RoboTimbo
Hostile Nanobacon
It's a SQUISH!
I wonder if air bubbles can adhere to its skin as it swims. We'll have to ask Rramjet.
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It's a SQUISH!
I wonder if air bubbles can adhere to its skin as it swims. We'll have to ask Rramjet.
jond
Illuminator
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- Apr 25, 2006
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- 3,440
For the record, I'd like to point out that Good Year has been sponsoring the Olympics (for anyone not paying attention). The problem is that every time their little promo blimp comes on, I start laughing, thinking it should read Gay Rodeo. My wife now thinks I'm nuts, and I have you all to blame.
"Honey, you just don't understand. There's this guy on the forum who's totally convinced there there are aliens piloting UFOs, and there was this one sighting where he was sure that it couldn't have possibly been a blimp and when all his assertions were refuted, he started getting all hissy, so this great designer came up with this blimp with an anagram from Good Year on the side, and it's become such an in-joke that I can't look at the real thing again..."
"Honey, you just don't understand. There's this guy on the forum who's totally convinced there there are aliens piloting UFOs, and there was this one sighting where he was sure that it couldn't have possibly been a blimp and when all his assertions were refuted, he started getting all hissy, so this great designer came up with this blimp with an anagram from Good Year on the side, and it's become such an in-joke that I can't look at the real thing again..."
Correa Neto
Philosopher
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What can we possibly know about these aliens from beyond the borders of what we call nature?
Physics in not dead, so everything is possible! Especially [theremin sound] beyond the borders of what we call nature! [/theremin sound]
Correa Neto
Philosopher
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By the way...
http://www.universetoday.com/2010/02/24/report-two-objects-crash-to-ground-in-mongolia/
Seems some UFObuffs claim its a "leaked UFO crash picture".
Maybe Rramjet at last will be vindicated.
http://www.universetoday.com/2010/02/24/report-two-objects-crash-to-ground-in-mongolia/
Seems some UFObuffs claim its a "leaked UFO crash picture".
Maybe Rramjet at last will be vindicated.
Akhenaten
Heretic Pharaoh
By the way...
http://www.universetoday.com/2010/02/24/report-two-objects-crash-to-ground-in-mongolia/
Seems some UFObuffs claim its a "leaked UFO crash picture".
Maybe Rramjet at last will be vindicated.
Apart from anything else, I just want to thank you for that link, Correa.
Swinburne is where my missus earned Her degree and it was a delight to see how well they're doing .
You've done me a much bigger favour than you would imagine.
Cheers Mate.
Correa Neto
Philosopher
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- 8,548
Erm... Well... Ok...
But I failed to see the link with Swinburne...
ETA: Duh, crap, don't worry. Just found it.
"February 23rd, 2010 entry- Alien Star Clusters Are Invading the Milky Way"
EEEEEEK!
Alien Star Clusters from beyond the borders of what we call nature!
But I failed to see the link with Swinburne...
ETA: Duh, crap, don't worry. Just found it.
"February 23rd, 2010 entry- Alien Star Clusters Are Invading the Milky Way"
EEEEEEK!
Alien Star Clusters from beyond the borders of what we call nature!
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Akhenaten
Heretic Pharaoh
Lolocopters from Outer Space!
Stray Cat
Philosopher
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2006
- Messages
- 6,829
Funny they should get mentioned.
I clipped this ad from page 15 of my most recent copy of Squid Fishing Monthly (I have it on subscription now)
Akhenaten
Heretic Pharaoh
Not just the Olympics, either.
I'm only posting this in case the Master is inspired to do something with it.
UFO mean UFO – that is “Unidentified Flying Saucer”. However, if a sighted object cannot be identified as mundane (as is the case with the UFO reports I have presented in this thread), then I am free to speculate about what it might represent (given the descriptive characteristics of the object).
Of course the UFO debunkers do not believe “UFOs exist” at all. Rather, they believe UFMOs exist (Unidentified Flying Mundane Objects). That is, all object sightings have a mundane explanation – we just don’t know what that is right now – but it MUST be so because everything else is impossible, therefore it cannot be!
I think Sunsneezer needs to revisit the part of the thread where we discussed how science works. Speculation is legitimate in science. All hypotheses are a priori equal. It is only on examination of the evidence do we assign value judgements to speculative hypotheses. In the cases I have presented, the value judgement of the hypothetical “mundane” explanation is implausible (unlikely, not probable, etc), therefore (as Sherlock Holmes implied) whatever we have left, no matter what our preconceived value judgement has told us about how unlikely it might be, must be therefore be considered.
If you debunk, then that makes you a “debunker”. Perhaps you should inform your fellow travellers in this thread – they seem to object to the term… yet when I have asked them REPEATEDELY, to come up with another term I could use in its place…they have FAILED to do so… even in the face of that failure, they continue to object to the term “UFO debunker”.
I believe that after we have ascertained that the “mundane” hypothesis is implausible, then what we are left with IS “alien” (by definition). I can then speculate about what “alien” MEANS, but I have never stated that I have a definitive answer to that question.
I love the way UFO debunkers continually accuse me of the very thing that they are guilty of. Still, it has become increasingly apparent this is a favourite “trick” of theirs. When they run out of rational argument, they resort to all manner of suchlike shenanigans.
IF you can demonstrate plausible mundane explanations for any of the cases I have presented, then I will consider the explanation on its merit. However, so far, NO plausible mundane explanations have been forthcoming.
If I make a claim, then I must provide evidence to support that claim.
If you make a claim, I expect you to provide evidence to support that claim.
THAT is how the “burden of proof” works in the real world and no matter how much you try and shift it, that is how it will remain working in the real world (as opposed to the UFO debunker world of beliefs).
GeeMack has provided no evidence that the “gods” hypothesis has any veracity at all. In fact all the evidence suggests that “gods” are mythological and we have extensive historical and research evidence to support the “mythological” hypothesis for “gods”. Therefore I wait to be persuaded that “gods” IS a plausible explanation for UFOs.
I (myself, me) have stated (many times now) that there is NOT enough evidence to directly support the “visiting aliens” hypothesis. But that is an entirely different matter to concluding that “spaceships are not about to land on the Whitehouse lawn”. I don’t think any of the “various militaries have EVER concluded in such a manner (in other words such a contention merely forms part of your own interpretive belief system).”
As for UFOs not posing a threat to national security, then why don’t the US military release its UFO files? For example the White sands project Twinkle video? We know that they have a lot of stuff on UFOs that they have not publically released. WHY is that? What plausible explanatory hypothesis can you come up with for that?
However you like to twist the statistics (who said “he uses statistics like a drunken man uses lamp-posts, for support rather than illumination”? oh yeah..Andrew Lang... nice quote that)) even 19.5% is a highly significant proportion!
They NEVER said the data in the reports were “not very good”. That is a COMPLETE fabrication, in FACT they made some assessments of the reliability of the reports and found that of the ”Excellent” reports, 33% of them were unknown! AND they concluded that the greater the reliability of the reports, the greater percentage of “Unknowns” there were.
What does “less that 100% reliable” mean? If you mean there were discrepancies in the individual reports, then I have already demonstrated that those differences are precisely what research tells us we should positively EXPECT if it is to be considered a genuine observation by multiple witnesses.
Your “blimp” explanation has been demonstrated to be implausible (silent operation, circular “craft”, no observed fins, gondola, engines, no historical evidence for a blimp in the area at the time, speed of a jet plane, etc) and as for “airplane” the situation is even MORE implausible on the same descriptive characteristics!
Now you ARE directly misrepresenting the findings! This assessment was to “derive a model of a flying saucer”! Of course such an evaluation ruled out all the night sightings, all the radar data, and they even ruled out sightings purely based on the angle of the sun! They even ruled out cases where the manoeuvres were considered not extraordinary enough (and thus could be explained as mundane!). Primarily they based the data reduction on an assessment that the KNOWNS could now be explained as KNOWNS. Yet this ignores their OWN TESTS that showed that the probability that the “unidentifieds” are the same as the identifieds (based on 6 sighting characteristics) was extremely (insignificantly) low, thus:
Color: probability < 1%
Duration of observation: probability < 1%
Number: probability < 1%
Light brightness: Probability > 5%
Shape: probability < 1%
Speed: probability < 1%
So then they go and IGNORE this data (their OWN results) to delete cases where they then consider that UNKNOWN now = KNOWN! Bunk!
After all this (often spurious) data reduction, they ended up with 12 cases they thought might contain enough information to “describe” an exemplar UFO type. That would be like coming to earth and trying to describe an “exemplar” transport type using just 12 plane, train and automobile sightings! As I say…bunk!
The only person selecting parts of the report “he desires and thinks valid” is you Astrophotographer – and the only way you can support the parts you narrowly select is by ignoring the evidence contained in the bulk of the report!
(NOTE: If the investigators TRULY believed the data were too “subjective” to draw conclusions from, then there is absolutely NO way they would have even attempted to apply statistical analyses such as Chi-square tests)
Akhenaten
Heretic Pharaoh
Damn straight.
Rramjet, whether you're sincere or trolling makes no difference at this late stage. All you're doing is repeating your mantras over and over again, whilst the other participants are posting stuff that is both educational and entertaining.
The only real hope for the future of this fiasco of a thread is a move to the Humor sub-forum, and your own best hope for saving some face would be to request such a move yourself before someone else starts a petition.
RoboTimbo
Hostile Nanobacon
You haven't ascertained that everything mundane is implausible. Blimp is a plausible hypothesis for Rogue River. The fact that you won't admit it, doesn't make you Sherlock Holmes.
Shenanigans like asserting that all hypotheses are equal? Shenanigans like "I make no claims"? Shenanigans like shifting the burden of proof? Rramjet, no matter how you twist and contort, the burden of proof if yours.
Blimp. And I don't care whether you consider it or not. You're demonstrably a believer who will not and probably now cannot disbelieve.
Nope. Null hypothesis, extraordinary claim, burden of proof, stop me if you've heard these terms before. If you want them explained, just ask.
There are many threads active right now on this forum that claim evidence for gods. You should be the last person to deny them their evidence.
wollery
Protected by Samurai Hedgehogs!
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Unidentified Flying Saucer? Methinks you made a wee typo there Rramjet.
Wrong! Just wrong.
I think I speak for most people when I say that we believe UFMO is the most likely explanation, but not the only one possible. The point isn't the FO (or FMO) part, it's the U part. They're unidentified. You can speculate all you want, but in the end it's just that, speculation. You have nothing more than that, and until you get your head around that simple, unavoidable, fact you'll continue to make a fool of yourself here.
But in science any speculation is only valid if it leads to a testable hypothesis, i.e. does your speculation give us any method to differentiate between UFO, UFMO and FS? If the answer is "no", then your speculation is not scientific, and is, in fact, futile.
How about "moronic argument disprover"? At least then you could say we're MAD.
Except that there isn't a single case where the "mundane" hypothesis has been ruled out, because the "mundane" hypothesis doesn't end with every mundane explanation that we can think of. Removing the known mundane explanations simply leaves us with "unknown" as our category. Yep, there's that word again. Not "alien", just "unknown".
This has been explained before, but I'll try again anyway.
You are the only one making an actual claim. You claim that UFOs are some particular thing, i.e. "alien", and you are the one who must therefore provide evidence.
We do not claim any particular thing, we simply refute your arguments and and show where they are weak, or just downright silly. Yes, on occasion we suggest possible alternatives, and on those occasions we offer evidence, but we don't have to provide evidence of alternative explanations in order to show that your explanations are wrong.
But you are arguing for visiting "aliens". Go figure.
I'm not sure what you saying here, so I can't really respond to your point.
Do they actually have the video from White Sands? If so then I'd like to see it. I'd also like to see the actual numbers that they used in that case.
Yes, 19.5% is a large proportion. 19.5% of sightings are really unidentified. Oh, look, there's that word again. Unidentified.
What does that suggest to you, exactly? How, precisely, do they rate the "excellence" of these reports?
So, witness unreliability makes witnesses reliable, is that what you're saying? The only reason independent witnesses would say they saw exactly the same thing was if they weren't really independent, or they were accurately reporting something that really occurred. It does happen you know.
How far away was the object? What direction was the wind in. How loud are Blimp engines? What was the thing on the back end of one of the drawings if not a fin? Why are the drawings not circular? (If I was a professional draughtsman trying to draw something like that I'd probably draw both plan and elevation aspects, but hey, maybe that's just me)
I don't know enough about the report to comment.
The bottom line is that you are speculating about unknowns. Your opponents in the debate don't doubt for a second that UFOs exist. But for some reason you can't see the wood for the trees. So I'll underline it for you again. They're UNIDENTIFIED! Nobody knows what they are. Not me, not you, not the military. And we never will know what any of the objects in your cases were. Never. There simply isn't enough evidence in any of these cases to positively identify what they were. That's why they're called Unidentified Flying Objects.
So speculate all you want, in the end it's all just mental masturbation.
Astrophotographer
Graduate Poster
- Joined
- Jun 3, 2004
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- 1,843
Ahhh... then how do you explain these statements?
In general, the data were subjective, consisting of qualified estimates of physical characteristics rather than of precise measurements. Furthermore most of the reports were not reduced to written form immediately. The time between sighting and report varied from one day to several years. Both of these factors introduce an element of doubt concerning the validity of the original data, and increased its subjectivity. This was intensified by the recognized inability of the average individual to estimate speeds, distances, and sizes of objects in the air with any degree of accuracy. In spite of these limitations, methods of statistical analysis of such reports in sufficiently large groups is valid. The danger lies in the possibility of forgetting the subjectivity of the data at the time that conclusions are drawn from the analysis. It must be emphasized, again and again, that any conclusions contained in this report are based NOT on facts, but on what many observers thought and estimated the true facts to be. (p. 3-4)
They are addressing the data. If it were good data, they would not have remind the reader (apparently directing it towards those wanting to make a mountain out of a molehill - like UFO proponents) that the data were subjective and open to interpretation. If you were a REAL scientiist, you could understand this. Calling me a liar in order to make your emphasis on certain statistics seem to be correct (while ignoring the rest of the report) is just being.....well......unscientific.
The rest of your usual rant is not worth commenting upon. It is the usual handwaving and ignoring the parts of the report that demonstrate these UNKNOWNS were not as good as you claim.
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tsig
a carbon based life-form
- Joined
- Nov 25, 2005
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- 39,049
Glad it's not just me.
Puddle Duck
Scholar
Not 'quite' true. They aren’t now but at one time they were.
The program started in ’42 and ended in ’47. And the prototype is still at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum
See here http://www.daveswarbirds.com/usplanes/aircraft/flapjack.htm
Puddle Duck
Scholar
Rramjet , If you want to go around quoting Conan Doyle, for FSM's sake,at least quote him accurately. He never said anything about getting rid of the implausible. What he said is:
"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."
Arthur Conan Doyle
Tell us how you ascertain that any & all mundane hypotheses are impossible.
Wouldn't that be a "UFS"?
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