UFO'S: A possible explanation

[I Ratant]

I've seen Venus at noon on a clear day.
The only UFO I've seen turned out to be an An-2, flying around Palmdale many years ago.
All of us that watch the sky for real would LOVE to see and identify a genuine UFO as something extraterrestial.
We don't hold our breath, nor mourn the demise of Weekly World News with its non-stop "gen-u-wine" sightings by various Jethros around the world.

 

[jakesteele]

Did you actually take the time to read the Condon report?

It addressed the topic of this thread "UFO'S: A possible explanation".

If you have some issue with the content of the report regarding the OP's question wrt and the thread topic, I'll be happy to participate in a civilised conversation.

And before you ask, no, I did not read your links. Feel free to discuss the paragraphs I quoted with your own objections to their content.

Did you actually take the time to read the Condon report?

It addressed the topic of this thread "UFO'S: A possible explanation".

If you have some issue with the content of the report regarding the OP's question wrt and the thread topic, I'll be happy to participate in a civilised conversation.

And before you ask, no, I did not read your links. Feel free to discuss the paragraphs I quoted with your own objections to their content.

Jeez, I hardly know where to start on this one. I guess I'll start with a neologism: Psych-Fallacy, which means a psychological/emotional predisposition to interpret and distort reality in a number of different ways. All people do this but some do it more rigidly, dogmatically and fundamentalistically than others.

First thing I see is Contempt Prior to Investigation about my links coupled with the good old Double Standards; I must read yours but you don't have to read mine...bunk science, I say! (bunk science will hereinafter be referred to as BS).

I'll start with this. You are chastising me because you don't think I read the Condon Report, yet you refuse to read my links. Is that not a Double Standard?

As far as a civilized conversation about "OP's question wrt and the thread topic", I don't follow that. Is that the Condon Report you're referring to? If so, you're trying to pull my replies off to another angle.

My original post is about how CSIOPtics accept the anecdotal evidence of two amateur astronomers, yet you won't give any weight or credence to highly qualified anecdotal evidence that doesn't fit into your reality map.
The part of your reality map pertaining to UFOs consists only of the points below and you won't address them directly. Is that all of your explanations? Did I leave anything out?

Also, I would ask this question of you: do you honestly think absolutely, beyond all doubt, that the possibility of alien spacecraft doesn't exist?


UFO sightings:

1. ATMOSPHERIC PHENOMENON

2. BALL LIGHTNING

3. SWAMP GAS

4. METEORS

5. MASS HALLUCINATION:

6. HOAX

7. WEATHER BALLOONS

8. FLARES (the new weather balloons)

9. FLOCK OF BIRDS

10. LIE

11. (anything I might have missed)


One other thing, I did read some of the report. It was simply too long to read all of it, but I got the gist of it.


Also, if you don't think I'm civilized, you have the option of not replying back to me.

 

[paximperium]

Looks like Jakesteele is still making up "psych-fallacies" when he can't find the actual fallacy involved and the irony of your definition is truly hilarious. You really need to look at how that applies to your "psych-fallacy".

Also, I would ask this question of you: do you honestly think absolutely, beyond all doubt, that the possibility of alien spacecraft doesn't exist?

Most skeptics would say, there is a small chance that UFOs could be alien spacecraft but in all likelihood no. That's what skepticism is about, critical thinking.

 

[Astrophotographer]

My original post is about how CSIOPtics accept the anecdotal evidence of two amateur astronomers, yet you won't give any weight or credence to highly qualified anecdotal evidence that doesn't fit into your reality map.
The part of your reality map pertaining to UFOs consists only of the points below and you won't address them directly. Is that all of your explanations? Did I leave anything out?

Also, I would ask this question of you: do you honestly think absolutely, beyond all doubt, that the possibility of alien spacecraft doesn't exist?

Define "highly qualified anecdotal evidence".

Actually it was only one astronomer and his mother. Of course, you can say he is lying about what he saw. The point being in this case is that he did not report something extraordinary. If he had, then I would be skeptical of his claim. Instead, his observations fit nicely into a probable explanation. This is something you do not want to entertain.

This is all about probabilities. Is it probable that an alien civilization is creating UFO reports or is it more likely that witnesses might mistake some phenomena for an alien spaceship. Even UFO proponents will admit that about 75-95% of all UFO reports are explainable as misperception and hoaxes. What makes you think the remaining 5-25% are not? What makes those remaining cases so special that we must conclude they are something extraordinary? Isn't it more likely the witness allowed himself to get so excited about seeing something strange that they exaggerated the story a bit? I can give you examples but just look at the Condon link somebody posted previously. Go to the section on witness perception by Dr. Hartmann. There are excellent examples there.

 

[jakesteele]

I've seen Venus at noon on a clear day.
The only UFO I've seen turned out to be an An-2, flying around Palmdale many years ago.
All of us that watch the sky for real would LOVE to see and identify a genuine UFO as something extraterrestial.
We don't hold our breath, nor mourn the demise of Weekly World News with its non-stop "gen-u-wine" sightings by various Jethros around the world.

I agree with everything you just said. I haven't even been lucky enough to have a close encounter of the innocent misperception kind.

 

[jakesteele]

Nonsense. You are assuming too much. I dismissed your list for many reasons. The first is that your list was far too limited. There are so many possible explanations for UFOs that you can not make a hard and fast list.

Did you notice #11 where I said, "anything I might have missed"?

 

[Astrophotographer]

Did you notice #11 where I said, "anything I might have missed"?

Yes I did but that blows your claim out of the water. Using "anything I missed" means an infinite number of possibilities. That is a lot more than 11-12 "cookie cutter templates" for explaining UFO reports.

 

[EHocking]

...One other thing, I did read some of the report. It was simply too long to read all of it, but I got the gist of it.

I've read the entire thing. All of the points you raised are addressed in it. It is not an easy read, because it is thorough.

And no, given the evidence presented over the years and taking the pragmatic approach such as the Condon Report does, I'm hard pressed to believe that aliens with the technology to travel light years across the universe would merely buzz hicks in the middle of nowhere or create crop circles rather than having the ability to instigate communications in a manner comprehensible to the planet they had visited.

 

[jakesteele]

[

QUOTE]

The example you give was backed up not only by "ameuter (sic) astronomers" but also by The US Air Force (namely the the 104th Fighter Squadron), conflicting eyewitness reports, and even a hoaxer (http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/articles/2008/04/22/20080422abrk-strangelights0422.html). NEXT!

First off, goodluck and Godpseed on your Iraq thing. Regardless of whether I agree with the decision to go over there, I fully support the troops. A tip of the hat to you and the others.

First of all, the astronomers give anecdotal evidence that you take as gospel, as though it is beyond dispute. You don’t question it. If the same guys said they saw an alien spacecraft, you would be all over them like a blanket. You would dismiss their claims outright.

I would really like to believe the pilots, but the government has a long history of lying to the people; sometimes righteously for national security, but many times for nefarious reasons. I’m not saying they are necessarily lying about this, but I always take their official reports with a grain of salt. But that’s just me.

The point I keep driving home is that the anecdotal astronomers statement are given much more weight than that of highly skilled and experienced pilots that know all about Venus, etc. If two amateurs, as claimed, don’t get fooled by that stuff then that same logic would certainly extend to skilled and experienced pilots, radar guys, etc.

So the burden of proof rests solely on those that claim something paranormal is happening.

That’s the “tilted playing field” gambit, assuming that somehow criticism does not bear any burden of proof. If you say definitively, in black and white/all or nothing terms, that something doesn’t exist or didn’t happen, you are stating an absolute. All absolutes bear the burden of proof.

Please keep in mind that CSIOPtics do not practice passive skepticism, they practice aggressive skepticism. It’s one thing to say, “personally, I’m of the opinion that there are no UFOs/God/paranormal, etc., I just don’t see any evidence that would convince me otherwise.” It’s another thing entirely to take a verbally aggressive stance and hurl harsh invectives at people like woo woo, nutter, kook, etc. and make black and white/all or nothing statements like, “There are absolutely no UFOs/God(s)/paranormal, etc.” When it comes to matters like these, if you can’t tell someone definitely what is, then you are in no position to tell them definitely what it isn’t; it’s only your opinion. The burden is now on you.

Personally, I agree that the “null” is usually by far the most likely when it comes to UFOs, but in light of all the expert testimony to the contrary about UFOs in general, the “null” is not necessarily the only explanation. Hence, Ocaam’s Beard (the simplest explanation isn’t always the best.)

And that brings us back to what I first said about the anecdotal evidence of the amateur astronomers. Somehow you think theirs carries a lot of weight, but trained commercial and military pilots, radar guys’s anecdotal evidence carries none. That is the double standard I have been talking about all along.

Should we also consider the second coming of Jesus, Elvis, Joe Strummer, The Easter Bunny, Santa... I mean those lights could have been Santa doing a dry run. Elvis we know exists, aliens not so much. He's got one point up already and plus he was The King.

No, you shouldn’t consider Elvis, etc. in this context. You’re comparing apples to oranges. In your mind you lump them all together, but many credible people don’t.

I’ve got all of Elvis’s records, though.

Can't watch youtube because I'm in Iraq but if this is the same program that shows goofy ****nuts bouncing around claiming that they are levitating then one bumbling skeptic is not enough to convince me. Again, the burden of proof is on the claimant.

The section I directed you to was Joe Nickell of CSIOPS. He is spefically addressing a guy nicknamed “The Flying Friar”. History records, correctly or not, I don’t care, show that this guy was witnessed by hundreds of people many, many times. One of his famous levitations was allegedly levitating from the back of the church up to a balcony high enough to clear the railing with his feet going up over the railing. It’s a leap that the best high jumper could even come close to making.

Joe’s explanation,rationalization is this, “Someone who is extremely agile, and I think he probably had some unusual athletic abilities, could in a few quick bounds, moving very fast, could hit a step and then move on up to the altar and then on higher up to a balcony.” He’s making two assumptions: 1. that someone agile/athletic enough could make this prodigious leap, and 2. that the Flying Flyer was agile/athletic enough to pull it off. Why didn’t he just get the best high jumpers and gymnasts he could find to test his theory?

By the way, what in holy hell do you mean by "your guys"?

By ‘your guys’, I’m referring to what I call a CSIOPtics, which is someone who has adopted the Amazing Randi’s/CSIOPS style of debunkery.

 

[lightfire22000]

There was an Air Force base near my house and I once saw, when I was nine, what I swore was a UFO because it looked like a spaceship from a video game(Star Wars:Shadows of the Empire.) It was later confirmed to have been a stealth bomber. To be fair, it was a UFO to me.

I have a medical condition that is characterized by what medical experts call synesthesia. I will see flashes of light sometimes; often when sounds, especially in music, are playing. I have occasionally seen flashes that resemble things I've seen on the X-Files. It's possible that they too have a medical condition.

 

[jakesteele]

Looks like Jakesteele is still making up "psych-fallacies" when he can't find the actual fallacy involved and the irony of your definition is truly hilarious. You really need to look at how that applies to your "psych-fallacy".

Psych-fallacy is easy. First off, I am being facetious when I use the term. It address the psychological predispositions of the human mind; biases, blind spots, selective perception, reality tunnels, bias filters, illusory superiority and a whole lot of others.

What I'm addressing is someone who fancies themselves as logical, rational and objective but falls prey to all the foibles of the unconscious mind but will usually adamantly deny it.

Most skeptics would say, there is a small chance that UFOs could be alien spacecraft but in all likelihood no. That's what skepticism is about, critical thinking.[/QUOTE]

Bingo, you hit the nail on the head. I agree with that completely. That's all I was looking for. Thank you for being up front about it.

 

[MikeSun5]

And no, given the evidence presented over the years and taking the pragmatic approach such as the Condon Report does, I'm hard pressed to believe that aliens with the technology to travel light years across the universe would merely buzz hicks in the middle of nowhere or create crop circles rather than having the ability to instigate communications in a manner comprehensible to the planet they had visited.

Exactly! I've been saying that for years. So these advanced beings traversed the galaxy to come draw pictures in our corn? What would their motivation be to stop here? Would Bill Gates land his helicopter at the Wal-Mart? I think not. I think if martians wanted to talk to us, we'd know. If they wanted to remain hidden, we'd have no idea and wouldn't even be having this discussion. I saw something weird in the sky once, and have tried to explain it scientifically for a while. I can't. It was a UFO - or more accurately, a ULITS (Unidentified Light In The Sky). Never once did I think I saw an alien craft.

Back to the OP, I doubt a lot of that atmospheric phenomena could really be confused for UFOs. Sprites and elves only really last for fractions of a second and happen above the clouds, making them practically invisible to people. Ball lightning could possibly account for a few sightings I guess, but reports of ball lightning seem rarer than UFO sightings. I'd lean more towards manmade aircraft for a lot of sightings...

 

[Patricio Elicer]

Please keep in mind that CSIOPtics do not practice passive skepticism, they practice aggressive skepticism.

Yes, that's true sometimes. But the "aggressive skepticism" is a response to the aggression against human intelligence committed by UFO/paranormal enthusiasts.

The claim of aliens traversing the light years, with all the technical difficulties it implies, coming to Earth to crash, is an insult to human intelligence.

The claims that aliens use craft that expell smoke, that need runways to land, that have windows, aliens that don't want to reveal their presence but use lights at night, that "abduct" thousand of people, that have been playing the mystery game on us for decades, etc, ..... are such a big nonsense and such a big aggression to human intelligence, that well deserve an aggressive reaction.

And more importantly, because such a nonsense promotes disinformation, especially on the young who are more prone to fall for that, and who are led to believe that those things are real.

 

[Vortigern99]

"Experimental military aircraft" is one possible explanation that I've noted has not been raised yet. The idea would seem to explain many otherwise inexplicable sightings, especially given that the AF -- any nation's AF -- would be unlikely to disclose their military secrets. And who could blame them? That's why they call them "secrets".

I guess this one goes under #11 alongside "burning oil rigs", "dust or ice particles on the camera lens", "the known phenomenon of visual hallucination", "gradual and accidental memory embellishment", and any other reasonable, logical and more probable scenarios than "alien visitation" the author of the list neglected to mention.

But yes, that last one certainly is a possibility too. Now what?

 

[Robster FCD]

I think jakesteele may have come up with CSIOPtic as a mangling of the old CSICOP organization, psy-ops (psychological operations), and myopic. From my point of view, its an attempt at being clever, but thats it.

I have seen a UFO. I could not identify it. It appeared to be flying. It may have been an object. Little green men? I doubt it.

I personally think, looking back on it years later, it was probably a superior mirage.

Why do I go to this "cookie cutter" explanation? Simple. Because on the whole, most of the time, cookie cutters produce a good explanation. In this case, it matches video of similar mirage UFOs. Is there a possibility they were aliens? Yeah, but its a very small possibility compared to the much more likely cookie cutters, which we know produce phenomenons that match the reported sighting.

jake, the burden of proof is on you to produce the aliens or their crafts. We don't have evidence that they exist, and the leaps of evidence required for it to make sense are fairly extreme, making this an extraordinary claim. Think, an interstellar alien race has managed to find a populated planet, and all they do is cruise around the sky, mutilate a few cattle and probe some people. And what is it with probing anuses? You can travel from one star to another, but your medical diagnostic equipment requires invasive procedures?

You need to provide extraordinary evidence to prove your claim. Until that point, aliens are simply not an equally probably explanation for UFOs.

 

[MikeSun5]

"Experimental military aircraft" is one possible explanation that I've noted has not been raised yet. The idea would seem to explain many otherwise inexplicable sightings, especially given that the AF -- any nation's AF -- would be unlikely to disclose their military secrets. And who could blame them? That's why they call them "secrets".

Come to think of it, the "UFO" that I saw was in Colorado Springs, just a few miles from NORAD and the Air Force Academy. Hmmmm, I wonder...

 

[jakesteele]

Define "highly qualified anecdotal evidence".

I think you know exactly what I mean, but I'll go through the drill one more time. "Highly qualified" means private, commercial or military pilots who have had years of training and experience. The exact opposite of amateur.


Actually it was only one astronomer and his mother. Of course, you can say he is lying about what he saw. T

he point being in this case is that he did not report something extraordinary. If he had, then I would be skeptical of his claim. Instead, his observations fit nicely into a probable explanation

. This is something you do not want to entertain.

That's my point. Psychologically, humans seek that which fits neatly into their reality map. Anything that doesn't has got to go or be poo hooed or ridiculed or be completely ignored. As I said, if they report they saw UFOs you won't believe them. If they say airplanes, you will believe them. You're applying a double standard.

This is all about probabilities. Is it probable that an alien civilization is creating UFO reports or is it more likely that witnesses might mistake some phenomena for an alien spaceship. Even UFO proponents will admit that about 75-95% of all UFO reports are explainable as misperception and hoaxes. What makes you think the remaining 5-25% are not? What makes those remaining cases so special that we must conclude they are something extraordinary? Isn't it more likely the witness allowed himself to get so excited about seeing something strange that they exaggerated the story a bit? I can give you examples but just look at the Condon link somebody posted previously. Go to the section on witness perception by Dr. Hartmann. There are excellent examples there.

And what makes you think that the other 75-90 percent aren't special? Is it because the majority aren't, so therefore, the minority aren't either?

It's about ALL probabilities that fit within the context of what the subject matter is. In this case it is more likley that it is not, however, to deny the possibility that it might be is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It's not being truly openminded to all possibilities that would fit within the context.

I am aware that witness testimony can be unreliable to varying degress at various times and situations. However, not all witness's testimony is unreliable.

If you see someone in broad daylite shoot a person and you later identify him in a line up and it's corroborated by other witnesses, then the court gives that testimony a lot of credence, to the point of sometimes giving the death sentence.

If an expert, trained and experienced commercial or military pilot sees an 'object' come up close and start pacing him and then zooming off at warp speed and then coming back and do some right-angle change of directions, you're going to have a really hard time attributing that to cloud formation, Venus, perhaps he was preoccupied or whatever else you come up with.

The fact that a solid object of unknow origions performs aerial feats that are outside the realm of nature, has to be given some degree of credence and not tossed aside as though it was a mirage.

 

[jakesteele]

http://mw1.m-w.com/dictionary/woo

Sorry. It is a real world, er, word.

1 : to sue for the affection of and usually marriage with

Not in the context and in the way you do.

 

[jakesteele]

Yes I did but that blows your claim out of the water.

Using "anything I missed" means an infinite number of possibilities. That is a lot more than 11-12 "cookie cutter templates" for explaining UFO reports.

No, it doesn't, because you would never give an 'infinite' amount of possibilities because one of them would have to be alien spacecraft and getting you to say that is, again, like trying to pull the eye teeth from an angry gorilla.

 

[jakesteele]

I've read the entire thing. All of the points you raised are addressed in it. It is not an easy read, because it is thorough.

And no, given the evidence presented over the years and taking the pragmatic approach such as the Condon Report does,

I'm hard pressed to believe that aliens with the technology to travel light years across the universe would merely buzz hicks in the middle of nowhere or create crop circles rather than having the ability to instigate communications in a manner comprehensible to the planet they had visited.

Just because you're hard pressed doesn't mean everyone else is. That is your choice, your opinion. But when you present an opinion as an absolute, cased closed evidentual fact, that's where you cross the line from objective skeptic to subjective skeptic.

Also, you seem to think you know what an alien would or would not do. Are you an Indigo Child?