The Phoenix Lights... We Are Not Alone

LTC8K6 said:
Everyone has this propensity. It's well known. It's very difficult to judge sizes and distances in those situations.
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Yes, but surely the law of averages says that someone is going to get it right once? Your willingness to dismiss all eye-witness evidence so readily seems to indicate your mind is already made up!
 
How do you know how I handle eyewitness evidence?

One reason I am aware of the difficulty of judging things against the sky is my love of airplanes and my battles with chemtrail believers.
 
Ragnarok said:
Unless you are aware of evidence that the man in that clip had a propensity for mistaking objects in the skies for UAP's, how about : you are making a guess; and not even an educated one?
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Well statistics indicate that people mistake ordinary objects for extraordinary ones. See project Bluebook and Hendry's UFO handbook. In both cases, a majority of the reports were later identified after investigation. The number hovers around 90%. Until you can demonstrate that he did not misidentify something with better evidence than his claim, the odds are he did make a mistake.
 
Astrophotographer said:
Well statistics indicate that people mistake ordinary objects for extraordinary ones. See project Bluebook and Hendry's UFO handbook. In both cases, a majority of the reports were later identified after investigation. The number hovers around 90%. Until you can demonstrate that he did not misidentify something with better evidence than his claim, the odds are he did make a mistake.
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But you accept there is a 1 in 10 chance that a report correctly identified there was something beyond the mundane going on?
 
Of course, there's nothing to do with this being reported and The Day the Earth Stood Still about to crash & burn.
 
Ragnarok said:
But you accept there is a 1 in 10 chance that a report correctly identified there was something beyond the mundane going on?
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There is always the possibility. I think it is much smaller than 1 in 10 if you look at the stats. There is a 1 in 10 that it can never be solved simply because there may not be enough information. However, not being solved does not mean it is "beyond mundane". Since the dawn of the modern UFO era (a term I heard a UFO proponent say once) in 1947, there has NEVER (at least to the best of my knowledge) been a case that was unidentified that was proven to be "beyond mundane". Most recently in 1997, the best UFO cases were presented to scientists and they concluded:

It was clear that at least a few reported incidents might have involved rare but significant phenomena such as electrical activity high above thunderstorms (e.g., sprites) or rare cases of radar ducting. On the other hand, the review panel was not convinced that any of the evidence involved currently unknown physical processes or pointed to the involvement of an extraterrestrial intelligence (Sturrock The UFO engima p.121)

Therefore, they did not find anything "beyond mundane" (when you say that I assume you are talking about phenomena that is unknown to science) in the UFO evidence they were presented. So, if UFO reports represent anything "beyond mundane or beyond the knowledge of science", it seems that it is only in an extremely small percentage of the UFO reports that are listed as unidentified. Otherwise, I think it would have been identified by now.
 
LarianLeQuella said:
I see this sort of crapola all the time, and it just makes me sick to my stomach to watch people buy into this. Not to sound superior or anything, but why are people so stupid? Do the suffer from some sort of mental illness?
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I think you, like a lot of people, put too much stock in just how much people "buy into" this sorta stuff. UFOs are fun to talk about. I would say that most of these "people" don't take it all that seriously. Most don't think of it beyond its entertainment value.

My evidence? How do you think people would *really* react if they believed them to be genuine? Suppose the government said, "Aliens from another planet with technology far superior to ours have been confirmed to be spying on major metropolitan areas. Our military is unable to track them or even keep pace with their spacecraft. We are unable to communicate with them. They have been abducting citizens and abusing them physically. We are powerless to do anything about it."

People would go into an absolute panic. But they don't because at some level they really don't believe in UFOs. They simply find the idea of them immensely entertaining. Refusing to accept the evidence is in many cases just an attempt to avoid killing the buzz.
 
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About thirty years ago, while driving in north Central Colorado (somewhere near Walden: I don't remember the exact location) a little after sunset, I saw in the sky what appeared to be a large metallic object with a profile that sugested a "flying saucer" edge on. After a minute or two, after the reflection or refraction of sunlight diminished, it became apparent that I was seeing a very short contrail, tapered on either end. But for a short time, it looked like something entirely different from what it actually was.

Before that experience, while not exactly a believer, I thought that there might be something to the whole UFO thing. Maybe extraerrestrial intelligence; maybe some unknown natural phenomenon. However, that experience demonstrated to me just how easy it is to misinterpret what you are seeing.

It seems that believers, whether in UFO's ghosts, bigfoot, or whatever, tend to attach too much credibility to eye-witness accounts. The people who report such things, for the most part, are neither liars nor crazy, but they are very likely misinterpreting what they see.
 
UncaYimmy said:
Refusing to accept the evidence is in many cases just an attempt to avoid killing the buzz.
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I don't think it is a case of "refusing to accept the evidence". It is a matter of looking at the evidence and not find it as compelling as UFO proponents state it is. I have looked at a lot of the evidence. It seems when UFO proponents state this case or that one is something extraordinary, I often see something that is not that extraordinary with a potential explanation.
 
Astrophotographer said:
I don't think it is a case of "refusing to accept the evidence". It is a matter of looking at the evidence and not find it as compelling as UFO proponents state it is. I have looked at a lot of the evidence. It seems when UFO proponents state this case or that one is something extraordinary, I often see something that is not that extraordinary with a potential explanation.
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I am talking about UFO believers refusing to accept the evidence of likely explanations. That kills the buzz of believing in UFOs.
 
What I'm looking for.

Maybe I'm just impatient. I'm looking for opinions on the Governors testimony AFTER he left office, and if the figure 10,000 witnesses with almost exact testimonies stands. The Governor seems to be sincere and subjective, and if the Governor of a state isn't the authority there who is? I skimmed thru Astrophotographer's website and put alot of weight in his opinion, seeing the substantial amount of research he's done. If this has been covered point me in the right direction. I want to be skeptical, but was the entire population of Phoenix who were looking up that night,including the Governor deluded?:boggled:
 
chuck4842 said:
Maybe I'm just impatient. I'm looking for opinions on the Governors testimony AFTER he left office, and if the figure 10,000 witnesses with almost exact testimonies stands. The Governor seems to be sincere and subjective, and if the Governor of a state isn't the authority there who is? I skimmed thru Astrophotographer's website and put alot of weight in his opinion, seeing the substantial amount of research he's done. If this has been covered point me in the right direction. I want to be skeptical, but was the entire population of Phoenix who were looking up that night,including the Governor deluded?:boggled:
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No they were mistaken.
 
There are a lot (I don't have the numbers) of people that think that the ghosts in the ballroom scene in Disneyland's Haunted Mansion attraction are holograms. They are not, they are a Pepper's Ghost effect.

People will come up with an explanation that makes sense to them and then stop digging for the facts once they think they know the answer, even if it's wrong.
 
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