UFOs: The Research, the Evidence

[RoboTimbo]

I've already been through this. If you read through AFR 80-17, 19 September 1966 instead of simply dealing with the initial definition you see that it isn't much dirrent than AFR 200-2 Feb 05 1958, in that much of the same provisions are there, but they have been moved around and made more confusing. Specifically:

In section 7. Guidance in Preparing Reports; we see the following:

a. Activities receiving initial reports of aerial objects and phenomena will screen the information to determine if the report concerns a valid UFO as defined in paragraph 1a. reports not falling within that definition do not require further action. Aircraft flares, jet exhausts, condensation trails, blinking or steady lights observed at night, lights circling near airport and airways, and other aircraft phenomena should not be reported as they do not fall within the definition of a UFO.

I've already been through this. The correct definition eliminates a few obvious mundane explanations that don't need to be reported. Where does it say that UFOs are non-mundane? You've already run away from that question enough. Answer it.

You also find that the context is more in keeping with what I've described earlier in that there is a differentiation between UFOs themselves, UFO sightings, and UFO sighting reports. Clearly this version of the Air Force procedures is also trying to rule out mundane phenomena that once again to quote: " ... should not be reported as they do not fall within the definition of a UFO."

Clearly, the correct version is handing the stymie to credulous pseudoscientists who wanted the definition to mean that UFOs are alien spaceships. It seems to be working, as your dishonest cherry picked redefinitions indicate.

In addition to the above, since these early official definitions have been the subject of debate regarding how well they represent a contemporary view, I again point out the overwhelmingly obvious circumstance that the vast majority of people, when they hear the word UFO, instantly associate it with an alien craft ... then there are the independent dictionary definitions provided earlier as well.

What do the overwhelming majority of people think of when they hear the word unicorn? You must now believe that unicorns or fairy tale lore exist. Here's the Wikipedia definition of unicorn:

The unicorn is a legendary animal commonly portrayed as a white horse with a goat's beard and a large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead.

What evidence do you have to justify your belief in unicorns?

Now all of this doesn't mean every unidentified object seen in the sky is a UFO and the null hypothesis that is so dear to certain posters here cannot be applied. In some cases it has, but in other cases it hasn't. For example.

You're saying that you've falsified the null hypothesis? Can you provide a link where that happened? Which ones aren't alien spaceships?

OK STUPID: "All unidentified objects in UFO reports are mundane objects or phenomena."

NOT OK: "All UFOs are mundane objects or phenomena."

The actual one is:

"All UFO sightings are of mundane origin"​

and that has never been falsified, despite pseudoscientific efforts to redefine words.

Similarly it is not appropriate for someone explaining UFOs to portray them as mundane objects by using out of context literal definitions of the first word in the initialism, and knowingly doing so goes beyond merely innapropriate to misleading.

No, you are incorrect but it isn't surprising given your dishonest agenda. Until you falsify the null hypothesis, the assumption will be that all UFO sightings are of mundane origin. When do you think you'll be able to falsify the null hypthesis?

 

[Akhenaten]

That is because you haven't looked very hard.

. . .

You can read my take on the whole thing here:

http://home.comcast.net/~tprinty/UFO/Belg.htm

Marc Hallet also discusses this briefly:

http://www.skepticreport.com/sr/?p=162

There is enough evidence that the F-16 chase was simple mistakes on the part of the police officers in their initial observations and conditions in the atmosphere producing false radar returns (as well as operator error in the interpretation of these signals).

Woohoo!

You haven't seen it because, like all pseudoscientists, you only see what you want to see.

Try this:

http://home.comcast.net/~tprinty/UFO/Belg.htm​

I dare say the author will be along presently to walk you through it.

Prescient!

 

[RoboTimbo]

Chuck Guiteau:

Thank you for your question chuck. I am happy to answer.

Q: "How does one make the jump from "Unidentified Flying Object" ( irrespective of whose definition you use ), to "Vehicle of Extraterrestrial Origin"?"

A: What we are dealing with in recent posts is the lexicon of ufology; how the jargon and definitions apply in various contexts. It is important to understand this in relation to the "Research" part of the thread topic, because so many people get it mixed up and the small things can make all the difference. So please bear with me. First I'm going to be very specific with respect to your question. Although the phrase "unidentified flyng object" has the same initials as the word UFO, the word UFO was created by the USAF to replace the phrase "flying saucers", which were presumed to be extraterrestrial craft. So immediately people began associating the phrase UFO with alien craft, and that is the way it's been ever since.

That is your cherry picked, outdated and superceded definition. UFO means Unidentified Flying Object.

Now your question could also mean, how do people make the mental jump from what is being investigated in a UFO report, or what they are observing, from being merely an unidentified object in the sky, to an alien craft, or from a UFO ( generic ) to a UFO ( specific e.g. non-mundane or alien craft )?

The answer to the above is that a process of elimination is used.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!

The USAF definitions tried to define several characterisitics of several different types of known phenomena, that when ruled out leave only the conclusion that the object was non-mundane.

The above is an outright lie, as has been explained to the above poster numerous times.

The incident during the Washington National sighting where a USAF jet interceptor was vectored by radar to a visible object that the pilot pursued, but could not catch due to it's "phenomenal speed", is one example. Or it could be as simple as you see something yourself, that as an intelligent, well informed, healthy, unimpaired person simply knows from the evidence of your senses, is so foreign, that it must be alien.

Or oil well fires. Or a nearly infinite number of other mundane explanations that you can't possibly think of. That's why the null hypothesis which is:

"All UFO sightings are of mundane origin"​

has never been falsified.

At this point many people simply jump to an extraterrestrial explanation based on the logical assumption that the infrastructure required to manufacture such advanced technology

Many creduloids jump to that conclusion based on their numerous assumptions which are not based on critical thinking.

( UFO mother ships for example ) would be so complex that it simply could not be hidden on Earth without us knowing about it, and therefore it must be extraterrestrial.

Yes, some people who have no ability to think critically think that.

Personally I find, based on the overwhelming number of personal experiences where alien craft have been reported, that the probability of them all being mistakes or hoaxes based on poor information is so low as to make the reality of such craft a virtual certainty, even if you haven't seen one yourself ( which I have ). Once you accept that there are craft alien to our civilization, it's not hard to accept the probability that they are ET.

Because you're a credulous pseudoscientific UFOlogist. Have you ever heard that the plural of anecdote is not evidence?

Lastly, the above explains how the "jump" is made from merely seeing or studying to believing that it is reasonable based on probabilities, to accept the reality of alien visitation. However that is not the same as "believing in" something, as in accepting it as an assumed undeniable truth. Even I don't go that far except with my own experience.

Yes, you do go that far for your own experience because you have no ability to think critically and rationally.

For other people's individual experiences I go on investigative information. For the rest of the UFO witnesses in general, I accept that many of them are telling the truth because I can't be the only person who has had such an experience. In fact the objects described by one of the pilots during the Washington National sightings ( bluish white spheres ) sound very much like the same thing I saw in 1975.

Pseudoscientists do what you do. Rationally minded people start with the null hypothesis and try to falsify it. Pseudoscientists begin with the pseudoscientific hypothesis that "Some UFOs are alien spaceships" which can never be falsified.

As for the rest, I can't explain how people come to believe in what I call "woofology", ( although to many skeptics it's all woo ). For example, I have no idea about the truth of "space brothers" or "reptilian overlords" or "alien channellers".

Why do you call others' beliefs "woo" when they have exactly the same level of evidence for their beliefs as you do for yours?

Q. Eyewitness statements are the most unreliable type of evidence that can be presented. What evidence, other than witness statements, do you have to support your position?

A. Eyewitness statements may be unreliable in some situations and really good in others. Human perception has scientifically established parameters of accuity. For example, that's what allows us to determine visual accuity and make perfect eyeglasses. Human vision is even better within its range than most hardware because of the way we can discern the dynamic range of a scene. Combine this level of visual accuity with people whose physical health and limits are known by extensive baseline testing ( such as air force pilots ), and the probability that they accurately report what they see under favorable conditions is very high, far better than the information you get in virtually every fuzzy UFO photo I've seen that hasn't been shown to be a hoax.

Your glaring mistakes in perception and memory are well-documented on this very forum. You don't seem to remember them which is more evidence for hwo fallible memory is.

To answer specifically with respect to "other" evidence. The only other evidence there is that we know of for certain in that regard are radar tracking records, bits of so-called "trace evidence", and fuzzy photos/videos. The most impressive radar tracking evidence I've seen was presented by the Belgian Air Force. See this video:

LOL. Like all psuedoscientists, you've forgotten FLIR!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7psGj4M1ZI

Maybe some skeptic here will debunk it like the MIG pursuit video, I dunno. I'm open to that because I haven't seen this incident debunked yet.

FYI:

150 knots = about 172 MPH
990 Knots = about 1,140 MPH

The null hypothesis is:

"All UFO sightings are of mundane origin"​

I don't watch YouTube videos so how does the video falsify that null hypothesis?

 

[RoboTimbo]

You can read my take on the whole thing here:

http://home.comcast.net/~tprinty/UFO/Belg.htm

Marc Hallet also discusses this briefly:

http://www.skepticreport.com/sr/?p=162

There is enough evidence that the F-16 chase was simple mistakes on the part of the police officers in their initial observations and conditions in the atmosphere producing false radar returns (as well as operator error in the interpretation of these signals).

And the pseudoscientific UFOlogists conflate the whole comedy of errors together so that the twinkling stars become UFOs with powerful cloaking devices which are able to outrun the F16s and dive below ground level to evade them.

ufology, what does the process of elimination say about the Belgian UFOs? Which star system do you think they're from?

 

[John Albert]

Also, your tactic of defaming my character with intent to cause me personal and financial difficulty, and bully me off the forum

I'm not trying to defame your character or cause you financial difficulty, nor am I trying to make you go away (you and I both know that is beyond possible by this point).

What I'm trying to do is shame you into discussing the subject honestly, showing basic respect and courtesy to the other individuals in this conversation, and refraining from sidetracking the debate with all this pointless nonsense.

You know damn well that I can provide numerous examples of each fallacy I'm accusing you of. I have done so before in other threads, and will do so again if you keep accusing me of making baseless accusations. Now are you going to force my hand? You can bet that if you make me go digging through these threads for proof of your dishonesty, I'm going to announce your name and organization for all the searchbots to find.

It's clear that you're trying to promote yourself as some kind of expert about UFOs and all related subjects, but you have plainly demonstrated a severe lack of knowledge and experience in several fields. To point out the absurdity of your situation, you're a Canadian citizen with no military experience whatsoever, actually arguing United States Air Force regulations and protocols against a former USAF pilot on an open Internet forum. You have also debated a professional astronomer about the practice and purview of science, and a radio technician about radio technology.

You've been warned many many times about your dishonest tactics by others besides myself, and you also know the reason I'm pointing out these fallacies. There's nothing at all personal about what we're doing here.

...friendly debate...

For most of us, the first blow against "friendly debate" happened when you arrogantly purported to tell us we were all wrong about the theory and practice of critical thinking, based on a blatantly obvious fallacy of redefinition.

Despite that insult, we patiently corrected you on your mistakes and tried to educate you on the actual meaning of the word, whereupon you apparently mistook our friendliness and patience for a lack of resolution. You redoubled your efforts, asserted your own misplaced authority, and misapplied the terminology of informal logic (that you had so recently heard us using) to dismiss our arguments without even bothering to learn what the fallacies mean, or the logic behind them.

At the same time, you began resurrecting every dormant thread that had anything to do with UFOs, dragging the debate into areas where it was clearly off-topic, and spamming the GS&TP forum page with a proliferation of UFO discussions.

That original encounter set the pattern for all your interactions around here. Whenever one of us points out an obvious flaw in your logic or catches you dead to rights in a dishonest tactic, you simply refuse to respond and continue on asserting the same failed arguments over and over.

This is not what I would think is acceptable behavior for a forum that purports be an example for students and educational institutes.

You might not want to hear it, but at this point your willful ignorance and lack of intellectual honesty has demonstrated that you are steadfastly unwilling to learn, and therefore you are practically unteachable. Therefore, you have become the example for students, the object-lesson of what can happen if one allows one's faith to override one's own capacity for reason.

I have work to do right now, so I'll address your definitions later on today.

 

[R.A.F.]

Um ... Timbo ...

How is using the mosted respected independent dictionary on the planet ( Oxford ) and the official definition by the people who created the word itself ( USAF ), and the definition by the undisputed scientific expert who studied them ( Hynek ), and pointing out the ubiquitous portrayal in modern culture of UFOs as alien craft, in any way "cherry picking"? I've just spanned the enitire range of usage from the specialized to the general public at large. There is no cherry picking at all here ... only the truth that you refuse to accept.

Of course it's cherry picking...when YOU decide what you "want' to believe and ignore anything you don't, that's called cherry picking.

 

[R.A.F.]

You may think you are within your legal rights to defame me on the Internet, with express intent to create widespread dissent against me via Google searches, but unless you can prove...blah, blah, blah...

No one did that to you, you did it to yourself...stop crying about it.

 

[R.A.F.]

What I'm trying to do is shame you into discussing the subject honestly, showing basic respect and courtesy to the other individuals in this conversation, and refraining from sidetracking the debate with all this pointless nonsense.

One thing I've noticed is that most "alternative thinkers" have absolutely no shame.

So while that would "work" on a rational person, people of ufology's "ilk" are immune.

Go ahead, UFOlogy...prove me wrong.

 

[Archer17]

...Combine this level of visual accuity with people whose physical health and limits are known by extensive baseline testing ( such as air force pilots ), and the probability that they accurately report what they see under favorable conditions is very high, far better than the information you get in virtually every fuzzy UFO photo I've seen that hasn't been shown to be a hoax.

Since you seem to like the '52 DC "flap" so much care to reconcile the fact that there wasn't anything approaching a consensus among AF pilots as to visual description or whether there was even a "UFO" where that era's radar told them there was?

You're aware of that aren't you?

 

[R.A.F.]

You're aware of that aren't you?

I don't know if he is or not...I've looked into the "well" of his ignorance, and I can't see the bottom.

 

[23_Tauri]

Prescient!

Worthy of the MDC!

Of course it's cherry picking...when YOU decide what you "want' to believe and ignore anything you don't, that's called cherry picking.

Mmmm indeed. And I'm anticipating ufology gorging himself silly on cherries over the Belgian UFO Flap in 5, 4, 3......

 

[Toke]

This is kind of weird.
If I had a UFO-shop or some such a sceptic forum would not be highest on my list of places to advertise it. It could be seen as an attempt to get more google hits, but I doubt that this or other treads would count as advertising your shop?

 

[Robrob]

Also, your tactic of defaming my character with intent to cause me personal and financial difficulty, and bully me off the forum

New to the concept of internet debate?

 

[Akhenaten]

Worthy of the MDC!

Excellent! I'll be able to afford that snazzy new sky fishing boat I've had my eye on.

 

[Archer17]

Excellent! I'll be able to afford that snazzy new sky fishing boat I've had my eye on.

Need a rod with that?

 

[Akhenaten]

This is kind of weird.
If I had a UFO-shop or some such a sceptic forum would not be highest on my list of places to advertise it. It could be seen as an attempt to get more google hits, but I doubt that this or other treads would count as advertising your shop?

It's a bit like advertising bulls for sale in the China Shop Owners Gazette.

 

[Akhenaten]

Need a rod with that?

Just the thing for catching Grays off the beach at Area 51.

 

[23_Tauri]

Excellent! I'll be able to afford that snazzy new sky fishing boat I've had my eye on.

Whoo-hoo!

You'll be able to go down your local sky-fishing boat dealership instead of getting a pre-owned sky-fishing boat from the classified ads at the back of Squid Fishing Monthly.

 

[ufology]

Belgian UFO RADAR Case Not Conclusively Debunked

That is because you haven't looked very hard. The Belgium radar data was debunked some time ago ...

Thanks for those two links. I've googled for information many times and never run across them. I will add them to my notes. However after reading these debunking theories, the debunking case is not nearly as convincing as the MIG video debunking. This was a real incident and they were tracking something, but confusing each other with random noise and smoke stack exhaust just doesn't make enough sense for me to buy into it with any certainty.

Debunking Not Definitive

A couple of points to note. The radar in the F-16s wasn't some pimitive radar. It was designed to track other jets, and other jets have hot exhausts ... hotter than a smoke stack, which was assumed ( not proven ) to have been the cause. Certainly the smoke stack exhaust theory could be proven with further tests to see if the column of air rising from the smoke stack could even produce a solid radar lock on an F-16.

Besides, a huge column of hot air, it isn't going to show up as a discrete object and move the way the object did, and the theory that the movement was caused by the radar randomly jumping around picking up noise and interpreting it as the same radar lock doesn't make much sense. Neither does it make sense that the radar or the pilot would confuse the other jet with such noise.

Plus there were several other incidents when the F-16s went up searching and never had any of these problems. So this debunking effort is far from conclusive.

Are the skeptics never skeptical of themselves? Counting these debunking efforts as conclusive indicates heavy bias. And by the way, I don't claim that the object was an alien craft. Just that the incident represents one of the best radar cases.

 

[carlitos]

... the incident represents one of the best radar cases.

Cases of what?