Cont: UFOs: The Research, the Evidence

[Sideroxylon]

Here's a not so perfect rendering of what I was trying to get at ( Someone please copy it because I'm, not leaving it up for long. )


[qimg]http://ufopages.com/Mugu-01a.jpg[/qimg]

So the idea is that the mystery aircraft in the red path comes in and makes a slow pass over Mugu Point, and for drama's sake takes a bunch of spy pictures. Then to make it's getaway goes into a high power turn and acceleration spewing a big black temporary cloud that draws the attention of the Kelly in Agoura about 16 miles away ( yellow circle ). By the the time he gets his binoculars on it, the cloud is pretty much dissipated and he sees only the aircraft at 8 X magnification heading away. Meanwhile as the mystery aircraft is making it's getaway turn to the south, the observers in the WV-2 see an apparently stationary black object ( exhaust/aircraft combo ) which upon further study looks more like a large aircraft coming straight toward them ( which it would be for short time ). So they turn toward it to get a better look. Now both aircraft are closing the gap allowing the WV-2 crew to get a better look, and because the WV-2 is keeping the mystery object dead ahead, it appears to not be moving relative to them until it starts to pull away almost due west at a much faster pace than the lumbering WV-2 that has now come in almost directly behind it but at some distance ... or they were all wrong about it and it really was just a cloud after all ... or swamp gas ... or a mass hallucination ... or a flock of witches ... or whatever makes you skeptics happy.

And that is wherever the evidence takes us. Mr Ufology, you are an absolute riot.

 

[John Albert]

Here's a not so perfect rendering of what I was trying to get at ( Someone please copy it because I'm, not leaving it up for long. )


[qimg]http://ufopages.com/Mugu-01a.jpg[/qimg]

So the idea is that the mystery aircraft in the red path comes in and makes a slow pass over Mugu Point, and for drama's sake takes a bunch of spy pictures. Then to make it's getaway goes into a high power turn and acceleration spewing a big black temporary cloud that draws the attention of the Kelly near Agoura about 16 miles away ( yellow circle ). By the the time he gets his binoculars on it, the cloud is pretty much dissipated and he sees only the aircraft at 8 X magnification heading away. Meanwhile as the mystery aircraft is making it's getaway turn to the south, the observers in the WV-2 see an apparently stationary black object ( exhaust/aircraft combo ) which upon further study looks more like a large aircraft coming straight toward them ( which it would be for short time ). So they turn toward it to get a better look. Now both aircraft are closing the gap allowing the WV-2 crew to get a better look, and because the WV-2 is keeping the mystery aircraft dead ahead, it appears to not be moving relative to them until it starts to pull directly away almost due west at a much faster pace than the lumbering WV-2 that has now come in almost directly behind it but at some distance ... or they were all wrong about it and it really was just a cloud after all ... or swamp gas ... or a mass hallucination ... or a flock of witches ... or whatever makes you skeptics happy.

I have a few questions:

From your diagram, it looks like Kelly Johnson would have seen the object (assuming it was a plane) moving in an apparent southerly direction just after it spewed the alleged black smoke. How do you reconcile this with his account of the sighting, wherein he claims only that it appeared to be moving away from him?

How long did it take Kelly Johnson to get his binoculars?

How fast was the object traveling, and how far did it travel within the span of time it took Kelly to retrieve his binoculars?

At what distance was it when he sighted it with the binoculars?

Also, at what speed was the WV-2 traveling, before it made visual contact?

How fast was the WV-2 traveling after the crew initially spotted the object, as the WV-2 changed heading to give chase?

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Then to make it's getaway goes into a high power turn and acceleration spewing a big black temporary cloud that draws the attention of the Kelly near Agoura about 16 miles away ( yellow circle ).

How do you account for the fact that the planes in question don't do this except for on take-off? That, in fact, the way they work means that they're incapable of doing this after take-off?

And do you not see how your hypothesis doesn't hold up to Occham's Razor? You dismiss the hypothesis that the observers misidentified a cloud because they are trained observers. However your hypothesis relies on them misidentifying a cloud and a plane. And not just misidentifying them, but misidentifying them as being one object, rather than two.

You cannot dismiss the cloud hypothesis because your hypothesis is the cloud hypothesis, only with extra bits added on. Any criticism of the cloud hypothesis you can make applies to your hypothesis, too.

 

[Sideroxylon]

Mr Ufology seems to have such a high regard for authority that he must take such accounts at face value, even when they contradict. In this case the claim is a plane but to admit the failabilty of witnesses like these would undermine a major part of the foundations of his belief in flying saucers.

 

[Krikkiter]

Mr Ufology seems to have such a high regard for authority that he must take such accounts at face value, even when they contradict. In this case the claim is a plane but to admit the failabilty of witnesses like these would undermine a major part of the foundations of his belief in flying saucers.

I'm getting that feeling too. Maybe his childhood dream was to be a jet pilot or astronaut?

 

[Akhenaten]

Here's a not so perfect rendering of what I was trying to get at ( Someone please copy it because I'm, not leaving it up for long. )

And the consequences of its disappearance forever would be _____________ ?

So the idea is that the mystery aircraft in the red path comes in and makes a slow pass over Mugu Point . . .

Unseen by anyone but Kelly Johnson. Invisible not only to the tens of thousands of civilian residents of the area but also to the personnel of the Naval Air Station (NBVC Point Mugu), the US Navy's major missile development and test facility at the time.

. . . and for drama's sake takes a bunch of spy pictures.

This is why you fail.

Then to make it's getaway goes into a high power turn and acceleration spewing a big black temporary cloud

Because this is exactly the type of maneuver that spy planes on covert reconnaissance missions perform.



And you are ignoring what you've been told twice now - that aircraft at height DO NOT spew big, black clouds of smoke.

. . . that draws the attention of the Kelly near Agoura about 16 miles away ( yellow circle ).

What you are describing is an aircraft moving at high speed from right to left across Johnson's field of view, belching black smoke.

Does it bother you at all that this is absolutely nothing like what he actually described?

By the the time he gets his binoculars on it, the cloud is pretty much dissipated and he sees only the aircraft at 8 X magnification heading away.

This smoke cloud ( imaginary ) of yours becomes curioser and curioser as your tale unfolds ( unravels ).

Not only does it lack a mechanism to appear, but having done so anyway it displays rapid-dissipation properties.

Meanwhile as the mystery aircraft is making it's getaway turn to the south, the observers in the WV-2 see an apparently stationary black object ( exhaust/aircraft combo ) . . .

Ignoring your Boys' Own Adventure Stories language, an aircraft/exhaust combination performing the turn you describe would appear to be growing, not shrinking or even remaining the same size.

. . . which upon further study looks more like a large aircraft coming straight toward them ( which it would be for short time ).

Possibly, for the instant that the object was actually approaching head-on. Not, however, for the period that the witnesses report observing it.

So they turn toward it to get a better look.

Because turning towards an aircraft which you believe to be coming straight towards you is the epitome of good airmanship.

Now both aircraft are closing the gap allowing the WV-2 crew to get a better look, and because the WV-2 is keeping the mystery aircraft dead ahead, it appears to not be moving relative to them . . .

You're ignoring your own diagram, which quite clearly shows that at this time the target object would have been moving at speed from right to left across the field of view of the observers in the WV-2. Alternatively, the diagram is wrong ( gosh! ) and the WV-2 was performing a much tighter turn than that indicated, although the crew and other observers were unaware of this turn and believed they were flying straight and level.

. . . until it starts to pull directly away almost due west at a much faster pace than the lumbering WV-2 that has now come in almost directly behind it but at some distance ...

Lumbering along at 200+ mph, full of witnesses describing an object that hovered motionless while at the same time streaking out of sight like a witch on a Nimbus 2000.

. . .or they were all wrong about it and it really was just a cloud after all ... or swamp gas ... or a mass hallucination ... or a flock of witches ... or whatever makes you skeptics happy.

How did you eliminate "OMG . . . aliens!" from your list of possibilities?

 

[Sideroxylon]

I'm getting that feeling too. Maybe his childhood dream was to be a jet pilot or astronaut?

Perhaps, but policemen, pilots and military figures being near infailable witnesses whose reports are to be taken as gospel seems to be a common theme in UFOlogy.

 

[Akhenaten]

Sure ... it could have been be a cloud ... but the "wider knowledge" of bluebook doesn't really stand up against the expereince of the firsthand witnesses in the aircraft to quote:

Unless, of course, Project Bluebook happens to be the authorité du jour to which you wish to appeal, in which case it once again becomes infallible.

<appeal to alternative authority>

Bluebook also came up with the "swamp gas" theory and was part of the military and therefore bound to keep secrets a secret. So if it was a surviving flying wing being used for recon missions, or another aircraft on a secret mission they may not even have known about it, or if they did, would not have been able to disclose it.

And if I had some bacon I'd make bacon and eggs, if I had some eggs.

 

[Akhenaten]

has anyone seen the latest news from Sweden about a possible UFO on the bottom of the baltic sea? I can't include links so you have to google it up, but it looks pretty fascinating

There's only one possible explanation.

 

[Correa Neto]

And the consequences of its disappearance forever would be _____________ ?

OMG!!!!11!! Bermuda triangle11!!1

And you are ignoring what you've been told twice now - that aircraft at height DO NOT spew big, black clouds of smoke.

Thus, it was an airsquid. They do spew black smoke as defense when chased by airwhales and the odd airsnake pack.

This smoke cloud ( imaginary ) of yours becomes curioser and curioser as your tale unfolds ( unravels ).

There's a pattern here. Same happened with the VW-firefly-alien craft, the giant talking rabbit and the MiBs.

How did you eliminate "OMG . . . aliens!" from your list of possibilities?

Because... Because... You know, each person has his/hers own reality...

 

[RoboTimbo]

... or they were all wrong about it and it really was just a cloud after all

Since they gave conflicting statements, which ones do you think were right?

... or swamp gas ... or a mass hallucination ... or a flock of witches ... or whatever makes you skeptics happy.

I'm happy to point out that you pseudoscientists have begun with your conclusion and have become increasingly desperate to prove it.

 

[23_Tauri]

Mr Ufology seems to have such a high regard for authority that he must take such accounts at face value, even when they contradict. In this case the claim is a plane but to admit the failabilty of witnesses like these would undermine a major part of the foundations of his belief in flying saucers.

And we are only now how deep runs his unwavering respect for figures in military uniform. Even when eye witness reports of those with “military training” contradict each other he maintains his unshakeable faith that they simply can’t be wrong. Mr J Randall Murphy, doesn’t the resulting cognitive dissonance make your head spin?

What’s going on here, folo? Did you fail as a young lad to get into the USAF or something? Or was your Pop in the military?

 

[Akhenaten]

OMG!!!!11!! Bermuda triangle11!!1

Thus, it was an airsquid. They do spew black smoke as defense when chased by airwhales and the odd airsnake pack.

There's a pattern here. Same happened with the VW-firefly-alien craft, the giant talking rabbit and the MiBs.

Because... Because... You know, each person has his/hers own reality...

Ufailogy in a nutshell.

 

[Stray Cat]

Here's a not so perfect rendering of what I was trying to get at ( Someone please copy it because I'm, not leaving it up for long. )


http://ufopages.com/Mugu-01a.jpg

So the idea is that the mystery aircraft in the red path comes in and makes a slow pass over Mugu Point, and for drama's sake takes a bunch of spy pictures. Then to make it's getaway goes into a high power turn and acceleration spewing a big black temporary cloud that draws the attention of the Kelly near Agoura about 16 miles away ( yellow circle ). By the the time he gets his binoculars on it, the cloud is pretty much dissipated and he sees only the aircraft at 8 X magnification heading away. Meanwhile as the mystery aircraft is making it's getaway turn to the south, the observers in the WV-2 see an apparently stationary black object ( exhaust/aircraft combo ) which upon further study looks more like a large aircraft coming straight toward them ( which it would be for short time ). So they turn toward it to get a better look. Now both aircraft are closing the gap allowing the WV-2 crew to get a better look, and because the WV-2 is keeping the mystery aircraft dead ahead, it appears to not be moving relative to them until it starts to pull directly away almost due west at a much faster pace than the lumbering WV-2 that has now come in almost directly behind it but at some distance ... or they were all wrong about it and it really was just a cloud after all ... or swamp gas ... or a mass hallucination ... or a flock of witches ... or whatever makes you skeptics happy.

Just the lack of a single measurement or calculation in this diatribe makes it useless.

ufology, would you like me to measure it all and apply some actual numbers to it for you?

I'm sure we could "work it" a bit? Though sadly I'm very sure that if we did, it would make even less sense because that would then require pining you down to some antipragmatic unvariables that you couldn't just make stuff up to explain.

 

[23_Tauri]

Just the lack of a single measurement or calculation in this diatribe makes it useless.

ufology, would you like me to measure it all and apply some actual numbers to it for you?

I'm sure we could "work it" a bit? Though sadly I'm very sure that if we did, it would make even less sense because that would then require pining you down to some antipragmatic unvariables that you couldn't just make stuff up to explain.

Seems GeeMack was right all along, ufologists don't can't do maths.

They are quite good at Boys Own adventure stories though. Weeeeeee-vaaaarrrooouuuuuummmmm!!!!!!

 

[Correa Neto]

He. Rramjet, Ufology and McAbees used math... But only within the conditions that would return the OMG! ALIENS!1! answer. All you have to do is forget about experimental errors, make broad untestable assumptions and take the numbers you need out of you know where...

 

[Akhenaten]

He. Rramjet, Ufology and McAbees used math... But only within the conditions that would return the OMG! ALIENS!1! answer. All you have to do is forget about experimental errors, make broad untestable assumptions and take the numbers you need out of you know where...

That's where the "working it" comes into the equation, so to speak.

 

[GeeMack]

Here's a not so perfect rendering of what I was trying to get at ( Someone please copy it because I'm, not leaving it up for long. )

So the idea is that the mystery aircraft in the red path comes in and makes a slow pass over Mugu Point, and for drama's sake takes a bunch of spy pictures. Then to make it's getaway goes into a high power turn and acceleration spewing a big black temporary cloud that draws the attention of the Kelly near Agoura about 16 miles away ( yellow circle ). By the the time he gets his binoculars on it, the cloud is pretty much dissipated and he sees only the aircraft at 8 X magnification heading away. Meanwhile as the mystery aircraft is making it's getaway turn to the south, the observers in the WV-2 see an apparently stationary black object ( exhaust/aircraft combo ) which upon further study looks more like a large aircraft coming straight toward them ( which it would be for short time ). So they turn toward it to get a better look. Now both aircraft are closing the gap allowing the WV-2 crew to get a better look, and because the WV-2 is keeping the mystery aircraft dead ahead, it appears to not be moving relative to them until it starts to pull directly away almost due west at a much faster pace than the lumbering WV-2 that has now come in almost directly behind it but at some distance ...

You must want it to be a flying wing very, very badly. In defending your preconceived notion you've created a work of fiction that leaves out much material from the actual reports, and adds in a bunch of stuff that was never mentioned. It not only makes a very poor fit with the information we do have, it contradicts some of it, and leaves us with a lot more questions than it answers.

Constructive contribution: When you start with a wild guess to explain an unknown event, and you're so desperate for it to be true that you have to make up stories to make it work, your argument is bound to fail.

... or they were all wrong about it and it really was just a cloud after all ... or swamp gas ... or a mass hallucination ... or a flock of witches ... or whatever makes you skeptics happy.

I may be mis-reading that, but it sounds a lot like a petulant child complaining, "I want to be right sometimes, too. Why won't you mean skeptics let me be right? I want a turn."

Hey, it's not about proving you wrong. It's about finding the best explanation given what we do know, and filling in the empty spaces with the least possible amount of stuff we don't know. That's just how critical thinking and skepticism works. It's a process very clearly described by John Albert in this post.

Your process, the process of "ufology", works in a way almost diametrically opposed to skepticism. You start with an explanation that you desperately want to be correct. Then you select some pieces of what we do know and force fit them to your pre-ordained conclusion. And if there are empty spaces in the explanation, you make up any old thing to fill them in, without any concern for keeping the assumptions at a minimum and with no regard for how outrageous it is.

Skepticism, critical thinking, and the scientific method works. I would challenge you to find reasonable, real life examples of how the process of "ufology" has actually proved to be a successful method for explaining reality.

I'm sure we could "work it" a bit? Though sadly I'm very sure that if we did, it would make even less sense because that would then require pining you down to some antipragmatic unvariables that you couldn't just make stuff up to explain.

There is much evidence to suggest that he could, indeed, make stuff up to explain just about anything you can come up with. In "ufology", making sense seems to be far less important than keeping the faith.

 

[Astrophotographer]

Here's a not so perfect rendering of what I was trying to get at ( Someone please copy it because I'm, not leaving it up for long. )


[qimg]http://ufopages.com/Mugu-01a.jpg[/qimg]

So the idea is that the mystery aircraft in the red path comes in and makes a slow pass over Mugu Point, and for drama's sake takes a bunch of spy pictures. Then to make it's getaway goes into a high power turn and acceleration spewing a big black temporary cloud that draws the attention of the Kelly near Agoura about 16 miles away ( yellow circle ). By the the time he gets his binoculars on it, the cloud is pretty much dissipated and he sees only the aircraft at 8 X magnification heading away. Meanwhile as the mystery aircraft is making it's getaway turn to the south, the observers in the WV-2 see an apparently stationary black object ( exhaust/aircraft combo ) which upon further study looks more like a large aircraft coming straight toward them ( which it would be for short time ). So they turn toward it to get a better look. Now both aircraft are closing the gap allowing the WV-2 crew to get a better look, and because the WV-2 is keeping the mystery aircraft dead ahead, it appears to not be moving relative to them until it starts to pull directly away almost due west at a much faster pace than the lumbering WV-2 that has now come in almost directly behind it but at some distance ... or they were all wrong about it and it really was just a cloud after all ... or swamp gas ... or a mass hallucination ... or a flock of witches ... or whatever makes you skeptics happy.

Your yellow flight path ignores what the test pilot stated. He stated they went southeast towards Santa Ana and Long Beach. When they got in the vicinity of that area, they went west. Only one person put the plane out over Santa Monica. Most of the others agreed they were west of Long Beach.

However, let's consider another possiblity. Maybe a large jet (not just a flying wing) did take off from the airstrip at Point Mugu with JATO assist (or some equivalent from 1953) and head due west. That might explain some of this. However, one might expect them to see the smoke leading up to the aircraft heading due west. I am not sure why we need to involve an aircraft like the YB-49. I think that one is a non-starter since there is no record of them in flight in 1953 and you should simply drop it.

 

[TjW]

Here's a not so perfect rendering of what I was trying to get at ( Someone please copy it because I'm, not leaving it up for long. )


[qimg]http://ufopages.com/Mugu-01a.jpg[/qimg]

So the idea is that the mystery aircraft in the red path comes in and makes a slow pass over Mugu Point, and for drama's sake takes a bunch of spy pictures. Then to make it's getaway goes into a high power turn and acceleration spewing a big black temporary cloud that draws the attention of the Kelly near Agoura about 16 miles away ( yellow circle ). By the the time he gets his binoculars on it, the cloud is pretty much dissipated and he sees only the aircraft at 8 X magnification heading away. Meanwhile as the mystery aircraft is making it's getaway turn to the south, the observers in the WV-2 see an apparently stationary black object ( exhaust/aircraft combo ) which upon further study looks more like a large aircraft coming straight toward them ( which it would be for short time ). So they turn toward it to get a better look. Now both aircraft are closing the gap allowing the WV-2 crew to get a better look, and because the WV-2 is keeping the mystery aircraft dead ahead, it appears to not be moving relative to them until it starts to pull directly away almost due west at a much faster pace than the lumbering WV-2 that has now come in almost directly behind it but at some distance ... or they were all wrong about it and it really was just a cloud after all ... or swamp gas ... or a mass hallucination ... or a flock of witches ... or whatever makes you skeptics happy.

So Mr Johnson is right on the smoke, but even though he has had it under continuous naked-eye observation (Mrs Johnson went to get the binoculars) and believes it to be stationary, he's wrong about the stationary part. Its motionlessness is what attracted his attention to it in the first place, but he's actually wrong about that, while his preliminary explanation of the phenomena as being smoke from an aircraft is correct, even though he rejects it himself upon getting a better view.
You should be aware that you don't have to have particularly acute vision to notice the relative motion of an object. With less-than-perfect vision, you might not be able to see fine detail on the object, but you'd still be able to see the angle between it and you changing. You'd still be able to determine gross changes in density.
I don't think your hypothesis shows much respect for Mr Johnson's observational skill.