UFOs (UAPs): Explanations?

[DaveC426913]

Good photo captures of a high quality camera by a man in Montello WI in 2021 of a brightly lit uap with red lights along the top of it. He was actually getting pics of the Milky Way at the time. The uap is oval-shaped and moves across the sky horizontally. Notice the whole body of the object is made up of the light with a row of red lights along the top. Humorous interaction with his daughters is charming..

I'm on the road right now. If anyone here could check the story and verify that any of what Magical Realist says is actually part of the account and not made up, that would be great.

 

[DaveC426913]

OK, I'll give this a little time:

1. Magical Realist's "rule out" suggestion falls due to the same pitfall he so often makes, which is some form of "Here is one picture of a mundane thing. It doesn't look exactly like the one picture I found of a mundane thing, therefore it can't be any version of that at all."

This is not logic. It is analogous to:

"The suspect only said that his accomplice's age is an odd number between one and 80."
MR: "All you who think the accomplice could be an under age minor are wrong. Here is a comparison with an odd number under 80: 53. As you can see, no resemblance."
Me: "Did you Google for any other odd numbers under 80, or did you just stop after finding number 53?"


The number different ways a mundane thing can appear is at least equal to the number of different Google images of it. More, in fact, since Google has not captured all possible ways a thing can be viewed under all possible conditions - only a tiny, tiny subset.


So, to be clear:- the comparison between a UAP and one mundane thing can be used to introduce a possibility (here is a UAP pic; and next to it is a similar dirigible. possible?) but
- such comparison between a UAP and one (or many) mundane things can't be used to rule out a possibility (here's why: here is a UAP pic, next to it is all possible configurations of a helicopter at night.)




A bit of optical physics: Light beams are, by default, invisible. It requires some object intercepting the light beam to make it visible. That often happens in hazy conditions or conditions where there is a lot of moisture in the air. The nature of the air - its moisture content - has a dramatic impact on how a given light beam will manifest - short, long, bright, dim, etc. the combinatons are virtually limitless and certainly not exhaustively documented on Google.


Here's a slightly better comparison than MR's one specious flub:



Anyone even lightly interested in getting to the bottom of such a night sky site is welcome to spend more than 12 seconds Googling.

To be clear, I don't think (let alone suggest) it's a helicopter with a search light, but this is a learning opportunity on how to easily dismantle bad logic. Ideally, we won't see this kind of fall into the illogic pit again in this thread (because: learning and memory retention).

Still, this will surely be a chapter in my book.





2. The "rays" that appear to be coming out of the light source are quite commonly seen by any photographer as due to oily smudges:




I invite Magical Realist to search every Google result of "lens smudge light at night" and ensure none of them are close enough to allow the possibility.


3. The author mentions more than once that he sets up his camera inside a screened-in porch. it is not clear if that is how these shorts were taken; that would have to be revisited. But absent that clarification, I leave it as an exercise to the interested reader to find out what bright lights can look like as seen through a fine mesh.

 

[Magical Realist]

The "rays" that appear to be coming out of the light source are quite commonly seen by any photographer as due to oily smudges

The smudge rays extend and converge sharply to a point. And there's usually two of them extending in opposite directions as in your example. The ray coming down from the uap otoh is just a straight beam like all rays look in the sky.. And his photo of the bright moon earlier show no smudge rays. So that's ruled out.

To be clear, I don't think (let alone suggest) it's a helicopter with a search light,

Good to know, especially since I already ruled that out with my video of the helicopter.

The author mentions more than once that he sets up his camera inside a screened-in porch. it is not clear if that is how these shorts were taken; that would have to be revisited. But absent that clarification, I leave it as an exercise to the interested reader to find out what bright lights can look like as seen through a fine mesh.

No..he never says he sets up his camera inside the screened in porch. He just says its a base camp where he keeps his equipment. The camera obviously can't be in the porch as it is taking pics of the Milky Way ABOVE in the sky. Kinda hard to do that in a covered porch. And he said he found his camera flipped over in the driveway. So that's where it was, in the driveway. No fool is going to take hi definition pictures with a high end camera thru a screen mesh anyway. Review other pics he took of the house and the moon. Doesn't look distorted like thru a mesh to me.

So what to you make of the row of red lights seen along the top of the uap? Go to time mark 4:23.

 

[DaveC426913]

So that's ruled out.

Nope. Hasty conclusion. Sparse and specious examples cannot rule out possibilities. See Google helicopter pitfall. Same mistake.

I already ruled that out with my video of the helicopter.

Nope. Your single specious example rules nothing out, as you know.

No..he never says he sets up his camera inside the screened in porch. He just says its a base camp where he keeps his equipment.

Go back about 30 seconds.

The camera obviously can't be in the porch as it is taking pics of the Milky Way ABOVE in the sky. Kinda hard to do that in a covered porch.

He's not shooting straight up, as is quite apparent. He is clearly shooting low over the house. Did you even look at his shots?

And he said he found his camera flipped over in the driveway. So that's where it was, in the driveway.

I think you have misunderstood what, exactly, he found flipped over in the driveway. It wasn't his camera.

No fool is going to take hi definition pictures with a high end camera thru a screen mesh anyway.

Supposition.

Review other pics he took of the house and the moon. Doesn't look distorted like thru a mesh to me.

They are not nearly as bright and compact light sources as the object in question. The effect is proportional to brightness.

 

[DaveC426913]

So what to you make of the row of red lights seen along the top of the uap? Go to time mark 4:23

Ah well. That sort of busts it wide open. Kinda sucks all the challenge out of it.

Recall, he is set up to shoot the Milky Way. That requires a longer than normal exposure. 15 seconds or more. I've done this myself.

A single flashing red light, as seen on any aircraft in the sky, when shot with a long exposure time, will render virtually exactly like that object.

Note that a long exposure would also explain why the object appears extended horizontally (same axis as the red light is moving, which, by the way would be on the PORT wingtip - as seen on any craft moving right to left, as this one is)

The long exposure will ALSO explain why the object appears so bright and blobby. It is way-overexposed for camera settings that are intended to capture a dim object such as the Milky Way. Overexposure of this magnitude blows out all detail, and makes it look like a bright blob.


Commercial aircraft have red beacons that flash around 20-40Hz. Eight pulses corresponds to a shutter speed of 12 to 24 seconds, which is bang in the right range for sky shooting.

I'm pretty confident of this one. This is surely an aircraft, with a flashing red light, photographed during a long exposure of the Milky Way. It looks exactly like what we would expect to see.



Oh, by the way, guess what aircraft lights often look like...


"It always seems to be magical when you can't see how it's done. But as soon as you see how it's done, you realize 'well it's obvious now!' "

 

[Magical Realist]

Sounds plausible. But he said he saw the object with his naked eyes and was like "what the hell is that?" Doesn't seem a likely reaction for a mere plane in the sky.

 

[DaveC426913]

Sounds plausible. .

I think I you owe me more than that. I think you owe me a clap on the back and a grudging "Well done, sir. Till next time then!"

I doubt I'll get it, but I think you owe it to me.

 

[James R]

Magical Realist:

Every morning when I log on here I expect to see the dreaded page "You have been banned for whatever". After being banned by you 4 times in a row for the generic offence of "trolling" I think I'm abit traumatized. It's truly a mystery to me how me simply making my arguments constitutes trolling in any sense.

You're being deliberately disingenuous. You ought to stop that.

You can't possibly be unaware of our site posting guidelines. Not after years on this forum and more than 70 official warnings, all accompanied by a specific reason for why the warning was issued to you (often, together with helpful advice about how to avoid future warnings of a similar kind).

So, let's walk you through the posting guidelines about "trolling", shall we?

Trolling is the posting of inflammatory posts with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional (often angry) response. Trolls aim to disrupt normal on-topic discussion, often by raising tangential or irrelevant hot-button issues. Trolling posts are intended to incite controversy or conflict and/or to cause annoyance or offence.

When you repeatedly ignore corrections to the nonsense you post, only to double or triple down on your errors or inanities, it becomes implausible to put it down to simple stupidity. It is reasonable to infer that your intent must be to cause annoyance.

Some of your posts are quite deliberately inflammatory - particularly the ones in which you attribute false motives or beliefs to other people. This is also something you never apologise for, even when directly asked to do so.

The common pattern with you is that you won't take any responsibility for your actions on this forum unless official warnings are issued to you (or reminders about the likelihood that such warnings will be issued if you continue to troll).

Trolls are damaging to online communities because they attempt to pass as legitimate participants in discussions while actually seeking to disrupt normal conversation and debate.

This fits you to a tee. Your standard ploy is to play the village idiot - to pretend that you're incapable of understanding simple pieces of information or ideas. You repeat the same basic errors over and over, no matter how often people attempt to educate you. Anybody who was actually as stupid as you pretend to be would not be able to string coherent sentences together the way you can. Nor would they be able to cherry pick information, to carefully choose what to ignore, or to carefully judge what level of personal offence or provocation they can get away with while still managing to avoid official sanction (although, you don't always judge that correctly, do you?).

Your modus operandi is to try to overwhelm the skeptics here with the sheer volume of cut-and-paste nonsense you dredge up from youtube. When the skeptics point to the obvious flaws in your claims, you double down. Then, after a while, when it becomes untenable and implausible enough for you to keep sticking to your guns regarding a particular case, you simply drop it and start the whole clown act from scratch with another random cut-and-paste.

Your refusal to learn even the most basic things about how to analyse a UFO case sensibly, over a period of years, can no longer plausibly be put down to you being a functional idiot. That act worked for you for quite a long time, but it won't fly any more.

If permitted to remain, trolls tend to reduce the level of trust among members in an online community.

Case in point: posing as the village idiot, all the while carefully assessing how provocative you can be without blowing your cover, has had the effect of gradually eroding all trust and goodwill that other members here initially had towards you. Now, everybody is looking out for your games and your ulterior motives, constantly. You're on the record as a liar who has been caught out time and again but who is both unrepentant and defiant about his unethical behaviour; as far as I can tell, you're sort of proud of it. This is not unusual for an internet troll. You get your kicks from feeling like maybe you've pulled the wool over people's eyes, while annoying them in the process.

Trolls tend to follow certain patterns of behaviour that may include:

• Posting of similar responses and topics repeatedly.
• Avoiding giving answers to direct questions put to them.
• Never attempting to justify their position.
• Demanding evidence from others while offering none in return.
• Vanishing when their bluff is called, only to reappear in a different thread arguing the same point.
• Deliberately derailing discussions onto tangential matters in order to try to control the flow of discussion.

You constantly tick all of these boxes.

Posting similar responses and topics, all involving the same kinds of basic errors in thinking and analysis, over
and over again? Check.

Avoiding giving answers to direct questions that you find inconvenient, or which you worry will back you into a corner? Check.

Simply ignoring corrections to your many errors? Check. (This one is annoying, too, so bonus points there.)

Never attempting to justify your position. Check, in effect, since the only justification you ever offer is that you say you believe that "eyewitnesses" are always right. This, you are fully aware, is a basic error. You are fully aware of this because it has been explained to you many times by many people in many different ways.

Demanding evidence from others while offering none in return? Check. All we ever get from you is equivalent to "watch this youtube video. It looks like there's an alien spaceship in it, to me, so there must be an alien spaceship in it." How did you determine that? You won't ever say. You ignore those kinds of questions. The best you ever manage is "I trust that whatever the eyewitness thought it was is what it was", which - as you are fully aware - is hopelessly shoddy (non-)thinking.

Moreover:

I19. Repetitive or vexatious posting is considered trolling.

Few people are as boringly repetitive and vexatious as you on sciforums. The only other regular who really comes to close to matching your level of prolific mindless repetition is Write4U, but he doesn't lie quite as much as you do. (I don't think he has the memory to make it work. Liars need good memories; they have to remember their "version" of the story, which doesn't correspond to the facts.)

I have ceased trying to figure it out as you never offer any evidence I am posting just to provoke anger in people.

There you go again. Both telling lies and deliberately trying to provoke an angry reaction.

You are fully aware that I always offer evidence when it is needed to support some claim I've made. I also regularly offer specific evidence of your errors and your lies, carefully documenting where those appear in your posts, with careful reference to your own words, usually with quotes.

People are responsible for their own emotions. If they get upset by my posts that is not on me.

The village idiot act isn't working any more, Magical Realist. When your obvious intent is to try to provoke and upset people, you can't plausibly shift the blame for the reaction onto your intended victims.

It is time for you to grow up and take responsibility for what you do here.

Maybe they should move on and find other posts more placating to their temperamental natures.

Your intent here is obviously to belittle and/or insult people who don't buy into your mindless gullibility about the woo (whether or not that is a real character flaw you have or merely a feigned one).

The problem is on your end. The solution is to stop your trolling. Or maybe you will leave. You'll be surprised when you do, I guarantee it.

So anyway, I tend to avoid responding to you now because I don't want to be banned again or forced into some sort of humiliating public apology.

You're dishonest, mixing lies with half-truths. The fact is, you want to find excuses not to respond to specific on-topic objections to the content that you post. Any excuse to ignore what is inconvenient for you will do. That's the part of the truth you don't want to admit.

The half-truth you've mixed in, here, is that you don't want to be banned again. That delays and ultimately threatens to destroy your fun - the satisfaction you get from trolling. So I get that.

It's also true that you don't ever want to forced into an apology. It has become blindingly obvious to me that, unless you're forced into it, you won't ever apologise for your insults, your deliberate lies or your deliberate evasions. Trolls never want to take responsibility for the harms they do; it's all about the game and their own twisted satisfaction. Acting like an adult and taking responsibility are both anathema to the troll.

I will just keep being myself here like everybody else is free to do, and if that pisses you off there's really nothing more I can do about it.

An unsurprising note to end on. You accept no responsibility for your actions and you don't intend to change. You intend to keep right on lying and trolling.

Who knows? Maybe you'll be able to continue to do that here for a while. Or maybe not.

 

[James R]

And if you think it could be a helicopter with a searchlight, here's a comparison with that. No resemblance whatsoever..

And we're back to business as usual, with more deliberate lies and provocations.

Do you think you've got away with trying to change the subject yet again, after you found yourself in water that was too hot for your liking?

Perhaps you have. Or perhaps you haven't.

 

[Pinball1970]

Any chance he'll send it to you for analysis?


Like this?
View attachment 5951

We had similar lights last year and explanation then was Elon Musk satellites. Arrays of them.
Nothing specific to last Thursday as yet and my friend has not stuck it on FB yet, hopefully get another angle from someone else.

Line of sight was SE from a location in Manchester, three open air venues ruled out as they are NW NNW. Etihad stadium, Old Trafford and Heaton park.
The south East line goes directly to Manchester airport so we have to rule that in a possibility. With my limited knowledge on this I would say it did not look like a plane.

 

[DaveC426913]

We had similar lights last year and explanation then was Elon Musk satellites. Arrays of them.

Yes, I saw them myself by sheer happenstance one night over my new house.

 

[Magical Realist]

I think I you owe me more than that. I think you owe me a clap on the back and a grudging "Well done, sir. Till next time then!"

I doubt I'll get it, but I think you owe it to me.

Good job Dave! Actually it avails me greatly to have the misperceived uap cases debunked if they can be. I had SOME suspicions of a long exposure issue when I saw this video but wasn't sure.

 

[Magical Realist]

I have ceased trying to figure it out as you never offer any evidence I am posting just to provoke anger in people.

James said: There you go again. Both telling lies and deliberately trying to provoke an angry reaction.

You DO know the difference between lying and saying something you disagree with don't you?
Lying is when I say something I know isn't true to try and deceive someone. I don't do that. I say things I believe to be true that you just disagree with. That's not lying. It's disagreeing. And there is no forum rule against disagreeing. And no, once again you claim I'm saying things to provoke anger but offer no evidence of it, as if you even could unless you can somehow read my mind. It is merely a groundless accusation that justifies you repeatedly flaming as a troll.

 

[DaveC426913]

You DO know the difference between lying and saying something you disagree with don't you?

We do.

Lying is when I say something I know isn't true to try and deceive someone. I don't do that. I say things I believe to be true that you just disagree with. That's not lying. It's disagreeing. And there is no forum rule against disagreeing.

Quadrupling down.

You were told several times that the word "lit" was your insertion. You know it was your invention because you can read. This is fact. You tried to use it subsequently, more than once, saying "lit windows". Knowingly telling a falsehood (whether or not you thought anyone would be deceived) is a lie.

The falsehood isn't whether or not the windows were lit; the falsehood is that you continued to use it as if they were, without acknowledging that you made it up. It was false, it was knowing and it was deliberate.

You were told that the word "eyewitness" was your insertion. You know it was your invention because you can read. This is fact. You tried to use it subsequently, more than once, saying "eyewitness account". Knowingly telling a falsehood (whether or not you thought anyone would be deceived) is a lie.

The falsehood isn't whether or not the account was eyewitness; the falsehood is that you continued to use it as if it were, without acknowledging that you made it up. It was false, it was knowing and it was deliberate.


Literally all you had to say was

"OK, you got me. I did make that part up about the windows being lit."

"OK, you got me. I did make that part up about the "eyewitness" account."

FFS, youre pretending you're a toddler, that we have to teach the basic difference between lying and honesty. But you're not a toddler, l you are aware of these facts and lying deliberately. You're a troll.

Reported for continuing to troll.

 

[Magical Realist]

You were told several times that the word "lit" was your insertion. You know it was your invention because you can read. This is fact. You tried to use it subsequently, more than once.

Yes..it was and still is my inference based on the fact that the windows could be seen a mile away. At no point did I think it was untrue and so said just to deceive anyone. Any more than you saying the windows were rectangular was lying. So no lying there.

You were told that the word "eyewitness" was your insertion. You know it was your invention because you can read. This is fact. You tried to use it subsequently, more than once. Knowingly telling a falsehood (whether or not you thought anyone would be deceived) is a lie.

Nope..never didn't believe it was an eyewitness account and still don't. I showed you why already. It IS an eyewitness account told by another person. So no lying there either.

The falsehood isn't whether or not the account was eyewitness; the falsehood is that you continued to use it as if it were, without acknowledging that you made it up. It was false, it was knowing and it was deliberate.

LOL Continuing to say something I believe to be true doesn't suddenly make it a lie. It just makes it something you continue to disagree with. And there is nothing wrong with that,

 

[DaveC426913]

Nobody cares what you "believe".

The facts are on the record. You were dishonest; you made shit up in the hopes that some fool would fall for it.

We're done here, troll.

 

[James R]

You DO know the difference between lying and saying something you disagree with don't you?

Really? You're going with that?

You're going with "Maybe James R doesn't know the difference between telling a lie and merely saying something the other person doesn't agree with"?

Stop clowning.

Lying is when I say something I know isn't true to try and deceive someone. I don't do that.

You've been caught out doing it just recently. Now you're lying about being caught lying.

Stop clowning.

I say things I believe to be true that you just disagree with.

Yes, you do. I am not concerned about that. There was a time when I believed you were simply gullible. Then I thought you might just be a functional idiot. But after all the careful lies and omissions? The only reasonable conclusion to reach is that the village idiot thing is a clown act and that you just want to keep trolling for as long as it lasts. That's exactly what I expect you to do. Anything else would be as out of character as when you got that other guy to post under your user name - you know, the one who appeared to know some things about science and critical thinking.

And there is no forum rule against disagreeing.

This is why you have never received an official warning for disagreeing. Obviously.

And no, once again you claim I'm saying things to provoke anger but offer no evidence of it, as if you even could unless you can somehow read my mind.

You are fully aware that, in a number of instances, I have carefully documented the specific behaviour that led to some of your many temporary bans from this place.

It's one thing for you to lie to your readers and tell them that I have offered no evidence, but it takes a certain specific type of ballsy disrespect to lie to me directly about what you and I both know I have posted.

You really should just stop with your bullshit, while it's still a choice that you get to make.

 

[Yazata]

Yes..it was and still is my inference based on the fact that the windows could be seen a mile away.

If the "windows" were visible on a dark object against the night sky, the implication seems to be that they were illuminated, whether internally or externally. So it seems like a pretty safe inference to me. If it wasn't the case, how would they be visible?

 

[DaveC426913]

If the "windows" were visible on a dark object against the night sky, the implication seems to be that they were illuminated, whether internally or externally. So it seems like a pretty safe inference to me. If it wasn't the case, how would they be visible?

I went into this in a fair bit of detail, here.

That they were lit is certainly a possibility, but not the only possibility. The witness did not say they were lit. So we need to examine those other possibilities. There are some problems with his account that suggest you may be taking the account too literally. Examples:

• How can he possibly know how far away it was / how big it was? He had no references to compare. If it were a mere hundred yards away, then it's not inconceivable that ostensibly rectilinear shapes might be easily descernible.)
• Or maybe they were painted while and the craft was painted dark.
• Or maybe they were TV screens, such as often seen on the sides of dirigibles near stadiums, such as where this incident occurred.
• If it were as dark as all that, then how could be determine that it was "metallic"? If he could see enough detail to deduce that, it follows immediately that he should then be able to make out other shapes on its surface.

So, let's not settle on a particular solution before discarding other equally - or more plausible - possibilities that don't require embellishment of the account.

To re-iterate, a dirigible with TV screens / letterboard checks off pretty much every box, including

• why it was near a stadium,
• why he described it with lights and window-like details,
• why it (somehow) appeared metallic,
• why it had an elliptical silhouette,
• why it appeared to be the size of a building
• and why it appreared to "tilt" when it turned.

It addresses a LOT more questions than it raises - better than other explanations any one has come up with.


Sore references:

1. "... the Colorado Department of Transportation has used helium-filled blimps in the past to monitor traffic in the Denver area..."
https://k99.com/when-is-the-last-time-youve-seen-a-blimp-theyre-pretty-rare/

2. SkyRider Airships, based in Boulder, Colorado, USA


http://www.myairship.com/database/skyrider.html

By the way, Boulder Colorado is 20 miles from Golden Colorado.

 

[C C]

If the "windows" were visible on a dark object against the night sky, the implication seems to be that they were illuminated, whether internally or externally. So it seems like a pretty safe inference to me. If it wasn't the case, how would they be visible?

Certainly the kind of commonsense inference that would be dispensed in everyday interaction or casual conversation. Though probably challenged in a refereed environment or courtroom drama. I've no idea what official classification this thread slots in. If based purely on the content (empirical status rather than what was pre-set), I'd abstract the opinion that it is a mix of both.
_