UFO'S: A possible explanation

[Gord_in_Toronto]

It goes directly to his competency and his conclusions and calls into question anything he has debunked before. If he is so sloppy on this on, what else in the past has he mislead people on?

This isn’t about whether levitation is or isn’t possible, it’s not about whether UFOs exist or not. It’ about subjective skepticism, which is cloaked in guise of critical thinking and scientific inquiry.

And it's not about argument from authority or subjective skepticism or about whose PhD is bigger than someone else's. It's about rationality, reality and the truth.

Show us a "UFO Incident" that is unambiguously something that is not explicable by science as we know it and the nasty, debunking skeptics will be forever destroyed and Woo shall rule the land.

 

[Astrophotographer]

I also pointed out how he embraces the anecdotal claims of two amateur astronomers about ‘allegedly’ seeing aircraft and then he starts pumping up the veracity of the claims by saying: “they spend an ‘inordinate’ amount of time looking at the skies and don’t get fooled by Venus, etc.” However, he will not accept anecdotal reports from amateur, commercial and military pilots who, between them, are in the air 24/7 with a horizontal 180 degree view or more if they turn their heads, and at the approximated heights of many sightings.

You obviously haven't a clue about the case he is describing do you? Tell me what do you really know about the case? What you heard? What you might believe? Feel free to elaborate. You claim you refuted this but you have done no such thing. Plait got a lot of his information from me and Tony Ortega. We both examined this case very closely and, unless you have too, then you have no claim to have refuted anything. Feel free to continue your diatribe but the case is most likely a formation of aircraft at high alitude. This has been verified by several other reports and not just the reports of the amateur astronomer in question. Additionally, much of the eyewitness testimony also supports the observation. Only the exotic stories were published in the media. The other reports support the claim of aircraft in formation. Finally, the only video tape of the event in question supports aircraft in formation. This is why the case has a good explanation. You have demonstrated a knee-jerk believer response and did not bother to look into the case.

The more exotic the claim the more likely there is an error. You have already admitted pilots can make errors and now you seem to be backtracking saying they can't. Which is it? Can pilots make observational errors or not?

He stated that you never hear reports of sightings by astronomers and I just showed you recently about Hynek’s survey of his fellow astronomers who came in with about an 11% reports of sightings by polling 44 astronomers of which 11% reported sightings which is more that the general public reports.

He did not state this or he later corrected this statement. His claim is that amateur astronomers should be reporting a lot of these sightings but are not. Why is this? Why, after over 35 years of amateur astronomy, haven't I seen one of these objects? Am I just not observant? Do I have to want to see the UFOs? Am I just unlucky? I bet a majority of amateur astronomers probably feel the same way. Some have seen odd things but nobody, to the best of my knowledge, talk about huge triangular craft hovering over their observing sites.

As for your poll of astronomers, every one of those sightings had to do with unknown lights and nothing concrete. Tombaugh's sighting is something he later determined to probably be an atmospheric phenomena because of the faintness of the lights. These observations were "unidentifieds" and not "alien spaceships" or "unknown aerial vehicles operating under intelligent control".

I know you won’t accept this and will try to argue the point but this is what many see in you, just as you see the same thing in others only with the polarity reversed.

"many"???? I think you overestimate your position. Do you have data to support the claim or is it just your belief?

 

[Astrophotographer]

There you go again, no mention of his Ph.D in Astrophysics, no direct mention of Project Bluebook or Project Grudge or his studies of The Fluctuations of Starlight and Skylight. And remember, in the beginning he was a skeptic and laughed away the sightings a nothing more exotic than Venus, clouds, etc.
Down play, diminish and minimize

Lots of people get Ph.D's but it does not make them right. It depends on what you do after you get your doctorate. I have had the opportunity to interact with several over the years. Some were very bright and some were not. Hynek's accomplishments were minimal. That was my point. If you want to inflate his accomplishments go right ahead. BTW, Hynek was a consultant and nothing more with Bluebook/Grudge. They paid him to look at sightings from an astronomer's point of view. Did you read Quintanilla's description of his actions while with Bluebook? If you did, you would have seen a man trying desperately to put himself into a spotlight. It was Hynek, who wanted to call a press conference to explain the Michigan UFO sightings as "swamp gas".

I love it, a CSIOPtic saying there are an infinite number of possibilities. Now if a true believer said it still could be a UFO because there are infinite possibilities, you would be saying something like this: “Exactly How much evidence is there that aliens are visiting the earth, none, is there? Exactly how much evidence is there for witches, unicorns and fairies, none, is there?”

Yes, aliens are a possibility but the other possibilities are far more likely. If you give me a choice between a flying triangle as big as an aircraft carrier and a few aircraft flying in formation, I am more than likely side with the aircraft formation if the observations indicate this is possible.

If you say there are an infinite number of possibilities, then UFOs, as in aliens, have to be one of them along with the above mentioned.

At the bottom of the list of possibilities.

Let me clarify a bit for you even though most everybody else understood what I said about the cookie cutter. The “anything I might have missed” category was for you guys to add any of your plausibles that I might have inadvertently left out. This skeptics’ list of plausibles that I linked doesn’t include infinity, now does it?

However, your initial claim was that it was something like only 10-15 cookie cutter explanations. Using "anything I might have missed" is a cop out and demonstrates your claim is false.

 

[Astrophotographer]

It goes directly to his competency and his conclusions and calls into question anything he has debunked before. If he is so sloppy on this on, what else in the past has he mislead people on?

This isn’t about whether levitation is or isn’t possible, it’s not about whether UFOs exist or not. It’ about subjective skepticism, which is cloaked in guise of critical thinking and scientific inquiry.

If you want to go that way, let's take a look at UFO investigations by various UFOlogists. Dr. Bruce Maccabee was taken in by several hoaxes over the years. The most notorius was the Gulf Breeze UFOs. I know some still claim they are not hoaxes but there is a significant number of UFOlogists who are of the opinion the evidence indicates a hoax. Kevin Randle (PHD), Don Schmitt, and Stanton Friedman (Masters degree in Nuclear physics) have been fooled by various Roswell witnesses who lied to them but they believed them. Does that mean we do not trust any of them because of their folly?

I can also list a lot of lower tier MUFON investigators who have erred grossly over the years. They overlooked possibilities and were left admitting they were wrong or trying to bluff their way saying there was no way that could explain the case even though there was plenty of evidence to support it!

 

[Vortigern99]

there is a very natural reason why clouds are associated with mountain tops

http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guides/mtr/cld/cldtyp/oth/org.rxml

can you see why understanding the nature of Gods and their believed location is important now ?

why are Gods associated with light ?
the earliest Gods are always sun gods
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Zeus
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=deity
even the word "deity" is derived from
"to gleam, to shine;"

I've been very intrigued by the turn this discussion has taken, and have been following it in earnest, in part because I've developed a fictional religion for a fantasy series I'm authoring, and am interested in the question of the origins of worship. (This is a sidebar, but it can be resolved in a single post after this one, so Mods and members, please bear with me.)

Marduk, earlier (upthread) you noted that the origin of formal religion was in hunting cults, which stayed overnight in mountain caves and drew pictures of animals in anticipation of a good hunt. Then the mountain itself became sacred, home of the gods themselves. I've been reflecting on this in comparison to my understanding of early Homo, and it makes sense to my mind.

Yet now, above, you assert that "the earliest gods were always sun gods". Well, in short... which is it? Animal divinities or deities of success and luck -- reverence of whom will ensure a productive hunt -- can hardly be classified as deities of light, or gods of the sun.

Could you clarify this point a bit, or offer a link which does so? I've been studying religion, magic and ritual since the late 80s and am intrigued by the subject, but I cannot find in my own base of learning a satisfactory resolution to this seeming contradiction.

Thanks ahead of time.

 

[makaya325]

And it's not about argument from authority or subjective skepticism or about whose PhD is bigger than someone else's. It's about rationality, reality and the truth.

Show us a "UFO Incident" that is unambiguously something that is not explicable by science as we know it and the nasty, debunking skeptics will be forever destroyed and Woo shall rule the land.

Im not claiming anything here, but doesnt weird material show up at certain ufo landing spots? Like any change in soil?

 

[MikeSun5]

One thing I want to know: Whatever happened to the big fanfare surrounding France and the UK releasing all their secret UFO files? How come we haven't heard about that in a while?
I remember the alien believers were all excited when that was announced like, "Well, son of a biscuit, Jethro! They's gonna spill the beans to the news men. We's ain't gonna be called crazy no more!"

I wonder if there wasn't any fanfare because the reports kept quiet by the government to subdue panic were as baseless and silly as the others? Hmmmm.....

 

[TjW]

Im not claiming anything here, but doesnt weird material show up at certain ufo landing spots? Like any change in soil?

I've certainly heard claims like this. But let's say there's a UFO sighting, and someone finds a spot a few meters in diameter where there is a noticeably higher incidence of a heavy metal.

Is that a spot where a UFO landed, or hovered?

Or is it a placer deposit that's been there for a long time?

 

[Marduk]

One thing I want to know: Whatever happened to the big fanfare surrounding France and the UK releasing all their secret UFO files? How come we haven't heard about that in a while?
I remember the alien believers were all excited when that was announced like, "Well, son of a biscuit, Jethro! They's gonna spill the beans to the news men. We's ain't gonna be called crazy no more!"

I wonder if there wasn't any fanfare because the reports kept quiet by the government to subdue panic were as baseless and silly as the others? Hmmmm.....

I spoke to Nick Pope a couple of years before they released those files, at that point he told me that he'd never read anything that couldn't be explained by a more conventional explanation. The reports will reflect that(he was in charge of them)

I note that since hes been out of hi government job hes started releasing books claiming that aliens did it

 

[Marduk]

I've been very intrigued by the turn this discussion has taken, and have been following it in earnest, in part because I've developed a fictional religion for a fantasy series I'm authoring, and am interested in the question of the origins of worship. (This is a sidebar, but it can be resolved in a single post after this one, so Mods and members, please bear with me.)

Marduk, earlier (upthread) you noted that the origin of formal religion was in hunting cults, which stayed overnight in mountain caves and drew pictures of animals in anticipation of a good hunt. Then the mountain itself became sacred, home of the gods themselves. I've been reflecting on this in comparison to my understanding of early Homo, and it makes sense to my mind.

Yet now, above, you assert that "the earliest gods were always sun gods". Well, in short... which is it? Animal divinities or deities of success and luck -- reverence of whom will ensure a productive hunt -- can hardly be classified as deities of light, or gods of the sun.

Could you clarify this point a bit, or offer a link which does so? I've been studying religion, magic and ritual since the late 80s and am intrigued by the subject, but I cannot find in my own base of learning a satisfactory resolution to this seeming contradiction.

Thanks ahead of time.

yes sorry, what I meant to say was that the earliest gods "on record" are all sun gods, that is to say that the earliest gods from the earliest known civilisations were sun gods, I expect the earliest gods who were worshipped were all animalistic during shamanistic worship before we became civilised. This is reflected in the sun gods later being shown wearing horns
hope that clears that up
sorry for the confusion
there are three possibilities for this change
the most obvious that the sun was chosen for the head of the new pantheons because of its position relative to the earth. i.e. because its above everything else and brighter than any fire.

this is also something that I've been thinking about
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SLC24A5
I don't see why they would ditch their previous form of worship just because some chieftain started proclaiming himself a relative of the sun unless there was some physical evidence that this was the case, lighter skin would do that.
but this is highly speculatory

alternatively the switch may have occured before the holocene during the end of the ice age when the sun became steadily more and more important as the link between agriculture and sunshine became realised

 

[King of the Americas]

The whole thread since I made my first post has been about debunking not just him, but subjective skeptics in general. He is just the tip of the iceberg. Joe Nickell is another example of this type of debunkery that is very misleading and facile.

I also pointed out how he embraces the anecdotal claims of two amateur astronomers about ‘allegedly’ seeing aircraft and then he starts pumping up the veracity of the claims by saying: “they spend an ‘inordinate’ amount of time looking at the skies and don’t get fooled by Venus, etc.” However, he will not accept anecdotal reports from amateur, commercial and military pilots who, between them, are in the air 24/7 with a horizontal 180 degree view or more if they turn their heads, and at the approximated heights of many sightings.

He stated that you never hear reports of sightings by astronomers and I just showed you recently about Hynek’s survey of his fellow astronomers who came in with about an 11% reports of sightings by polling 44 astronomers of which 11% reported sightings which is more that the general public reports.



The James Randi/CSIOPS style of skepticism that Phil practices already has its mind made up that any kind of woo is ******** and will always go into a situation, not an objective skeptic, i.e.,

Skeptic: one who is yet undecided as to what is true; one who is looking or inquiring for what is true; an inquirer after facts or reasons. the method of suspended judgment, systematic doubt, or criticism that is characteristic of skeptics.

But as what is now being called pseudo-skeptics:

Truzzi attributed the following characteristics to pseudoskeptics:[1]

* The tendency to deny, rather than doubt
* Double standards in the application of criticism
* The making of judgments without full inquiry
* Tendency to discredit, rather than investigate
* Use of ridicule or ad hominem attacks in lieu of arguments
* Pejorative labeling of proponents as 'promoters', 'pseudoscientists' or practitioners of 'pathological science.'

I know you won’t accept this and will try to argue the point but this is what many see in you, just as you see the same thing in others only with the polarity reversed.

Marduk,

I think this guy is talking about you. You seem to me less "skeptic", and MORE "pseudoskeptic"... I'd like to apologize for the name calling.

 

[Marduk]

Marduk,

I think this guy is talking about you. You seem to me less "skeptic", and MORE "pseudoskeptic"... I'd like to apologize for the name calling.

thats ok, even if he is talking about me, hes entitled to his opinion, I had you down as a die hard ufo nut anyway

 

[King of the Americas]

thats ok, even if he is talking about me, hes entitled to his opinion, I had you down as a die hard ufo nut anyway

Given that I have seen one, or rather a set of them, that I have yet to find a credible scientific explanation for...you could call me a witness.

I wouldn't say "believer", because belief is based not on fact, but rather faith.

Seeing isn't believing, it's "knowing".

Planes and comets don't make right angle turns, while maintaining a consistant speed.

What 'I' saw was something, that I have as of yet been unable to identify.

A "die hard ufo nut"...? Nah, just a witness who desires to be heard, not unlike those before me.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Im not claiming anything here, but doesnt weird material show up at certain ufo landing spots? Like any change in soil?

I think the answer to that is "No", but I am willing to be proved wrong. Got a cite?

 

[Marduk]

I think its usual that the claim is "the ground was burnt"

Claims of physical trace of landing UFOs, including ground impressions, burned and/or desiccated soil, burned and broken foliage, magnetic anomalies[specify], increased radiation levels, and metallic traces. See, e. g. Height 611 UFO Incident or the 1964 Lonnie Zamora's Socorro, New Mexico encounter of the USAF Project Blue Book cases). A well-known example from December 1980 was the USAF Rendlesham Forest Incident in England. Another less than two weeks later, in January 1981, occurred in Trans-en-Provence and was investigated by GEPAN, then France's official government UFO-investigation agency. Project Blue Book head Edward J. Ruppelt described a classic 1952 CE2 case involving a patch of charred grass roots.[76]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO#Physical_evidence

thus the reoccuring thought on my mind in a situation where I would fake a ufo landing would be make sure you burn a circular patch of ground first to make it more convincing

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

I think its usual that the claim is "the ground was burnt"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO#Physical_evidence

thus the reoccuring thought on my mind in a situation where I would fake a ufo landing would be make sure you burn a circular patch of ground first to make it more convincing

Zamora's Socorro incident has been shown to be a hot air balloon.

The Rendlesham incident is 1 part lighthouse and 9 parts hysteria.

 

[Marduk]

I'm not debating that either way (although I always thought the rendlesham incident had more in common with disney than alpha centauri) but the fact remains that burned ground is part of the enigma. otherwise I wouldn't have thought about posting it or thought about it being one of the neccesary steps to prove to the gullible that aliens were present in a hoaxed landing. Obviously a burnt patch of ground just proves that the ground was heated, it says nothing of the source

 

[I Ratant]

I've certainly heard claims like this. But let's say there's a UFO sighting, and someone finds a spot a few meters in diameter where there is a noticeably higher incidence of a heavy metal.

Is that a spot where a UFO landed, or hovered?

Or is it a placer deposit that's been there for a long time?

.
Out here in the desert it's likely a pen where a shepherd kept his sheep overnight while grazing his herd across the Antelope Valley.
There will be lots of organic material there.

 

[makaya325]

Zamora's Socorro incident has been shown to be a hot air balloon.

The Rendlesham incident is 1 part lighthouse and 9 parts hysteria.

Hold it right there...The Rendlesham ufo was seen within FEET of the military officers, and there were changes in the soil.

 

[makaya325]

.
Out here in the desert it's likely a pen where a shepherd kept his sheep overnight while grazing his herd across the Antelope Valley.
There will be lots of organic material there.

What? No, i mean the weird traces found near ufo landing sites.