UFOs: The Research, the Evidence

[Jack by the hedge]

...we only noticed it because a B737 flew directly underneath it at 2,303 metres.

I sense that you are waiting to be asked, so: how did you determine the 737's height to the nearest metre?

 

[Jocce]

The point being that Mr B saw the turn and if he saw the turn he would have seen the side of the blimp (working on the premise that it was a blimp) and if he saw the side of the blimp then where is his description of the Goodyear logo, the passenger gondola, and the fins?

That is not my point. My point is that the object might not have been in view in the binoculars from before the turn to after the turn was complete.

The point being that the witnesses drawing does NOT match the shape of a blimp.

To me it does.

I explained that to you and you “snipped” half the explanation out in order to merely repeat your question! This is again a case of ”Don’t bother me with the evidence, my mind is made up”. You cannot even lead this horse TO the water, let alone get him to drink!

The only information you provide says that one witness worked on the wind tunnel and the other in some unspecified position within the drafting section. That says nothing about their qualifications when it comes to identify flying objects.

Here then:

(Mr B – signed testimony) “I then focused a pair of 8-power, Navy-type binoculars and saw that it was indeed circular and that we appeared to be looking upward at the bottom side of it. (…) As I put the glasses on it, made a turn to the south, with no banking or leaning, and picked up speed (…) Observed through the glasses, the object appeared to be made of silvery metal, either completely circular or somewhat oval. It was thin near the edges and thicker in the center. A triangular fin appeared to arise amidship and extended to the trailing end of the object viewed as it travelled. There were no openings visible and no sound was heard. There appeared to be no engines or motors, no landing gear, no other protruding parts other than the fin already described."

(Mr C - record of interview) “Mr. C observed the object (for) about 30 seconds with the naked eye at which time he could see only a bright glitter, like a round mirror standing on edge with no apparent motion. (…) With the binoculars, the object resolved into a pancake-like shape, somewhat thicker in the center than the edges, perfectly flat on the bottom with a small fin or vane arising about midship and growing gradually higher to the rear, ending flush with a trailing edge as the object travelled. Flat surface was parallel to the earth. The object appeared to be made of aluminum or some other shiny metal, and while it appeared to be oval, it could have been perfectly round in plan section. There appeared to be no opening or protuberance of any sort other than the fin already described. Object appeared to be roughly 25 to 30 feet in diameter. … It executed no manoeuvres; no lights, no propellers, no landing gear, or any method of propulsion could be seen or heard. … The trailing edge of the object as it travelled appeared to be somewhat wrinkled and dirty looking.”

Ok, I see. It's very hard for you to avoid walls of text. I'll help:

1. Silvery metal. This is not a detail on the object, it's a general characteristic.

2. Thin near edges, thicker center, oval or circular. Again, not detail, just the general shape.

3. A fin. Good, that is one detail.

4. Trailing edge appeared to be somewhat wrinkled and dirty looking. Not much detail here, note use of "appeared to be".

So that is it? The detail they saw was that it was round and silvery with a fin. Might be dirty? You really call that detail? What I am trying to say is that you are seriously exaggerating the "detail" that they saw. And you try to mask this by pasting walls of text rather than list the details. It's a dishonest tactic.

Again a UFO debunker makes an unfounded assertion without providing evidence in support of that assertion. More – in order to make that assertion, he must ignore the evidence I have provided as to what heat haze IS and where it is manifest!

It's ok if you don't know about these problems since you don't go out much with binoculars. You're still wrong though.

IF you HAVE “explained” it – then you will be able to point to where you HAVE done so. No?

A boat small enough to fish from will sway just by people shifting their balance. It's a river, and no matter how calm the water flows, it will affect the boat. Any movement will be amplified through binoculars. It is an obvious problem that anyone should be able to understand.

I think you will find the research you are looking for here: (http://www.brumac.8k.com/Rogue/RogueRiver2.htm) or perhaps you simply have not read Dr Maccabee’s extensive research on the “blimp hypothesis” contained within that document? Hint…it follows the section titled “SOME ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS” and is itself titled “APPENDIX: THE BLIMP HYPOTHESIS”.

You mean the part where he has added information trigger by our ongoing discussion here? I see, so noone else then. That's what I thought...

 

[Spektator]

Heat haze doesn't end a few inches above the ground. As long as the observer is at ground level looking up, and as long as the ground is warm relative to the air over it, the observer is going to be immersed in a layer of actively disturbed air. I've seen winter nights when the stars viewed through a telescope jittered and squiggled because of heat haze--the warm air rising all around me was enough to distort the image. By day it can be even worse. In Nevada one summer my wife and I saw the peaks of mountains in the distance apparently "boiling" off the mountains through layers of rising heated air. It was very striking, but no different than the shimmers you see rising off hot asphalt on a summer day.

 

[Cuddles]

Below is a K-class blimp (the class of Goodyear blimp that was around in 1949) overlayed on the witness’ drawings. We can see immediately that the witness' drawings are CLEARLY NOT "shaped like a blimp" at all!
[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=427&pictureid=2752[/qimg]

This is really starting to get surreal.
"Look at these extremely similar shapes overlaid on top of each other. Clearly they are not actually extremely similar at all, but one of them is actually a different shape entirely."

Seriously, how can you possibly claim that those shapes aren't similar? And not only that, but claim that the drawings are actually more similar to a circle than the extremely similar blimp shape?

 

[carlitos]

ETA to my previous post

there is simply NO explanation for THAT thing! So there you have it. Four witnesses, two UFOs. Just 10 days ago!

Right. Every single poster on this thread believes in UFOs. We keep telling you this. Have you forgotten that you said this:

I stated that I would present the evidence, not only for UFOs, but also for “aliens”.

Any evidence for aliens yet, Rramjet?

 

[VisionFromFeeling]

You kept the negatives, right?

I was not quite that clever back then, so, no.

That picture taken during the 80s Belgian ufo wave turned out to be a stealth bomber.

Yes. Since what I saw was quite solid and real it is very likely man made. Others in the community had seen them too around that time and there were articles of reports in the local newspaper. I guess some of us are a little bit like the primitive man in the jungles who sees an airplane. Some of the technology I've seen flying is quite impressive, well at least I wouldn't think they are gods, so to imagine extraterrestrial origin is not as embarrassing. If all the UFOs I've seen were man made, then our military has some good stuff.

And, once again, fireflies don't count.

Exactly. I know a man who spends quite a bit of time videotaping his backyard and collects thousands of hours of material, of seemingly blurry "other dimensional" UFOs flying into the ground. I looked at those and said, "Man, they are insects!" The fun thing is that he doesn't capture anything in winter. No bugs in winter.

I know the feeling. I had a UFO encounter the weekend before last. My wife, my sister and my mother were present. We all saw two objects. The first resembled a “sky blue” balloon [...]

I do wonder if all of us who describe our amazing UFO sightings are being just as silly as the primitive tribes who talk about the gods who flew past in an airplane.

 

[carlitos]

Rramjet, many many pages ago, I noted that UFOs never seem to present themselves to people with cameraphones and / or video cameras. Yet, 2 weeks ago, you found yourself watching a UFO unprepared to record the sight? Don't you think that, in the future, you should arm yourself so that you can record the truth about UFOs and post it here for us to see? As a service to your fellow believers, at least?

 

[wardenclyffe]

I was not quite that clever back then, so, no.

What about now? Have you taken any pictures recently, or did you stop seeing UFOs years ago?

If you continue to see them on a regular basis, you should be ready with a camera. If you are not ready with a camera, why not?

If you stopped seeing them, what do you think happened to make that stop?

Ward

 

[Astrophotographer]

You also lie when you state “It was the consensus that these canals did exist at the time.”

I realize I already answered this but at the time, I did not have my source handy. I also think since we are discussing this issue to bring up some additional information other than the "wikipedia source" which is a clone of many other writings on the web (or vice versa). Additionally, refreshing my memory on this made me wonder about the current debate we are having here. However, I first need to recap a bit about the history of the canals on Mars based on WIlliam Sheehan's book.

It was Giovanni Schiaparelli who was the first to observe "canals" (he called them canali or channels) on Mars in 1877. His observations were during the time period were accepted as accurate because of his experience as a "trained observer" of the sky. Others began to confirm some of his observations. Charles Burton drew Mars showing the canals (although they did not quite line up with Schiaparelli's). E. Walter Maunder recorded similar markings but then stated that his drawings other nights did not match what he had drawn on the nights he saw the canals. Camille Flammarion was a big supporter of the canal observations. Antoniadi originally felt he was seeing the canals (he would later change his opinion and his observations in 1909 were important in understanding the canal illusion). Henri Perrotin and Louis Thollon at the Nice observatory saw the canals. Wiliam H. Pickering saw canals. Otto von Struve did not see any canals but because of Schiaparelli's reputation as an "expert observer" was more than willing to accept his word that these canals existed (hmmm...sound familiar?). There were doubters but the general impression around 1890 was that the canals did exist. This had been "confirmed" by all these "independent observers", who were drawing canals and reporting them. According to the book, Planets and preception (William Sheehan):

Observers therefore proceeded to see, or to think they saw, the canals, the whole process bering a distinct resemblence to that described in the story of the emperor's new clothes. By the 1890s the canals were generally accepted by professional and amateur astronomers alike, and hardly a map of the planet was produced that did not show them in considerable profusion. (124-6).

So in response to your claim that I lied, I can now point to where I had drawn that conclusion. I had reasonably recalled what Sheehan and others had written on the subject. Was it a "consens"? Perhaps that is a poor choice of words but a good number of astronomers seemed to be willing to accept these observations as accurate.

Still, there were those who did not see canals and saw the markings as vague. E.E. Barnard was considered an excellent observer but he failed to see canals. In fact, he was able to actually see the Tharsis Volcano Caldera's on Mars even though he was not sure what he had seen. He felt they were craters. Others could not see them but it was the contention by the proponents that they were not observing under good conditions and were not looking through the instrument correctly.

This all took place in the 1880s-1900s and the sides were drawn regarding the canal question. The skeptics/debunkers and the canal proponents performed various experiments and it was the advent of larger instruments and more careful observations that pretty much settled the question. However, as late as the 1920s and 1930s, people were still reporting the canals on Mars (see http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/1955PASP...67..283W/0000283.000.html). The lesson learned from the canals on Mars is that people can see what they want to see even when carefully observing an object over and over again.

Can one draw a similar comparison to UFOs? In the case of Rogue River, I am unaware of anybody ever reporting this type of craft (with a tail fin) in any other UFO reports. Therefore, this report is unique in that it reports an unusual craft never seen before or since. It makes one question if the description is accurate or not. The word "flying saucer" or "flying disc" had become part of the lexicon at that point and people tended to report their UFOs as circular in shape (although "cigars" were popular). It is possible this influence had an effect on the observers that day the same way the "canals" had an effect on the observers of Lowell's day. They saw what they wanted to see. A blimp or aircraft seen from a certain point of view could have appeared to them as a disc. All the large caps and claims of scientifc analysis is not going to change that possibility UNTIL you can prove they did not err in their observations or that there were no aircraft in the vicinity at the time of the observation.

 

[wollery]

For an object that's described "in detail" by both witnesses (who both had a good long look) and didn't change aspect ratio throughout the sighting, it sure seems to be quite different shapes in the two drawings.

The upper drawing has a length to height ratio of 2 to 1. The lower drawing, a ratio of almost 6 to 1.

The fat one shows the fin going all the way to the back of the object, whilst on the thin one the fin stops well before the back, whilst the fins themselves are different shapes.

Each drawing shows "details" that the other does not.

And yet Rramjet would have us believe that both these men had an excellent view of the object "in resolved detail" and agree on what they saw.

 

[VisionFromFeeling]

What about now? Have you taken any pictures recently, or did you stop seeing UFOs years ago?

If you continue to see them on a regular basis, you should be ready with a camera. If you are not ready with a camera, why not?

If you stopped seeing them, what do you think happened to make that stop?

The first time I ever saw a UFO started at a time when I had no interest in the subject. I had never tried or wanted to see any. I was fourteen, and oddly I got a strong feeling in my chest that was telling me to go outside and that I would see them. From then on I saw them hundreds of times. The only reason I don't see them as often now seems to be that I no longer go out to have a look. I have also relocated and the ones I have seen on those rare nights out stargazing are of a slightly different nature today. But these recent accounts all took place with my then boyfriend.

Taking pictures at night is very hard, I can barely capture the large, bright and stationary moon, let alone something small and moving. What equipment should I invest in? A video camera would be preferred.

I have lots of stories but I don't think they are any big deal. Also I would rather not present anecdotes. Recorded material would be better suited for you Skeptics.

 

[Rramjet]

In reference to UFMO:

And it seems like you also made it up along the way in this thread.

And? Your point is? You're the only person that uses it. I couldn't even find anyone else using that term via google

Wow! I seem to have “coined a phrase” then. Who would have thought… in this day and age - and in such a well trodden area as UFO research - that was even possible? UFMO …Unidentified Flying Mundane Object …Funny how the UFO debunkers seem to want to deny the existence of even flying mundane objects though!

Yes that is what the argument is if you are make it into a straw man I can do the same to your argument but I have no need since you do such a great job wrecking the ufo's are space craft hypothesis.

Wow! Success again! But I sincerely doubt you could “do the same” to my argument.

RUBBISH, do you even know what UFO stands for? Seriously mate talk about backing yourself to a wall, you can't even bother to look through this thread to find evidence where someone here said I don't believe in ufo's instead you make up a mega stupid weasel term "UFMO" so you can try to shift the burden of proof, yet again.

I'll ask again show us where someone said they don't believe in UFO's

The wonderful thing about rational (critical) thinking is that it saves one a lot of work! I don’t have to look through the many pages of this thread – all I have to do is note that there is NO UFO report where UFO debunkers do NOT believe in a mundane explanation. Therefore they do NOT believe in UFOs and therefore they MUST believe instead in UFMOs.

The challenge I then set the UFO debunkers is that IF they DO believe in UFOs, then they will be able to cite cases where they acknowledge UFOs to be present. Jocce is the only one who has so far taken up that challenge.

Teheran, Rouge river, White Sands. We've been over these cases. They are still unidentified, so UFO's

Just to clarify: You believe that these cases (Tehran, Rogue River and White Sands) have NO mundane explanation?

 

[Rramjet]

I suggest you read the source I gave you. It was the consensus of many astronomers of the day that the canals did exist. Maps were drawn by various astronomers showing the canal systems. It was the work of some astronomers at the next close opposition that demonstrated the canals were suspect.

The “source” you gave me was (either – and I quote) "Planets and perception" by Dobbins and Sheehan and Sky and Telescope a few years back called "The egg moons of Jupiter" by the same authors.”

I HAVE asked you MANY times to reference your citations correctly and clearly so that it is immediately apparent where one is to seek (and easily find) the “information” you provide. Why do you persist in NOT doing that?

Now… I provided a source that seems to refute what you allege your source tells you about the alleged scientific consensus surrounding the canals of Mars. Interestingly other sources seem also, with my initial source) to place Lowell on the outer. For example:

Norriss S. Hetherington (Journal of the History of Ideas (1981), Vol. 42, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar.), p.94) states” “to present Lowell as a professional scientist and his thoughts as falling within a tradition of science generally accepted in his time by scientists seems to overlook the significant difference between the reasoning process publically promulgated (whether followed or not) by the scientific community and Lowell’s greater emphasis on the role of imagination (…) Lowell was not really a professional scientist (…) Lowell came to astronomy as an amateur…” (http://www.jstor.org/pss/2709423)

And here: “ There was a problem however. Other astronomers, even those using larger telescopes, such as the 100 inch Hooker telescope on Mt. Wilson, then the world's largest, did not see Martian canals. Most professional astronomers therefore did not take Lowell's speculations seriously.” (http://astronomyhistory.suite101.com/article.cfm/percival_lowell_and_martian_canals)

And here: “After seeing Mars at just one opposition, Lowell launched a publicity blitzkrieg to announce his theory about the grand hydrological schemes of an alien race. Numerous articles, lectures, and a book, Mars by him in 1895 were greeted with fascination by the public and extreme skepticism, if not outright derision, by most astronomers.” (http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/L/LowellP.html)

So Astrophotographer… you either lie about your “consensus of many astronomers” or you have not bothered to do any research! (into the very field you allege you have some expertise in!)

And you did not think that telescopes at the time did not have tracking mechanisms at the time?

What was the quality of the telescopes of the time - and of Lowell’s six-inch telescope in particular?

So, the planet Mars viewed at high magnification with a large professional instrument that is used in the clear mountain air is not equivalent to viewing some object from a rocking boat, with a pair of low power binoculars of an object that was at the edge of resolution with the naked eye?

You make the contention that these are comparable observations!? I am stating that they cannot be compared.

I will ask you again:

Can you demonstrate using scientific papers (as you have claimed you can do) that it would be impossible for the witnesses to mistake an aircraft/blimp for a circular disc under the conditions they observed the object and for the duration?

First: You have NEVER asked me this question!

Second: I have NEVER made any such claim!

Third: I simply note what the witnesses DID observe and describe and I note the conditions and circumstances in which they did so – that is I note ALL the available evidence in the case.

You seem to be, as an amateur astronomer, firmly following the “imaginative” tradition of science as perceived by Lowell, another amateur astronomer!

 

[Rramjet]

I have had a great deal of experience using a very good pair of 10x binoculars looking at both terrestrial and celestial objects (no, not my sunbathing neighbor, smarty-pants), and I can vouch for the fact that, without a tripod, it's next to impossible to hold binoculars absolutely still while observing something in the sky, and absolutely impossible if one is standing on a boat or other watercraft.

Gee… One wonders why the Navy would issue binoculars at all then… LOL.

In reference to UFMOs:

Multiple posters have asked you this question Rramjet. You responded once with quotes that did not contain the claimed information. I think it's safe to draw a conclusion at this point that you are simply unable to admit when you are wrong.

I will admit that I am wrong in your case if you can cite any UFO cases where you believe there IS no mundane explanation – thus “UFO”.

A flashing object moving up toward a stationary object in the sky would fit with a piece of windblown tinfoil on a kite string.
The rest could be your imagination and poor sense of distance.

Well, it is good to see that you have imagination at least…

I sense that you are waiting to be asked, so: how did you determine the 737's height to the nearest metre?

Then you simply did NOT read my post! (Why am I not surprised?)

(...) I know the altitude of the jet from Webtrak (...)

The system created by the Lochard company and applied to many airports around the world (http://www.lochard.com/content/view/20/214/)

Heat haze doesn't end a few inches above the ground. As long as the observer is at ground level looking up, and as long as the ground is warm relative to the air over it, the observer is going to be immersed in a layer of actively disturbed air. I've seen winter nights when the stars viewed through a telescope jittered and squiggled because of heat haze--the warm air rising all around me was enough to distort the image. By day it can be even worse. In Nevada one summer my wife and I saw the peaks of mountains in the distance apparently "boiling" off the mountains through layers of rising heated air. It was very striking, but no different than the shimmers you see rising off hot asphalt on a summer day.

It seems you have not read the information on just THIS page of the thread then! And also obviously you have NOT read about the Rogue River case either! That is:

First: The witnesses were over a body of water.

Second:

“Another way in which you can improve the quality of your viewing is where you choose to observe from. Obviously you want as dark a skies as possible, but choosing a wide open area, or over water is also a plus. Large heat sources such as concrete buildings, and parking lots will release heat at night making the local atmosphere unstable.”(http://starryskies.com/The_sky/events/mars/opposition06.html)​

Any evidence for aliens yet, Rramjet?

How would you explain the presence of “beings” in the Father Gill (http://www.ufoevidence.org/cases/case67.htm), Lonnie Zamora (http://www.nicap.dabsol.co.uk/zamora2.htm) and (for example) Kelly-Hopkinsville (http://www.nicap.org/kelly-hendry.htm) and Travis Walton (http://www.travis-walton.com/index.shtml) cases then?

 

[RoboTimbo]

Just to clarify: You believe that these cases (Tehran, Rogue River and White Sands) have NO mundane explanation?

Just to clarify: What particular thing do you believe these UFOs to be? Unless you have something in particular that you have evidence for them being, they remain UFOs, as everyone else in the thread has maintained. You have asked for plausible mundane explanations and they have been spoon fed to you. How is it that you simply cannot fathom this simple concept?

You haven't eliminated all possible mundane explanations for them and you certainly haven't put forth any plausible evidence for extraordinary explanations. Here's a better question for you:

What do you really, really wish for them to be?

 

[Rramjet]

I stated:
“The point being that Mr B saw the turn and if he saw the turn he would have seen the side of the blimp (working on the premise that it was a blimp) and if he saw the side of the blimp then where is his description of the Goodyear logo, the passenger gondola, and the fins?”

That is not my point. My point is that the object might not have been in view in the binoculars from before the turn to after the turn was complete.

If we accept, for the sake of argument (as the UFO debunkers contend), that the “blimp’ was first seen “head-on” by the witnesses (giving it an “elliptical construed as circular object” appearance) and it was sighted to the East, and then it made a turn to track generally South. This means that after the turn, the flank of the potential blimp would have been exposed (to say nothing of what happened during the turn). If the flank of the blimp was exposed, then through binoculars, where are the other fins, the passenger gondola, and critically, the Goodyear logo?! (Even before the turn, if it was a blimp, the passenger gondola AND engines would have been apparent.) Such detail was specifically discounted in the witness testimony.

I stated:
“The point being that the witnesses drawing does NOT match the shape of a blimp.”

To me it does.

(shrugs) If it is not obvious to you visually, I suggest then you get out a ruler and measure the size of the relative dimensions of drawn objects and the size of the blimp, convert those dimensions to proportions and then observe the result.

The only information you provide says that one witness worked on the wind tunnel and the other in some unspecified position within the drafting section. That says nothing about their qualifications when it comes to identify flying objects.

Then you simply did not read the information I supplied (I provided MORE information than that!). Moreover, one has to be “qualified” to make accurate observations now? Besides, perhaps a draftsman IS qualified to draw what he observed!

Well, they worked for the Ames Research Laboratory for a start! (From SR14): “An employee in the supersonic laboratory of an aeronautical laboratory and some other employees of this lab.” From (http://www.brumac.8k.com/Rogue/RogueRiver2.htm): Mr B “worked in the Drafting Section of the National Advisory Committee, Ames Laboratory, Moffett Field.” and Mr C was “… a mechanic who worked on a supersonic wind tunnel at Ames Laboratory.”. Mr D also stated: “I have fished in the general area a number of years and have observed various', type planes flying in this area, but have never observed anything of this nature before." It must also be remembered that Moffett Field was a USN airbase (!) and planes of all sorts flew in and out of the base regularly – including - pre-1949 USN blimps!

Ok, I see. It's very hard for you to avoid walls of text. I'll help:

1. Silvery metal. This is not a detail on the object, it's a general characteristic.

2. Thin near edges, thicker center, oval or circular. Again, not detail, just the general shape.

3. A fin. Good, that is one detail.

4. Trailing edge appeared to be somewhat wrinkled and dirty looking. Not much detail here, note use of "appeared to be".

So that is it? The detail they saw was that it was round and silvery with a fin. Might be dirty? You really call that detail? What I am trying to say is that you are seriously exaggerating the "detail" that they saw. And you try to mask this by pasting walls of text rather than list the details. It's a dishonest tactic.

So that’s it?! You MISS (fail to list) a great deal of detail the witnesses described they could see about the object with the aid of binoculars – and that IS a “dishonest tactic” (as you put it). Compare your list with an ACTUAL list of details, for example:

1. circular
2. silvery metal
3. thin near the edges and thicker in the center
4. triangular fin
5. no openings
6. no engines, or motors, no landing gear, no other protruding parts
7. no lights
8. trailing edge wrinkled and dirty
9. surface dirty and spotty
10. (equivalent to a) patch on the fin

In reference to “heat haze”:

It's ok if you don't know about these problems since you don't go out much with binoculars. You're still wrong though.

So this is “Don’t bother me with the evidence, my mind is made up” time again? I PROVIDED you the evidence as to what “heat haze” IS and under what conditions it is manifest – and you completely ignore[ those references. You do not even make any attempt to refute those sources, so I suppose your statement is also a confirmation of the UFO debunker belief that merely making unfounded assertions somehow confers “truth” on them. That is bunk!

Can I suggest you actually READ the information contained within these sources: (http://starryskies.com/The_sky/events/mars/opposition06.html: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/heat+haze: http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Heat+haze) and then get back to me with YOUR assessment of what heat haze IS and where it is manifest?

A boat small enough to fish from will sway just by people shifting their balance. It's a river, and no matter how calm the water flows, it will affect the boat. Any movement will be amplified through binoculars. It is an obvious problem that anyone should be able to understand.

The use of binoculars in small boats is adequately able to be managed. The very fact that the witnesses were able to maintain visual contact with the object using binoculars and were also able to describe a great deal of detail about the object while doing so attests to this fact.

I stated:
“I think you will find the research you are looking for here: (http://www.brumac.8k.com/Rogue/RogueRiver2.htm) or perhaps you simply have not read Dr Maccabee’s extensive research on the “blimp hypothesis” contained within that document? Hint…it follows the section titled “SOME ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS” and is itself titled “APPENDIX: THE BLIMP HYPOTHESIS”.

You mean the part where he has added information trigger by our ongoing discussion here? I see, so noone else then. That's what I thought...

Oh… so it is “noone else” now…LOL! I thought you claimed that there was NO such research! The fact IS that such research into the “blimp” hypothesis, as you originally asked for (and claimed had not been done) HAS been conducted! I would be interested to see your assessment of that research – since you are so obviously interested in it… No? “That’s what I thought”.

 

[wollery]

Wow! I seem to have “coined a phrase” then. Who would have thought… in this day and age - and in such a well trodden area as UFO research - that was even possible? UFMO …Unidentified Flying Mundane Object …Funny how the UFO debunkers seem to want to deny the existence of even flying mundane objects though!

Please point to one person who has said that UFOs don't exist.

Go on, I dare you.

 

[Astrophotographer]

I HAVE asked you MANY times to reference your citations correctly and clearly so that it is immediately apparent where one is to seek (and easily find) the “information” you provide. Why do you persist in NOT doing that?

If this were a scientific paper, I would gladly place appropriate footnotes and such. However, it is not. I feel it is adequate to tell you where I got the information. Does it really matter since you have not bothered to read any of the sources I have mentioned previously and they are not readily available on the internet for you.

Now… I provided a source that seems to refute what you allege your source tells you about the alleged scientific consensus surrounding the canals of Mars. Interestingly other sources seem also, with my initial source) to place Lowell on the outer.

I already gave you the particulars in a subsequent post.

Observers therefore proceeded to see, or to think they saw, the canals, the whole process bering a distinct resemblence to that described in the story of the emperor's new clothes. By the 1890s the canals were generally accepted by professional and amateur astronomers alike, and hardly a map of the planet was produced that did not show them in considerable profusion. (Sheehan Planets and Perception 124-6).

Your selective quotes from various websites are not very well researched. They are basically very abridged encyclopedia entries. If you read Sheehan's book (I thought Dobbins was co-author but he was not), you would have read that many astronomers were seeing these canals. The British Astronomical Society had lists of astronomers with "tallies" on the number of canals they were seeing. Describing the work of Eugene Antonaidi as director of the BAA:

In his report on the observations of Mars of 1896-97 he notes that "the canals were seen by all the working members of the section invariably." Indeed, Antonaidi himself, with forty-six sighted, was third behind only Percey Molesworth, and Rev. T.E.R. Phillips in the number recorded.(Sheehan, Planets and perception 236)

Interesting that as late as 1897, the BAA's Mars observers were reporting canals (including Antonaidi, who would later become a canal opponent). Contrary to the belief you seemed to have developed it was not Percival Lowell, who was the sole observer of these canals. Schiaparelli, Flammarion, Pickering (WH), Maunder (though he had his doubts about his observations), Burton, Perrotin, Thollon, etc. were all reporting canals. The Lick observatory reported that "the positions of most of Professor Schiaparelli's canals have been verified by some of us" (Sheehan Planets and Perception 135).

So Astrophotographer… you either lie about your “consensus of many astronomers” or you have not bothered to do any research! (into the very field you allege you have some expertise in!)

I did not lie (see above) and it is you who have performed a very cursory effort in your research. I suggest you go to the library and read something more detailed than a website that gives you one or two paragraphs on the subject. Sheehan devotes a great majority of his book chronicling these events. This is something these web sites omit. They are just giving summaries at best and lack the thorough research performed by Sheehan.

What was the quality of the telescopes of the time - and of Lowell’s six-inch telescope in particular?

A. Lowell had a six-inch when he went to Japan (from the one link you gave) but he started his observing of Mars at Flagstaff (May 1894) with a 12-inch refractor from Harvard and an 18-inch refractor that eventually made its way to the University of PA.

B. Lowell eventually used a 24-inch Clark refractor (Clark refractors are considered some of the finest instruments made at the time). He tended to stop down the aperature at times but it was a 24-inch instrument he used at Flagstaff begining in 1896. This was the instrument he made most of his observations of Mars with.

Apparently, you have not researched this very well either.

You make the contention that these are comparable observations!? I am stating that they cannot be compared.

But you put great weight on the use of optical aid to see this object. This is what these astronomers did. They used optical instruments but were making errors in observation because they wanted to see canals. I think there is a comparison here.

I have NEVER made any such claim!

I thought you were employing the sciences of perception to determine if the witnesses were accurate or not. Apparently, you are not using science but a desire to believe they were accurate. If you can not demonstrate scientifically they were accurate in their descriptions, how can you dismiss they might have misidentified an airplane or blimp? Maybe I am missing something here.

I simply note what the witnesses DID observe and describe and I note the conditions and circumstances in which they did so – that is I note ALL the available evidence in the case.

And that is not adequate. You claim to be scientific but ignore the known problems associted with eyewitness testimony. You can not reject the airplane/blimp hypothesis simply based on wanting to believe the witnesses accurately described the shape of the craft.

You seem to be, as an amateur astronomer, firmly following the “imaginative” tradition of science as perceived by Lowell, another amateur astronomer!

No. I am asking for better evidence. This "evidence" you present is suspect the same way Lowell's, Schiaparelli's, Pickering's, etc. etc. observations of canals were suspect. They are subject to human error and the more exotic the observations are, the more they should be questioned. Better evidence is needed to confirm such observations. Since we do not have this better evidence, it is more likely they mistook something airborne (aircraft/blimp) for a disc-shaped craft than actually observing an alien spaceship.

 

[Frying Dutchmen]

In reference to UFMO:
Wow! I seem to have “coined a phrase” then. Who would have thought… in this day and age - and in such a well trodden area as UFO research - that was even possible? UFMO …Unidentified Flying Mundane Object …Funny how the UFO debunkers seem to want to deny the existence of even flying mundane objects though!

YES you made up a term just to straw man an argument GOOD FOR YOU

Wow! Success again! But I sincerely doubt you could “do the same” to my argument.

See the thing is about this thread it's not about seeing how many times you turn our arguments into straw men it's about you showing us evidence. Also you are pretty much doing it yourself, my work here is done.

The wonderful thing about rational (critical) thinking is that it saves one a lot of work! I don’t have to look through the many pages of this thread – all I have to do is note that there is NO UFO report where UFO debunkers do NOT believe in a mundane explanation. Therefore they do NOT believe in UFOs and therefore they MUST believe instead in UFMOs.

Nope you are so wrong here but I shouldn't be surprised, there is no term called UFMOs. There is how ever there is the term UFO, which if I'm mistaken means Unidentified flying object

I feel this sentence from the wiki page about UFO's says it best:

is the popular term for any apparent aerial phenomenon whose cause cannot be easily or immediately identified by the observer.

That sentence pretty much sums up the skeptical position. Your UFMOs is just another attempt to poison the well which expect since your evidence that ufo's are little green men from Mars is non existent. Hey look I just did make a straw man out of your argument!

The challenge I then set the UFO debunkers is that IF they DO believe in UFOs, then they will be able to cite cases where they acknowledge UFOs to be present. Jocce is the only one who has so far taken up that challenge.


Just to clarify: You believe that these cases (Tehran, Rogue River and White Sands) have NO mundane explanation?

I think Rramjet doesn't understand the idea of what UFO means.

Also I asked you to find me a quote of someone in this thread that says they don't believe in UFO's. Hows that search going?

 

[Rramjet]

For an object that's described "in detail" by both witnesses (who both had a good long look) and didn't change aspect ratio throughout the sighting, it sure seems to be quite different shapes in the two drawings.

The upper drawing has a length to height ratio of 2 to 1. The lower drawing, a ratio of almost 6 to 1.

The fat one shows the fin going all the way to the back of the object, whilst on the thin one the fin stops well before the back, whilst the fins themselves are different shapes.

Each drawing shows "details" that the other does not.

And yet Rramjet would have us believe that both these men had an excellent view of the object "in resolved detail" and agree on what they saw.

First: The two drawings represent different aspects of the same object. I am perplexed that you cannot see this – as I HAVE pointed it out MANY times now.

The upper drawing represents a circular object seen from below and at an angle (ie; the observer is below and to one side of the object).

The lower drawing represents a side and slightly to the rear view of the same object (ie; the observer is on the same level and is looking at the object as if it were travelling AWAY from the observer at a small angle). That is the rear extremity of the “craft” shown in the drawing is actually some distance IN from the apparent extremity of the drawing. That is, the observer can SEE BOTH the right flank AND a small portion of the upper-rear left flank of the object. To put it more precisely, the rear extremity of the “craft” itself is ACTUALLY located at the angle where the line of the rear of the fin meets the continuous line going off it at just over 90 degrees.

The drawing is ACTUALLY very sophisticated (as is the upper drawing and as would be expected from a drafstman) and THIS is what is “throwing” the UFO debunkers into misconception.

In the lower drawing we can see represented exactly what the witnesses described. That is: thicker in the center and thinner near the edges… in the drawing we can see the UPPER surface of the object (both left and right), curving away from us as the object travels away from us at a small angle AND we can ALSO see the LOWER surface curving away from us - and in between the relatively “thin” edge.

Perhaps once you have realised the correct perspective of each of the drawings you could reassess your contentions about them?