UFOs: The Research, the Evidence

[RoboTimbo]

Do you know of ANY "satellites" that were trailing four in a row, with the leading pair oscillating about a central point between them, travelling south to north over Cape Otway, at 11:45 at night, in December 2008?

AstroP is your resident "expert" in that field - and you can rest assured, if there was even the sightest hint that it was possible to explain it via "satellites" - then he would have done so.

Yes, you're confirming that you are arguing from a position of ignorance. But do you have any guesses about what it was? If not, the null hypothesis still applies. The null hypothesis is:

"All UFO sighting are of mundane origin"​

Even yours.

 

[Rramjet]

That ufologists still cling to 60 year old reports, studies and ufo cases is testament to how little they have moved forward since those times.

Ah... I see. So in the UFO debunker world, evidence has a "use by" date? After which it becomes "not evidence"? Perhaps you should talk to Galileo, Newton, or Einstein about that... oh wait...

...and I could have sworn my sighting (as reported in this thread) was in 2008... but perhaps I was mistaken and it was in 1948!... LOL.

 

[John Albert]

Then it demonstrates that their process of identifying excellent and good reports was flawed. If you are missing data, it is incomplete. It can not be an excellent report if there is insufficient information.

The determination of any case with insufficient information is, by definition, "unknown."

 

[Astrophotographer]

The "red area", it must be noted, does not include Cape Otway!

I am curious, if Geese do not frequent Cape Otway and only live in the red areas, how do they get to those red areas? Do they suddenly reach the border of the red area and say, "oops, we can't go past this point because it is not a red area". Additionally, those birds in the one red circle must feel awful being isolated from all their friends. Some people can just be so obtuse.

 

[RoboTimbo]

Ah... I see. So in the UFO debunker world, evidence has a "use by" date? After which it becomes "not evidence"? Perhaps you should talk to Galileo, Newton, or Einstein about that... oh wait...

...and I could have sworn my sighting (as reported in this thread) was in 2008... but perhaps I was mistaken and it was in 1948!... LOL.

Since you can't think of any plausible explanations, it will have to remain simply unknown. We'll just have to assume it was mundane but won't know which mundane explanation.

 

[John Albert]

Ah... I see. So in the UFO debunker world, evidence has a "use by" date? After which it becomes "not evidence"? Perhaps you should talk to Galileo, Newton, or Einstein about that... oh wait...

...and I could have sworn my sighting (as reported in this thread) was in 2008... but perhaps I was mistaken and it was in 1948!... LOL.

Galileo, Newton, and Einstein had accurate measurements of objective reality, a body of scientific knowledge, mathematics, and actual evidence on their side. What do the ufologists have? None of that stuff, only unprovable, unfalsifiable stories.

Anyway Rramjet, if that's not the reason, then please do explain to us why ufology has failed to produce even a single definitive result after 60-odd years of study?

 

[Rramjet]

So what do you think it was?

I don't know what it was (they were). I have no idea. What I DO know is that, whatever they were, they seem to defy plausible mundane explanation.

 

[John Albert]

I don't know what it was (they were). I have no idea. What I DO know is that, whatever they were, they seem to defy plausible mundane explanation.

In your opinion.

 

[carlitos]

Do you know of ANY "satellites" that were trailing four in a row, with the leading pair oscillating about a central point between them, travelling south to north over Cape Otway, at 11:45 at night, in December 2008?

AstroP is your resident "expert" in that field - and you can rest assured, if there was even the sightest hint that it was possible to explain it via "satellites" - then he would have done so.

Your continued misuse of quotation marks is noted. Your lack of interest in researching potential mundane causes for "just another UFO sighting" is also noted.

 

[RoboTimbo]

I don't know what it was (they were). I have no idea. What I DO know is that, whatever they were, they seem to defy plausible mundane explanation.

Well, no. You simply want them to defy plausible mundane explanation.

You can't think of any plausible non-mundane explations?

 

[Rramjet]

I am curious, if Geese do not frequent Cape Otway and only live in the red areas, how do they get to those red areas? Do they suddenly reach the border of the red area and say, "oops, we can't go past this point because it is not a red area". Additionally, those birds in the one red circle must feel awful being isolated from all their friends. Some people can just be so obtuse.

...especially when they don't consider the topography of the Cape Otway area and consider that geese fly to the mainland to graze on pasture - and the Cape Otway area is mountainous and rainforested. That's why the red area on the map does not extend further down the coast ...Love to see a Goose try to graze pasture on a mountain in a rainforest... LOL.

 

[Astrophotographer]

AstroP is your resident "expert" in that field - and you can rest assured, if there was even the sightest hint that it was possible to explain it via "satellites" - then he would have done so.

It is very difficult to obtain all the historical TLE (Two line elements) for every satellite visible in December 2008 (one needs the TLEs for that time period). One can not simply look backwards using today's TLEs because that would not be accurate. It takes some time to accumulate data of this kind and I am not sure if it is worth my effort. You already have proclaimed ANY satellites would be implausible because satellites don't fly in formation and they don't oscillate around a central point (although they can be reported as "wobbling", "zig-zagging", or "changing direction). Why bother doing all that work, when you will simply declare the explanation "implausible"?

 

[Astrophotographer]

...especially when they don't consider the topography of the Cape Otway area and consider that geese fly to the mainland to graze on pasture - and the Cape Otway area is mountainous and rainforested. That's why the red area on the map does not extend further down the coast ...Love to see a Goose try to graze pasture on a mountain in a rainforest... LOL.

So how do they get those pasture areas? Walk? Take the nearest UFO for a ride? Go through a wormhole? Hence the use of the term obtuse.

 

[Stray Cat]

The above statement is not based on accurate information. ... [more old quotes from the dawn of ufology sniped, proving once again that they cling to 60 year old reports, studies and ufo cases as a testament to how little they have moved forward since those times ]...

Misrepresenting what I said uh?

I wasn't claiming that today people are debating if UFOs are real or not. My point is that today people are more likely to be debating if they are alien or not. Whether they came from Gallifrey or Zeta Reticuli is irrelevant until it is proven they came at all.

No one is denying that people report seeing UFOs.
No one is saying UFOs don't exist.

 

[John Albert]

Why bother doing all that work, when you will simply declare the explanation "implausible"?

Exactly my point about this entire thread.

 

[Stray Cat]

Ah... I see. So in the UFO debunker world, evidence has a "use by" date? After which it becomes "not evidence"?

UFO reports never were "evidence" in the first place. They were stories... now they are old stories mythologised by the fog of time.

Perhaps you should talk to Galileo, Newton, or Einstein about that... oh wait...

Yes, oh wait... they managed to provide empirical evidence of their claims didn't they so we can't really compare them to ufologists.

...and I could have sworn my sighting (as reported in this thread) was in 2008... but perhaps I was mistaken and it was in 1948!... LOL.

Well if your level of accuracy can be determined by what you've reported so far, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.

 

[GeeMack]

...especially when they don't consider the topography of the Cape Otway area and consider that geese fly to the mainland to graze on pasture - and the Cape Otway area is mountainous and rainforested. That's why the red area on the map does not extend further down the coast ...Love to see a Goose try to graze pasture on a mountain in a rainforest... LOL.

You have already demonstrated, and continue to demonstrate, that you do not possess the qualifications to express any sort of expert opinion on the subject of birds. Consequently your argument has failed and has been dismissed. Birds remain on the table as a possible, plausible mundane explanation for your alleged sighting.

 

[Paul2]

Rramjet, I see two main possibilities regarding your claim about geese, before the map appeared in this thread (http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=7453802#post7453802):

1. You researched respected sources A, B, C, . . . that led you to conclude that no geese could be in the area; in this case, please tell us what your sources were.

2. You decided to merely claim that no geese could be there, and were prepared to challenge anyone who said geese could be there, without any research.

Which was it? I'm open to more possibilities, by the way, please enlighten us.

 

[Stray Cat]

...especially when they don't consider the topography of the Cape Otway area and consider that geese fly to the mainland to graze on pasture - and the Cape Otway area is mountainous and rainforested. That's why the red area on the map does not extend further down the coast ...Love to see a Goose try to graze pasture on a mountain in a rainforest... LOL.

I know you hate Wikipedia... I'm beginning to understand why.
It keeps informing us you're wrong about stuff.

Cape Otway has many middens which provide an indication of the varied diet of the Gadubanud. Fragments found in midderns include turban shells, abalone, periwinkle, elephant fish, chiton, beaked mussel and limpets. It is known that seals, cape barren geese, eels and ducks were also eaten,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadubanud#Society

So no geese, not ever not a single one ever?
Bearing in mind your UFOs didn't land and start eating... isn't it possible that geese fly over the area to get from one place to the other?

 

[ufology]

Misrepresenting what I said uh?

I wasn't claiming that today people are debating if UFOs are real or not. My point is that today people are more likely to be debating if they are alien or not. Whether they came from Gallifrey or Zeta Reticuli is irrelevant until it is proven they came at all.

No one is denying that people report seeing UFOs.
No one is saying UFOs don't exist.

OK Stray ... I'm good with the above. It was easy to interpret when you said, "Not many people are debating where they came from, they are debating if they came at all." as a dismissal of their existence.

On the topic of how old the evaluations I provided are, their age isn't relevant. Simply because a historical fact is a historical fact doesn't make it any less significant over time. Actually, because human aeronautical engineering at the dawn of the modern era in ufology was still in its formative stages, the sudden appearance of relatively high unexplained technology in the skies of multiple nations is even more curious. Today who knows what's been developed. For all we know, human engineers have built stuff that would be almost indistinguishable from UFOs. Although I don't know of aircraft that can make instantaneous stops and turns at high speed yet.

j.r.