UFOs: The Research, the Evidence

[StevenCalder]

I'd like to take this time to post a very interesting link which gives another view on the supposed 'smear' in regards the Mexico City video...

http://www.brumac.8k.com/MexCityAug697/MexCtySmearAnalysis.html

I'd be very interested to hear opinions on the analysis, as it appears quite thorough, at least to this untrained eye...

Yes, Unfortuantly unlike some I am not an instant expert in all fields who can honestly dismiss things with a wave of hand. I did see a lot of scrambling to justify this UFO before hand even with all the giant red flags in the story, I hope its not more of that after the fact. I'd love to see some independent comparison of the analysis.

Obviously the "bouncing" and unchanging viewing angle are still damming.

 

[StevenCalder]

"All the crows I have seen are black:
Therefore all crows are black"
... is a fallacy. Moreover the insertion of words like "likely" to be black, or "probably" are black... does not help avoid the fallacy because these terms (value judgements presuppose that we know the limits of the likilihood range. Probability is a strange beast. If the toss of a coin has revealed five heads in a row, many people would be inclined to bet a more on a tail coming up next. But this would be incorrect. A fallacy. The odds remain exactly as they were, 50/50. The same could apply for UFOs. We simply do not know the true odds well enough to make a judgement call on the likelihood of whether sightings will be mundane or not.

I'm glad to see I completely wasted all my time in the other thread.

 

[RoboTimbo]

So your contention about me doing it to avoid providing "extraordinary" evidence is false. I AM providing evidence (or trying to!). The ONLY other person here I also see REGULARLY providing evidence in answer to my hypotheses and contentions is Astrophotographer (Oh and Stray Cat has had a few goes) - and I commend him (them) for it.

Evidence of what? What hypotheses and contentions?

So, shall we move on?

Ok, I won't bring it up again unless you resort to strawman arguments. Deal?

 

[Rramjet]

Since you seem to know more about my beliefs than I do, let me let you know where I think I stand on the issue. Let me know where I'm wrong, ok?

I believe there are UFO's.
I believe most to be easily explainable.
I believe there are some which will remain a mystery.
I believe some are fake, hoaxed, or highly embellished accounts.
I believe that most people reporting UFO's are sincere in their belief of what they saw.
I believe that physical evidence trumps eyewitness accounts.
I do believe that there is extra-terrestrial life somewhere in the universe, but...
I don't believe there is sufficient evidence to prove the existence of extra-terrestrial UFO's having visited earth.

It's not a belief system. It's called having high standards of evidence. I've looked at your evidence, it doesn't hold up to scrutiny. I realize that I might be wrong, and that aliens have visited earth in spacecraft, but I've seen no strong evidence that it's happened. I'm not saying it absoluetely hasn't happened or cannot happen...it's all about the evidence. So, I guess if you insist on calling it a belief system, you can consider me an agnostic on the issue. I'm open to evidence and I'd love for nothing more to see proof of alien life.

Well now THAT is more like it. Someone has laid their cards on the table. THIS! is what I believe they have said. No messing about. THIS is IT! Thank you apathoid. I appreciate your candor.

The trouble I have is sorting those who have legitimate, rationally thought out positions from those who seem to merely want to "debunk" at all costs.

I believe you when you say you are open to evidence. And it is a stance that gives me hope that there is a way we can have a rational debate about the contentions raised in this thread.

As you know:
I believe UFOs exist.
I also believe that aliens exist.
I believe that there is enough evidence to suggest (note not "prove") these contentions are true.
I believe that a great many UFO reports can be explained in "mundane" terms.
I also believe that there are more UFO reports that cannot be so explained that anyone either realises or cares to to admit.
I also believe that UFOs is NOT the beginning or end of the story - there is a whole lot more "weirdness" that seems to be occurring around us that we cannot explain.
I believe we only have a partial (at best) grasp of what "reality" actually IS.
And so My BIG problem comes when I have to say WHAT UFOs and aliens actually are (or more precisely what they represent).
They could be anything... but what they are is something totally outside our current understanding of reality.

There are probably other things that go along with all that but I too am also open to evidence. If there was evidence for a blimp at Rogue River, then I would have said "okay, that one is out of the way, it is now KNOWN, let's see what other cases there are. But the fact is that the blimp hypothesis was shot down in flames as soon as it was discovered that blimp operations on the West Coast ceased two years before the sighting.

So I begin with a pretty firm conviction that UFOs exist.
When it comes to aliens...less positive on the evidence front but then we have cases like:

The Kelly-Hopkinsville Encounter (21-22 Aug 1955)
(http://www.nicap.org/kelly-hendry.htm)
(http://ufologie.net/htm/kelly55.htm#witness)

Now if anyone can explain that in mundane terms, then I would like tohear about it. But if they do explain it in such terms and I can shoot holes in the arguments, then I do not consider it so explained.

Moreover, I KNOW eyewitness accounts can be erroneous. However I also knoiw they CAn be entirely accurate also. I also know we CAN determine what circumstances lead to misperceptions and we CAN account for that when assessing UFO reports. I dislike intensely the argument that merely because eyewitness reports can be fallible then we should not believe UFO reports - for that is not a rational position.

Anyway... I could keep going, but I actually got something needing my attention outside this right now. Maybe after ... anyway...

I just want to say I appreciate your laying you beliefs on the table like that apathoid. Thank you.

 

[Sledge]

UFO. You keep using this word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

 

[Astrophotographer]

Moreover, I KNOW eyewitness accounts can be erroneous. However I also knoiw they CAn be entirely accurate also. I also know we CAN determine what circumstances lead to misperceptions and we CAN account for that when assessing UFO reports.

That is the trick isn't it? What standards do you apply on determining how accurate a witnesses story is? What makes you an authority? Is it because you have declared yourself an expert by being a "scientist"?

 

[LissaLysikan]

Let's lay it out one more time.
UFO = Unidentified Flying Object
Nothing to do with aliens is implied. It means unknown.
Unknown means we do not know. It does NOT imply we think aliens. It does not imply we think it means blimp. It does not imply we think it means a crack in a camera lens. It means we do not know.
If you are using a different definition for UFO - stop it, you're lying - either to yourself or to others.
So ALL PEOPLE IN THE WORLD WHO ARE SANE know that UFOs exist.
If you mean aliens - of any color, stripe, origin, fantasy, shape, or mathematics, say so.
If you are too ashamed of your belief to state it - that tells you something about yourself the rest of us don't need to know but you should work on.

 

[Paul2]

I fully follow the concept, and I quite agree that something compelling would have to come forward to truly convince most folks.

I just have trouble with where the true standard of 'extraordinary' is. Is a standard in this context even attainable?

Where is that line between 'amazing' and extraordinary'? For me it may be different than for you. Do we rely on science to establish that line, or can we factor in other things as well?

I really do not wish to become mired in an exhaustive debate on definitions, so pardon my simplistic approach.

SnidelyW, for when you get back:

We don't need a clear line with extraordinary and not-extraordinary on either side. The idea that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence is just a casual rule of thumb, it's not operational, I think, for practicing scientists (they don't have to fill out a extraordinary claim form before they publish their findings, forgive my lack of subtlety). So there's no need to figure out where the line is.

Furthermore, I'm confused by you asking where the line is between amazing and extraordinary. I proposed above that amazing isn't even part of the discussion about extraordinary claims and evidence.

 

[TjW]

I'd like to take this time to post a very interesting link which gives another view on the supposed 'smear' in regards the Mexico City video...

http://www.brumac.8k.com/MexCityAug697/MexCtySmearAnalysis.html

I'd be very interested to hear opinions on the analysis, as it appears quite thorough, at least to this untrained eye...

It says essentially that the UFO image is synchronized to the camera frame, and not the objects in the field of view. The camera shaking up and down motion-blurs horizontal details on the building, and does NOT motion-blur horizontal details on the UFO in the same frame.
If it had been a real object, it would have the motion-blur at the same time the building did.

In short, it is evidence that the UFO image is not a real object. It was a hoax.

Since it seems thorough to you, does this mean we have disposed of the Las Lomas video as being a hoax?

 

[StevenCalder]

They could be anything... but what they are is something totally outside our current understanding of reality.

Yep and here's the problem. The same one I warned you about on page one.

When the evidence is insufficient the correct position is always I don't know. This is: "I don't know, therefore I know it is beyond our understand of reality". Science hasn't stopped learning, questions unanswerable now, maybe be explainable by natural phenomena tomorrow. Its still an argument from ignorance I'm afraid.

To be very clear so we don't make the same mistake as we did on page one, that means that you cannot say that "It is beyond our understand of reality" until you have shown it is definitely not[*] anything that is within our understanding of reality. It could be aliens, It could be mundane events, to presuppose anything more than that now would be dishonest and an arrogant assumption of knowledge contained in our ignorance.

To show UFO's are of Alien origin (by your definition) you have two corridors open to you:

You either have to provide positive confirmatory evidence for an exotic hypothesis.
Or you have to completely falsify all mundane explanations that ever were and ever shall be.

Lets bring the blimp example into this to illustrate, is there doubt introduced into the hypothesis by BabyHeadheaded man? Yes of course, Have we been shown that it is beyond a shadow of a doubt not a blimp - Has the hypothesis been falsified? No, there's still a possibility it was a blimp.

Please try to imagine if we were trying to do this from the other side and say that because we had introduced some element of doubt into your Alien Hypothesis we then started claiming that we had completely falsified the alien hypothesis for the UFO and it is 100% not caused by Aliens, you'd be kicking up one hell of a drama!

The other part of the problem your having seems to be with attempting to equalize the probabilities of a mundane, entirely consistent with every thing we know so far about the world through science, hypothesis, and a hypothesis we have yet to see any verifying evidence for at all. "Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence", is a scientific mantra which you should not only be familiar with but grotesquely familiar with as a scientist. Once again it has nothing to do with different subjective view points of the evidence, but entirely from the sceptical view point of science, based on the current evidence. Perhaps this quote will explain the idea better than I can.

To be explicitly crystal clear again, probabilities and absolutes are different concepts, by saying one concept is more likely than another based on the current evidence we do not make any absolute claims about its existence.

For example, if I told you I had cereal for breakfast, you would probably believe me. You know cereal exists and that people eat it for breakfast. Of course, I could be lying, but even if I were, I have not asked you to accept some new and extraordinary idea. (The fact that I lied wouldn’t mean that cereal somehow doesn’t exist any more.) However, if I told you that the cereal I eat every day will guarantee that I will never get sick and will live to be 100, you would probably want some evidence of that, and some pretty good evidence too.

http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2008/01/extraordinary-c.html
http://skepticwiki.org/index.php/"Extraordinary_Claims_Require_Extraordinary_Proof"
The rest of the article and wiki is worth reading if you have any more confusion over this concept.




[*] (by falsifying all hypotheses or providing positive confirmatory evidence for your hypothesis)
(P.S. This is my last attempt, at this first sign you are attempting to assign me a position without asking me what my position actually is or simply misrepresented my position I will simply stop engaging with you)

 

[Belz...]

One man’s “extraordinary claim, is another man’s “banal” idea.

I'm sure few people would consider the idea that visiting aliens actually coming here and remaining undetected this long, except to a few people who can't take a clear photograph, is "banal".

 

[Belz...]

Say, Ramjet, did you even read my long post a couple of pages ago ?

I have just realised something. We actually are NOT ready to move beyond my first contention that “UFOs exist.”

We haven't ? Even though everybody has chimed in to tell you they agree with that statement ???

But this is an illogical basis for a category…it is speculative…

Speculation is not illogical. Do you even know what "UFO" means ?

Then it hit me. People were saying that UFOs existed, but they were really NOT believing it.

A piece of advice, Ram: Don't try to read into people's posts something different than what they said. First, it's a sure-fire way to make people angry, and second such practice usually has a very low accuracy. Just stick to what people say. If you don't understand, ask for clarification rather than making up the answer.

What people REALLY believed in was that UFOs are UNKOWN for now, but really all of then would have a mundane explanation if only all the information was available. And THIS is not the same as accepting UFOs as truly UNKNOWN.

Actually, yes it is. Unknown means "unknown for now" because there is always a possibility that you may discover further evidence that identifies the object. The reverse is also true. "Known" means "known for now" because you could find evidence that casts doubt on the identification.

People were saying “Oh yes, I believe UFOs exist – but only to the extent that they have yet to be classified as mundane"!

That is nonsensical. If they are unidentified then they are unidentified.

So, I can see now that I will have to spend some time to explain the illogic of this debunker position – to point out the fallacy of such a position in precise terms. Unfortunately I do not have time right now. In the meantime I would invite readers to think carefully about what I have just written – work through the logic. Look at the arguments I have made.

You have made none. So far all you have shown is that you don't understand logic or reason, and that you know so little about it that you think you understand more than you really do, just like students who find out about solipsism the first time and think they've unraveled the universe.

 

[Belz...]

Indeed, you are correct. But I cannot provide that evidence without "blowing my cover" so to speak and inviting you all into my home and my workplace and THAT is something I am NOT about to do at this point, given the nature of some of the posts I have been the object of here in this forum.

That's hilarious. Why would someone take the time and effort to go to your home and... and what, already ? You are delusional.

 

[Belz...]

And PLEASE don’t quote Wikipedia to me for definitions: Wikipedia is a glorified gossip site.

Say, is there anything you're ever right about ?

Remember the All crows are black fallacy? I thought we were past that.

Argument from ignorance.

You think all UFO pictures are “grainy” (an old debunker fallacy).

Aren't they ?

You categorise the eyewitness testimony as “fakes, hoaxes and anecdotes”

By definition, they are ALL anecdotes, are they not ? And there HAVE been fakes a hoaxes, have there not ? So far not a single one of them has been shown to be true, so its no surprise that people are skeptical of these claims, now.

But that is merely your own opinion based on your own pre-determined belief system.

That's a funny thing to say. I would think that most skeptics, myself included, would be quite happy to learn that there are indeed aliens out there. But saying it is so doesn't make it true. And so far all we have is people saying it is so. Color me unimpressed.

 

[TjW]

Hi Astrophotographer -

I have now looked at the original Sanio article.

Two quick points, first I think Dr. Maccabees research refutes the "blurriness" objections raised by Sanio. Second , I note that Sanio contends he has used "custom software not publicly available" to analyse the images...therefore we simply have to take his word for the accuracy or veracity of his research.

This is a critical and telling point. For if the research is not REPEATABLE under scientific conditions, then we must reject the results. You would do this for any research presented by me. I expect you to adhere to the same rules when the roles are switched.

I therefore contend this research by "Sanio" to be first at least in part refuted by further research by Maccabee and second in for the the rest of the report - unverifiable. Thus we must reject the conclusions and move on.

Any other objections to the video. So far it is pretty compelling...

If by 'Maccabee's research' you mean the link at http://www.brumac.8k.com/MexCityAug697/MexCtySmearAnalysis.html , then I strongly disagree. It confirms Sanio's statistical analysis by finding two frames in which the differences in motion blur are visible to the naked eye.

I also disagree that Sanio's analysis is not replicable. He gives the methodology, which should be enough. You compare the sharpness of horizontal lines in the UFO image with the sharpness of horizontal lines on the background buildings.
These two values should track from frame to frame, and also track the speed of apparent vertical motion in the frame.
Given that, you can write your own program to process the frames, which is what needs to happen anyway for a truly independent replication.

 

[jer_j]

I know that this will seem like “nitpicking” or playing with language to achieve the result one is aiming at - but believe me, I am a trained scientist and peer-reviewed published author in scientific journals and EVERY editorial comment I ever got in reply to my early submissions was to ALWAYS point out the very things I point out above. Editorial boards of scientific publications are fully aware of the critical nature of language use and semantics in such matters and if it is pertinent to them - it really should be pertinent to us as all.

Name the branch of science and name the journals. Surely you can do that much without "blowing your cover."

It seems strange to me a person could receive so much education - and be so minutely aware of the cautious use of language and thus become trusted as a guardian of scientific knowledge - yet still:
- Demonstrate what I can only call a spectacular failure to understand burden of proof.
- Read a post - then in responding 1) choose a detail that doesn't make sense to answer, and/or 2) respond to it in a way that shows he didn't comprehend the main point of the post.
- REPEATEDLY ask people to prove an object was a blimp, when such an assertion was never made and the request was utterly unexpected and uncalled for.
- So easily decide that a mundane object such as a blimp could not POSSIBLY have seen and misinterpreted by eyewitnesses back in 1949, and thus extraterrestrial craft is an explanation that deserves our consideration.
- Use a line of reasoning such as, "We don't know what a world visited by aliens would look like - therefore, despite the lack of observed aliens in our everyday lives, we can still believe their are aliens visiting us."

It's like someone saying he's trained under all the top chefs in Paris when we've seen him trying to fry an egg in a toaster.

I don't say this to attack anyone's character or intelligence. But Rramjet has both posted arguments for our consideration and tried backing them up with a vague reference to scientific credentials, and I think it's fair for us to evaluate his claims on both points.

His writing style and grammar are actually remarkable, considering what appears to be a demonstrated lack of basic comprehension skills in his posts. Based on this, my guesses about his scientific credentials, if they exist, are as follows:
1) His field is "UFOlogy," and he publishes to "peer-reviewed journals" in that field.
2) His field is something like "Human Relations" or "Critical Theory." If you've attended a state university in the past 15 years, you probably know what I'm talking about.
3) He is a respected scientist in a serious field of study, and this is some kind of experiment to elicit and study reactions from us.

That's the best I can think of until we get a real answer from him.

 

[EHocking]

...I believe... if no new evidence is about to be presented... that the "blimp" hypothesis for Rogue River is now implausible.
...

I believe that too much credence is put on the eye witness accounts for any observation to be of any use at all.

From their estimation of size, I don't believe that you can dismiss the lack of evidence of blimp-like features (props, gondola etc).

From the sightings page we have,

Object distance = 4 miles
Object elevation = 5000 ft
Object diameter = 30 ft
Binocular power = 8X

From the above, we can calculate the field of view (FOV) of the binoculars in question and get an idea of what detail might have been able to be observed in them.

A quick Google of Navy issue 8X binoculars in the 40s yields a model: 8 x 56, with an 6deg 25min FOV.

Calculations, backed by tech sheets on similar power x aperture binocular yields an horizontal FOV, at 1000m (3280ft) of 122m, or 400ft.

If we draw this, this is what a 30ft diam object would look like in those binoculars.

ETA: Here's a graphical check that 13 x 30ft diam objects = 390ft.

At 4 miles and 5000ft elevation, the distance to the object is 21,120ft (6,437m).

THIS, is what you could see in those same binoculars if the distances given by the witnesses are correct.


Unless I've made some very drastic calculation errors, I can't see how these witnesses were able to make the detailed observations of the object that they claim.

I would hazard that their estimates of distance and size are way out, therefore putting their estimate of speeds etc etc into question as well.

Navy observers or not - here is an example of "expert" witnesses probably being wildly wrong with their distance/size/speed estimates. Unsurprising when you have no frame of reference for an object.

 

[Jocce]

Two quick points, first I think Dr. Maccabees research refutes the "blurriness" objections raised by Sanio. Second , I note that Sanio contends he has used "custom software not publicly available" to analyse the images...therefore we simply have to take his word for the accuracy or veracity of his research.

First of all, Dr. Maccabees research confirms that the video is a fake. How you can read it and say it refutes Sanio is beyond my comprehension. Second, it doesn't matter which software he uses. His results should be the same using any kind of software, unless his software is faulty.

 

[Astrophotographer]

His writing style and grammar are actually remarkable, considering what appears to be a demonstrated lack of basic comprehension skills in his posts. Based on this, my guesses about his scientific credentials, if they exist, are as follows:
1) His field is "UFOlogy," and he publishes to "peer-reviewed journals" in that field.
2) His field is something like "Human Relations" or "Critical Theory." If you've attended a state university in the past 15 years, you probably know what I'm talking about.
3) He is a respected scientist in a serious field of study, and this is some kind of experiment to elicit and study reactions from us.

That's the best I can think of until we get a real answer from him.

There are plenty of charlatans out there. I find it difficult to believe that a scientist would be "afraid" to reveal his identity for fear of ridicule or fear of retribution of some kind. I am not stating that he is lying, I just find his behaviour curously unscientific.

 

[Astrophotographer]

I would hazard that their estimates of distance and size are way out, therefore putting their estimate of speeds etc etc into question as well.

The estimates made by the witnesses varied. Initially, it was about four miles. In later interviews they changed it to one mile. If one considers that usually the best information is that obtained right after the event, we have the four mile estimate, where the size of a 30 foot object is only about 5 minutes of arc across, which is hard to see details. Personally, I think all these estimates are just compltely unreliable. This is why I desire estimates of angular size and speed. Anything measured in feet, miles, fathoms, meters, furlongs, etc. are just wild guesses.