Cont: UFOs: The Research, the Evidence

[zooterkin]

Thread taken off moderation. You still need to keep to the topic if you want to post in this thread.

Posted By: zooterkin

 

[dann]

John Oliver explains why we need honest inquiry into UFO sightings, covers the week’s protests in the US over the war in Gaza, and recaps Adeel Mangi’s confirmation hearing.
UFOs, Gaza Protests & Islamophobia (Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on YouTube, April 22, 2024)

The main story is the one about UFOs/UAPs. It begins at 13:12.
Some of you may not be able to watch it. Whether or not you can depends on the country you're in. If you can't, you'll have to wait till Thursday, when the UFO/UAP part of the show is released on YouTube for the rest of the world without the Gaza Protests, Islamophobia (and CNBC) parts.

 

[Puppycow]

I watch a fair amount of John Oliver and usually I feel like I am learning at least some new information that I didn't already know. Here, I felt like I actually know more about the topic than Oliver does.

As far as "John Oliver explains why we need honest inquiry into UFO sightings", that suggests that there hasn't already been any "honest" inquiry. There has been, quite recently. Whenever the believers don't like the results (no evidence of extraterrestrials), they say there's a government coverup. And yes, the government wasn't fully honest about what crashed in Roswell in 1947, but it definitely wasn't aliens. They were monitoring the atmosphere for radioisotopes to see if the Soviets were testing nuclear weapons. They used balloons to do this. It was top secret of course, so they claimed they were just simple weather balloons. Oliver makes a big deal out of this.

The part about Luis Elizondo didn't go very deep. Robert Bigelow went from a Harry Reid supporter to a Ron De Santis supporter. And apparently it is true, but he make it sound like he only supports republicans rather than whoever he thinks might be a useful politician to buy. He didn't even mention that he also supports Trump.

Exclusive: Hotelier Robert Bigelow gives Trump $1 million for legal fees

Jan 30 (Reuters) - Hotelier Robert Bigelow told Reuters on Tuesday he gave Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump $1 million for his legal fees and agreed to donate another $20 million to a pro-Trump outside group for campaign purposes.
"I gave him $1 million towards his legal fees a few weeks ago. I made a promise to give him $20 million more, that will be to the super PAC," the Nevada-based owner of Budget Suites of America said in an interview.

I guess that part was new information for me. Last time I heard he was a big supporter of Harry Reid, but Reid is dead and no longer of any use to him.

 

[lionking]

I really like Oliver and find his shows both funny and often first class reporting. He has jumped the shark I’m afraid.

Although he did say that UFOs might not be alien, he hasn’t proposed any alternative explanation for many remarkable sightings. Without that he has nothing of significance. I’m really puzzled by the point of the show.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

A rational analysis. Michael Shermer at his best.

Don't Believe Everything You Hear About UFOs. A Little Skepticism Is in Order

The Pentagon, in fact, funds the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) to investigate over 800 reports of UAPs, some of which remain unexplained. The day after the hearing, however, the director of AARO, Sean Kirkpatrick, issued a statement that largely denounced the witnesses. Their testimony was "insulting to the officers of the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community who chose to join AARO" in their insinuation of deception, cover-up, and retaliation against any such witnesses. Kirkpatrick concluded his statement by noting: "AARO has yet to find any credible evidence to support the allegations of any reverse engineering program for non-human technology."

Read the link for the full article. It's a good overall summary.

 

[Delvo]

As far as "John Oliver explains why we need honest inquiry into UFO sightings", that suggests that there hasn't already been any "honest" inquiry. There has been, quite recently. Whenever the believers don't like the results (no evidence of extraterrestrials), they say there's a government coverup.

Part of the reason is that that's exactly what the vagueness of their published findings sets them up for. The details of individual cases are available if you hunt them down separately, but the government's reports on the whole broad issue overall keep not giving them. As I said in another thread about the report from the latest investigation:

Annoyingly non-specific. It should include a picture of each one the public has seen, with the adjacent text explaining "this is several balloons tied together with other decorations such as flowers or streamers", "this is an infra-red, straight-up-the-nozzle view of another jet engine at a distance, when it just happens to be pointed straight away from the sensor, which is on a gimbal, with software image rotation counteracting the gimbal's rotations", or "this is a duck or goose, from too far away to resolve in detail, but moving at an expected speed and flapping its wings at an expected frequency, causing the image to subtly shift in its appearance at the wing-flapping frequency".

With anything less than that, you're pretty much asking the believers that it's aliens to say "well, they didn't answer this particular case, or that particular case, or that particular case, so they're still just hiding the truth".

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Part of the reason is that that's exactly what the vagueness of their published findings sets them up for. The details of individual cases are available if you hunt them down separately, but the government's reports on the whole broad issue overall keep not giving them. As I said in another thread about the report from the latest investigation:

​

In a Tiktok world no one is looking for explanations or the truth -- only "likes". :sigh:

 

[Puppycow]

Heard them talk about this on the latest Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe podcast. They weren’t very impressed by it either, although apparently their podcast logo appears in the segment, which I failed to notice when I watched it.

He sort of “both sides” the issues and tone polices skeptics for being “mean”.

 

[dann]

Podcast:

John Oliver and UFOs; News Items: Voyager Fixed, NASA's New Solar Sail, Bird Flu in Milk, Dark Energy Getting Weaker, After Death Communications; Who's That Noisy; Your Questions and E-mails: Havana Syndrome; Science or Fiction
The Skeptics Guide #981 (The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, Apple Podcasts, April 27, 2024 - 1:46:24 min.)

They're not impressed!

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

You know there could be such a thing as witchcraft and witches. I mean strange things happen for no reason. Cows fall sick and die. Milk sours. Old women live alone. My wife left me. There is lots of evidence.

Why have we not had a recent honest inquiry?

 

[arthwollipot]

A rational analysis. Michael Shermer at his best.

I won't give him the benefit of my clicks.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

I won't give him the benefit of my clicks.

You don't have to. It's an article from News Week.

 

[arthwollipot]

You don't have to. It's an article from News Week.

Still won't.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Still won't.

I understand. Just wanted to clarify.

 

[arthwollipot]

I understand. Just wanted to clarify.

Cool.

 

[Puppycow]

About that recent John Oliver segment on UFOs, a reaction:

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

About that recent John Oliver segment on UFOs, a reaction:

Living in the Post Truth Age when Infotainment beats the Reality it's nice to see such a well researched and presented rebuttal.

And I learnt something new about Jimmy Carter's UFO. I'd gone with the Venus explanation but I'll now update that to a NASA barium cloud experiment. The evidence is overwhelming and Mr Carter agrees!

 

[dann]

Yes, it's great! I also hadn't heard about the cloud experiment.
I hope Jimmy Carter will go (more) public about it - preferably on Last Week Tonight.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Living in the Post Truth Age when Infotainment beats the Reality it's nice to see such a well researched and presented rebuttal.

yes, it was excellent. John Oliver was at his worst in that segment - reminding me of why I don't watch him anymore.

But more disturbing is how he (or his script writers) didn't do even the most basic fact-checking. Kudos to Think This Through for spending $30 to find out what Condon actually said. I'm sure John Oliver's 'fact checkers' could easily have afforded to do the same, yet for some reason they went with the inaccurate quote that supported his narrative. After that (and not even bothering to read the Wikipedia entry on Jimmy Carter) how can you trust anything he says? Just because he calls himself a 'comedian' doesn't mean he's off the hook, when he pretends to be reporting 'fact-checked' information.

And I learnt something new about Jimmy Carter's UFO. I'd gone with the Venus explanation but I'll now update that to a NASA barium cloud experiment. The evidence is overwhelming and Mr Carter agrees!

The interesting part of this definitive explanation is documented in Wikipedia:-

In 2020, Justus completed an extensive study of the high-altitude barium release clouds, concluding that what Carter saw was "totally consistent" with what was launched that evening from Eglin AFB.

Turns out Carter was actually a reliable witness who simply reported what he saw without embellishment. Before dismissing a report on the basis that it describes something impossible, we should consider that perhaps it is our interpretation of the eyewitness account that is at fault, not the actual observation.

 

[Puppycow]

Yes, it's great! I also hadn't heard about the cloud experiment.
I hope Jimmy Carter will go (more) public about it - preferably on Last Week Tonight.

Carter is 99 and last I heard he was in hospice care. His wife died last year. I don't think he's healthy enough to be going on any TV shows anymore.

His birthday is Oct. 1, 1924 so if he can make to October he'll be 100. He is already the longest lived US president ever.