Again you fail to mention specific cases. If the witnesses were “suspect” in specific cases, then name the cases and we can go from there. I maintain that without naming specific cases yours IS an exercise in mudslinging.
I asked you to tell me which "unexplained" cases were compelling in the Condon report. You so far have not listed any. I am not going to reprint Menzels entire chapter. However, just look at case 22, which UFOlogists list as "unidentified". If you feel this is a "good" unidentified, then you will believe just about anything. The same can be said for several other cases. In case 44, which is also considered unidentified, the psychologist who examined the witness indicated the witness was having some personal problems at the time of the sighting, which may have had an effect on his perception of the event.
I suppose I no longer expect honesty from you – I also stated WHY Condon’s summary was not credible or objective. Anyone able to read and understand the report can understand why – simply because his summary is entirely at odds with the research contained within the report (which means he did not take into account the report when writing his summary), there is also the little document called the “trick” memo (in which it is stated that the conclusions had been reached even before ANY research had taken place – and remember this is a matter of undisputed record) – as is Condon’s writing of the summary BEFORE the research was completed. ALL that is a matter of undisputed public record. For you to claim it is just “UFOlogists” who say this is being (to be polite) disingenuous at the very least!
Again, you misrepresent what Low stated. His use of the word "trick" had more to do with a knack for accomplishing a task than a trick designed to deceive people. However, that is not what you want to think so go right ahead. BTW, the memo was written before the project started and when Low was not part of the project. Therefore, your claim that he was an "integral part of the project" is just plain UFO gibberish.
Now who is mudslinging? First, for the AIAA to call the report “creditable” and “objective” is at odds with what we KNOW about the spurious methods and motivations of Condon. Second, all I know about what the AIAA did or did not read is that the AIAA MUST NOT have read the case histories in Condon because 30% of them had “unexplained” as a conclusion. That is 30% of cases researched in Condon were UFOs! Where does the AIAA mention THAT statistic? If they were TRULY objective, then they would have NOTED such a significant figure. That they did NOT, tells us a great deal about their own spurious motivations.
It is not the AIAA but the NAS. They are two different bodies. Your reliance on this 30% is just repeating what you have read. Have you read any of the "unexplained cases"? Apparently not. You can see why a majority are "unexplained". Feel free to point out which ones are really compelling. Otherwise, you admit that these "unknowns" are not very good.
Then I suggest you read the more professional, extensive and more detailed analysis of the photos (and the case) by a qualified military optics engineer at (
http://www.nicap.org/cufospaper2.htm) for a second opinion.
Yes. I will rely upon biased UFO papers written in the IUR for my source of information. I think I will take the objective approach by Hartmann instead.
I have explained many times that you ask the impossible – and it would be impossible no matter WHAT scientific discipline you ask it of. In NO discipline will a single case (observation, data point, etc) be sufficient to “prove” anything! Rather it is the body of evidence, built up over time that lends support to a hypothesis. More, no body of evidence will ever be sufficient to definitively “prove” the hypothesis, because there will always remain a chance, no matter how remote that chance might seem to us today, that a single observation will destroy the hypothesis entirely – no matter HOW well established we think it is today! THAT is just the nature of the world (universe) we live in. THAT is the nature of science and we just have to learn to live with such constraints on our knowledge.
Each case stands on its own merit. You can not pile each case upon each other since they represent different events and can not be grouped as observing the same type of thing. Your attempt to do so is not science at all but trying to make a mountain out of nothing.
What I am doing is building a body of evidence by presenting cases that defy mundane explanation. It is of course only your own (and that the UFO debunkers posting herein) opinion that I have failed in that endeavour. Of course no-one has provided a reasonable explanation for the Tehran sighting, but I am willing to move on and explore the Father Gill case. Perhaps you have a reasonable mundane explanation for THAT case? No? I thought not.
What if Father Gill had reported seeing a flying dragon? Would you accept that as evidence for flying dragons or would you reject it as just a fanciful observation?
I think the skeptics in this forum have demonstrated the evidence for all these cases have their flaws and have suggested alternative explanations. Of course, you have simply rejected them with the usual hand waving.
Strangely…you never ask these questions when someone proposes (for example) “blimp” as an “explanation” for Rogue River – even though the “explanation” does NOT fit with what the witnesses observed, NOR does it fit with the historical data on blimps at the time… so WHY Astrophotographer do you not apply the same rigorous standards to your own side of the argument that you do to the UFO researcher side?
Because we are not the ones saying it must have been a blimp. We are stating it could be a blimp and it is possible. You are the one stating these are alien spaceships, which means you need to provide evidence to indicate why you think this is so. If you are stating they are just unidentified, then we have to examine what is most likely - fairies, dragons, alien spaceships, blimp/aircraft? IMO, the blimp/aircraft is most likely until you can demonstrate it was something else.
Besides, many of the things you ask, while sounding “scientific” and worthy of inclusion in any analysis, are actually irrelevant to the cases under examination. Who actually CARES what the angular speed was in the Father Gill case (by the way - it was ZERO) …there were also 38 other witnesses to the event… and these objects were not “strange” as you mean it … the people involved saw a silent, brightly lit, (presumably technological) hovering craft from which distinctly human like beings interacted with the people on the ground on two separate occasions. Those are the pertinent details. It is those details that need to be examined and explored. What you are asking for is peripheral information – some of which is available, but even if it were not, the primary details are extremely puzzling.
The object did disappear so it must have had an angular speed. These are measurements that would need to be computed based on the testimony. If they are not available it is hard to determine the physical characteristics of the craft. Who is to say if it was a pinpoint light or the size of the full moon? We don't know and without that information we can not determine if it was possible for him to report the things he stated he saw.
