Cont: UFOs: The Research, the Evidence

[23_Tauri]

Hmmm....

Still not easy, although I am begining to think not lentics. looking at the charts for the 16th and 17th winds in the region are light and vary between east and west over the two days. There is quite a lot of fog in the region, especially on the 16th and to the north of the area on the 17th, this would limit visibility at the times the charts were made.Overall Visibility is given at between 6 and 10 milesover the two days. Given that Santa Cruz is about 20 miles offshore it is highly unlikely that he would have seen a lenticular formed from the island ( Santa Cruz has a max height of only 2430') especially as he was observing from a further 15/20 miles inland. Sea temps (going on todays readings which are probably lower than December's) would indicate that the sea temp was probably equal too or warmer than the land, in the synoptic setup my best guess would be for an offshore breeze , if any, which would make any lentic formation to the west of Santa Cruz (even further away from the observer. There isn also quite a difference between the temp and DP at the 2,400' level, +4.9c DP -15.6c at Santa Ana (Long Beach unavailable). If this were the same or similar at Santa Cruz in these light winds I would think it unlikely that Lentics would form.
Cheers,
Paul D

 

[Garrison]

I agree. I think that's the best we can hope for, but it would be good to know that for the purposes of adding robustness to the theory.

Well being possible would put it one up on the YB-49 theory...

 

[Astrophotographer]

Hmmm....

Hmmm... is right. Johnson felt his visibility was great. The airplane crew felt it had good visiblity. The fog issue has to be considered as to when that observation was made. I believe there was a statement of clouds coming in from the west after sunset by one of the airplane witnesses.

 

[23_Tauri]

Perhaps a lentic could have formed further out, west of Santa Cruz? Is there any additional information that I should share with ukweather forum to assist with analysis?

 

[TjW]

Hmmm... is right. Johnson felt his visibility was great. The airplane crew felt it had good visiblity. The fog issue has to be considered as to when that observation was made. I believe there was a statement of clouds coming in from the west after sunset by one of the airplane witnesses.

SoCal is sort of a funny place to fly. There's quite often a low-level inversion that keeps all the haze down low. (This is why there's a Southern California Air Quality Management District, and why the original name the Spanish gave to Los Angeles was "Valley of the Smoke".) It's not uncommon to technically have the 3 mile minimum for VFR flight, and still have the runway be invisible on a long final when landing into the setting sun. I am specifically thinking of a ride with a newly-licensed friend of mine out of Long Beach. The glare and the slant range conspire against you. You may actually see things beyond the airport, and off to the side, and directly below, so situational awareness is pretty good. But straight ahead at a shallow angle down gets all glared out.

If Johnson was up even 800 or a thousand feet he could have been in an entirely different airmass from that at sea level, and indeed, had excellent visibility.

 

[Krikkiter]

I hope it's ok to quote from ukweatherworld...

StephenS: "A more fruitful line of enquiry might be some kind of mirage caused by an inversion."

Would this be a possible line of inquiry?

 

[lancemoody]

The StephenS you quote from (who has now appeared at the UKWEATHERWORLD) seems to be a UFO and perhaps conspiracy theorist. He also says:

"My concern about the Lockheed case has always been the reliability of the witnesses and the personal, corporate and political factors involved."

This is a ridiculous statement on so many levels. The Johnson case was not even discussed until decades after the event. The witnesses could not be more reliable.

I liked consulting weather buffs better when no UFO nuts were involved.

Best,
Lance

 

[TjW]

I hope it's ok to quote from ukweatherworld...

StephenS: "A more fruitful line of enquiry might be some kind of mirage caused by an inversion."

Would this be a possible line of inquiry?

It seems unlikely. There could certainly be an inversion, but an airplane at 18000 feet or so would be well above it. Johnson could have been above or below an inversion, but both locations supposedly observed the same phenomenon.

A mirage usually works by refracting an image of something in such a way that it appears at a higher elevation angle than you would expect.

 

[Krikkiter]

Thanks guys

Worth a go I suppose.

Cheers.

 

[Stray Cat]

Then if it wasn't a plane and it wasn't cloud...

 

[Krikkiter]

Then if it wasn't a plane and it wasn't cloud...

... it was an Unidentified Flying Object ( OMGWitch )!!!

 

[lancemoody]

If the cloud idea is contraindicated by the data, then so be it.

But I am not sure that we are in that position yet.

Tauri, I don't think I agree that the cloud would necessarily be over Santa Cruz Island. I think things are so unclear as to location that the object might have been much closer to Point Mugu as well. Would that make a difference?

Many thanks,

Lance

P.S. I have now made some inquiries via Meterologists. I last year called and spoke to someone at a weather station there (perhaps at Long Beach, not sure) and I believe he looked up some data and offered the opinion that lenticulars could not be ruled out for that date/time. But now I need to get something more concrete.

 

[Loss Leader]

There have been an excessive amount of incivility reports coming from this thread. All members should be advised that they have no right to have their ideas taken seriously. Any post which accurately identifies an error in reasoning is, all else being equal, not a violation of the MA. Furthermore, some members posting in this thread have revealed their identity. Reference to that identity is not, without more, a breach of the MA.

It is a breach of Rule 6 to flood the Moderator forum with unfounded reports.

Please be guided accordingly.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Loss Leader

 

[Akhenaten]

For Stray Cat

I also found a rate of climb number for a Super Connie of 1600 fps. Considering the difference in models, using 1400 fps should put you in the ball park and probably with less error than the rest of the story.

Sorry Stray cat
Those climb rates should be FPM-feet per minute, not fps.

PD

Unless it's the super dooper Constellation, with the warp engines option.

 

[Sideroxylon]

Wow...Tauri!

Much respect!

Lance

Absolutely. There's a lesson in how to take UFO research beyond an individual's speculation in specialist topics that they may know little about.

 

[Stray Cat]

Well I don't know if this helps apart from to give a sense of how inaccurate any measurements would be but I'll post it anyway.

The white shaded area is the area the object would have been inside. More likely nearer to the top side of that area given Johnson's Pt. Mugu reference, but then again, I've lived just outside my Hometown for nearly all of my life (I've been in this house for over 15 years) and if someone asked me to point in the direction of the town center, I doubt I could do it without being 10° out each way.

The Red shaded area is the area where the Lockheed would have been inside.

Presuming the object was somewhere within the 240° and 160° that Johnson gave and presuming that any one of the flight crew could be accurate in their assessment of the plane's position when they first spotted the object.

I've zoomed in for the one above, but this one;

Shows the full extent of the possible area (though I very much doubt that it would be this far out, it's just that that's where the lines converge).

 

[Stray Cat]

Unless it's the super dooper Constellation, with the warp engines option.

I just thought that as the cinematic standard was 24fps, the crew were watching a very fast inflight movie.

 

[Tomtomkent]

So are there any "cases" supported by physical / material evidence? Or is this thread forever going to be about what somebody claims they think they remember seeing?

 

[23_Tauri]

If the cloud idea is contraindicated by the data, then so be it.

But I am not sure that we are in that position yet.

Tauri, I don't think I agree that the cloud would necessarily be over Santa Cruz Island. I think things are so unclear as to location that the object might have been much closer to Point Mugu as well. Would that make a difference?

Many thanks,

Lance.

Yes I think that would help. I'll post up Stray Cat's latest map over on the weather forum later today. (on a train right now, which makes cross posting urls a bit tricky)

 

[ufology]

So are there any "cases" supported by physical / material evidence? Or is this thread forever going to be about what somebody claims they think they remember seeing?

To answer the first part of your question, I'm not aware of any sufficient verifiable material evidence that will scientifically prove the existence of alien craft. To answer the second part, "forever" is a long time and apparently, statistically speaking, if we use infinity as a factor in calculating probabilities, then anything you can possibly imagine is almost sure to happen, therefore it is very likely that it is just a matter of time before such evidence will be produced, and I would almost surely say it would happen before the monkeys finish typing Shakespeare.