Author Topic: UFO - Rational Analysis, Explanations & Speculations  (Read 28841 times)

Offline Frogstar_Robot

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Re: UFO - Rational Analysis, Explanations & Speculations
« Reply #40 on: 03/10/2018 09:18 am »
You miss the point Sagan was making. Might I suggest you watch this -


I think the inimitable Carl Sagan said everything there is to say on "UFOs" and nothing has changed since. The whole field really says more about human psychology and the limits of our perception, than anything else. That is a pity, because there are a lot of interesting but rare real phenomena that could be missed, such as earth grazing meteors, high altitude lightning, and quite possibly other unknown effects.

It's worth noting that "a light" is the absolute minimum information for us to to detect if "something" is there at all. That light could be generated by the object or reflected, or not actually represent a solid object at all. Size, shape and distance are all unknowns. Given the lack of information, imaginations run rampant. There are credible, sober people who have misidentified objects such as Venus and the Moon as UFOs, so unfortunately the bar for quality of reporting is set very low.

There is an interesting tale of a parachutist who appeared to capture a falling meteorite on camera. This was investigated and seemed to be confirmed. That led to many headlines such as "Meteorite narrowly misses Norwegian skydiver"[1].

However, a large body of skeptics suggested that the "meteorite" was actually a pebble that was inside the parachute and released when it opened. That explanation in the end was deemed more plausible. [2]

So even when we have good video evidence, and a credible eyewitness, we have trouble identifying whether a falling object is a meteorite or just a common pebble, how can we expect to make reliable conclusions of extraterrestrial presence from fuzzy video images, no matter how many? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/10742854/Meteorite-narrowly-misses-Norwegian-skydiver.html
[2] http://norskmeteornettverk.no/wordpress/?p=1497
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Offline Star One

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Re: UFO - Rational Analysis, Explanations & Speculations
« Reply #41 on: 03/10/2018 09:24 am »
You miss the point Sagan was making. Might I suggest you watch this -


I think the inimitable Carl Sagan said everything there is to say on "UFOs" and nothing has changed since. The whole field really says more about human psychology and the limits of our perception, than anything else. That is a pity, because there are a lot of interesting but rare real phenomena that could be missed, such as earth grazing meteors, high altitude lightning, and quite possibly other unknown effects.

It's worth noting that "a light" is the absolute minimum information for us to to detect if "something" is there at all. That light could be generated by the object or reflected, or not actually represent a solid object at all. Size, shape and distance are all unknowns. Given the lack of information, imaginations run rampant. There are credible, sober people who have misidentified objects such as Venus and the Moon as UFOs, so unfortunately the bar for quality of reporting is set very low.

There is an interesting tale of a parachutist who appeared to capture a falling meteorite on camera. This was investigated and seemed to be confirmed. That led to many headlines such as "Meteorite narrowly misses Norwegian skydiver"[1].

However, a large body of skeptics suggested that the "meteorite" was actually a pebble that was inside the parachute and released when it opened. That explanation in the end was deemed more plausible. [2]

So even when we have good video evidence, and a credible eyewitness, we have trouble identifying whether a falling object is a meteorite or just a common pebble, how can we expect to make reliable conclusions of extraterrestrial presence from fuzzy video images, no matter how many? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/10742854/Meteorite-narrowly-misses-Norwegian-skydiver.html
[2] http://norskmeteornettverk.no/wordpress/?p=1497

I would add though that some sceptics are just as bad as true believers, being just as inflexible of mind and belief.

Offline Frogstar_Robot

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Re: UFO - Rational Analysis, Explanations & Speculations
« Reply #42 on: 03/10/2018 10:11 am »
I would add though that some sceptics are just as bad as true believers, being just as inflexible of mind and belief.

Unfortunately, that is the type of sentiment I often see on "Free Energy/Perpetual Motion" forums to dismiss skeptics who say that PM is impossible, due to "laws of physics". Believing in scientific laws is not being "as bad" as true believers , nor is requiring hard evidence for extraordinary claims.

So unless you are careful about how you say it, you are dangerously close to saying belief in "woo" theories has some equivalence to belief in scientific knowledge, which is quite definitely not the case. A lack of flexibility in mind and belief has never really been a problem, since humans excel at those. The scientific method is the one thing that constrains those tendencies to discover knowledge that is provably true.

I am quite inflexible when it comes to laws such as the conservation of energy, to the point where it can be seen as dogmatic. However, that does not even slightly make me "as bad" as people who believe in fairies.

I am sorry to say that there will need to be considerably better evidence for alien spacecraft visiting Earth than the suggestion that I need to be more open-minded about fuzzy blobs.
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Offline sandrot

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Re: UFO - Rational Analysis, Explanations & Speculations
« Reply #43 on: 03/10/2018 10:42 am »
... there will need to be considerably better evidence for alien spacecraft visiting Earth than the suggestion that I need to be more open-minded about fuzzy blobs.

Now that an iPhone has 1/8000 sec shutter, I openmindedly say aliens are inherently fuzzy as nothing was ever captured, on film or CCD, that was not fuzzy.
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Offline Star One

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Re: UFO - Rational Analysis, Explanations & Speculations
« Reply #44 on: 03/10/2018 10:55 am »
I would add though that some sceptics are just as bad as true believers, being just as inflexible of mind and belief.

Unfortunately, that is the type of sentiment I often see on "Free Energy/Perpetual Motion" forums to dismiss skeptics who say that PM is impossible, due to "laws of physics". Believing in scientific laws is not being "as bad" as true believers , nor is requiring hard evidence for extraordinary claims.

So unless you are careful about how you say it, you are dangerously close to saying belief in "woo" theories has some equivalence to belief in scientific knowledge, which is quite definitely not the case. A lack of flexibility in mind and belief has never really been a problem, since humans excel at those. The scientific method is the one thing that constrains those tendencies to discover knowledge that is provably true.

I am quite inflexible when it comes to laws such as the conservation of energy, to the point where it can be seen as dogmatic. However, that does not even slightly make me "as bad" as people who believe in fairies.

I am sorry to say that there will need to be considerably better evidence for alien spacecraft visiting Earth than the suggestion that I need to be more open-minded about fuzzy blobs.

I am sure many were saying the same about plate tectonics back in the day until proven wrong. After all science is not something external to humans, like some divine power, but comes from us and is therefore subject to the same issues for example of sexism and racism as any other area of human endeavour. History is after all littered with missed discoveries and insights, purely due to the race and/or gender of the scientist involved. So any mention of dogma always concerns me in connection with science.

Offline aceshigh

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Re: UFO - Rational Analysis, Explanations & Speculations
« Reply #45 on: 03/14/2018 12:20 am »
Some possible very pausible explanations:

- Chinese EM-Drive craft
- North Korean aircraft using Rossi's E-Cat as a power source
- Ancient Indian Vimanas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vimana)
- Hermes/Mercury
- Nibiru
- some unknown artifact on the dome of the Flat Earth
- the Shrike, sent back from the distant future by the Techno-Core
- Doc and Marty aboard the DeLorean


-------------------------------------------

in a more serious note, even if it's a "spaceship", why should it be aliens? Why not humans from the future? If aliens, I would say probably robot machines. That would make sense in a relativistic universe where FTL is not possible.

Seed the galaxy with wafer chips like the Starshot project. But these advanced wafer ships can break arriving at destination and land on asteroids, and then begin building copies of itself, and then the copies build bigger "ships" and they stay dormant until be awakened by the advent of some technological civization (maybe detection of nuclear detonations).


They begin researching and sending data back to the Dyson Sphere where their ancient creators live, hundreds or thousands of LY away, by using pre-positioned ships at the local star's gravitational focus. By using the gravitational focus of thousands of stars, they have in effect "galactic broadband" using very low power.

Robot ships would explain crazy maneuvers the craft can make, as well as the lack of contact (they are not here to contact us, but to send data to their "parents"... data that will take a thousand years to reach their star of origin)


--------------------

or perhaps, an insect on the lens.

Offline Lar

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Re: UFO - Rational Analysis, Explanations & Speculations
« Reply #46 on: 03/14/2018 12:50 am »

On NSF, what I'd prefer to see instead is a thread on old magazine cover art showing buxom females in various stages of undress beset by bug-eyed space alien monsters. Not that I expect to get it  :P
You want Bad Bobby Book Covers, on FB  https://www.facebook.com/groups/1592652410768840/
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I don't blame you. I only have a Facebook page to keep in touch with some far-flung relatives and friends. But on Farcebook; Every single page on space exploration and NASA in particular is brutally and relentlessly trolled by flat earthers, hoaxtards and religious nuts. Same reason I don't put my videos on YouTube. I'm not a conspiracy theorist at all - but I have become convinced that this is a well-organized campaign :'(

You should check out  https://www.facebook.com/groups/spacexgroup/ the SpaceX group. Truly superb moderation[2].  May never be quite up to NSF standards but none of that sort of nonsense lasts long at all.

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Offline RotoSequence

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Re: UFO - Rational Analysis, Explanations & Speculations
« Reply #47 on: 03/14/2018 03:04 am »
or perhaps, an insect on the lens.

If nothing else, the cold object racing above the sea doesn't fit the bill since the FLIR system has to turn hard to track it and get a lock.  ;)

Offline spacetraveler

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Re: UFO - Rational Analysis, Explanations & Speculations
« Reply #48 on: 03/14/2018 03:22 am »
I researched a lot about UFOs around 10 years ago. The whole topic gets a distorted perception by a lot of people because of all the nonsense that people have put forward, however there are a core group of cases that are compelling.

There are many dozens, possibly even hundreds of these cases where mysterious objects were encountered by pilots and they displayed rates of acceleration not possible for known human technology. These were not bugs or refraction effects. They had radar locks etc, on the objects. They were clearly metallic in nature.

NICAP was an org that collected a lot of reports like this decades ago.

As to what they are, I have no idea. Aliens is clearly not the only possibility, but it is something very unusual.
« Last Edit: 03/14/2018 03:23 am by spacetraveler »

Offline sanman

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Re: UFO - Rational Analysis, Explanations & Speculations
« Reply #49 on: 03/14/2018 03:11 pm »
Just embedding the newly released 3rd video for reference:




So I wonder if the flight personnel are observing the UFO through the same FLIR camera, or more directly through their cockpit glass? This one doesn't seem to look like an optical illusion.

If it shows as cold on the FLIR, then that seems to say that there's no conventional exhaust or powerplant putting out heat. And yet moving so fast, it has to be doing it under power of some sort. It's too bad these sensors aren't augmented to detect radioactive emissions. If there was something radioactive flying out there, then it's either Putin's new cruise missile or else something more bizarre.

In theory, should it be possible to conceal/absorb all emissions from a radioactive power source? Neutrons are notoriously slippery and impossible to stop, and even if the power source was aneutronic, there would still be stray emissions from neutron byproducts.




Offline Star One

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UFO - Rational Analysis, Explanations & Speculations
« Reply #50 on: 03/14/2018 04:48 pm »
This is the explanation I saw for the above video on an aviation forum.

“I don't, but the IRST21 was being tested at the same time, and was carried on a different station than the ATFLIR, so they might have had both running, using the ATFLIR as a control type system. It would have been tested off the East Coast, at least some of the tests would have been in an F-18F, allowing the back seat pilot to control the system, and it would have been tested against multiple types of targets including UAVs.

A system test fits everything about the video significantly better than an alien spaceship as many are suggesting. It's also a better fit than an aircraft from another nation. The pilots wouldn't necessarily be able to identify the type of UAV used, because it wouldn't be used for much beyond targeting and possibly live fire situations.”

And here’s further debunking of the video here.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ConspiracyII/comments/840ecy/buckle_up_boys_youre_about_to_get_learnt_a_little/
« Last Edit: 03/14/2018 04:50 pm by Star One »

Offline JAFO

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Re: UFO - Rational Analysis, Explanations & Speculations
« Reply #51 on: 03/14/2018 10:46 pm »
FWIW, Dave Fravor was featured in the PBS mini-series Carrier, about life on the USS Nimitz. http://www.pbs.org/weta/carrier/the_crew.htm

Based on the show and comments made on another pilot forum by pilots who knew him, he's Sierra Hotel pilot, can it would take a lot to fool him.

David Fravor
Rank: CDR

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 David Fravor has served for 22 years in the Navy and two in the Marines. He has participated in five deployments. During the deployment featured in CARRIER, he was commanding officer of Strike Fighter Squadron 41 (VFA-41), also known as “The Black Aces.” Currently, he works in California for Fidelity Technologies as a simulator instructor, teaching new pilots how to fly the F/A-18. He is a native of Ohio.
 
« Last Edit: 03/14/2018 10:50 pm by JAFO »
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Offline KelvinZero

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Re: UFO - Rational Analysis, Explanations & Speculations
« Reply #52 on: 03/25/2018 09:44 am »
Some guy discussing/debunking the footage here. (IR, lens flare, gimbal)
I don't have any real experience but sounded plausible and straightforward to me.

https://www.metabunk.org/nyt-gimbal-video-of-u-s-navy-jet-encounter-with-unknown-object.t9333/

Offline Archibald

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Re: UFO - Rational Analysis, Explanations & Speculations
« Reply #53 on: 03/25/2018 09:49 am »


swamp gas reflected the light of planet Venus... (flaaaash)
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Offline adis

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Re: UFO - Rational Analysis, Explanations & Speculations
« Reply #54 on: 04/28/2018 12:17 am »
New video that shows there are billions of intelligent civilizations in the Universe
Detailed calculation of number of intelligent civilizations in Universe and Milky Way. Based on latest discoveries and pure logic. Calculated with mathematical strictness. After seeing this film no one can deny existence of alien civilizations. In second part of the film it is explained why, in spite of enormous number of intelligent civilizations, there hasn't been any contact with them, yet.


Offline Space Dingus

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Re: UFO - Rational Analysis, Explanations & Speculations
« Reply #55 on: 04/28/2018 02:39 am »
New video that shows there are billions of intelligent civilizations in the Universe
Detailed calculation of number of intelligent civilizations in Universe and Milky Way. Based on latest discoveries and pure logic. Calculated with mathematical strictness. After seeing this film no one can deny existence of alien civilizations. In second part of the film it is explained why, in spite of enormous number of intelligent civilizations, there hasn't been any contact with them, yet.




I'm passingly familiar with the Fermi Paradox and Drake Equation but there's one or two numbers here that I'm not sure I understand.

 Number of planets in habitable zone that develop basic life during their existence. For which they give a "conservative" answer of 1 out of 20.  How do we really know that? The real number could be 1 out of a billion. Or less. Subsequently, intelligent life might be stupendously rare. We have no idea. It's entirely possible humans are the only intelligent life to have ever developed in the Milky Way.

Offline WindyCity

We need more evidence. As you point out, a sample size of 1 doesn't allow for informed speculation. All that our existence proves is that intelligent life is possible, but nothing about its prevalence. If life elsewhere in the cosmos were detected (on Mars or on the moons of our local gas giants or in the spectra of exoplanets) that would increase the probability of there being alien intelligent life.

My opinion is that intelligent species are likely to be relatively short-lived because of the hazards that they pose to their own existence. We humans have only been dumb lucky that a thermonuclear war hasn't take place during the last half century that caused vast devastation and possible extinction. (We've come close a number of times.) Now we're facing another anthropogenic existential crisis in climate change.

Humans may be too smart for their own good. It seems reasonable to think that civilizations elsewhere in the universe would face similar self-inflicted problems. A race of machines that are able to adapt quickly to environmental change would probably have a better chance of surviving over great spans of time.

Offline adis

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Re: UFO - Rational Analysis, Explanations & Speculations
« Reply #57 on: 04/28/2018 07:34 pm »
New video that shows there are billions of intelligent civilizations in the Universe
Detailed calculation of number of intelligent civilizations in Universe and Milky Way. Based on latest discoveries and pure logic. Calculated with mathematical strictness. After seeing this film no one can deny existence of alien civilizations. In second part of the film it is explained why, in spite of enormous number of intelligent civilizations, there hasn't been any contact with them, yet.




I'm passingly familiar with the Fermi Paradox and Drake Equation but there's one or two numbers here that I'm not sure I understand.

 Number of planets in habitable zone that develop basic life during their existence. For which they give a "conservative" answer of 1 out of 20.  How do we really know that? The real number could be 1 out of a billion. Or less. Subsequently, intelligent life might be stupendously rare. We have no idea. It's entirely possible humans are the only intelligent life to have ever developed in the Milky Way.
Well, obviously we have to make assumptions/estimates otherwise calculation would be impossible. If we DO know that in our solar system there are 2 planets in habitable zone and life developed on one-Earth (one out of two), and we have to make an assumption why would it be 1 out of billion Why not 1/2 Why not 1 out of 1 In that light 1 out of 20 is very conservative to me. BTW I made the film.
« Last Edit: 04/28/2018 07:37 pm by adis »

Offline hop

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Re: UFO - Rational Analysis, Explanations & Speculations
« Reply #58 on: 04/28/2018 11:10 pm »
BTW I made the film.
It would be good to state that up front when posting. Since the video is mostly text, it might also be good to just summarize the argument without making us sit through 15 minutes of music and visuals. (I admit I only skimmed it)

Quote
If we DO know that in our solar system there are 2 planets in habitable zone and life developed on one-Earth (one out of two), and we have to make an assumption why would it be 1 out of billion Why not 1/2 Why not 1 out of 1 In that light 1 out of 20 is very conservative to me.
We know for certain the solar system isn't typical. Most stars are M dwarfs, and it's unclear (and hotly debated) whether their evolution is compatible with life. Even among sun-like stars, many systems have wildly different planetary architectures which may or may not be conducive to habitability. The impacts of other factors like multiple star systems, metallicity, galactic environment and so on are unclear.

If you take an optimistic view of all those factors, 1:20 isn't unreasonable. If life actually requires something very similar to our solar system, then the fraction must be much smaller. We just don't know.

edit:
The Fermi Paradox and Drake equation have been discussed extensively on the forum. The discussions tend to go in circles, because hard numbers are in short supply.
« Last Edit: 04/28/2018 11:13 pm by hop »

Offline Mondagun

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Re: UFO - Rational Analysis, Explanations & Speculations
« Reply #59 on: 04/28/2018 11:12 pm »
New video that shows there are billions of intelligent civilizations in the Universe
Detailed calculation of number of intelligent civilizations in Universe and Milky Way. Based on latest discoveries and pure logic. Calculated with mathematical strictness. After seeing this film no one can deny existence of alien civilizations. In second part of the film it is explained why, in spite of enormous number of intelligent civilizations, there hasn't been any contact with them, yet.



I'm passingly familiar with the Fermi Paradox and Drake Equation but there's one or two numbers here that I'm not sure I understand.

 Number of planets in habitable zone that develop basic life during their existence. For which they give a "conservative" answer of 1 out of 20.  How do we really know that? The real number could be 1 out of a billion. Or less. Subsequently, intelligent life might be stupendously rare. We have no idea. It's entirely possible humans are the only intelligent life to have ever developed in the Milky Way.
Well, obviously we have to make assumptions/estimates otherwise calculation would be impossible. If we DO know that in our solar system there are 2 planets in habitable zone and life developed on one-Earth (one out of two), and we have to make an assumption why would it be 1 out of billion Why not 1/2 Why not 1 out of 1 In that light 1 out of 20 is very conservative to me. BTW I made the film.
Sure, we know for certain that one out of two habitable-zone planets in this solar system developed life. But the major problem is that this is NOT a random statistical sample because we, the observers, inhabit Earth. This is what is often called anthropic bias.

So 1 out of 20 may be very conservative, or it may be wildly optimistic. We don't really know due to this anthropic bias.
« Last Edit: 04/28/2018 11:13 pm by Mondagun »

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