Cont: UFOs: The Research, the Evidence

[GeeMack]

GeeMack,

You never fail to misrepresent my position, leave out important details, and add your own bias. But lately your flavor is a off ... it's missing a certain flair ... I just can't quite put my finger on it.

Unless you've rescinded your claim that some UFOs are alien craft and your claim to have seen an alien craft, then no, I haven't misrepresented your position at all. Unless you meant something other than...

Probable Conclusion: A flying wing type aircraft similar to the YB-49.

... when you wrote...

Probable Conclusion: A flying wing type aircraft similar to the YB-49.

... then, no, I'm not misrepresenting your position at all. But given the propensity of "ufologists" to dishonestly redefine terms at their whim in a desperate effort to semantically manufacture the existence of alien craft, it does make it hard to tell what you mean when you say anything.

 

[John Albert]

But there's a difference between asking questions for understanding and curiosity, and asking questions for argument (i.e. "if you can't answer this, I'm right" -- and that is a fallacy due to burden-of-proof).

There's a right and a wrong way to go about investigating things, therefore there's a right and a wrong way of "asking questions for understanding and curiosity." Assuming one's conclusions are correct despite a lack of evidence, and then expecting others to provide evidence to disprove one's conclusions is the wrong way.

Your assessment of the burden of proof is incorrect. The burden of proof is on the person making the claim, not the person questioning it.

Of course. It wasn't supposed to be relevant to that. It was just supposed to explain why he doesn't "get tired" as you said he does.

I never said that. You've got me confused with somebody else.

 

[GeeMack]

He believes it to be true. Sheesh.

What he believes to be true has no bearing on whether it is a falsehood. He believes he was involved in a discussion with a giant talking rabbit.

 

[mike3]

I would suggest that the reasonable course of action would be for the person who has an interest in the origin of the metal to be the one who investigates the origin of the metal, while those who are satisfied that there's no reason to do so don't.

That makes sense.

 

[mike3]

What he believes to be true has no bearing on whether it is a falsehood. He believes he was involved in a discussion with a giant talking rabbit.

I didn't say that it did. I was just talking about the "get tired" claim. Wasn't that clear?

 

[mike3]

There's a right and a wrong way to go about investigating things, therefore there's a right and a wrong way of "asking questions for understanding and curiosity." Assuming one's conclusions are correct despite a lack of evidence, and then expecting others to provide evidence to disprove one's conclusions is the wrong way.

But what if they just want to better understand the other side's position? Then why can't those just be indeed "curiosity" questions. What you seem to be referring to here is argumentative questioning. Using the technique of "Assuming one's conclusions are correct despite a lack of evidence, and then expecting others to provide evidence to disprove one's conclusions" to try and "win" in the debate.

Your assessment of the burden of proof is incorrect. The burden of proof is on the person making the claim, not the person questioning it.

I meant "if you [the critic] can't answer this, I'm [the believer] right", so my assessment was correct, not incorrect.

I never said that. You've got me confused with somebody else.

Ah. Never mind.

 

[ufology]

Unless you've rescinded your claim that some UFOs are alien craft and your claim to have seen an alien craft, then no, I haven't misrepresented your position at all. Unless you meant something other than...

... when you wrote...

... then, no, I'm not misrepresenting your position at all. But given the propensity of "ufologists" to dishonestly redefine terms at their whim in a desperate effort to semantically manufacture the existence of alien craft, it does make it hard to tell what you mean when you say anything.

GeeMack,

Now that's getting a little better ... shorter and more to the point ... but you still need to work on your punch line ... for example instead of saying, "But given the propensity of "ufologists" to dishonestly blah blah blah", You could simply borrow that lovely expression from Paul, "Lord love a duck!" In fact I think if you just put "Lord love a duck!" before or after anything you say, you could work it into a real routine. Example below in next post. Given the context there is some real humor in it ... although my humor probably escapes you sometimes too.

 

[ufology]

What he believes to be true has no bearing on whether it is a falsehood. He believes he was involved in a discussion with a giant talking rabbit.

GeeMack,

Lord love a duck! I never said it was a conversation!

 

[carlitos]

So just trolling then. Great.

 

[Stray Cat]

Stray,

I read the documentation and the report and watched the video and checked the specifications for the aircraft mentioned, and sourced out flying wing specifications from that time,

If you read the documentation, you've also had to disregard the majority of it in order to conclude 'flying wing type plane'.

and if you consider the margin of error for the details, there isn't anything I've said that doesn't make sense.

What margin of error would that be?
One that is exactly the correct size to make your conclusion correct?

So let's just take one of those possible margins of error and run with it.
Johnson says he judged the object to be somewhere over Point Mugu.
Point Mugu is approximately 16 miles from Johnson's Ranch, so the nearest it would have been to Johnson would be 16 miles. It could have been much further away than that because the various flight crew members put it in different positions from one confirming it was over Point Mugu, to one saying it was over Santa Barbra Island (a margin of error just between those two bits of information which is a full 90°).
Now we'll assume for the sake of some maths that Johnson and the crew member were both correct in that the object was over Point Mugu.
That would place the plane at least 46 miles away from the object and at the most, 59 miles away from it.
Remembering that the flight crew didn't look at the object through binoculars, how much of an object only 175' across would you think they could see at (at least) 46 miles away?
OK more margins for error; Let's presume for the sake of maths that the object was exactly half way between the Johnson Ranch and the plane.
The plane was at least 50 miles dues South of the Ranch, so the object would have been 25 miles from Johnson and 25 miles from the plane.
These are the shortest distances possible.
How much of a 175' wide object could you see from at least 25 miles away?
Also if we use the assumption that this was it's position, the plane is looking at the object from one side and Johnson from the direct opposite side. Both groups of observers would have seen it move away if it was heading West as they seemed to think because it would have been traveling at approximately a 90° angle to both parties. Johnson's reported compass heading of the view, would need to have been out by over 90° because the object would have been South South East of his position and not due West as he stated.
New lets extend that line of sight to presume that the majority of the flight crew were correct; if the object was somewhere above the channel islands (Santa Cruz etc), then it was at least 43 miles away from Johnson. How much of a 175' wide object would Johnson be able to see at a distance of 43 miles (even with his binoculars)?
The flight crew would be at least 67 miles form the object.
How much of a 175' wide object could the flight crew see at a distance of 67 miles?
There is no way what-so-ever when actually working with a numerical margin of error (as opposed to some imaginary pretend one not backed up by numbers) that the object could have been a 175' flying wing type aircraft.
If you want to dispute this, you'll have to do some maths and show your working out, instead of falling into make believe land where a magical margin of error will suddenly make people be able to have super human vision.

The way you write off the illusion of apparent hovering isn't entirely justified either.

I didn't "write it off", I did the maths.

The ground observers watched the unknown aircraft for only a short time as it seemed to hover,

Johnson watched the object for approximately the same amount of time at the flight crew who because of their different viewing angle wouldn't have had the same "Illusion".

and at that point it may have been on a heading directly toward them. Like I said before, I see that here all the time with airliners approaching from the west. They often end up flying right over my house and it takes them several minutes to get here.

It didn't fly over his house.

From the perspective of the airborne observers, hovering can also be an illusion based on relative motion.

It can also be a not illusion based upon the object actually not moving.
However, as I've explained the two different viewing positions and reported apparent directions and assumed movements, the flight crew reported it not moving... even when they said it got smaller and disappeared and bearing in mind that by this time the plane had altered it's course directly towards the object so you'd think that such infallible and experienced flight crew would be able to tell what heading they were on and if that heading was changing because of some 'relative motion' illusion... wouldn't you?

It wasn't observed for long by either set of observers before it changed heading and departed the area,

No one mentions it "changing heading", that is a construct of your imagination.

and as we all know, as things get further away, they get smaller and smaller until they disappear, so that isn't anything unusual at all.

No, but it still can't move directly away from two observing positions at possibly 90° angles to each other simultaneously... now that would be unusual.

Lastly the "flying wing" description is pretty much a dead giveaway.

No one could actually describe any detail for anything to be a "dead giveaway" and actually the wing span of the flying wings at the time is indicative of it not being a flying wing because the distances involved (taking margin for error into consideration) make it impossible to see an object so small.

They existed at the time and they say that is what they saw.

The majority also say they first considered it to be a cloud.
Clouds also existed at the time.

They might as well have said they saw another airplane ... which is what they are. The idea that these professionals would mistake a cloud for a flying wing is quite simply preposterous.

Yes, it's not like a professional would mistake say some oil well fires on the ocean surface for some flying saucers above the clouds or anything is it?

Or mistake due North over Point Mugu for Due West over Santa Barbra Island?

Or watching an object for 5 minutes for watching an object for 10 minutes?

Or thinking an object is only 7 miles away with thinking an object was 50 miles away?

However it may have been the only available choice the analysists had if the FW incident was a secret test flight or related to some higher security matter.

Or the people who studied the report at Blue Book actually did the maths and worked out that an object only 175' wide would not be seen from such a long distance and concluded that the object was much much bigger and cloudlike in appearance and behaviour.

 

[ufology]

If you read the documentation, you've also had to disregard the majority of it in order to conclude 'flying wing type plane' ....

Stray,

Ya sure ... especially the part where they say they sawa flying wing. More on the rest of your issues later ... gotta go now.

 

[Stray Cat]

In addition to my previous post. I've now worked out a scenario where it's possible for the object to move away from both the Johnson Ranch and the plane at an angle that may make it hard to discern any movement (in other words so that both observing groups would only have the impression of the object simply getting smaller and disappearing).

To do this, I've assumed that Johnson was approximately correct in that the object was in a line of sight in the direction of Point Mugu and that the single flight crew member who reported the object's position over Santa Barbra was also accurate in his observation.

So it is possible taking those two bits of information as accurate to have a position for the object that would put it at an adequate angle for it to be able to move away from both parties and possibly look like it was simply getting smaller.

By extending the line of sight from the Johnson Ranch over Point Mugu and out into the Pacific Ocean and taking the approximate position of the plane off the coast at Long Beach in the Catalina Channel and extending a line of sight directly over Santa Barbra Island. The two lines of sight converge at a point 256 miles away from the plane's position and 235 miles from the Johnson Ranch.

I wonder how much of an object 175' wide could be seen from a distance of over 200 miles?

 

[mike3]

Stray,

Ya sure ... especially the part where they say they sawa flying wing. More on the rest of your issues later ... gotta go now.

But it has been demonstrated multiple times here that it is impossible for them to have determined the shape, so that part of the claim must be wrong. Not "it could be wrong", but "it MUST be wrong". Either that or the distance is wrong. SOMETHING has to be wrong.

 

[Stray Cat]

Stray,

Ya sure ... especially the part where they say they sawa flying wing. More on the rest of your issues later ... gotta go now.

The part where they considered the possibility of it being a flying wing (no one said they "saw" one) is not the majority of the documentation.
The majority of the documentation actually points away from the flying wing conclusion.

 

[GeeMack]

I wonder how much of an object 175' wide could be seen from a distance of over 200 miles?

A whole lot less than almost none, which is what could be seen from 25 to 50 miles away. And certainly the "ufologists" will neglect this, because it's quantitative and math is simply not done in "ufology", but there's that small issue of the curvature of the Earth to consider.

 

[slyjoe]

...snip...

The flying wings were also some of the first attempts at RADAR stealth, so not being detected by them may not be so unusual.

Although a nit, this statement is factually incorrect. The stealth qualities of the first flying wings were a surprise, not an attempt.

 

[John Albert]

...snip...

The flying wings were also some of the first attempts at RADAR stealth, so not being detected by them may not be so unusual.

Although a nit, this statement is factually incorrect. The stealth qualities of the first flying wings were a surprise, not an attempt.

Not to mention that the first techniques of "RADAR stealth" were actually developed during WWII, and consisted of flying at extremely low altitude.

 

[Stray Cat]

A whole lot less than almost none, which is what could be seen from 25 to 50 miles away. And certainly the "ufologists" will neglect this, because it's quantitative and math is simply not done in "ufology", but there's that small issue of the curvature of the Earth to consider.

Well the other thing I've not factored in of course is that the object was apparently at an altitude of approximately 18,000 feet (just over 3 miles), so that would certainly increase the distances I've given for the objects position in relation to Mr Johnson.

 

[Marduk]

I couldn't agree more, and since the skeptics take particular joy in debunking these claims it seemed logical that maybe one of them here either already knew of some further information or might be interested in exposing an actual hoax rather than simply sitting back and making excuses as to why they don't need to bother. But with the exceptions of skeptics like Astro and Lance, such is typical here.

well, when it comes to evidence the scepticism only needs to be slightly better than the facts presented. When the facts are all drawn from anecdotes there's nothing to assess, we all know people make mistakes, like how when you mistook an insect for a hovering vw beetle capable of mach 10

 

[mike3]

I couldn't agree more, and since the skeptics take particular joy in debunking these claims it seemed logical that maybe one of them here either already knew of some further information or might be interested in exposing an actual hoax rather than simply sitting back and making excuses as to why they don't need to bother. But with the exceptions of skeptics like Astro and Lance, such is typical here.

But as mentioned, there was reasonable reason why: the claim just does not have enough merit as it is to bother with more investigation. There's nothing at all that suggests the object is something extraordinary, and a very plausible ordinary source is known. So why bother with more investigation?