Cont: UFOs: The Research, the Evidence

[23_Tauri]

Acky,

I'll give you a chance to retract ( or rephrase ) the above before I post a photo of a bright cloud illuminated by the sun directly behind it ... you should know better than to make absolutist statements that are so easily disputed.

ug, here's a lenticular cloud with the sun sinking behind it, and below some extracts from the witness statements to the Lockheed case:

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap030326.html

"The object, even in the glasses, appeared black and distinct..." (Johnson)
"At all times, the object appeared as an ellipse, with a finess ratio of the larger axis to the minor one of about 7 or 10 to 1" (Johnson)
"I could not detect any detail other than the shape of it" (Wimmer)
"It maintained its sharp outline and definite shape..." (Wimmer)
"The object appeared as a thin black line" (Colman)
"However, the blackness made it impossible to discern anything but the basic outline" (Colman)
"it seemed to look more like a large object without wings with a maximum thickness in the middle tapering towards either side" (Ware)

 

[ufology]

OMG Aliens! .... ( notice that little copyright mark down there on the left ), but I won't tell the mods if you don't. It really is a lovely photo ... notice the convex shape.

 

[23_Tauri]

Uh ... for the person who asked me who skeptic Lance was a while back ... I'm pretty sure that's him. Maybe he'll show the rest of you nerf herders how it's done.

It was me, Mr 23_Tauri.

Stray Cat answered my question five minutes after I asked.

 

[23_Tauri]

OMG Aliens! .... ( notice that little copyright mark down there on the left ), but I won't tell the mods if you don't. It really is a lovely photo.

I believe I am ok because I have given the link to the Astronomy Picture of the Day website from whence it came, immediately above the pic.

Mods, if this is not ok, please amend my post accordingly, although it would lose its punch somewhat without the photo.

As it is, did you get the point I was making, or not, fu?

And yes, it is a lovely photo, I hope it doesn't get removed!

 

[GeeMack]

Don't you have some birds to watch or something more important to do than fabricate excuses to call me dishonest? Or is your real hobby starting flame wars and acting like a cyberbully?

You are not being persecuted. No matter how often you try to make it appear so, you are not a victim of anything other than a lack of critical thinking, an unwavering faith in aliens, and an unwillingness to embrace objective reality. If you don't like the truth, there are certainly other forums where alien believers gather, swap tales of talking bunnies, all nighters with Led Zeppelin, and drug induced hallucinations, and congratulate themselves on how effective they've been at ignoring reality. The JREF forum isn't one of those.

How's it coming on that probability calculation? Need some help with the math?

 

[Stray Cat]

As it is, did you get the point I was making, or not, fu?

Of course he did, that's why he's blatantly avoided it and tried to dishonestly deflect the issue toward some imagined breach of copyright, when the photo shown is fully credited.

 

[23_Tauri]

Of course he did, that's why he's blatantly avoided it and tried to dishonestly deflect the issue toward some imagined breach of copyright, when the photo shown is fully credited.

Thank you. Fully credited and were he to know I'm sure this talented photographer wouldn't mind us enjoying his lenticular cloud picture here on JREF.

Especially as it's been used to make a point about the wonders of nature.

 

[lancemoody]

Interestingly, I also found the photo posted above to be, perhaps pertinent to this case.

By simulating the same cloud (which, by the way, I did get permission from the photographer, Mark Meyer, to use on my blog but have just never gotten around to writing up my idea), I think we have a viable candidate (not this actual cloud but one like it) for what the Skunkworks boys may have seen.

As you get further and further away from this cloud (which I simulated in Photoshop) , the soft edges become more and more smooth, ultimately looking exactly like what Johnson drew and described. (Thanks Carlitos for the tech assist--you apparently need to click on the thumbnail to see the bigger version of my example). Note that in this example I shrunk everything including the wispy tail of the big cloud---it just gets lost as you get further away (here simulated by making the cloud smaller) and the cloud looks more and more like a flying saucer.




The departure event, I surmise, could have simply been the cloud evaporating--getting smaller and thus seeming to move. This is exactly how some of the witnesses described the departure.

This GIF I prepared shows this idea with a less than perfect example cloud but I think you can still see the illusion of motion instead of shrinking. CANT POST AT THE MOMENT Don't have privileges to do so.

When I was looking for other lenticulars like this one, I found a cool YouTube of some other similar clouds--the video was taken (recently) just a few miles (<50) from the Johnson site.

This is why the dumb stuff Sparks and Kimball added to the case actually matters. By cherry picking data and emphasizing the Oooga Booga of the story, these Saucer zealots push us away from being able to discover or even discuss the truth.

Notice above that I don't say that my explanation is the ONLY possible one. Try to look for any sort of qualification or introspection in the dishonest Best Evidence film. You will find none. And laughably, this film is one of "best" ones.

Lance

 

[carlitos]

To upload a photo, hit "go advanced" and you can either quick upload a small file or click the paperclip, in which case we will see a clickable thumbnail to enlarge it. Or post on imageshack and hot link by clicking the photo icon above the text entry box by the quote icon.

 

[ufology]

Interestingly, I also found the photo posted above to be, perhaps pertinent to this case.

By simulating the same cloud (which, by the way, I did get permission from the photographer, Mark Meyer, to use on my blog but have just never gotten around to writing up my idea), I think we have a viable candidate (not this actual cloud but one like it) for what the Skunkworks boys may have seen.

As you get further and further away from this cloud (which I simulated in Photoshop) , the soft edges become more and more smooth, ultimately looking exactly like what Johnson drew and described. (Thanks Carlitos for the tech assist--you apparently need to click on the thumbnail to see the bigger version of my example). Note that in this example I shrunk everything including the wispy tail of the big cloud---it just gets lost as you get further away (here simulated by making the cloud smaller) and the cloud looks more and more like a flying saucer.

View attachment 24518


The departure event, I surmise, could have simply been the cloud evaporating--getting smaller and thus seeming to move. This is exactly how some of the witnesses described the departure.

When I was looking for other lenticulars like this one, I found a cool YouTube of some other similar clouds--the video was taken (recently) just a few miles (<50) from the Johnson site.

This is why the dumb stuff Sparks and Kimball added to the case actually matters. By cherry picking data and emphasizing the Oooga Booga of the story, these Saucer zealots push us away from being able to discover or even discuss the truth.

Notice above that I don't say that my explanation is the ONLY possible one. Try to look for any sort of qualification or introspection in the dishonest Best Evidence film. You will find none. And laughably, this film is one of "best" ones.

Lance

Lance,

Well here's a popular explanation among the pseudoskeptics here ... just reverse the effect now and show how it could grow back into a witch on a broom ... lately they've had this thing for witches, for some reason or another believing that they are just as plausible as anything else.

 

[RoboTimbo]

Lance,

Well here's a popular explanation among the pseudoskeptics here ... just reverse the effect now and show how it could grow back into a witch on a broom ... lately they've had this thing for witches, for some reason or another believing that they are just as plausible as anything else.

No, you're misrepresenting again. UFOs ( witches ) are infinitely more plausible than Alien Space Ships because UFOs ( witches ) have been proven in courts of law ( triers of fact ).

You've never managed to explain why UFOs ( witches ) are less plausible than Alien Space Ships which have never been shown to exist. There is sufficient evidence that UFOs ( witches ) exist and according to you the word "sufficient" is objective.

 

[RoboTimbo]

It's "ufology" not UFOlogy ... and maybe try being more congenial.

No, it's UFOlogy unless you're now claiming that you're a con. Try being more observant. And try answering the hard questions that you don't want to answer.

 

[GeeMack]

No, it's UFOlogy unless you're now claiming that you're a con. Try being more observant. And try answering the hard questions that you don't want to answer.

And maybe even the easy ones.

 

[TjW]

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?

I give you a first person account of a lenticular cloud having sharp edges, looking like a wing, moving, and changing direction, and you thank me kindly, but otherwise ignore it completely. Why?

 

[lancemoody]

So anyway,

I need to get my post count up so that I can post some additional information.
I would love to hear any comments or questions about my lenticular cloud theory for the Kelly Johnson case.

I think the fact that Air Force also concluded (possibly after a real investigation) that this was the solution galls a lot of the UFO faithful.

The case file doesn't mention how this conclusion was reached, it just summarily states: Lenticular Cloud. They hate that!

Lance

 

[ufology]

I give you a first person account of a lenticular cloud having sharp edges, looking like a wing, moving, and changing direction, and you thank me kindly, but otherwise ignore it completely. Why?

TjW,

I haven't ignored any of the cloudy possibilities proposed by the proponents of cloudy possibilities. So asking "Why?" is irrelevant. It's like asking you when you stopped stealing candy from the kids down the block. However I am looking forward to Astro and Lance finally weighing in with their exhaustive study concluding how the object in the 1953 Mugu point UFO report probably wasn't an alien craft ... something I've been saying from the start.

 

[LashL]

About 20 off topic and bickery posts have been split to Abandon All Hope. Please, stick to the topic, remain civil, don't change other members' user names to taunt or insult, and keep your posts within the confines of the Membership Agreement.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: LashL

 

[GeeMack]

So anyway,

I need to get my post count up so that I can post some additional information.
I would love to hear any comments or questions about my lenticular cloud theory for the Kelly Johnson case.

I think the fact that Air Force also concluded (possibly after a real investigation) that this was the solution galls a lot of the UFO faithful.

The case file doesn't mention how this conclusion was reached, it just summarily states: Lenticular Cloud. They hate that!

Lance

Kelly Johnson's take can be mostly dismissed. Something 200 feet wide and 25 or more miles away would be nearly impossible to see at all much less to make out specific details. He and the observers in the plane may have seen something much larger than 200 feet. Or it could be that Johnson saw something much closer, and those in the plane were looking at something else.

Also, if the thing they saw was at an altitude of 18000 feet, from Johnson's location 25+ miles inland, it would have been at most 7.7° above the true horizon, and who knows how close to the apparent horizon. Something that low could create the illusion that makes a squashed oval sun or moon as they rise or set. (Here's Phil Plait discussing that topic.) Atmospheric conditions can make things near the horizon appear squashed or even broken into several flat oval shaped stripes. It's a very common effect.

It was 5:00pm. In LA on December 16 the sun had only set 15 minutes prior. And from Johnson's position, he would have been looking almost directly at the 244° azimuth of the sunset. His eyesight was less than perfect. Binoculars of 8X would only give him a view about 9 or 10 miles wide in a circle the size of a soup can, so that's still not going to provide a detailed view, certainly not of a 200 foot wide thing. There are many factors that reduce the credibility of anything he said about the case.

Also interesting that in 1953 Los Angeles County had a population of over 4 million people. Probably several hundred thousand were closer to the coast than Kelly Johnson, yet there don't seem to be very many, if any other witnesses to the alleged event. Maybe a whole lot of people saw it, too, but figured a cloud wasn't anything to get excited about.

A cloud could dissipate over a matter of just minutes and would appear to get smaller from every direction of view. A plane or other object exiting the area may appear to get smaller from one angle, from any other angle, particularly from wider angles, its exit would be notably linear. A cloud does seem to be a reasonable explanation given the analysis done here in this thread.

 

[GeeMack]

TjW,

I haven't ignored any of the cloudy possibilities proposed by the proponents of cloudy possibilities. So asking "Why?" is irrelevant. It's like asking you when you stopped stealing candy from the kids down the block. However I am looking forward to Astro and Lance finally weighing in with their exhaustive study concluding how the object in the 1953 Mugu point UFO report probably wasn't an alien craft ... something I've been saying from the start.

The truth, which you've neglected to mention in your comment above, is that from the start you pushed the notion it was a flying wing. Your arguments in favor of that have been built on a lot of cherry picking and a host of other logical fallacies. They have been subjectively directed toward supporting that preconceived notion, ignored conflicting material and contradictions, and conspicuously lacked skepticism, critical thinking, and objectivity.

 

[ufology]

The truth, which you've neglected to mention in your comment above, is that from the start you pushed the notion it was a flying wing. Your arguments in favor of that have been built on a lot of cherry picking and a host of other logical fallacies. They have been subjectively directed toward supporting that preconceived notion, ignored conflicting material and contradictions, and conspicuously lacked skepticism, critical thinking, and objectivity.

Not quite. I actually said that based on the witness statements, a YB-49 or some other flying wing or some other jet aircraft like a B-52 is a more probable explanation than merely a cloud, posted images and links for them, and explained how the object in the report could appear to recede from both viewers at the same time, and added that there was nothing that couldn't be explained by the technology of the day combined with some reasonable margin of error. So unless there is some other information to counter that position, then there is no reason to consider the object in the UFO report to be an alien craft ... even though I know you want me jump to the conclusion, "OMG Aliens!" just to so you can point fingers at the only ufologist here ... once again ... sorry to disappoint.