Cont: UFOs: The Research, the Evidence

[Stray Cat]

I wonder though: what is less probable? A cloud independently fooling an experienced aircrew and a legendary aircraft designer, or an experimental aircraft being sighted over a facility that tests experimental aircraft?

An experienced aircrew who give wildly contradictory eye witness statements and a legendary aircraft designer who was turned down by the air training corp because he failed the eyesight test.

Or an experimental aircraft that has the ability to either hover or look like it's hovering from two independent viewing angles simultaneously when it's not, that looks like you're looking at it from the back even when one observer must have been looking at it from the side and that is big enough to see from a minimum distance of 25 miles with unaided eyes that can accelerate from still to gone in 10 seconds.

I don't know, I'll keep looking at the information, something may crop up yet.

 

[Kaosium]

An experienced aircrew who give wildly contradictory eye witness statements and a legendary aircraft designer who was turned down by the air training corp because he failed the eyesight test.

Or an experimental aircraft that has the ability to either hover or look like it's hovering from two independent viewing angles simultaneously when it's not, that looks like you're looking at it from the back even when one observer must have been looking at it from the side and that is big enough to see from a minimum distance of 25 miles with unaided eyes that can accelerate from still to gone in 10 seconds.

I don't know, I'll keep looking at the information, something may crop up yet.

Well, there's obviously something wrong when the answers are '130 Gs' and 'ascended to an altitude of ninety miles.' Where did that come from anyway, I mean officially? I never did find it.

Contradictory witness reports are hardly unusual, thus more concrete data like what they got on radar would seem to be extraordinarily helpful, yet I've seen nothing about it yet, though I did have severe trouble with some paragraphs of the official report. They mention a test, and it occurs to me in '53 airborne radar amounted to putting vacuum tubes at high altitude which engenders sympathy from me for the poor bastards who had to maintain that equipment, so it is possible they had standard procedures to cause minimum wear on their systems, but I'm not understanding why that didn't get mentioned anywhere in the report.

How about ground radar too? I got the impression this was an official military investigation, they damn well ought to have checked to see if there were any anomalous hits that day. The absence of that suggests to me it may well have been one of those very cool clouds in a previous page, but I'd feel more confident if I could find a mention of them at least looking for it.

 

[tsig]

[qimg]http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg117/ThePsychoClown/256-miles.jpg[/qimg]

This drawn up and presuming Ware's statement is accurate in that the plane was somewhere in the Catalina Channel and the object was in sight line with Santa Barbra Island. Also assuming Johnson was accurate that the object was in sight line to Point Mugu. And also assuming that both groups of observers were correct that the object got smaller and disappeared with no sign of lateral movement.

RoboTimbo,

So show me then where someone hasn't answered with the usual who needs to bother attitude and instead provided something in context and useful with respect to the original question. Maybe I missed it amid all the noise you're making.

There you go.

 

[tsig]

Yes, it crashed pretty damned good too.
http://www.check-six.com/Crash_Sites/YB-49_crash_site.htm

Fascinating stuff, thanks Stray Cat.

 

[23_Tauri]

Yes, but cut Mr Oof some slack. Whilst I've been here literally all night reading and researching, he's probably had his website to update and all the hard work that that entails... We're lucky he's found time in his schedule to fit us in.

Well I guess there is that time-consuming website of Ooly’s, as well as need for his beauty sleep that renders Mr Oof incapable of carrying out any research for himself on this case. In contrast, it wouldn’t surprise me to discover that you, Stray Cat, have not seen your own bed in many days and nights, so focused have you been on the task in hand. True Researchers^TM cat nap on their sofas, right?

If one thing is apparent though, it’s how adept ufologists appear to be at making others do their donkey work for them, in stark contrast to their lack of adeptness at doing any of the donkey work.

 

[23_Tauri]

TjW,

Maybe it was a cloud, and you are right that any one of "all those highlighted descriptions" I've posted might be enough to counter the YB-49 theory, but I've given numerous reasons from very qualified observers ...

Qualified observers who couldn't even agree on where they were at the time, those qualified observers?

observers who would most probably be at least as knowledgeable as you are and with firsthand experience, and who rejected the cloud explanation after studying the object for several minutes and in the end saying it looked like a flying wing aircraft. So the YB-49 theory still makes more sense.

Not when you realise that the aircraft was nowhere near Johnson's ranch, and there's nothing in those eye witness testimonies that you hold in such high esteem to indicate that the Lockheed airplane turned to the left in order to follow the object whilst travelling westwards.

And that's just one detail where the testimonies don't match up.

 

[RoboTimbo]

RoboTimbo,

So show me then where someone hasn't answered with the usual who needs to bother attitude and instead provided something in context and useful with respect to the original question. Maybe I missed it amid all the noise you're making.

That's your problem. You miss everything. You've missed all the work that Stray Cat has done not just with the graphic representations that you missed but also with the research behind it that you missed.

You miss things not because of any external noise but because of the white noise in your mind saying 'OMGaliens, OMGaliens, OMGaliens' over and over.

It drowns out hard questions that would get you to think and also drowns out any terrifying rational thought that might upset your religion.

 

[Astrophotographer]

I dunno about that, a YB-49 isn't a Navy plane, that thing wasn't going to be landing on any carriers. They used to say the A-5 was the largest thing ever to do so on a regular basis, and just in wingspan the YB-49 must have been three times the size of the (A-5) Vigilante. It might have been from Pt Mugu anyway, perhaps some joint project, or one of the AFBs in the area that just happened to be over Pt. Mugu at the time, but even it it was, that wouldn't be unusual.

I wonder though: what is less probable? A cloud independently fooling an experienced aircrew and a legendary aircraft designer, or an experimental aircraft being sighted over a facility that tests experimental aircraft?

Could be either. I was looking at Pt. Mugu history and I noticed the Regulus missile was tested there as well. Being an ex-submariner, I was familiar with what the Regulus missile was and I had seen a drone rocket launched once from Roosevelt Roads Puerto Rico. They tend to create a lot of smoke initially and then take off. I don't think this was one of those missiles but I looked anyway. I could not find any details about launches that were made althought a submarine launched one in mid-1953 near Point Mugu. If we are thinking experimiental aircraft, one needs to come up with some hard data like a record of testing on that day. Just suggesting that VX-4 was operational (like the testing of the Regulus missile theory I examined) will not do without information stating such testing occurred on the date and time in question.
I would like to think it might have been something experimental but there is also the possibility that it just was a peculiar shaped cloud. The fact that the observers saw it from two different locations dozens of miles apart indicates that the object had to have been very large (like a cloud).
I am disappointed in the reports inconsistencies. We are left grasping at straws. The crew seemed to have a gross estimate of where they were located and give a wide range of locations. Nobody seemed to give any angular size or angular elevation (which brings into question the supposed 200 foot diameter promoted by UFOlogists).

 

[GeeMack]

Maybe it was a cloud, and you are right that any one of "all those highlighted descriptions" I've posted might be enough to counter the YB-49 theory, but I've given numerous reasons from very qualified observers ... observers who would most probably be at least as knowledgeable as you are and with firsthand experience, and who rejected the cloud explanation after studying the object for several minutes and in the end saying it looked like a flying wing aircraft. So the YB-49 theory still makes more sense.

It would be a lie, of course, to suggest "they" rejected the cloud explanation. Apparently Kelly Johnson didn't think it was a cloud, but with his less than perfect vision and the fact that he couldn't have seen more than a speck from his position anyway, points you continue to dishonestly and willfully ignore, his opinion on the matter is nearly irrelevant.

By the way, what did the USAF consider the likely explanation?

And what exactly are the differences between known flight characteristics of a lenticular cloud, a Northrop flying wing, and an alien craft?

 

[Garrison]

John Albert,

Actually there is quite a bit of controversy over the actual performance of the YB-49 and if you watch some of the videos it looks like it flies pretty damn good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuIFvNA1UgU

( watch the whole video )

Which is interesting but irrelevant to the question of what Kelly Johnson and Co. saw.

And again, if we were building them, then others could have done so as well. So even if it wasn't one of ours, the wing unidentified object that was spotted could have been someone elses.

Let's indulge that speculation for a moment. Who exactly was it that built it? Why after 60 years would such an aircraft not have become public knowledge? I remind you that the Soviets tried to bury their failed manned Lunar program and that came spilling out with the fall of the USSR, so I imagine it should be fairly simple for you to narrow down the suspects and come up with a plausible candidate aircraft; that's assuming you are willing to do any actual research to back up your claims.

 

[GeeMack]

GeeMack,

You seem to have lost your sidekick there ... what's his name ... maybe you should go look for him.

Your willful ignorance of substantive issues and continued refusal to address direct, simple, and on-topic questions is noted.

• So how about that unidentified flying object from December, '53? What was the conclusion of the Air Force? What did that official investigation determine was the most likely explanation?
  
  
• And do you have any opinion on all the evidence which shows that J. Randall Murphy UFO sighting is just a hoax?
  
  
• And of all the things ever seen apparently flying, initially not identified but eventually identified as a particular thing, how many of those turned out to be alien craft?
  
  
• And what is it about "ufology" that its adherents use terms like "probability" and "calculate", but don't seem to actually calculate any probabilities? Why do "ufologists" shun quantitative objective concerns?

Here's some helpful advice form a cooperative skeptic: Assemble the best "UFOs = alien craft" numbers you can, in the most cogent, clear, articulate manner possible, and go make the pitch to someone who understands the concepts of quantitative and objective, someone who can actually do some math. Make a compelling pitch and see if you can get that math savvy person to help you calculate some probabilities. It's bound to work out a lot better for you than wild guessing, making stuff up, and ignoring quantitative objective reality. You may have noticed by using that approach, "ufology" has achieved total failure to support the claim that some UFOs are alien craft.

That is a constructive contribution. Maybe you could make one.

 

[ufology]

Which is interesting but irrelevant to the question of what Kelly Johnson and Co. saw.

I give you an exact quote that says it looked like a large flying wing and a film of a flying wing from that time period and you call it "irrelevant"? Why? What logical reason can you give that makes you so sure?

 

[GeeMack]

Yes, I've been meaning to ask folo how he eliminated aliens (and witches) on this occasion.

I've been meaning to ask for a detailed comparison of what we know about the flight characteristics of a lenticular cloud, a YB-49, and an alien craft. Oh, that's right, I did. But for some reason, proponents of the "UFOs = alien craft" idea don't seem to know anything at all about alien craft.

 

[Garrison]

The YB-49 didn't get past testing the prototypes... there must have been a reason for that.

And discussing the various theories would probably wind up in the conspiracy theories forum.

 

[Garrison]

I give you an exact quote that says it looked like a large flying wing and a film of a flying wing from that time period and you call it "irrelevant"? Why? What logical reason can you give that makes you so sure?

This is what I was resonding to with that comment:

Actually there is quite a bit of controversy over the actual performance of the YB-49 and if you watch some of the videos it looks like it flies pretty damn good.

The flight characteristics of the YB-49 have nothing to do with what was observed in the sighting. How about some evidence that there was a flying wing operating in the vicinity at the time, or is that too much like hard work?

 

[John Albert]

I give you an exact quote that says it looked like a large flying wing and a film of a flying wing from that time period and you call it "irrelevant"? Why? What logical reason can you give that makes you so sure?

Just because Kelly Johnson said it "looked like" a flying wing, that doesn't mean that it was one. Remember that his eyesight was not perfect.

Showing us a film of a flying wing doesn't prove anything. Here's a video of a couple cute little bonobo chimps hugging each other. Does that prove it was a bonobo chimp?

Astrophotographer has given the excellent, logical reason that it's humanly impossible to visually discern an aircraft of 200' wingspan from the alleged distance.

Stray Cat has not only given, but also demonstrated that the eyewitness accounts cannot possibly have been accurate, due to major inconsistencies among them.

Stray Cat has also rightly pointed out that no object could possibly have been visible to both parties simultaneously and be observed by both parties moving in the way both parties described at the distance they reported.

He pointed out that for any object to appear to be moving in a general direction away from both parties simultaneously, the rule of parallax indicates it would have had to be far more distant than their own estimates, on the order of 10x or more. That of course would have rendered their own size estimates off by orders of magnitude, far, far larger than the reported 200' wide.

Yet you ignore all that objective, mathematical evidence in favor of cherry-picking bits and pieces of the eyewitness accounts that support your preferred conclusion.

Those are the logical reasons and objective evidence that indicate that it was probably a very distant, strangely-shaped cloud many hundreds of yards (or even a mile or more) across, and not an extremely rare experimental aircraft all but one of which crashed, and which had been canceled from production and testing years prior to this sighting.

 

[Garrison]

OH and Ufology I notice that you only responded to the first half of my post. Do I take it this means you have no intention of doing the research to back up your claim?

 

[carlitos]

Astrophotographer has made several excellent points about the impossibility of visually discerning an aircraft of 200' wingspan from the alleged distance.

Has anyone / could anyone show via illustration just how small this thing would appear in the distance? In theory, I can do the math, but my photoshop / google map skillz ain't quite there.

 

[Stray Cat]

Well, there's obviously something wrong when the answers are '130 Gs' and 'ascended to an altitude of ninety miles.' Where did that come from anyway, I mean officially? I never did find it.

That's because the answer is; they pulled it out of their ass.
The makers of the TV show that is. None of the official original documents could lead anyone to those calculations. Though one possible source maybe a clue in Joel Carpenter's article on the event giving thanks to Brad Sparks for his assistance. Brad likes to do spurious sums with dodgy data.

Contradictory witness reports are hardly unusual, thus more concrete data like what they got on radar would seem to be extraordinarily helpful, yet I've seen nothing about it yet, though I did have severe trouble with some paragraphs of the official report.

We have to go to the article written by Joel Carpenter to see a mention of 'radar':

(There are no indications that the elaborate radar systems, which required a crew of at least a dozen men, were active during the flight.)

Source (3rd paragraph)

They mention a test, and it occurs to me in '53 airborne radar amounted to putting vacuum tubes at high altitude which engenders sympathy from me for the poor bastards who had to maintain that equipment, so it is possible they had standard procedures to cause minimum wear on their systems, but I'm not understanding why that didn't get mentioned anywhere in the report.

This from the same article;

The exact purpose of the test flight is not detailed in the sighting reports, but such flights typically involved calibration of airspeed vs engine power settings at various altitudes, and therefore the crewmen were very conscious of the height of the aircraft.

Source (5th paragraph)

How about ground radar too? I got the impression this was an official military investigation, they damn well ought to have checked to see if there were any anomalous hits that day. The absence of that suggests to me it may well have been one of those very cool clouds in a previous page, but I'd feel more confident if I could find a mention of them at least looking for it.

Blue Book didn't actually do much investigation into flying saucer reports. Astrophotographer will be able to give a better summary of their usual practices than I can. I'm sure if they investigated this story at all, they would have interviewed the flight crew to find out why their statements were so wildly contradictory in the information they gave. From this alone I have to conclude that no further inquiries were ever made and therefore no mention of anomalous radar targets is mentioned in the file (which only seems to contain the original statements along with a few rough sketches and some covering letters.

 

[GeeMack]

Has anyone / could anyone show via illustration just how small this thing would appear in the distance? In theory, I can do the math, but my photoshop / google map skillz ain't quite there.

I've made a general calculation, created a model as an image, and forwarded it along to Stray Cat. I'm working on resizing the image in a way that makes it a better model.

Meantime consider this: A Boeing 747 has a wingspan of about 212 feet. When you look up and see the contrail of a commercial passenger plane and notice the plane itself at the front of the contrail, that plane is probably somewhere between 6 and 8 miles up. The distance from Kelly Johnson's location to the alleged position of the UFO has been calculated to be more than 25 miles, or minimally 3 to 4 times the distance of a commercial passenger plane you see at cruising altitude.

A commercial jet doesn't always make a contrail, of course. That would depend on thermal and moisture conditions at the plane's altitude. But as an avid birdwatcher, a trained observer, I can attest to the fact that 200 foot wingspan planes fly over regularly without attracting even the slightest attention of most people if there is no contrail. I notice them because I'm looking up with intent to see the most distant, least obvious flying things. At 6 to 8 miles, a 200 foot wingspan thing without a contrail is barely visible. At 25 miles it would be all but invisible even to a trained observer like myself.