Cont: UFOs: The Research, the Evidence

[Apathia]

What is it? Yearly now, that someone rolls out this same ball of dung?

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

What meteorological observing stations are you referring to?
As far as I know, meteorological stations aren't particularly well equipped to correlate radar and visual contacts across a substantial arc of the sky.

The ones where meteorological technicians go outside every hour and look at the sky to report cloud type, heights, and coverage of sky. And a whole bunch of other weather parameters. Plus any other atmospheric phenomena such as sun dogs etc.

The Canadian manual for observers MANOBS) is here:
https://www.canada.ca/en/environmen...ntation/manobs-surface-observations.html#toc0

Peruse as you wish.

 

[Carrot Flower King]

Big Astronomy and Big Meteorology are clearly in on The Conspiracy, 'Cos Reasons...

 

[Ryan O'Dine]

One of the first questions I'd ask an observer of hovering, zooming, disappearing UFOs: Do you have eye floaters?

 

[Scorpion]

So this whatever-it-was appeared in broad daylight and hovered over a school playground- and you were the only person to notice it? Hardly a credible claim. Did no-one else in that area- and presumably, as it has a school, you were in some kind of built-up area- report seeing anything similar? If not, have you considered the possibility that you misidentified something?


Souns like you saw an insect, to me. How were you able to estimate the size and distance of this object?

Are you privy to all approved flight plans, plus military flights and also the paths of overhead satellites, in your area? I assume not, in which case I have to ask, how do you know there was 'not supposed to be anything else up there'?

I can't remember details of seeing the silver disk when I was a boy, it is too long ago. But what looked like a moving star that I saw in my teens was no insect and as I said, it was in the time of sputnik one. I don't think there were any satellites.

 

[theprestige]

I can't remember details of seeing the silver disk when I was a boy, it is too long ago. But what looked like a moving star that I saw in my teens was no insect and as I said, it was in the time of sputnik one. I don't think there were any satellites.

If it was in the time of Sputnik, it could have been any of a dozen or more satellites, assuming your memory is accurate to within a couple of years.

And don't bother trying to assure us that your memory is indeed that accurate. Without independent calibration, we have no reason to assume that your memory is that accurate at that remove.

And that's before we even get into whether you accurately remember what you saw, at that remove. Which you almost certainly do not.

 

[Pixel42]

I can't remember details of seeing the silver disk when I was a boy, it is too long ago. But what looked like a moving star that I saw in my teens was no insect and as I said, it was in the time of sputnik one. I don't think there were any satellites.

Yes, you already told us about the light in the sky you once saw and couldn't identify. In the absence of further information, no one here is going to be able to identify it either. There's any number of things it could have been, but if we start to list them you'll just manufacture a reason to dismiss each one. It's a worthless, useless anecdote.

Have you researched the other sightings from that book that you uncritically listed, to see if any of them are any more worthy of the attention of sceptics than the two we researched and debunked for you?

 

[Cosmic Yak]

I can't remember details of seeing the silver disk when I was a boy, it is too long ago.

Yet you used this story to support the idea that aliens are here. You can't have it both ways, old chap.
Anyway, that doesn't answer my question. Let me repeat: did anyone else, either at your school, or the built-up area in which it was presumably located, report seeing what you claim you saw?

But what looked like a moving star that I saw in my teens was no insect and as I said, it was in the time of sputnik one. I don't think there were any satellites.

Are you a 'trained observer'? If not, on what grounds are you dismissing the idea that what you saw was an insect? Remember, misjudgement of size and distance is at the heart of many so-called UFO sightings.

 

[Explorer]

No blindly accepting the least likely explanation of an event isn't the point. This is not a UFO truther site after all.

So what is the point, you omitted to tell us? If this was a UFO "truther" site, I wouldn't be posting on it.

The title of this thread is "UFO, the Research, the Evidence", I am content with that explanation of the "point", and am happy to comment on all aspects of that.

 

[Pixel42]

Latest Pentagon report reveals hundreds of new UFO sightings

There are no suggestions of extraterrestrial origin, but that won’t settle any debates over the existence of alien life

www.theguardian.com

The Pentagon’s latest report on UFOs has revealed hundreds of new sightings of unidentified and unexplained aerial phenomena but no indications suggesting an extraterrestrial origin.

The review includes hundreds of cases of misidentified balloons, birds and satellites as well as some that defy easy explanation, such as a near-miss between a commercial airliner and a mysterious object off the coast of New York.

 

[Scorpion]

If it was in the time of Sputnik, it could have been any of a dozen or more satellites, assuming your memory is accurate to within a couple of years.

And don't bother trying to assure us that your memory is indeed that accurate. Without independent calibration, we have no reason to assume that your memory is that accurate at that remove.

And that's before we even get into whether you accurately remember what you saw, at that remove. Which you almost certainly do not.

Satellites do not stop and hover in the same place for a minute or two before moving off again. The object I saw did do this several times before disappearing from view, and that told me it was not just another star, which is what it appeared to be.

 

[Scorpion]

I have now finished the book UFOs by Leslie Kean. Despite the disparaging remarks about her that some people have made I found the book well written and full of facts and details like names and dates of events. The quality of the accounts is high, and comes from respected people like generals and governors and pilots and police officers. What it does not contain is accounts from ordinary people that can be easily dismissed. If it did the book could have been several volumes long because there have been thousands of such reports. Kean only records reliable witnesses. Here is a sample of one such witnesses account.

Setting the record straight by Fife Symington III Governor of Arizona 1991 to 1997

Between 8.00 and 8.30 on the evening of March 13th 1997 during my second term as governor of Arizona, I witnessed something that defied logic and challenged my reality: a massive delta-shaped craft silently navigating over the Squaw Peak in the Phoenix mountain preserve. A solid structure rather than an apparition, it was dramatically large, with a distinctive leading edge embedded with lights as it traveled the Arizona skies. I still don't know what it was. As a pilot and a former air force officer, I can say with certainty that this craft did not resemble any man- made object I had ever seen.

https://www.fifesymington.com/former-arizona-governor-now-admits-seeing-ufo/

 

[Scorpion]

The book UFOs by Leslie Kean was published in 2010 and in it she says the American government seems to be in denial about UFOs and may even be spreading disinformation to discredit sightings while holding data themselves. She suggests a new government office should be set up to study UFOs as they should be taken seriously. In 2022 NASA conducted a survey of UFO reports and concluded there is no evidence of Aliens being behind the phenomena, but there might be.

UAP - NASA Science

On June 9, 2022, NASA announced that the agency is commissioning a study team to examine unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs) – that is, observations of

science.nasa.gov

 

[welshdean]

Read this next, it'll provide some much-needed balance.

You can buy it here.

 

[Pixel42]

I take it the answer to this question ...

Have you researched the other sightings from that book that you uncritically listed, to see if any of them are any more worthy of the attention of sceptics than the two we researched and debunked for you?

... is still no, then, Scorpion?

 

[Carrot Flower King]

Yes, Fox, we know you want to believe...

 

[Scorpion]

I take it the answer to this question ...



... is still no, then, Scorpion?

I did a search on Fife Symington's account before posting it. But I have not gone back over the other sightings yet.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

The book UFOs by Leslie Kean was published in 2010 and in it she says the American government seems to be in denial about UFOs and may even be spreading disinformation to discredit sightings while holding data themselves.

Have you also considered it might be she who, deliberately or not, is spreading misinformation?

 

[Pixel42]

I did a search on Fife Symington's account before posting it. But I have not gone back over the other sightings yet.

If you'd properly researched this incident, rather than just looking for reasons to believe it, you would have found, for example, this:

Phoenix Lights - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

According to Sheaffer, what became known as "the Phoenix Lights" incident of 1997 "consists of two unrelated incidents, although both were the result of activities of the same organization: Operation Snowbird, a pilot training program operated in the winter by the Air National Guard, out of Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona. Tucson astronomer and retired Air Force pilot James McGaha said he also investigated the two separate sightings and traced them both to A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft flying in formation at high altitude.

The first incident, often perceived as a large “flying triangle” by witnesses, began at approximately 8:00 pm, and was due to five A-10 jets from Operation Snowbird following an assigned air traffic corridor and flying under visual flight rules. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rules concerning private and commercial aircraft do not apply to military aircraft, so the A-10 formation displayed steady formation lights rather than blinking collision lights. The formation flew over Phoenix and on to Tucson, landing at Davis-Monthan AFB about 8:45 pm.

The second incident, described as "a row of brilliant lights hovering in the sky, or slowly falling" began at approximately 10:00 pm, and was due to a flare drop exercise by different A-10 jets from the Maryland Air National Guard, also operating out of Davis-Monthan AFB as part of from Operation Snowbird.The U.S. Air Force explained the exercise as utilizing slow-falling, long-burning LUU-2B/B illumination flares dropped by a flight of four A-10 aircraft on a training exercise at the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range in western Pima County, Arizona. The flares would have been visible in Phoenix and appeared to hover due to rising heat from the burning flares creating a "balloon" effect on their parachutes, which slowed the descent.The lights then appeared to wink out as they fell behind the Sierra Estrella mountain range to the southwest of Phoenix.The lights likely appeared to block out background stars because of their brightness, making it harder to see dim objects like stars in the areas they laid out.

 

[steenkh]

I have now finished the book UFOs by Leslie Kean. Despite the disparaging remarks about her that some people have made I found the book well written and full of facts and details like names and dates of events.

Names and dates? Then we have all the facts we need …

The quality of the accounts is high, and comes from respected people like generals and governors and pilots and police officers.

Why would that make quality high?

What it does not contain is accounts from ordinary people that can be easily dismissed.

Why can accounts from “ordinary” people be easily dismissed?

If it did the book could have been several volumes long because there have been thousands of such reports. Kean only records reliable witnesses. Here is a sample of one such witnesses account.

Setting the record straight by Fife Symington III Governor of Arizona 1991 to 1997

Between 8.00 and 8.30 on the evening of March 13th 1997 during my second term as governor of Arizona, I witnessed something that defied logic and challenged my reality: a massive delta-shaped craft silently navigating over the Squaw Peak in the Phoenix mountain preserve. A solid structure rather than an apparition, it was dramatically large, with a distinctive leading edge embedded with lights as it traveled the Arizona skies. I still don't know what it was. As a pilot and a former air force officer, I can say with certainty that this craft did not resemble any man- made object I had ever seen.

https://www.fifesymington.com/former-arizona-governor-now-admits-seeing-ufo/

What makes this account convincing for you in the light of all the confounding factors that have been mentioned here?

ETA: I see that Pixel42 immediately found a more convincing explanation. How come a trained pilot, and a governor at that, could not recognise flares?