's our favourite UFO-junky who keeps melting down and crying "Not UFOS? Bullshit!" I don't think you'll find a single skeptic getting emotional about any of this - and more importantly, making unwarranted back-and-white declarations of certainty. All you're seeing is exasperation at his truly terrible critical thinking.

MR is the one dragging this into the dirt, with his accusations of lying, etc.

He could take a page out of your book. You are open to the same possibility as he, yet you remain thoughtful, civil and rational. No one is taking potshots at you, because you maintain an air of civility and respect, and that is returned in-kind.

Yazata said:
And that's supposed to be "science".
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Yes, it is science.

Nobody's mind is snapping shut. Notice we're all here, actively discussing the various bits of evidence and weighing its veracity.

Look at the counterfactual you imply: unless we're on board with it being UFOs, you accuse us of not thinking?

The process of concluding something is extraordinary does not come from deciding one wants it to be extraordinary; it comes from skepticism - from assuming the Null Hypothesis: "It's not thing until it's a thing." To do otherwise is unscientific.
 
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I think that any intelligent person with an open mind should find these reports (the Nimitz report and similar later one) fascinating and puzzling. But instead there seems to be this reflexive knee-jerk reaction: UFO's! Bullshit! Minds snap tightly shut.

And that's supposed to be "science".
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It's the tactic of the dogmatic skeptics to claim to be scientific when in fact they are merely pushing their ideological assumption of "no extraordinary phenomena ever". It's why they continuously fall back on the alien spacecraft thesis as if that is what ufos must be. Such is not the case. Ufos, as defined by the USAF, are merely defined as aerial objects that defy any conventional aircraft and cannot be identified as a familiar object. That's the working definition of the U.S. military after years of investigating this mysterious phenomenon. Nothing about aliens or spaceships or anything else. Simply an unknown phenomenon that has yet to be determined as to its origins and purposes. And a phenomenon that has its own typical traits of extraordinary flight performance and wingless structures.
 
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Magical Realist said:
Ufos, as defined by the USAF, are merely defined as aerial objects that defy any conventional aircraft and cannot be identified as a familiar object. That's the working definition of the U.S. military after years of investigating this mysterious phenomenon. Nothing about aliens or spaceships or anything else. Simply an unknown phenomenon that has yet to be determined as to its origins and purposes.
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That's the first rational post you've made in a long time.
That's really all we've been saying.
Glad we can finally agree.
 
DaveC426913 said:
A good UFO sighting would be close-up photos and video of a craft sitting on the ground, in a field, with scientists, reporters and a hundred civilians with their ubiquitous cell phones.
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Has anyone noticed the massive massive uptick in the numbers of UFOs being photo just lately?

It's amazing how photography has advanced from the Box Brownie to the phone Digital

And the number of people who now have a phone on their person 24 hours a day. Astounding

https://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.amp...1/what-is-behind-the-decline-in-ufo-sightings

:)
 
Michael 345 said:
Has anyone noticed the massive massive uptick in the numbers of UFOs being photo just lately?

It's amazing how photography has advanced from the Box Brownie to the phone Digital

And the number of people who now have a phone on their person 24 hours a day. Astounding

https://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/21/what-is-behind-the-decline-in-ufo-sightings?amp_js_v=a2&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQCKAE=#aoh=15759147209795&referrer=https://www.google.com&amp_tf=From %1$s&ampshare=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/21/what-is-behind-the-decline-in-ufo-sightings

:)
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Yep..millions of people now walking around looking down at their phones instead of up in the sky..No wonder noone sees them anymore.
 
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I'd say MR is being deliberately obtuse here to spin his narrative - supposing that
- the only way pictures of aerial phenomena were traditionally captured was via pedestrians wandering the streets, looking up - and that
- continuous electronic surveillance hasn't shot up by orders of magnitude in the last few decades.
 
Magical Realist said:
It's the tactic of the dogmatic skeptics to claim to be scientific when in fact they are merely pushing their ideological assumption of "no extraordinary phenomena ever". It's why they continuously fall back on the alien spacecraft thesis as if that is what ufos must be. Such is not the case. Ufos, as defined by the USAF, are merely defined as aerial objects that defy any conventional aircraft and cannot be identified as a familiar object. That's the working definition of the U.S. military after years of investigating this mysterious phenomenon. Nothing about aliens or spaceships or anything else. Simply an unknown phenomenon that has yet to be determined as to its origins and purposes. And a phenomenon that has its own typical traits of extraordinary flight performance and wingless structures.
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Right. But why keep feeding 'oxygen' to the SF troll brigade? After all this time - currently 162 pages this thread alone, it's abundantly clear your enemies have no interest in objective, fair discussion. Just bating and flaming with the sick expectation of provoking an angry reaction. But your choice to keep copping a rain of disingenuous pure shit SF posts, or quit here and concentrate on genuinely open venues.
PS - no doubt out of spite, very likely James R has disabled email notification re this thread for yours truly. Sick.
 
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