Cont: UFOs: The Research, the Evidence

[John Albert]

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.

You live in Chicago, right?

You might look at it this way:

The Sears Willis Tower is roughly 225 feet wide, and Naperville is roughly 25 miles from downtown Chicago.

Remember though, that an airplane is nowhere near as big as a huge building. A 200' wingspan airplane flying over downtown Chicago would appear as a thin horizontal line, a little less than the width of that building, as seen from Naperville, a little over 25 miles away.

So yeah, pretty much totally invisible. A tiny speck at very best, even through binoculars.

 

[Stray Cat]

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?

That's when they aren't taking witches on guided tours to Pendle.

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.

Well, that's how UFOlogists manage to eliminate the mundane possibilities so successfully innit?

Our resident ufologist didn't even try to eliminate his own YB-49 possibility, otherwise he'd have found out what it took me 5 minutes to read up on. And as we know, the best way to move forward honestly and unbiasedly with any research is to try and prove your theory wrong (falsification). Which is what I'm currently in the process of doing by only making assumptions that information given is correct, instead of trying to show how wrong it is.

 

[Stray Cat]

Remember though, that an airplane is nowhere near as big as a huge building. A 200' wingspan airplane flying over downtown Chicago would appear as a thin horizontal line, a little less than the width of that building, as seen from Naperville, 25 miles away.

Not forgetting that if it was a flying wing and if Johnson was looking at it from behind and seeing it's 172' wingspan (not 200'), then that would mean the flight crew were looking at it from the side... And it's only 53' long and 20' high (with the landing gear down), so from their position (at least 25 miles), they wouldn't see anything like the 172' wide profile, with their unassisted eyes. They would see something more in the region of 53' wide by 20' high... which is beyond silly, it's about the same size as one and a half double decker busses from the side, more like single deckers bearing in mind the landing gear aspect... from 25 miles away? really?

 

[carlitos]

You live in Chicago, right?

You might look at it this way:

The Sears Willis Tower

Whachu talkin' bout Willis? Seriously, it's sad that "big willie" never caught on as a nickname. Everyone still pretty much calls it Sears.

So yeah, pretty much totally invisible. A tiny speck at very best, even through binoculars.

Thanks, but I'm not willing to drive to Napervoid to test your theory!

 

[Stray Cat]

Thanks, but I'm not willing to drive to Napervoid to test your theory!

Perhaps you could go to the top of the big willie and see if you can spot a bus in Naperville?

 

[ufology]

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.

carlitos,

I have no quarrel with Astro pointing out that the apparent size of the object at around 25 miles would make it only a speck to the naked eye. I also mentioned that issue way back at the start. However if the object was a large jet going into a power turn it may have spewed out a bunch of black exhaust typical of those early jets, and in doing so create a large black streak, which is what the ground observer said he thought it was at first. Then he got his binoculars and looked at it. And if as I've shown is consistent with the information in the reports, the jet was heading nearly directly away or toward the observers, then the visibility of the fuselage would be minimized ... so it doesn't even need to be a YB-49. It could have been a B-52. They began flying in 1952 and also had a wide wingspan. So again we have the possibility of another conventional aircraft, but still quite new for that time period. If it wasn't a conventional aircraft, then a cloud could be considered, but given that a cloud was considered by the firsthand observers and ruled out by them, I would be reluctant to offhandedly contradict them as if I somehow knew better than they did. I'm no pilot ... they were. They knew clouds up close and personal. I wasn't there ... they were.

So the report doesn't describe anything that can't be explained by a combination of the information and the technology of the time, therefore I have no reason to conclude that the object in the report was a UFO. Perhaps if they had been able to get a much closer look at the object ... close enough to discern it's size and shape with some precision, then maybe we'd have enough information to add weight to the possibility of an alien craft. I just don't see it here ... sorry to disappoint you all.

 

[23_Tauri]

They would see something more in the region of 53' wide by 20' high... which is beyond silly, it's about the same size as one and a half double decker busses from the side, more like single deckers bearing in mind the landing gear aspect... from 25 miles away? really?

So not far off the size of two VW Beetles stacked one on top of the other then?

 

[23_Tauri]

carlitos,

I have no quarrel with Astro pointing out that the apparent size of the object at around 25 miles would make it only a speck to the naked eye. I also mentioned that issue way back at the start. However if the object was a large jet going into a power turn it may have spewed out a bunch of black exhaust typical of those early jets, and in doing so create a large black streak, which is what the ground observer said he thought it was at first.

But that would not fit with descriptions from the crew, who described distinct, sharp edges to the object.

If it wasn't a conventional aircraft, then a cloud could be considered, but given that a cloud was considered by the firsthand observers and ruled out by them, I would be reluctant to offhandedly contradict them as if I somehow knew better than they did. I'm no pilot ... they were. They knew clouds up close and personal. I wasn't there ... they were.

Mr Ooly, have you ever seen the film/play Twelve Angry Men? If you have, you will know how one dissenter in a group can persuade all the other group members that his version of events is correct. If you read the witness statements you will see that the crew members all independently thought that the object was cloud, until they started to dicuss the sighting between themselves. It was only after group discussion that they all agreed it couldn't have been a cloud.

Do you think there was a single dissenter amongst the crew of the Lockheed plane and this led to the others changing their minds about the object being a cloud?

 

[Akhenaten]

<babbling>

So the report doesn't describe anything that can't be explained by a combination of the information and the technology of the time, therefore I have no reason to conclude that the object in the report was a UFO.

Still pretending that UFO = "OMG . . . aliens!"???

Have you learned nothing at all?

Perhaps if they had been able to get a much closer look at the object ... close enough to discern it's size and shape with some precision, then maybe we'd have enough information to add weight to the possibility of an alien craft.

Nowhere near as much weight as demonstrating that there's such a thing as alien craft would add.

I just don't see it here ... sorry to disappoint you all.

Why on Earth do you think your pronouncements are likely to affect anybody one way or another?

 

[GeeMack]

[* Snipped comments sticking like glue to a preconceived belief which was not quantitatively or objectively considered. *]

The ignorance of quantitative, objective issues, although not unexpected, isn't actually very constructive. Here's this uncomfortable question again...

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?

A few more relevant questions that give you an opportunity to make a constructive contribution...

• Do you have any opinion on all the evidence which shows that J. Randall Murphy UFO sighting is just a hoax?
  
  
• 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?
  
  
• What is it about "ufology" that its adherents use terms like "probability" and "calculate", but don't seem to actually calculate any probabilities? Why does the pseudoscience of "ufology" not deal with quantitative objective concerns?

Did you get a chance to consider this helpful advice from a cooperative skeptic? Could go a long way toward supporting your claim that some UFOs are alien craft...

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 knows how to do math. Make a compelling pitch. See if you can get that math capable person to help you calculate some probabilities. Factor in the total number of things seen flying, at first unidentified, later identified, and which turned out to be alien craft. It's bound to work out better for you than wild guessing, making stuff up, and ignoring quantitative objective reality. Have you noticed by using that approach, "ufology" has achieved total failure to support the claim that some UFOs are alien craft?

 

[ufology]

So not far off the size of two VW Beetles stacked one on top of the other then?

You taunt me ... OK I'll bite.

The object I saw was between me and objects of a fixed distance that could be plotted on a map, and was also seen near ( in front of and behind ) objects of a known approximate size ( trees ), and also seen between other objects of a known size and distance ( a highway and a mountain ), all together providing a means to estimate the size with reasonable accuracy. The VWs make a nice comparison because they are kind of rounded and if you place them together bottom to bottom they make a sort of circular shape that if all lit up and glowing would have looked to be about the same size as the glowing sphere I saw ... and I base that on numerous observations of vehicles with their headlamps on travelling along the highway near where the UFO landed. So all in all there was plenty of information to make a reasonable estimate of the size of the UFO I saw ... and compare them to VWs ... which funny enough were once promoted with an advertising slogan, "back engineered from UFOs"

 

[ufology]

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.

GeeMack,

You're a never ending source of amazement ... I'd never have guessed you were an avid bird watcher. That's pretty cool. Anyway, the old jets were infamous for their black exhaust during high power ...

These babies ( B-52s above ) could leave a trail of black smoke that could be seen 25 miles away ... enough to get the ground observer's attention ... which fits with his story ( he first thought it was exhaust ). Then he went to get his binoculars. And then through 8 power binoculars the aircraft would appear to be 8 X closer ( of course you know this because you are an avid bird watcher ) and therefore instead of seeming like 25 miles away it would only seem like about 3 ( 3.125 ). So maybe we're looking at a cloud/aircraft combination.

 

[Stray Cat]

I have no quarrel with Astro pointing out that the apparent size of the object at around 25 miles would make it only a speck to the naked eye. I also mentioned that issue way back at the start. However if the object was a large jet going into a power turn it may have spewed out a bunch of black exhaust typical of those early jets, and in doing so create a large black streak, which is what the ground observer said he thought it was at first.

"Thinking it was a lenticular cloud I continued to study it, but it did not move at all for three minutes. I do not know how long it was there before my attention was called to it.
When it did not move or disintegrate, I asked my wife to get me our eight power binoculars so I would not have to take my eyes off the object"

And if as I've shown is consistent with the information in the reports,

You've shown nothing of the kind. You've simply asserted it by cherry picking only the bits that fit and still having to make assumptions.

the jet was heading nearly directly away or toward the observers, then the visibility of the fuselage would be minimized ...

Remind us again how this mythical jet could have been simultaneously moving away from both observation positions.

so it doesn't even need to be a YB-49. It could have been a B-52. They began flying in 1952 and also had a wide wingspan.

Well if we're just pulling ideas out of think air now, it could have been a large flock of Witches on Broomsticks... they began flying in the middle ages and a large enough flock would be wide enough.

So again we have the possibility of another conventional aircraft, but still quite new for that time period.

You see, if this was one of your alien space ship stories that you support and a sceptic suggested "we have the possibility of another conventional aircraft" History shows that UFOlogists start demanding the sceptics prove which aircraft it was. And yet here you are thinking the mere suggestion of some 'possible aircraft' not even a type of aircraft, just something with wings will do apparently.

If it wasn't a conventional aircraft, then a cloud could be considered, but given that a cloud was considered by the firsthand observers and ruled out by them, I would be reluctant to offhandedly contradict them as if I somehow knew better than they did. I'm no pilot ... they were.

It was at first thought to be a cloud by two independent witnesses. One of them (a man who believed in flying saucers), then recognised it as a flying saucer. The air crew called it a flying saucer for a joke to pull the leg of one of the crew members. This is clearly stated as Wimmer saying "look out, there's a flying saucer". This is the only directly quoted part in all the testimonies. Every other mention of what the object may have been is expresses in the witness statements as "I thought" or "It looked to me like" No one directly reports mentioning what they thought at the time of the flight. This is relevant because we know that Johnson (the flying saucer believer and influential person in the Lockheed company) and the aircrew got together and discussed their individual sightings before writing their reports over the next two weeks.

They knew clouds up close and personal. I wasn't there ... they were.

They apparently couldn't even agree where they were or what direction they were looking. So forgive me if I doubt their "rare extraordinary cloud seen in extraordinary conditions" qualifications... Or perhaps their qualifications were only relevant to being up close and personal with clouds and the fact that they were neither up close nor personal with this object was outside of the remit of their "Lockheed cloud identity training course"

So the report doesn't describe anything that can't be explained by a combination of the information and the technology of the time, therefore I have no reason to conclude that the object in the report was a UFO.

The object in the report is a UFO. You haven't identified it yet and neither has anyone else.

Perhaps if they had been able to get a much closer look at the object ... close enough to discern it's size and shape with some precision, then maybe we'd have enough information to add weight to the possibility of an alien craft. I just don't see it here ... sorry to disappoint you all.

Are you suggesting that the only reason some flying objects can not be identified is because there is a lack of information?... well who'd of thunked it?

So if they had been able to get close enough to tell what it was, they'd have been able to identify it... genius.

 

[Garrison]

carlitos,
I have no quarrel with Astro pointing out that the apparent size of the object at around 25 miles would make it only a speck to the naked eye. I also mentioned that issue way back at the start.

And promptly ignored it to insist the sighting was a flying wing.

However if the object was a large jet going into a power turn it may have spewed out a bunch of black exhaust typical of those early jets, and in doing so create a large black streak, which is what the ground observer said he thought it was at first.

More respinning, more speculation, still no evidence of a flying wing in the vicinity.

Then he got his binoculars and looked at it. And if as I've shown is consistent with the information in the reports, the jet was heading nearly directly away or toward the observers, then the visibility of the fuselage would be minimized ... so it doesn't even need to be a YB-49. It could have been a B-52.

And now another new theory, why exactly are you so obsessed with the aircraft explanation? I mean if everyone here accepts that it's another UFO story shot down in flames, it doesn't after all get much more mundane than a misidentified aircraft.

They began flying in 1952 and also had a wide wingspan. So again we have the possibility of another conventional aircraft, but still quite new for that time period. If it wasn't a conventional aircraft, then a cloud could be considered, but given that a cloud was considered by the firsthand observers and ruled out by them, I would be reluctant to offhandedly contradict them as if I somehow knew better than they did. I'm no pilot ... they were. They knew clouds up close and personal. I wasn't there ... they were.

Which doesn't rule out misidentifying an unusual type at a great distance, and the effect of the various witnesses discussing their sightings with one another.

So the report doesn't describe anything that can't be explained by a combination of the information and the technology of the time, therefore I have no reason to conclude that the object in the report was a UFO.
Perhaps if they had been able to get a much closer look at the object ... close enough to discern it's size and shape with some precision, then maybe we'd have enough information to add weight to the possibility of an alien craft. I just don't see it here ... sorry to disappoint you all.

Oh nice try, no without any hard evidence UFO is exactly what it is, your attempt to again conflate UFO and alien craft noted and rejected.

 

[Garrison]

These babies ( B-52s above ) could leave a trail of black smoke that could be seen 25 miles away ... enough to get the ground observer's attention ... which fits with his story ( he first thought it was exhaust ). Then he went to get his binoculars. So maybe we're looking at a cloud/aircraft combination.

You really need to stop trying to rewrite the eyewitness testimony, Johnson asked his wife to fetch the binoculars, he didn't go to fetch them; that's twice you've been corrected on the same error.

 

[Stray Cat]

These babies ( B-52s above ) could leave a trail of black smoke that could be seen 25 miles away ... enough to get the ground observer's attention ... which fits with his story ( he first thought it was exhaust ). Then he went to get his binoculars. So maybe we're looking at a cloud/aircraft combination.

Yes because that smoke bellowing from those B-52s looks just like the "sharp edged", non moving object that both the air crew and Johnson reported watching for at least three and as long as ten minutes.... jeesus.

Do your fingers ever start aching from clutching at these straws?

 

[Akhenaten]

You taunt me ... OK I'll bite.

The object I saw was between me and objects of a fixed distance that could be plotted on a map, and was also seen near ( in front of and behind ) objects of a known approximate size ( trees ),

How big is a standard NATO tree, folo?

. . . and also seen between other objects of a known size and distance ( a highway and a mountain ), all together providing a means to estimate the size with reasonable accuracy.

It seems far more likely that your estimate of the distance was extrapolated from your WAG of its size, not the other way around.

The VWs make a nice comparison because they are kind of rounded and if you place them together bottom to bottom they make a sort of circular shape that if all lit up and glowing would have looked to be about the same size as the glowing sphere I saw ... and I base that on numerous observations of vehicles with their headlamps on travelling along the highway near where the UFO landed.

???

How does one use vehicle headlights (several kilometres away through the trees on the other side of a lake) to judge that some other object is the size of a Volksblimp?

So all in all there was plenty of information to make a reasonable estimate of the size of the UFO I saw ... and compare them to VWs ...

There's exactly the same amount of information that you'd need to describe it as the size of a battleship. None at all.

. . . which funny enough were once promoted with an advertising slogan, "back engineered from UFOs"

The slogan was "reverse engineered from UFOs" Mr Flawless Memory.

 

[Stray Cat]

How big is a standard NATO tree, folo?

Well taking into account the "margin or error" Trees fall into the category of;
Very small to Very big

So we can safely assume that these trees were between these two data points.

 

[ufology]

"Thinking it was a lenticular cloud I continued to study it, but it did not move at all for three minutes. I do not know how long it was there before my attention was called to it.
When it did not move or disintegrate, I asked my wife to get me our eight power binoculars so I would not have to take my eyes off the object"


You've shown nothing of the kind. You've simply asserted it by cherry picking only the bits that fit and still having to make assumptions.



Remind us again how this mythical jet could have been simultaneously moving away from both observation positions.


Well if we're just pulling ideas out of think air now, it could have been a large flock of Witches on Broomsticks... they began flying in the middle ages and a large enough flock would be wide enough.


You see, if this was one of your alien space ship stories that you support and a sceptic suggested "we have the possibility of another conventional aircraft" History shows that UFOlogists start demanding the sceptics prove which aircraft it was. And yet here you are thinking the mere suggestion of some 'possible aircraft' not even a type of aircraft, just something with wings will do apparently.


It was at first thought to be a cloud by two independent witnesses. One of them (a man who believed in flying saucers), then recognised it as a flying saucer. The air crew called it a flying saucer for a joke to pull the leg of one of the crew members. This is clearly stated as Wimmer saying "look out, there's a flying saucer". This is the only directly quoted part in all the testimonies. Every other mention of what the object may have been is expresses in the witness statements as "I thought" or "It looked to me like" No one directly reports mentioning what they thought at the time of the flight. This is relevant because we know that Johnson (the flying saucer believer and influential person in the Lockheed company) and the aircrew got together and discussed their individual sightings before writing their reports over the next two weeks.


They apparently couldn't even agree where they were or what direction they were looking. So forgive me if I doubt their "rare extraordinary cloud seen in extraordinary conditions" qualifications... Or perhaps their qualifications were only relevant to being up close and personal with clouds and the fact that they were neither up close nor personal with this object was outside of the remit of their "Lockheed cloud identity training course"


The object in the report is a UFO. You haven't identified it yet and neither has anyone else.


Are you suggesting that the only reason some flying objects can not be identified is because there is a lack of information?... well who'd of thunked it?

So if they had been able to get close enough to tell what it was, they'd have been able to identify it... genius.

OK so we have both smoke and lenticular clouds being considered as possible causes. Here's the relevant quote for the exhaust:

"I wondered why this one object was so dark, considering that the sun was behind it, I immediately thought that some aircraft had made an intense smoke trail; so I studied the object closely."

It's even possible that the smoke trail formed into a temporary lenticular-like cloud as the aircraft completed its turn and headed west, which also explains how it could have appeared to not change shape much, then be visible as an aircraft after he got the binoculars.

Again ... on the apparent motion of the object away from both observers at the same time, The WV-2 had changed direction to investigate and therefore was trying to intercept the object by keeping it dead ahead. At the shallow angle of the objects heading compared to the WV-2 and by constantly keeping the object dead ahead, it would look to the crew on the WV-2 that the object was always pulling directly away, while on the ground the object was headed nearly due west ( also directly away ). There is no big mystery here unless we can get some confirmation that the object was stadium sized or as big as the wing in the Phoenix case ( not the flares ) the huge silent black wing seen by other witnesses ... although even that could possibly be explained with conventional technology in most instances.

 

[ufology]

You really need to stop trying to rewrite the eyewitness testimony, Johnson asked his wife to fetch the binoculars, he didn't go to fetch them; that's twice you've been corrected on the same error.

My mistake there ( at least I can acknowledge it, unlike the typical behavior of the rest of crew here ) ... my confusion was in reading, "I ran outside and started to focus the glasses on the object" ... which happened after he got the binoculars which were inside.