UFO'S: A possible explanation

[jakesteele]

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.

Is that a zen thing like, "Last night I dreamt I was a butterfly. Today, am I a butterfly dreaming I'm a man?"

 

[EHocking]

... 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...

Same here - in my early teens.

I was excited about it, but never once considered alien aircraft as an explanation. Fortunately the sighting was reported in the national paper the next day, so my parents and their friends (who were home when I burst in the door enthusing about UFOs) decided that I was completely mad (well, not for that reason, anyway).

 

[jakesteele]

Looks like you don't even know what Occam's Razor is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_Razor

To straightforwardly summarize the principle as it is most commonly understood, “Of several acceptable explanations for a phenomenon, the simplest is preferable.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor#Anti-razors

 

[EHocking]

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.

Where have I presented my opinion as absolute fact? The OP asked for alternate explanations for UFO sightings, I gave him a well researched paper on the subject. In my opinion it is a very good aproach to researching a subject that, in the main, is thought to be so far off the wall as to be not worth researching by mainstream scientists.

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

Don't put words or opinions in my mouth. My comment was, "I'm hard pressed to believe...". That's hardly emphatically stating a psychoanalysis of the alien mind.

 

[jakesteele]

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.

I didn't say there were aliens or that the Phoenix Lights were extraterrestial, so there is no burden on me. All I have been doing is pointing out the underlying psychology, or confirmation bias, that undergirds your perceptions and beliefs.

You will take the word of amateur astronomers, as in the PL case or anywhere else, because it dovetails neatly into your reality map, but you will completely reject the hundreds of expert witnesses who have seen things that defy your cookie cutter template.

That's all this is about. I don't care whether aliens exist or not.

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

I didn't say aliens were an equally probable explanation. If fact, I have stated in different ways that they are the least likely, but still within the realm of possibility and consideration as a result of expert testimony that can not be explained away by your cookie cutter.

 

[jakesteele]

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...

It was probably a military aircraft, unless there is an underground alien bunker, then maybe...

 

[jakesteele]

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.

Why? Do you claim to know that much about science that you can make an extraordinary claim like that? By the way, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Isn't that the line you guys use?

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.

WTF? I hope you feel better now that you've gotten that off your chest.

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.

I'm on a mission, too. I'm trying to keep the young who are prone to falling for things away from pseudoskeptics who cloak their denialism in the language of
skepticism and critical thinking.

 

[foxholeatheist]

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.

You just said:

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

So you tend not to take the testimony of military pilots, not this guy.

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.

Astronormers are also highly skilled and experienced in what they do. And yes, they are more credible then the average bear but believe me, no skeptic takes this as gospel.

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.

You cannot prove a negitive. I cannot for instance prove there are no unicorns. The burden of proof will lie solely with those making the claim.

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.

Alright dude, CSIOPtics is getting danergously close to Usian. Anyway...

Again, taking the null stance I do not see how in any case the burden of proof would lie with the skeptic. I could never prove there is no God or UFO or trolls under the bridge. I could only ever hope to show how astronomically improbable it is.

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.

That bogus and totality subjective. You will find many skeptics that take the claims of "foo-fighters" in WW2 seriously. And you will also find plenty of skeptics that take Kenneth Arnold's original 1947 seriously. Now when I say "seriously" does that imply "Alien Spaceship"? No, it does not.

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?

OK, at least I got the correct show. You really should see the scene with the goofs that claim they can "fly" through transcendental meditation; it's a riot.

Anyway, such contemporaries of the "Flying Friar" are:
Seamonks, Bishopfish, The Vegetable Lamb, Monopods, Cockatrice... I don't need to go on. Records from that era are spotty at best and overflowing with allegory and allusion.

Not to get off topic...

Personally I believe most UFO reports are natural atmospheric phenomena or man made aircraft mistaken for Alien Spacecraft (then it really is not a UFO then is it?). A small minority of cases I believe to be hoaxes. A very few cases may be unexplainable (Lonnie Zamora in 1964, Kelly-Hopkinsville encounter of 1955 and the Pascagoula Abduction of 1973 all come to mind) in the sense that they have annoying loose ends that don't really make sense.

BUT... that is not license to jump to the conclusion that Extra-Terrestrials are involved when it is not the only explanation.

 

[King of the Americas]

Possibly, probable,...Occam's Razor.

"U.F.O./the gods litter our historical texts. They didn't have to come from another star system, because they have 'always' been, in the heavens."

Which is more likely? That all of these writers, artists, and or historical chroniclers were delusional, OR that we are simply mis-interpreting our own sightings and failing to make the historical connections?

Historical Delusionality vs. Human Error

Which one would Occam's Razor point to?

---

You can call 'them' what you want, but all evidence points to someone or something 'up there', that is more than us... Technologically or physically superior, or at least 'higher'... maybe on an evolutionary scale.

Then again, they could be based in the other place we know little to nothing about- our deepest oceans.

Just something to think about...

 

[Astrophotographer]

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.

You missed my point about "pilot error" then. Pilots make mistakes just like any other human. If a pilot crashes an airplane, even with dozens of years of experience, because of a simple error, what makes his observational skills so perfect? I can give you all sorts of observations by skilled pilots that were errors in observation. The recent release of some British UFO records showed one event where Tornado pilots thought they saw an advanced aircraft fly over them. It turned out to be reentering space debris. Why did those experienced pilots make such an error?

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.

This is the problem. You can't tell which is reliable and which is not. You can't pick and choose therefore you have to question (i.e. express skepticism) the reports that appear exotic. It is more likely they are mistaken and not an accurate observation. When a potential explanation surfaces, then it should be considered likely. In the case of the Tornado pilots, it appeared to be a good UFO report of something truly exotic. However, it happened at the same time as the re-entering space debris.

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.

However, if your testimony states the person had a rifle and the actual weapon was a handgun, your testimony is suspect. In the case of UFO reports it is not a matter of questioning if the witness saw something but how they interpreted what they saw.

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.

Again, it is all a matter of interpretation of each event. We can dance around this all day but pilots and policemen are not much better at observations than most other people. When Dr. Hynek (sometimes called the "Galileo" of modern UFOlogy) looked at the bluebook data, he discovered that pilots made more mistakes than other types of observers. He stated:

"What we have here is a good example of a well-known psychological fact: "transference" of skill and experience does not usually take place. That is, an expert in one field does not necessarily "transfer" his competence to another one" (Hynek The UFO report p. 261).


If you want to describe a specific event we can go into that. However, the generic claim of pilots being infallible observers is not accurate. It has been shown time and time again to be false.

 

[tsig]

Wow, so UFOs suddenly have an average approximate flying height?

(Which is ironically the same as the average flying height of... aeroplanes. I feel I might have an explantion...)

I find it fascinating that aliens just manage to keep up with Earth technology.

 

[tsig]

[

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.



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.



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.



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 ‘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.

You mean like asking for a little facts to go with the word salad?

 

[tsig]

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.

These aliens seem to act almost human with human motivations.

 

[tsig]

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.

When we see an object apparently break the laws of physics do we throw out physics or conclude that our perception is somehow wanting?

We know of many ways our senses can be fooled but no way to fool physics.

 

[tsig]

I'm on a mission, too. I'm trying to keep the young who are prone to falling for things away from pseudoskeptics who cloak their denialism in the language of
skepticism and critical thinking.

So asking for evidence is denialism?

 

[lightfire22000]

"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".

Jakesteele and myself both brought that up except for the fact that the aircrafts don't need to be classified. Not to sound annoying or anything.

 

[paximperium]

To straightforwardly summarize the principle as it is most commonly understood, “Of several acceptable explanations for a phenomenon, the simplest is preferable.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor#Anti-razors

"Commonly understood" still means you and the commonly used term are still wrong. "Simplest" in the razor means LEAST assumptions.

Read the wiki, accept that you were wrong and change your arguments. That would be the honest thing to do.

 

[paximperium]

So asking for evidence is denialism?

Basically. He refuses to ever clearly state what he believes but instead plays the "I'm just asking questions" or "I'm just trying to be the REAL skeptic" game.

He already tried it in the Anti-Pharma, Anti-vaccine thread.

 

[I Ratant]

On an evening test flight, our plane left the runway flying to the north. He was then vectored to a west heading, at which time he complained we had him pointing directly at another airplane, he could see the light on the nose!
Just prior to entering the test building I'd noted Venus was prominent to the west of us.
I pointed this out to the test director... who replied.."We'll let him figure it out."
One thing we none of was other airplanes flying around that area when we had a test flight going on.

 

[dang]

As a humorous aside, you may want to take a moment and help identify this UFO posted by a local PBS TV station:

http://shrinkify.com/t1p