Cont: UFOs: The Research, the Evidence

[Akhenaten]

Ufology can't argue with that logic, since we used the same method he has been pushing.

Mwahahahahahahaha!

 

[Stray Cat]

Rramjet had that same affliction, I suppose it's the Believers way of shoehorning aliens in through the back door by definition. It's clear that they're actually witches.

Well there aint no way no alien is shoehorning anything in through my back door...

 

[Stray Cat]

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/images/icons/icon14.gif

I'm in.​

Me too.

 

[John Albert]

Whoa... the thread split!

Does that mean that all the evidence presented in the original thread is now doubled?

Oh, wait...

 

[Astrophotographer]

Well, let's start with this one. I dislike UFO videos but it sort of shows how UFOlogists like to portray cases and how the OP would have promoted it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwgqFd5ApZM

A UFOlogist, who I respect is Joel Carpenter, and he wrote the following about the case:

http://www.nicap.org/reports/lockufoinc.htm

The actual reports can be found here:

http://www.nicap.org/docs/lockufo3.pdf

I think the video goes over the top. There are claims of "precise measurements" by visual observations and triangulation. I wonder what the margin for error there is for these observations? To be honest, I only have glanced at the case materials very briefly and I noticed that Bluebook classified it as a lenticular cloud.

 

[Marcus]

Well there aint no way no alien is shoehorning anything in through my back door...

I don't know, we do have evidence for gay aliens (there was that blimp) you'd better hope that they are polite next time you are abducted.

 

[John Albert]

 

[GeeMack]

I think the video goes over the top. There are claims of "precise measurements" by visual observations and triangulation. I wonder what the margin for error there is for these observations? To be honest, I only have glanced at the case materials very briefly and I noticed that Bluebook classified it as a lenticular cloud.

Uh, "allowed researchers to triangulate the location of the object with precision", "the [WV-2] aircraft was flying to the northwest", and "Kelly Johnson and his wife were looking due west [from Agoura, CA]". Also "for six to seven minutes these two groups of observers saw a 200 foot long black flying-wing shaped object hovering motionless".

The entire story is nonsense as presented in the video. Start with that "to the northwest". It is as quantitative as any "ufologists'" calculation of probability. And we've all seen how willing they are to do any actual math.

Looking due west from Agoura, the ocean would be over 25 miles away. Even with really good binoculars it would be virtually impossible to make a size estimate of a 200 foot wingspan thing from that distance. He would have been lucky to see a fleck in the sky, but to note its color, size, and shape? Nope.

The WV-2, when over Long Beach, would be almost 50 miles away from the Santa Barbara Channel. At a cruising speed of ~255 MPH, if flying directly toward a point over the Santa Barbara Channel and due west of Agoura, the plane would have been able to get within about 25 miles in 6 to 7 minutes.

If they were seeing anything at all, they were seeing different things. It sounds like they may have both seen something they couldn't identify, and when comparing notes they blended what they believed they saw into a single anecdote.

ETA: Just to put that size and distance in a perspective we can all relate to, consider looking up and seeing a plane flying over. A typical commercial passenger jet like a Boeing 747 would have a wingspan of 212 feet. When flying at full altitude it would be between about 32,000 and 40,000 feet, or somewhere from 6 miles to almost 8 miles in the air. At the closest distance possible looking from Agoura to the Santa Barbara Channel, a 747 flying at 15,000 feet over the channel would be 3 to 4 times further away than one of those commercial jets you see flying over. You know, the ones that are so high you might not even see them at all if it weren't for the contrail?

Nope, Kelly Johnson didn't see a 200 foot wide thing flying at 15,000 feet over the Santa Barbara Channel from Agoura, California. Not so he could tell a size, color, distance, altitude, and/or speed, he didn't.

 

[John Albert]

But GeeMack, you're forgetting that UFOlogists know what they saw. Their firsthand experience is far more accurate and reliable, because their senses are unhindered by pesky observation and measurement equipment that can only introduce distortion and errors into their own flawless perception!

 

[RoboTimbo]

But GeeMack, you're forgetting that UFOlogists know what they saw. Their firsthand experience is far more accurate and reliable, because their senses are unhindered by pesky observation and measurement equipment that can only introduce distortion and errors into their own flawless perception!

And anyone who doubts ufology's infallible perception can just ask Mr. 23 Tauri for an endorsement.

 

[Stray Cat]

And anyone who doubts ufology's infallible perception can just ask Mr. 23 Tauri for an endorsement.

Yes Mr Ooly could do some card reading.

 

[Astrophotographer]

Uh, "allowed researchers to triangulate the location of the object with precision", "the [WV-2] aircraft was flying to the northwest", and "Kelly Johnson and his wife were looking due west [from Agoura, CA]". Also "for six to seven minutes these two groups of observers saw a 200 foot long black flying-wing shaped object hovering motionless".

The entire story is nonsense as presented in the video. Start with that "to the northwest". It is as quantitative as any "ufologists'" calculation of probability. And we've all seen how willing they are to do any actual math.

Looking due west from Agoura, the ocean would be over 25 miles away. Even with really good binoculars it would be virtually impossible to make a size estimate of a 200 foot wingspan thing from that distance. He would have been lucky to see a fleck in the sky, but to note its color, size, and shape? Nope.

The WV-2, when over Long Beach, would be almost 50 miles away from the Santa Barbara Channel. At a cruising speed of ~255 MPH, if flying directly toward a point over the Santa Barbara Channel and due west of Agoura, the plane would have been able to get within about 25 miles in 6 to 7 minutes.

If they were seeing anything at all, they were seeing different things. It sounds like they may have both seen something they couldn't identify, and when comparing notes they blended what they believed they saw into a single anecdote.

ETA: Just to put that size and distance in a perspective we can all relate to, consider looking up and seeing a plane flying over. A typical commercial passenger jet like a Boeing 747 would have a wingspan of 212 feet. When flying at full altitude it would be between about 32,000 and 40,000 feet, or somewhere from 6 miles to almost 8 miles in the air. At the closest distance possible looking from Agoura to the Santa Barbara Channel, a 747 flying at 15,000 feet over the channel would be 3 to 4 times further away than one of those commercial jets you see flying over. You know, the ones that are so high you might not even see them at all if it weren't for the contrail?

Nope, Kelly Johnson didn't see a 200 foot wide thing flying at 15,000 feet over the Santa Barbara Channel from Agoura, California. Not so he could tell a size, color, distance, altitude, and/or speed, he didn't.

Excellent points. I have yet to run the numbers on this but it seems a bit of a stretch. So, what do you think he might have seen?

 

[Stray Cat]

Excellent points. I have yet to run the numbers on this but it seems a bit of a stretch. So, what do you think he might have seen?

I've only had time to skim Joel's write up, I'm hoping to be able to have a better, more indepth look at it on Monday.

I had an experience with a Lenticular cloud only a few months ago. We don't get many of them around here and it made the local news it was such a rare occurrence.

When I first saw it, I was on my motorbike and looked over my shoulder to notice it. I headed towards it at the next junction and at a safe place, pulled over to look. It looked to me as if it was above my house (over the horizon about 5 miles away), so I decided to get home and get my camera to photograph it. As I got closer to it, it got further away (Lenticular clouds don't really move) and as I got to my house, it still looked to be about 5 miles away. So went inside and grabbed my camera and set off again toward the cloud, to the top of the hills at the other side of the valley I live in to get a really good vantage point where I took this photo;

It turns out that the cloud was actually above a suburb over 20 miles away from where I took this photo.

 

[Garrison]

You have to wonder if this isn't a case where the qualifications and experience of the witness worked against an accurate account; that is a man who spent a career working on advanced and exotic aircraft was apt to project that on to a UFO, especially if he was already inclined to believe in the ETH. And given that there was a discussion between Johnson and Thoren you have to accept there may have been some unwitting 'editing' of their recollections.
Of course if Johnson had called for a camera instead of/as well binoculars, or the radar on the WV-2 had been switched on it might be different, as it is it's just a puzzling anecdote that remains a UFO.

 

[Astrophotographer]

OK, my calculations for 200 FT @ 25 miles is about 5 minutes of arc, which can be resolved by the naked eye but barely.

 

[SezMe]

I have a proposal for this thread in order to put it back on track.

That's a really good idea but I'd be concerned that the individual analyses would get lost in this thread - which some people might not visit because of its "reputaton", so to speak. How about an individual thread for each case. That way, the tags would be far more useful.

 

[GeeMack]

Excellent points. I have yet to run the numbers on this but it seems a bit of a stretch. So, what do you think he might have seen?

Obviously the USAF did more research into the matter than I have, but if they determined it was likely a lenticular cloud, that seems at least as good a possibility as any.

OK, my calculations for 200 FT @ 25 miles is about 5 minutes of arc, which can be resolved by the naked eye but barely.

The result of your simple calculation above is testimony to the slipshod garbage the "ufologists" try to pass off as research and evidence. I recall reading that the binoculars Johnson used to look at the UFO were 8 power. Given the typical field of view on 8X binoculars, at a distance of 25 miles, the scene you'd see through the eyepieces would be something like 9 or 10 miles wide. Kelly Johnson was allegedly able to make out the shape, color, and size of a 200 foot wide thing in a scene 9 miles wide reduced to a circle the diameter of a soup can. Also consider the slightest shake of the hands would cause a wiggle in the view that would turn a 200 foot thing into a blurry little smudge.

Interesting that in almost 60 years since the Kelly Johnson sighting, even being declared as one of the top ten "UFOs = alien craft" stories, no "ufology" adherent has shown the gumption to get up off his lazy butt and figure out what a 200 foot wide thing might look like 25 miles away.

 

[Tomtomkent]

The way I see it, self proclaimed "ufologists" tend towards aping the worst aspects of creationism in that they parrot a number of phrases with out wanting to go into an explanation of how they came to those conclusions:

"It acted like no normal aircraft." When this is not based on incredibly flawed guesses about how far away the light is and how fast it travelled, it is stated as a fact with out the observer being able to answer how fast conventional aircraft could travel. Or if the point of light suddenly "jumping" was the craft climbing impossibly fast, or just banking so the light is higher on the craft.

"It wasn't just weather." Again,the thing about rare metrological effects is they are rare. You may not have seen one, so may notrecognise it as beautiful, unusual, but entirely natural. There is a local weatherman on my BBC local news, infamous in the UK for, when I was bout 7 or 8, starting his report by telling people there was not going to be a hurricane. People tend to forget the rest of the broadcast where he accurately predicted the devestating gale force winds that were about to wreak havoc. He is the weather man who got it wrong in the eyes of me, and almost every other leyman, because we equate "hurricane" to any wind that removes the roof of a house, we don't know there are specifics to the shape and kind of storm that actually qualifies. There is a definate limit to the experiences us leymen can apply to recognising unusual but natural meterological effects.

 

[ufology]

I have a proposal for this thread in order to put it back on track. That is to examine the evidence that UFOs are something other than misperceptions and hoaxes. The OP is long gone and we really don't have somebody who can be the proponent that is "informed" about these various UFO cases.
It might be interesting to look at some UFO cases as a group of skeptics. We could select one that has not been hacked away at (Roswell, Rendlesham, New Zealand, etc) and then take a look at the evidence as presented by UFOlogists in various locations. I sort of did this privately with the RB-47 case that was recently put in my skeptical newsletter SUNlite. Quite a few of us were able to gather all the pertinent information and follow the leads on that one and I felt it was productive. Anyway, it beats going over the same tired ground and there are a lot of sharp people here that might solve (or at least provide potential solutions) some of these "best" cases that are out there. I could then summarize the information in my newsletter for readers, who are not in this forum (of course, I would give credit to those who propose solutions/uncover information).
If people are interested in this, I can start with a few cases that I am aware of that really have not been looked carefully at by skeptics. Once we exhaust the discussion on a case, we can then draw a conclusion and move along. Thoughts?

Sounds really constructive. Good luck. BTW, I just dropped this into the other site I post on. Can anyone provide some follow-up on how the artifact might have actually came into his possession? DId he work at or have buddies at one of these fabricating plants? Were there any such plants near where he lived at the time?

 

[Akhenaten]

Sounds really constructive. Good luck. BTW, I just dropped this into the other site I post on. Can anyone provide some follow-up on how the artifact might have actually came into his possession? DId he work at or have buddies at one of these fabricating plants? Were there any such plants near where he lived at the time?

No.