UFOs: The Research, the Evidence

[Aepervius]

Goddamit RoboTimbo I think you've cracked it! The problem is that ufology is wearing Alien Goggles^TM!

They are not alien google (tm) but "alien pink glasses" (tm)

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7594327&postcount=12646

 

[23_Tauri]

Akhenaten

The truth of the story in this case isn't the point. It's the possibility that sizes and distances of airborne objects can be calculated with reasonable accuracy if you have the right cues.

Donald laughs because so far you've demonstrated that you didn't do that accurately enough to give your insistence that you know how far away the object was any credence at all. See: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=7604574#post7604574

 

[ufology]

However, back engineering your figures to fit your perception of the event at the time (40 years after the event) doesn't make your initial estimates anymore accurate does it?
And neither does back engineering your story to fit your figures.

Stray:

If you look at the illustration you can see what I meant by about "two thirds up" the side of the mountain when it stopped to hover and you can see how estimating that height at around 200 meters seems reasonable, but I admit that the estimate is probably off by some margin. I just don't know what exactly. Still, the illustration is fairly close to the actual situation and having it perfect isn't relevant anyway. It's all well within parameters to rule out any known manmade or natural object or phenomena. The only thing the skeptics can do without becoming unreasonable is reserve judgement due to a lack of independent corroborating scientific evidence. I'm fine with that.

 

[Aepervius]

I have no difficulty imagining those lines and words being drawn on the window mere feet from the observer's position, and that alleged light source being only a few millimetres across.

I can even imagine firefly winking in and out in a "nuptial dance" around to attract female giving the impression of a single orb going around and disappearing behind object , when in the reality it is two firefly : one going from one side of the tree and winking out or even landing behind the tree, then another coming out , or whatever combination.

The more i think on it, the more the firefly hypotheses sound solid.

 

[23_Tauri]

Stray:

His name is Stray Cat, ufology. How would you like it if people called you Murph? Or ufol?

Actually, don't answer that question.....

 

[Akhenaten]

Stray:

If you look at the illustration you can see what I meant by about "two thirds up" the side of the mountain . . .

Because you've drawn the bloody picture to match the story you're hopinig we'll swallow.

What a surprise!

 

[Stray Cat]

Stray:

If you look at the illustration you can see what I meant by about "two thirds up" the side of the mountain when it stopped to hover

Yes

and you can see how estimating that height at around 200 meters seems reasonable, but I admit that the estimate is probably off by some margin.

And where did you estimate it at 200 meters?
The figure you originally quoted was 4608 feet. 200 meters is only 656 feet.

I just don't know what exactly.

Evidently. And it's telling that every verifiable number you've given has been shown to be inaccurate. So why should any of your other perceptions be accepted as accurate?

Still, the illustration is fairly close to the actual situation and having it perfect isn't relevant anyway.

Your 40 year old memory of the 'actual situation'. A memory that has apparently been tainted by wildly incorrect figures for nearly 40 years.

It's all well within parameters to rule out any known manmade or natural object or phenomena.

No it's not.
There is nothing verifiable in your story that rules out the object being small and close and not flying very high or fast at all.

The only thing the skeptics can do without becoming unreasonable is reserve judgement due to a lack of independent corroborating scientific evidence. I'm fine with that.

Why should the sceptics reserve judgement... you certainly haven't.

 

[ufology]

Donald laughs because so far you've demonstrated that you didn't do that accurately enough to give your insistence that you know how far away the object was any credence at all.

Tauri

I believe my website still says I thought it rose about 200 meters. I may have said 300 something someplace else and I've already admitted that my estimates on height need to be refined. So what? That isn't relevant. Why? Because the flat distances were easy to determine using a map. So I still have reasonably accurate horizontal distances and the performance characteristics with respect to those alone rule out any natural or manmade object or phenomenon. Even a couple of hundred meters of vertical height difference has no effect on the outcome.

Now with the Google Earth numbers, I can to do my own math sometime to see how far off I really am with respect to how far it rose vertically. In the meantime, the illustration I posted is reasonably accurate and sufficient to get the points I made across.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7604681&postcount=13000

 

[23_Tauri]

Tauri

I believe my website still says I thought it rose about 200 meters. I may have said 300 something someplace else and I've already admitted that my estimates on height need to be refined. So what? That isn't relevant. Why? Because the flat distances were easy to determine using a map. So I still have reasonably accurate horizontal distances and the performance characteristics with respect to those alone rule out any natural or manmade object or phenomenon. Even a couple of hundred meters of vertical height difference has no effect on the outcome.

Now with the Google Earth numbers, I can to do my own math sometime to see how far off I really am with respect to how far it rose vertically. In the meantime, the illustration I posted is reasonably accurate and sufficient to get the points I made across.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7604681&postcount=13000

ufol, you can quibble the odd hundred metres, but do you understand why this is irrelevant when the firefly hypothesis is still plausible? Because none of us were there with you that night, because we can't really be sure how well you could judge distance, and because there is so much ambiguity as to how well you could have judged distance and size (knowing what we know about the fallability of human perception in this regard - see earlier posts from Astrophotographer et al), then the firefly/fireflies is plausible.

So, in the absence of any further evidence I have to pull out my razor and say that your sighting was more likely something mundane. As mundane as a firefly. Now, you may choose to disagree with me, and seeing as you were there I was not then of course this is reasonable and fair. However, can you understand why I and many others here think it was a firefly?

 

[Tomtomkent]

Akhenaten:

Actually, not only can I assert it, I have asserted it, and demonstrated it through logic and reason, which is far more than your mere proclaimations can offer. If you can counter the explanation I gave on how the distance can be calculated, then do so. Otherwise leave your unconstructive comments in your sarcophagus.

No. You have "proven" it to your own satisfaction and no more. Your explanation andcalculations are estimates and flawed ones.

 

[Akhenaten]

Tauri

I believe my website still says I thought it rose about 200 meters. I may have said 300 something someplace else and I've already admitted that my estimates on height need to be refined. So what? That isn't relevant.

Of course it's relevant. It's an explicit admission that you're retrofitting bits and pieces of this stupid story to plug the gaping holes that keep appearing in it.

Why? Because the flat distances were easy to determine using a map.

Drawing lines on a map in 2011 lends absolutely no credence to events that allegedly occured in the 1970s.

So I still have reasonably accurate horizontal distances and the performance characteristics with respect to those alone rule out any natural or manmade object or phenomenon.

Garbage. All you have is a story. Illustrating it doesn't make it any more true than the Tales of Beatrix Potter.

Even a couple of hundred meters of vertical height difference has no effect on the outcome.

True enough. It as good as didn't happen, no matter what distances you make up.

Now with the Google Earth numbers, I can to do my own math sometime to see how far off I really am with respect to how far it rose vertically.

Why bother with math? Since you're just retrofitting stuff to make your story look believable, you can just add whatever numbers you want.

In the meantime, the illustration I posted is reasonably accurate and sufficient to get the points I made across.

You've drawn something that appears to have moved dozens of millimetres.

Big bloody deal.

 

[Tomtomkent]

Stray:

If you look at the illustration you can see what I meant by about "two thirds up" the side of the mountain when it stopped to hover and you can see how estimating that height at around 200 meters seems reasonable, but I admit that the estimate is probably off by some margin. I just don't know what exactly. Still, the illustration is fairly close to the actual situation and having it perfect isn't relevant anyway. It's all well within parameters to rule out any known manmade or natural object or phenomena. The only thing the skeptics can do without becoming unreasonable is reserve judgement due to a lack of independent corroborating scientific evidence. I'm fine with that.

Do you know why on the railway we stop trains at night instead of working with lookouts? Staring down a traintrack on a dead straight you should be able to see the lights on a train for miles and miles.

And you can. But here is the probllem: the light on the front of a train 3 miles away looksthe same size and height as one two miles away, or one mile away. You cant see the train, just the light, maybe veering up and down or side to side with the track. But untill it is close enough to compare with something you can see, a reference point, there is no indication the light is getting any closer.

A light that appears in the sky halfway up a mountain could be a light on the mountain. Or closer, or any where inbetweeen. You have no hard data for any calculation.

 

[Resume]

ufology:

What was the reason you didn't immediately investigate this phenomenon in which you've invested so much time and energy?

"After seeing the firefly, I fell back asleep," is one explanation that leaps to mind.

 

[RoboTimbo]

Akhenaten

The truth of the story in this case isn't the point.

At least you're honest about that.

 

[Cuddles]

Of course it's relevant. It's an explicit admission that you're retrofitting bits and pieces of this stupid story to plug the gaping holes that keep appearing in it.

Interestingly, this has been suggested as a reason why some woos come here in the first place. We point out all the obvious flaws and inconsistencies, and they try to patch over them. Obviously no-one here is going to be fooled, since we've already seen all the wildly varying and inconsistent claims. But when they now take these stories somewhere else, all the people there see is the new, much more consistent story.

If this were true in ufology's case I might have expected him to do it sooner than now, given how long he's been playing at running a UFO club. But on the other hand, he's not exactly been honest about his intentions so far. Maybe he's not really trying to drum up visitors to his site, but just trying to iron out his story so it sounds more credible when he goes to present it somewhere else. After all, he does an awful lot of talking about this single unrecorded, unverifiable person experience for someone who's supposed to be presenting us with the best research and evidence that shows UFOs are aliens.

 

[RoboTimbo]

Tauri

I believe my website still says I thought it rose about 200 meters. I may have said 300 something someplace else and I've already admitted that my estimates on height need to be refined. So what?

folog,

When you say "refined", do you understand that you are really saying "retrofit"?

That isn't relevant.

Oh, it's very relevant, despite you not wanting it to be. You want to seem credible as a witness to your own alleged sighting but every time you make up new numbers, your non-existent credibility keeps going into the negatives.

Why? Because the flat distances were easy to determine using a map. So I still have reasonably accurate horizontal distances and the performance characteristics with respect to those alone rule out any natural or manmade object or phenomenon. Even a couple of hundred meters of vertical height difference has no effect on the outcome.

That part is correct. No matter which numbers you make up to retrofit to your story, it's still an unfalsifiable story with no basis in reality. You have no credibility and your dishonesty has been on display for all to see.

Now with the Google Earth numbers, I can to do my own math sometime to see how far off I really am with respect to how far it rose vertically. In the meantime, the illustration I posted is reasonably accurate and sufficient to get the points I made across.

Just not the points you meant to make.

 

[Sideroxylon]

That's crossed my mind a few times too, Cuddles.

 

[RoboTimbo]

Interestingly, this has been suggested as a reason why some woos come here in the first place. We point out all the obvious flaws and inconsistencies, and they try to patch over them. Obviously no-one here is going to be fooled, since we've already seen all the wildly varying and inconsistent claims. But when they now take these stories somewhere else, all the people there see is the new, much more consistent story.

If this were true in ufology's case I might have expected him to do it sooner than now, given how long he's been playing at running a UFO club. But on the other hand, he's not exactly been honest about his intentions so far. Maybe he's not really trying to drum up visitors to his site, but just trying to iron out his story so it sounds more credible when he goes to present it somewhere else. After all, he does an awful lot of talking about this single unrecorded, unverifiable person experience for someone who's supposed to be presenting us with the best research and evidence that shows UFOs are aliens.

And his repeated declarations that his memory is "self-correcting". We should have gotten a clue from that.

 

[carlitos]

If you take a peek at Google Earth, you will note that there is another explanation for "lights across the lake" that is a little more mundane.

 

[Akhenaten]

Interestingly, this has been suggested as a reason why some woos come here in the first place. We point out all the obvious flaws and inconsistencies, and they try to patch over them. Obviously no-one here is going to be fooled, since we've already seen all the wildly varying and inconsistent claims. But when they now take these stories somewhere else, all the people there see is the new, much more consistent story.

I'm sure it's the case. Anita Ikonen just about made a career out of it and there seems little doubt that Rramjet the Rrecently Rreclusive was also aiming for an As Seen On JREF sticker to put on whatever it is he's peddling.

What I don't understand is why they persist well beyond the point where any potential advantage that might accrue from the association is far outweighed by the disadvantage of having a permanent record of their failure writ large here for anyone with half a Google-fu.