UFOs: The Research, the Evidence

[John Albert]

This is a very good point. I was thinking the very same thing the other day, but I didn't post it as a critique because I wasn't sure exactly how to go about describing the phenomenon without getting too technical about the details.

At least you didn't get 'reflect' and 'refract' mixed up like the silly old Egyptian.


Thanks for the much improved explanation of what I was getting at.

I think reflection and refraction are probably both involved, right?

Refraction is definitely the cause of rainbows and glories, for example, but reflection between droplets plays a large part too.

The reason I didn't remark on it before is because I wasn't sure I could explain it adequately, and anyway there are far bigger problems with the story overall!

So yeah, thanks for pointing that out.

 

[Akhenaten]

I'm sure Mr Fology's rebuttal will cover both reflection and refraction effects.

It'll be something to do with the HushaBoom™ drive, the Varisize® embiggenator or the Blimp-No-More© cloaking device, I reckon.

 

[Garrison]

Ufology you do realize that while all this extra detail you've invented and and the pretty pictures you've drawn make a better story, they don't make it any better evidence.

 

[Tomtomkent]

Ufology you do realize that while all this extra detail you've invented and and the pretty pictures you've drawn make a better story, they don't make it any better evidence.

Or evidence. It is not a statement, testimony or recorded oral history. It is a changing story.

 

[Garrison]

Or evidence. It is not a statement, testimony or recorded oral history. It is a changing story.

He does seem to be going through a writing process. He did a first draft, let others read it to get some feedback, and now he's working on a second draft with some of the rough spots smoothed out to make the story flow better. Great if you are writing a short story, not so hot if you are claiming it's an account of real events.

 

[GeeMack]

Ufology you do realize that while all this extra detail you've invented and and the pretty pictures you've drawn make a better story, they don't make it any better evidence.

Maybe it's a better story now than the one he first made up, but hardly better in the big picture of UFO lore. Of course we wouldn't expect a Spielberg from a rank amateur, but from a literary perspective, at best it would merit a high school kid a C+ in creative writing. None of it is original. There's no drama, no plot twists, no character development, no imagery, nothing.

Me and my girlfriend were stoned out of our gourds listening to some Led Zeppelin when all of a sudden a glowing orb came up over the mountain, did some maneuvers like a horny lightning bug, then landed behind some trees. The next morning it rose up out of the woods and flew away. But it really really was there. And it really really was aliens. Then we shook off the hangover from our buzz. The end.​

Not even a good hot sex scene. Well okay, lightning bugs mating. But no point of interest like maybe these aliens can see through clothing and flesh and tell you if someone's missing a kidney. Nothing. I don't think anyone needs to worry about engraving J. Randall Murphy's name on a plaque for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize.

 

[Tomtomkent]

So anybody want to sumarise the actual evidence provided by this thread?















Nope, just claims so far.

 

[RoboTimbo]

What I would like to propose at this point is that the skeptics here post a top 10 or more list ( with reasons and references ) of UFO related hoaxes. These need to be proven hoaxes, not hypothetical hoaxes. I will add it to my webpage and give the JREF forum posters credit for helping. What do you say? Let's turn this around and try doing something constructive.

Here's the most recent one that I could find. The ever changing and evolving story are evidence that points to this being nothing more than a hoax, and not a very imaginative one. This one is known as the J. Randall Murphy VolksUFO ( firefly ) hoax.

In the more distant night illustration with one of the objects coming over a mountain at night, the core object is a bit larger and the apparent distance a bit closer. But it's much more accurate and gives a much better impression than the little squiggle that was posted by someone else suggesting that the object was so small as to be undiscernable.

Here J. Randall Murphy, often thought by many to be hoaxing a UFO sighting, embellishes his account with more uninspired misrepresentations out of context.




ETA: It may not come up very high in a search for UFO hoaxes yet, but I'm sure it will soon.

Hope that helps!

 

[carlitos]

Here's the most recent one that I could find. The ever changing and evolving story are evidence that points to this being nothing more than a hoax, and not a very imaginative one. This one is known as the J. Randall Murphy VolksUFO ( firefly ) hoax.


Here J. Randall Murphy, often thought by many to be hoaxing a UFO sighting, embellishes his account with more uninspired misrepresentations out of context.

Thanks for contributing, but I think that all of this hoax talk is off topic for a research, evidence thread. If people want to read about hoaxes, they can go to the webpage of J Randall Murphy, and read about the UFO hoax aspects of popular ufology.

For a glow to extend beyond a light source requires something in the air to reflect the light - it's not an effect one sees in clear air.

This is a very good point. I was thinking the very same thing the other day, but I didn't post it as a critique because I wasn't sure exactly how to go about describing the phenomenon without getting too technical about the details.

Any time you see a "halo" or area of "glow" extending beyond the edges of a bright object, that effect is commonly caused by the light passing through an intervening refractive material such as cloud cover, fog, atmospheric mist, or possibly a window pane. That effect is not something you will see when looking directly at a bright object on a clear night.

Therefore, if the object in question exhibited such a "glow," then it most likely resulted from diffraction of the light through water droplets in the air, or maybe the glass of a window. In that case, the extent of the effect (beyond the outer edges of the actual object itself) would have been dependent on the atmospheric conditions at the time of viewing, and not the actual size of the object itself.
...

Or the viewer was tired and/or on drugs and/or is making it up conflating his memory with something common within the mythology of ufo lore. **



** Of course, we can't forget that the "glowing orb" is central to religious visions of all types, from Saint Paul's vision to Our Lady of Fatima to the Nation of Islam, not to mention the various Hindu gods, wacko cults and theosophy. Of course, J Randall Murphy will ignore and/or pretend not to understand this parallel, due to his own religious conviction. (or he may play the martyr again, another concept central to religious belief in the west)

 

[RoboTimbo]

Thanks for contributing, but I think that all of this hoax talk is off topic for a research, evidence thread. If people want to read about hoaxes, they can go to the webpage of J Randall Murphy, and read about the UFO hoax aspects of popular ufology.

I agree that it's off topic but I've asked Mr. J. Randall Murphy to list his Top 10 UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) and the evidence that falsifies the null hypothesis many, many times and it doesn't seem that he can think of any that have evidence of being aliens.

He did ask for a list of Top 10 UFO hoaxes so I thought I'd contribute the most infamous one on this forum, the J. Randall Murphy VolksUFO ( firefly ) Hoax, thought by many to be perpetrated by J. Randall Murphy as a hoax.

Perhaps if Mr. J. Randall Murphy were to list his Top 10 UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) as Alien Space Ships cases and the evidence that falsifies the null hypothesis and led him to believe them to be alien, we wouldn't have to refer to the off topic J. Randall Murphy VolksUFO ( firefly ) Hoax. But if we're going to talk about hoaxes, then the J. Randall Murphy VolksUFO ( firefly ) Hoax is definitely one we will want to discuss.

 

[Sideroxylon]

What list does Mr. J. Randall Murphy's disappearing Caddy full of MiB go on?

 

[John Albert]

So anybody want to sumarise the actual evidence provided by this thread?

 

[RoboTimbo]

What list does Mr. J. Randall Murphy's disappearing Caddy full of MiB go on?

I can neither confirm nor deny that that is another hoax perpetrated by J. Randall Murphy.

 

[carlitos]

[qimg]http://oi54.tinypic.com/sc3nmd.jpg[/qimg]

Nice graphic. That actually answers both the post you quoted and the one by Sideroxylon above it.

 

[ufology]

So in one post Akhenaten quoted it went behind trees, but ufology couldn't see the individual trees. In the next quote ufology says he can make out light between them.

So he couldn't see individual trees except for when he could?

Tomtomkent,

Perhaps you might try to understand the event by reviewing what I've already written before you make your unfounded proclamations. You are just coming across as biased and adversarial. Here ( again ) is how I could tell what was going on, explained as simply as possible.

Perhaps you've never watched cars on a dark road bounded by trees from a distance? As a car moves past each tree, light gets brighter, and as it moves behind them it gets dimmer. The flickering effect and the way the light filters out from behind them gives you cues for the density of the trees and direction of movement. You have no doubt that the car and the road are behind the trees or which way the car is moving. You also don't have to see all of each individual tree to know what's going on. This effect can be seen from much farther than 3Km.

Similarly, as the object approached the treetops and began going down into the forest, the jagged edges formed by the pointed tops of the trees created an outline and texture so that you could make out the density without having to see all of each tree or the small details. And as it descended below the tops, you could see the light filtering out from behind the trunks and branches. No special abilities are required.

 

[John Albert]

Nice graphic. That actually answers both the post you quoted and the one by Sideroxylon above it.

I just took Akhenaten's "twinVW" graphic and stuck it into J. Randall Murphy's own p-shopped depiction of his imagined UFO.

This thread seems to exhibit an element of "schadenfraud," in that most of us seem to take particular delight in another person's fraud.

 

[Sideroxylon]

Tomtomkent,

Perhaps you might try to understand the event by reviewing what I've already written before you make your unfounded proclamations. You are just coming across as biased and adversarial. Here ( again ) is how I could tell what was going on, explained as simply as possible.

Perhaps you've never watched cars on a dark road bounded by trees from a distance? As a car moves past each tree, light gets brighter, and as it moves behind them it gets dimmer. The flickering effect and the way the light filters out from behind them gives you cues for the density of the trees and direction of movement. You have no doubt that the car and the road are behind the trees or which way the car is moving. You also don't have to see all of each individual tree to know what's going on. This effect can be seen from much farther than 3Km.

Similarly, as the object approached the treetops and began going down into the forest, the jagged edges formed by the pointed tops of the trees created an outline and texture so that you could make out the density without having to see all of each tree or the small details. And as it descended below the tops, you could see the light filtering out from behind the trunks and branches. No special abilities are required.

You are trying so hard to make your glowing orb story sound oh so reasonable yet you include a white-line fever hallucination on your website as some kind of evidence. Seriously?

 

[ufology]

I just took Akhenaten's "twinVW" graphic and stuck it into J. Randall Murphy's own p-shopped depiction of his imagined UFO.

This thread seems to exhibit an element of "schandefraud," in that most of us seem to take particular delight in another person's perpetration of a fraud.

Mr. Albert,

Your cute VW Beetle replacement in my graphic demonstrates quite well how accurate my initial description was ... thank you.

Original description as compared to a VW Beetle:

Object shape as orginally described:

Illustration similar to the way the object appeared and moved:

Morning view just prior to object departing:

Valley cross section showing hover point above:

The constant nagging of the skeptics here has helped me to present my sighting in more detail than ever before. I don't know how to thank you all for the continued inspiration you've provided.

 

[Correa Neto]

What list does Mr. J. Randall Murphy's disappearing Caddy full of MiB go on?

Dunno 'bout them lists, but the Cadillac with MiBs went through a portal between realities located under a dark branch. It arrived at a dim circular room with consoles and some kids in silvery pyjamas, where they met a large white rabbit wich said "hello" to them. The MiBs sold their old car to the rabbit and bought a newer generic Chrysler K-platform car. They then created a new sect of the Jehovah's Witnesses, centered in UFOs from the biblical times and staring intently at UFOlogists, making them feel nervous and physically shaky.

 

[RoboTimbo]

bla bla bla evidence of hoax>

Here is more evidence to confirm what many already feel they had enough evidence for: ufology's VolksUFO ( firefly ) Hoax. Embellishing his story even more with each post, Mr. J. Randall Murphy continues to add detail to the ufology VolksUFO ( firefly ) Hoax. He will later claim that this is his memory "self-correcting" itself, rather than admit that he is simply layering his invented details.

Perhaps if he would rather stick to the topic of the thread and post his Top 10 UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) as Alien Space Ships cases and post links to the evidence that falsified the null hypothesis, justifying what otherwise appears to be his irrational belief system.