Cont: UFOs: The Research, the Evidence

[23_Tauri]

Thank you for the information and clarificaton, tjw.

To add, the USAF Blue Book official investigation into the event concluded that a lenticular cloud was the most likely explanation. At the time, the crew of the WV-6 could have eliminated the possibility as they discussed it amongst themselves, based on their collective knowledge on how such clouds form. However, the later Blue Book investigators may have had a wider knowledge, knowing - as you do - that such a cloud could form over open ocean in the vicinity of the Channel Islands, those islands acting as the object necessary to cause the required upwind.

I've never to my knowledge seen a 'lennie' as we don't have much stable air here in the mid-latitudes. The cloud that Stray Cat saw a few weeks back was a rare occurence for England.

 

[Garrison]

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

You've offered that theory, with not one iota of supporting evidence.

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,

You posted a couple of stock photos of the YB-49, failed to read the captions to those photos that confirmed there were only 3 completed, and then cherry picked the witness statements to fit your predetermined conclusion.

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 ...

But it remains a UFO as we can't say with certainty what it was; simply that cloud is highly plausible and a flying wing isn't.

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.

It's not the conclusion, it's that you used the same shoddy methodology as always to reach it.

 

[Garrison]

Given a typical field of view for an 8X pair of binoculars of about 300 feet at 1000 yards, the little black speck is something 200 feet wide and 25 miles away...

[qimg]http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/431/lasunset195312162.jpg[/qimg]​

This is what Kelly Johnson might have seen after he got the binoculars.

Looking at that and Lancemoody's Photoshop of the lenticular cloud it seems clear such a cloud easily fits the descriptions, and since it doesn't require invoking a mysterious flying wing flight for which there is zero evidence is considerably more likely.

 

[Akhenaten]

Given a typical field of view for an 8X pair of binoculars of about 300 feet at 1000 yards, the little black speck is something 200 feet wide and 25 miles away...

This is what Kelly Johnson might have seen after he got the binoculars.

I'm surprised his report didn't mention anything about the giant red arrow floating in the sky.

 

[GeeMack]

Looking at that and Lancemoody's Photoshop of the lenticular cloud it seems clear such a cloud easily fits the descriptions, and since it doesn't require invoking a mysterious flying wing flight for which there is zero evidence is considerably more likely.

Yes. And the point of my model is the same one I've been trying to make all along. It would have been nearly impossible for Kelly Johnson to see anything at all if it was 200 feet wide and 25+ miles away. It would be unreasonable to suggest he could discern any relevant details of something that size and distance, even with 8X binoculars.

To put my image in a perspective that we can relate to more easily, hold a tennis ball at arm's length, step back from your computer monitor until the ball just covers the visible circle, then move the ball aside and see how much detail you could make out even if that little black fleck was an airplane, or a cloud, or an alien craft for that matter.

Add to that the fact that binoculars, 8X binoculars anyway, aren't generally mounted on tripods. And to the best of my knowledge, the ones involved in this incident were hand held. It is almost impossible to hold binoculars perfectly steady, which creates its own problem when looking at things especially far away and/or especially small. From some quickie experiments I just did here, even a normal amount of hand shake, a millimeter or two in any direction, would create a relative movement within that field of view that is greater than the apparent size of the UFO. Isn't that a margin of error of more than 100%?

Nothing about Kelly Johnson's account can be considered useful outside of maybe helping to triangulate the location of the UFO. And we would need more than his guess about the direction he was looking to determine that. And we don't have it. So really, Kelly Johnson's contribution, what the "ufologists" have referred to as the "ground observers", is as helpful as saying he thinks he saw something somewhere sort of over that direction maybe.

 

[Sideroxylon]

I'm surprised his report didn't mention anything about the giant red arrow floating in the sky.

Not to mention the giant cross. OMG... Jesus!

 

[GeeMack]

I'm surprised his report didn't mention anything about the giant red arrow floating in the sky.

Not to mention the giant cross. OMG... Jesus!

In "ufology" it's easy to ignore the most obvious stuff.

 

[lancemoody]

I will mention again that the flying wing description may well simply be a description of the shape of the object and not actually at attempt of identification.

I suggest that the guys were trying to fit it to known aircraft and since there were no details visible at all, they surmised that perhaps they were looking head-on at a flying wing type craft- in other words a featureless smooth blob. I don't think they were saying that the object was an actual flying wing.

Lance

 

[Kaosium]

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 although a submarine launched one in mid-1953 near Point Mugu. If we are thinking experimental 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.

True enough, that they could have been testing something unusual occurred to me simply because that's what they do there some of the time, however oftentimes what's being tested at those facilities isn't interesting at all to look at, it's part of the insides, not the outside.

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).

Now that I can read the reports with more confidence I understand better, and it didn't quite sink in at first that whatever it was, Kelly Johnson was claiming to see it clearly at 25 miles before he got his binoculars. That's a devastating falsifier for it being a plane in my view.

 

[Akhenaten]

Now that I can read the reports with more confidence I understand better, and it didn't quite sink in at first that whatever it was, Kelly Johnson was claiming to see it clearly at 25 miles before he got his binoculars. That's a devastating falsifier for it being a plane in my view.

 

[Stray Cat]

Now that I can read the reports with more confidence I understand better, and it didn't quite sink in at first that whatever it was, Kelly Johnson was claiming to see it clearly at 25 miles before he got his binoculars. That's a devastating falsifier for it being a plane in my view.

That only leaves one person around here believing it still may be then.

 

[Kaosium]

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.'

Yes, perhaps I understand now. Something that moved like that obviously couldn't have been something man-made, right? Therefore it 'must' have been 'alien' in origin? I think I see how that works.

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


Source (3rd paragraph)



This from the same article;

Source (5th paragraph)

Basically no more than that speculation?

That bit about a dozen or more people required to operate that system hammers home the fact you're talking airborne radar without (real) computers. Gawd, how primitive! That must have been no fun at all. I was surprised that a plane with those capabilities wouldn't automatically have employed them, but that tech rep being aboard suggests they might simply have been testing the 'aerodynamics' of the ugly-ass flying radio station airplane.

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.

It makes more sense when you can actually read all the words of the report with confidence. I suspect you're right, they didn't do much of an 'investigation.'

 

[lancemoody]

Yes, Paul Kimball attributes all of the "research" to Sparks.

The RB-47 story in the same film pretends that all of the work that Phil Klass did on that case doesn't exist. This is what passes as research among the UFO faithful.

After Tim Printy's excellent recent sober examination of the same case, Kimball brings up no points of fact at all but still says he thinks the case mysterious. Typical. Unable to argue the facts so they retreat to their religion.

Lance

 

[Puddle Duck]

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 ...


[qimg]http://www.aviationspectator.com/files/images/B-52-Stratofortress-148.jpg[/qimg]


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.

For Ufology, Ackhenaton, and any other interested
In the picture of the three BUFFs taking off with the black smoke, the smoke is caused by water injection in the engines. It is only used on takeoffs and lasts for about two minutes. Look at the belly on the third bird in that stick and notice the gear doors still open. Both BUFFs and Tankers used it since it gave some extra thrust for TAKEOFF. Once at altitude, there was no more water to be used. The B-52s were smokers at high power settings, but pulled back to cruise power, they were supposed to be pretty clean (that I can't verify, but the two times I screened for those guys, they looked clean). But even the high altitude-high power smoking should not have been able to be seen at 25 miles. It just wasn't that thick.

The only way to get some one knowledgeable, would be to find a buff or tanker driver around here.

Lancemoody
Thanks for the transcripts. I see no way of coming even close to anything intelligent, with the multiple reports. Stray and Astro are better men than I am, Gunga Din, for even attempting to make sense of it.
PD

 

[Kaosium]

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.

It does, doesn't it? It's pretty much compatible with everything. Thanks for the photo and especially the 'translations.'

It makes me wonder how Kelly Johnson, who was not a dingbat, could come up with a dingbat idea like this. I guess the context of the time would explain a lot, space and aliens were on people's minds, and people were starting to think seriously about actual space travel and a guy like Johnson might have an interest in it, something to talk about until the wee hours of the night over a bottle of cognac with fellow engineers.

 

[Akhenaten]

For Ufology, Ackhenaton, and any other interested.

Thanks, PD. I was actually aware of them using water injection to increase mass flow, but it might prove informative to the resident UFOlogist who seems to do his research by looking at pictures he finds on Google.

Cheers

 

[Stray Cat]

... who seems to do his research by looking at pictures he finds on Google.

That's the easiest way to work though... if you've already reached your conclusion before you start, you then know what to type into Google Image Search to prove it.

 

[John Albert]

this is what people are being critical of. Not you personally but your methods. Do you see that ufology?

↑
This​

What you seem to not understand, ufology, is that the skeptics here don't really personally care whether the particular object in question was a cloud or an aircraft, apart from what the objective facts can tell us about what is most likely the truth of the matter.

Although some of us happen to be just as geeky as anyone about our enthusiasm for odd and experimental aircraft, we're not particularly interested in establishing that a YB-49 might have been serviceable and airborne over the Pacific Ocean in the evening of December 16, 1953. Though it would certainly be cool if there were lots of exotic Northrup YB-49 bombers buzzing around the skies in the mid-1950s, we set aside those emotions when it comes to doing research because we're not doing this for the purpose of bolstering our own fantasies; we're here to determine the objective facts.

To that end, it's all about the process by which we arrive at our conclusions. That process is everything when it comes to trying to determine the objective reality of a situation. That process means reserving our conclusion while conducting our investigation.

For example, refraining from presumptuously referring to the unidentified object as "the flying wing" or "a lenticular cloud" during our analysis, until we have reliably established that conclusion by means of the objective evidence. That's precisely why the acronym "UFO" was initially created by the USAF: specifically to reference objects seen in the sky which have not been positively identified.

Investigation follows a defined procedure:

• Gathering evidence like eyewitness accounts, maps, verifiable facts, weather data, mathematics (in this case, geometry/trigonometry), relevant scientific knowledge (physics, meteorology), etc.

• Dispassionately examining and weighing the evidence according to reliability and completeness. In terms of reliability, objective evidence like maps, verifiable facts, mathematics, the laws of physics, etc. will always take precedent over less reliable subjective claims such as eyewitness accounts, especially when multiple accounts are contradictory of one another.
  
  Of paramount importance is the realization that eyewitness accounts do not represent evidence for themselves, only evidence that somebody at some point claimed something. Thus, eyewitness accounts are only useful insofar as they might provide leads for further investigation.

• Constructing a model based on the evidence that accounts for as much of the evidence as possible. In this case, the "model" was Stray Cat's maps with the sight-lines of the observers.

• Proposing hypotheses that fit the evidence.

• Testing those hypotheses against the model, and seeking out additional evidence if any unsupported assumptions have been made by any hypothesis.

• Eliminating hypotheses that don't fit the model, that contradict the evidence, or that require assumptions unsubstantiated by evidence (a.k.a. "Occam's Razor").

• Finally deciding on the most reasonable conclusion that fits as much of the evidence as possible, and eliminates or accounts for any contradictions in the evidence.

As others have pointed out, from the researcher's point of view, the procedure must be considered more important than the actual conclusion, because the adherence to proper procedure is the most certain way to reach an accurate conclusion. The more the researcher allows his preferred conclusion to influence his methodology, the more confirmation bias is introduced and the less accurate the conclusion is likely to be.

 

[Astrophotographer]

It does, doesn't it? It's pretty much compatible with everything. Thanks for the photo and especially the 'translations.'

It makes me wonder how Kelly Johnson, who was not a dingbat, could come up with a dingbat idea like this. I guess the context of the time would explain a lot, space and aliens were on people's minds, and people were starting to think seriously about actual space travel and a guy like Johnson might have an interest in it, something to talk about until the wee hours of the night over a bottle of cognac with fellow engineers.

I think Johnson and the others may have had just a passing interest in the subject. One mentioned the UFO conference at giant rock in california. Most people probably did not know that this sort of thing even existed in 1953.

Remember, this was the year after the flying saucer wave of 52, where UFOs supposedly buzzed the whitehouse. Bluebook was a major undertaking and saucers made headlines. You also have the hollywood factor here where movies like invaders from mars, the day the earth stood still, The thing from outer space (starring, of all people, James Arness as the thing!), etc. were common. So, if these gentlemen saw something peculiar that they rarely saw, they might make the link they saw a "real flying saucer".

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

You also have the hollywood factor here where movies like invaders from mars, the day the earth stood still, The thing from outer space (starring, of all people, James Arness as the thing!), etc. were common.

Invaders From Mars is an awesome film. I know it's heresy, but I have to say that while I like the other two, I think that both of their remakes are better. Yes, even the Keanu Reeves one.