Cont: UFOs: The Research, the Evidence

[ufology]

Your powerz of observation are on top form again.

Lance has been a member here for about a year and a half longer than you.
What was it about his post that made you conclude from what he said that he wanted to get his posting numbers up?

And how from what he said do you conclude he'd want to do it with you?

Maybe this has something to do with it:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7983990&postcount=415

His posts at the time I offered him help were at 19 ... mine are over 1900.

So I'll thank you in advance for your apology on the snarky remarks.

 

[23_Tauri]

Maybe this has something to do with it:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7983990&postcount=415

His posts at the time I offered him help were at 19 ... mine are over 1900.

So I'll thank you in advance for your apology on the snarky remark.

How ungracious of you Mr Ufology.

Stray Cat has stayed up all night again working on the Lockheed case, doing actual maths, which you still refuse to do, and all you can do is bleat at him contemptuously over this one oversight. You don't 'alf take the biscuit don't you?

 

[Stray Cat]

You aren't making any sense. Here is one way a person can know they were fooled.

• A person can be fooled momentarily or maybe even for a few minutes and then realize what is going on, thereby knowing they were fooled at one point along the way and correcting for their error.

Then that person wasn't fooled was he?
Momentarily fooled is not the same as being and staying fooled.


Why is this so hard for you to comprehend?

Also, the "but you wouldn't know" argument is only valid when there is sufficient ambiguity that you can't tell the difference.

What the bijeezus are you on about?
How the devil do you know what sufficiency of ambiguity is required for you to not know that what you are seeing is not what you are seeing?

However where there is a wide difference between two objects, the "but you wouldn't know" argument just becomes an insult against someone's intellect.

It has nothing to do with intellect. And everything to do with the fact that you wouldn't know if there was a wide difference between a thing that no one knows what it was and a cloud (or a plane). If you can point to any major differences at all I'd be sufficiently amazed.

It's the equivalent of saying, "you're so inept or stupid or gullible that you can't tell the difference", and I caution you against going there.

Well if the cap fits...
But I'll wait for you to point out the differences between an unidentified object and a cloud.

Meanwhile pointing out to you that that is exactly what you are doing.
You are actually saying that the 5 witnesses are so inept, stupid or gullible that they can't tell the difference between a cloud, a flying wing, a flying saucer and a smoke trail. When all these things should be really easy to recognise because we know what they are.

An unidentified flying object on the other hand could look a lot like or nothing like any of those things and no one in their right minds would think any the worse of anyone who was fooled into thinking that something that looked like something else may have been what it wasn't.

 

[ufology]

Dude! It's based on your diagram!!!!

Here, in case you've forgotten that you drew it. Or in case you need to properly look at it again, alongside the on-the-ground graphic composed by GeeMack and Stray Cat, so you can marry to the two together and make sense of your wiggly lines.


How many presumptious presumptions do you want to make before breakfast, today, Mr Ufology?

Shows how close you read my post and looked at the illustration, which was stated as being not perfect and primarily to illustrate the ideas, but even so, if you look at the black arc on the red line ... that is where I suggested the smoke line may have been for a slow approach and power turn/accelleration ... and it's not 8 miles. For an actual takeoff the line would have been in another place altogether.

 

[Akhenaten]

Maybe ... but every lenticular I've seen that moves any distance has changed shape and become fuzzy around the edges, and not disappeared by getting smaller, but by thinning out into haze or layers or merging with other clouds.

A great many of your arguments involve the qualifications and expertise of eye-witnesses so I feel it's only reasonable to enquire about the extent of your experience in watching lenticular cloud formations in Southern California.

I'm curious, like I've said before, I've seen dozens and dozens of lenticular clouds and not once ever thought they were aircraft or UFOs.

Those are just the ones you identified. How do you know how many lenticular clouds you've seen that you actually misidentified as something else?

How about you? Do you honestly believe a cloud would fool you personally into being sure after several minutes of study ... with binoculars ... that you were looking at a distinct flying object that was not a cloud?

Yes.

Now what?

 

[Akhenaten]

Shows how close you read my post and looked at the illustration, which was stated as being not perfect and primarily to illustrate the ideas, but even so, if you look at the black arc on the red line ... that is where I suggested the smoke line may have been for a slow approach and power turn/accelleration ... and it's not 8 miles. For an actual takeoff the line would have been in another place altogether.

How many times do you need to be told that this smoke producing nonsense is a figment of your imagination?

 

[Stray Cat]

Maybe this has something to do with it:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7983990&postcount=415

His posts at the time I offered him help were at 19 ... mine are over 1900.So I'll thank you in advance for your apology on the snarky remarks.

Sorry for thinking you were replying to the post you quoted, instead of one made 4 days ago... how's that?

 

[John Albert]

His posts at the time I offered him help were at 19 ... mine are over 1900.

And he's made more good sense in those 19 posts than you have in 2 orders of magnitude more.

 

[Stray Cat]

Shows how close you read my post and looked at the illustration, which was stated as being not perfect and primarily to illustrate the ideas, but even so, if you look at the black arc on the red line ... that is where I suggested the smoke line may have been for a slow approach and power turn/accelleration ... and it's not 8 miles. For an actual takeoff the line would have been in another place altogether.

So what you're saying is that your diagram was fluff and irrelevant in every way. We just have to believe the accurate picture that's in your head?

Way to go researcher....

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Shows how close you read my post and looked at the illustration, which was stated as being not perfect and primarily to illustrate the ideas[...]

Why, then, don't you provide an accurate map, and explain how you arrived at your calculations? That way everybody can check your work. That's what good investigation is all about.

 

[ufology]

A great many of your arguments involve the qualifications and expertise of eye-witnesses so I feel it's only reasonable to enquire about the extent of your experience in watching lenticular cloud formations in Southern California.

Those are just the ones you identified. How do you know how many lenticular clods you've seen that you actually misidentified as something else?

Yes.

Now what?

That's exactly my point. If a twighlight cloud wouldn't fool me ... a regular guy without any professional air experience, why would I presume to think it would fool several people far more qualified than me? I'm not even comfortable thinking they were as off with their distances as would have been required for my suggestion to work, but I've heard of air crews straying off course more often than I've heard of them mistaking clouds for aircraft ... and the pilot admits to going off course by setting a course toward the object, and that he ended up travelling almost due west after pursuing it.

 

[23_Tauri]

Shows how close you read my post and looked at the illustration, which was stated as being not perfect and primarily to illustrate the ideas,

You wrote:

Here's a not so perfect rendering of what I was trying to get at

Which begs the question: if you have actual data at your fingertips, albeit contradictory in some respects when we compare the witness statements, why didn't you make it perfect? I consider my question to be particularly pertinent because as you were so hung up on the WV-2 crew members seeing (quote) "a perfect flying wing" when they said no such thing.

So they saw a perfect flying wing but you can't perfectly represent it's flight path when asked to do so? Why is this?

Secondly, if Stray Cat's graphic here (which took GeeMack's Stellarium shot as a base, so hat's off to both of them as it was a combined effort) doesn't reflect your theory, then why didn't you raise this with SC at the time, which was 24 hours ago?

but even so, if you look at the black arc on the red line ... that is where I suggested the smoke line may have been for a slow approach and power turn/accelleration ... and it's not 8 miles. For an actual takeoff the line would have been in another place altogether.

Stop using the mythical smoke as a smokescreen. A highly training military pilot has explained to you that water injection is only done on take-off.

But, seeing as you are so keen to keep running with it, please explain how your mystery aircraft made such a tight turn without this maneuvre being seen by the crew of the WV-2, which was to the south / south-east at the time? How did they manage to see "a perfect flying wing" (your words, not theirs) with all that black smoke belching out around the mystery aircraft?

Use pictures and show your workings if you think this will help. Thank you.

 

[Stray Cat]

That's exactly my point. If a twighlight cloud wouldn't fool me ... a regular guy without any professional air experience, why would I presume to think it would fool several people far more qualified than me?

It didn't fool them... none of them are saying it was a plane making impossible turns on full throttle with magic half invisible smoke coming out of the back whilst heading directly away from one witness and directly towards the other group of witnesses whilst both sets of witnesses were nearly at right angles to the object.

I'm not even comfortable thinking they were as off with their distances as would have been required for my suggestion to work, but I've heard of air crews straying off course more often than I've heard of them mistaking clouds for aircraft

I've heard of them having affairs with air stewardesses more than I've heard of them straying off course... But you're forgetting again, that pilots can do all of these things and just because you've heard about one, doesn't reduce the chance of the other.

... and the pilot admits to going off course by setting a course toward the object, and that he ended up travelling almost due west after pursuing it.

No he doesn't.
They didn't have a fixed course to follow so he can't have gone "off course".
Not that that has anything to do with... well anything really, I really can't see why you even made that bit up.

And he mentions nothing about the Lockheed travelling almost due West either. It's your mind filling in the gaps again.

 

[John Albert]

"Nobody can fool me. I'm unfoolable!

I am also immune to hubris!

Immune, I tell you!"

 

[ufology]

Why, then, don't you provide an accurate map, and explain how you arrived at your calculations? That way everybody can check your work. That's what good investigation is all about.

I'm not that invested in this incident. The object was described as being the shape of a wing and was presumed at one point to have been another aircraft, and was seen over a military base with an airstrip. So whether or not we can positively identify the exact make and model of aircraft, or whether or not it was just an illusion caused by a cloud, it's nothing so far out of the ordinary, or unexplainable that I can personally justify calling it a UFO ( alien craft ) ... and those are what I'm interested in.

 

[John Albert]

Well it was definitely a UFO, but how do you know it was not an alien craft?

 

[Akhenaten]

A great many of your arguments involve the qualifications and expertise of eye-witnesses so I feel it's only reasonable to enquire about the extent of your experience in watching lenticular cloud formations in Southern California.

Those are just the ones you identified. How do you know how many lenticular clouds you've seen that you actually misidentified as something else?

Yes.

Now what?

That's exactly my point.

I asked you three questions and your response is "That's exactly my point"?

Fail.

If a twighlight cloud wouldn't fool me ... a regular guy without any professional air experience, why would I presume to think it would fool several people far more qualified than me?

You really should abandon this line of non-reasoning. It's gone way beyond just being embarrassing for you.

I am a former Army aviator and aircraft maintenance engineer and I've seen more WTF? things than I've had hot breakfasts.

Your presumptions are baseless and wrong.

I'm not even comfortable thinking they were as off with their distances as would have been required for my suggestion to work, but I've heard of air crews straying off course more often than I've heard of them mistaking clouds for aircraft ... and the pilot admits to going off course by setting a course toward the object, and that he ended up travelling almost due west after pursuing it.

Your suggestion is rubbish, and your waffling anecdotes do nothing to alter that assessment.

Speaking of your suggestion:

How many times do you need to be told that this smoke producing nonsense is a figment of your imagination?

Let's go, Mr Regular-guy-without-any-professional-air-experience. What do you know about this that I don't?

 

[Akhenaten]

Well it was definitely a UFO, but how do you know it was not an alien craft?

A witch told him. No, wait . . . a talking rabbit . . .

Something like that.

 

[23_Tauri]

I'm not that invested in this incident.

That's not the point. I'm not 'invested in' this incident either, inasmuch as I don't care what the object was. The point is that as a self-confessed ufologist and researcher of unidentified flying things you should be heavily invested in how this incident is being discusssed on this thread.

Process, Mr Ufology! Process process process!

It's about honing your critical thinking skills, not working out whether the object was definitively a cloud, or definitively a plane or witch or flying saucer or wotnot.

The object was described as being the shape of a wing and was presumed at one point to have been another aircraft, and was seen over a military base with an airstrip.

No it wasn't. We don't know for sure where it was. Best estimates so far put it over the ocean. Was there a military base with an airstrip in the ocean off the coast of California in 1953? As it is, clouds were known to appear over the ocean and over the land in 1953, and in the vicinity of military bases with airstrips too. Who would have thunked it, eh?

So whether or not we can positively identify the exact make and model of aircraft, or whether or not it was just an illusion caused by a cloud,

A lenticular cloud is not an illusion! It's a friggin' cloud!

it's nothing so far out of the ordinary, or unexplainable that I can personally justify calling it a UFO ( alien craft ) ... and those are what I'm interested in.

Oh no no no! I am so going to pull you up on this! This is where you go wrong, Mr Ufology. All you care about is believing in alien space ships when as a researcher you should be interested in learning about how to do research so as not to come to fallacious conclusions. That's what JREF forum is all about: learning how to think.

ETA: you remind me of a crop circle researcher from Kent who I once knew. A crop circle of known human origins appeared in a field. This crop circle was a commission for the local Round Table Society and was made with full knowledge of the farmer (who was paid) and the local media. When I asked the crop circle researcher from Kent whether he was going to visit the Round Table Society's crop circle he said not, because he wasn't interested in 'hoaxes' (aka human made circles). He was only interested in ones of non-human (aka alien) orign. I asked this person why he didn't see the benefit in seeing a human-made circle (which he had never done), because then he would be able to see for himself the differences between 'human-made' and 'alien-made' circles for himself. To no avail. He just wasn't interested in going to the Round Table crop circle because he knew better.

 

[ufology]

Well it was definitely a UFO, but how do you know it was not an alien craft?

From the USAF definition of UFO:

"Aircraft flares, jet exhausts, condensation trails, blinking or steady lights observed at night, lights circling or near airports and airways, and other similar phenomena resulting from, or indications of aircraft. These should not be reported under this regulation as they do not fall within the definition of a UFO."

From the report in question:

• "Our attention was drawn to what looked like a large airplane off to our right ( north - west )."
• "My first thought is that it was a large airplane, possibly a C-124."
• "It looked to me like I was flying directly towards, and at about the same elevation as, a very large flying wing airplane."
• It was seen in the vicinity of an airport.

Four major strikes against classifying the object as a UFO according to the USAF definition, a definition by the people who invented the phrase in the first place. And there are plenty more reasons besides that. So let's not get on that merry-go-round again.