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American Airlines confirms UFO contact over New Mexico on Sunday

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Re: American Airlines confirms UFO contact over New Mexico on Sunday

#191

Why is everyone arguing about stuff in this thread instead of focusing on the less-interesting but still super concerning fact that something flew "right over the top" of a commercial airplane? Even in the least-interesting case of it probably a US test thing of some kind - wtf is it doing flying in commercial airspace? Can you imagine if it had hit the plane?

Probably because "right over the top" can be a 2D descriptor of 3D space. We therefore have no idea how close this object was to the plane. It is entirely possible it was directly above the plane but high enough that it actually wasn't in commercial airspace.

Re: American Airlines confirms UFO contact over New Mexico on Sunday

#192

I have a hypothesis about UFOs that everyone needs to ponder. You know how they are frequently just simple shapes? Okay well imagine you are making a game and you need an object to act as your player and you don't care what it looks like. The easiest way is to just drop in a primitive shape. So you just drop in a cylinder or whatever because it doesn't matter. I think that might be the kind of thing that's going on w…

Pondered, I have no idea what you're alluding to.

Re: American Airlines confirms UFO contact over New Mexico on Sunday

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a pilot (recreational, and my license is not current). Although I've never personally seen a UFO, I've heard enough stories to believe it (not implying alien but nobody seems to know what they are). I've never once recorded anything while flying, ever. And I don't know anybody who ever records while flying (I don't mean for long periods of time, I mean at all). Why would I ever think to do that? By the time I see…

> Why would I ever think to do that? ...because one has seen UFOs in the past, and wants to capture them? If I went on a walk through the woods behind my house and saw Bigfoot, I would probably carry a camera next time I went walking behind my house to try and get a picture of bigfoot.

I'm not sure how many people have claimed to see a UFO more than once. Sure, after the first time you might. But you're not thinking about it beforehand.

Also how many thousands of hours of flying and not seeing anything interesting do I have also add another thing I have to focus on when it will likely last only a few seconds and I can never guess when? I don't need another distraction while flying.

Pilots claiming to see these aren't typically trying very hard to convince others that they're real (or at least I've never met any, they're often hesitant to bring it up at all for fear of being labeled crazy). They're just reporting what they saw. So most really don't have much incentive to bother with installing a GoPro on their flights.

Yes, if my goal were to prove the existence of these things what you're saying makes sense. But my goal is to fly the plane to wherever I'm going.

Re: American Airlines confirms UFO contact over New Mexico on Sunday

#195
post #159
post #139

I'm so sick of the term UFO being applied to stuff like this. Even the pilot said it looked like a cruise missile but lo and behold the first conjecture in the article by the journalist is that it could be extraterrestrial and only at the end they say oh yeah it could also just be a military thing since you know there are a trillion military bases right under where it was flying over. I think we need a new term, mayb…

To be fair, the pilot said it looked like a cruse missile probably because that's the only reference point they could use. Let's hope the US military was testing stuff and that's what it was.

[deleted]

Re: American Airlines confirms UFO contact over New Mexico on Sunday

#196
post #159
post #139

I'm so sick of the term UFO being applied to stuff like this. Even the pilot said it looked like a cruise missile but lo and behold the first conjecture in the article by the journalist is that it could be extraterrestrial and only at the end they say oh yeah it could also just be a military thing since you know there are a trillion military bases right under where it was flying over. I think we need a new term, mayb…

To be fair, the pilot said it looked like a cruse missile probably because that's the only reference point they could use. Let's hope the US military was testing stuff and that's what it was.

[deleted]

Re: American Airlines confirms UFO contact over New Mexico on Sunday

#197

Why poo poo this? This is what really irks me when people laugh this stuff off and spout off something about Fermi's paradox without even understanding it. Fermi's paradox only asks simply "if statistics say they are everywhere, well then where are they?" What if the answer is simply: "Zooming all around us and we occasionally see one". Period. The rest is assumption. Fermi's paradox does NOT presuppose contact. That…

It sounds like you’re saying “the absence of evidence IS evidence of an advanced alien civilization (because they’d hide)”.

Or do I misinterpret?

Re: American Airlines confirms UFO contact over New Mexico on Sunday

#198
post #159
post #139

I'm so sick of the term UFO being applied to stuff like this. Even the pilot said it looked like a cruise missile but lo and behold the first conjecture in the article by the journalist is that it could be extraterrestrial and only at the end they say oh yeah it could also just be a military thing since you know there are a trillion military bases right under where it was flying over. I think we need a new term, mayb…

To be fair, the pilot said it looked like a cruse missile probably because that's the only reference point they could use. Let's hope the US military was testing stuff and that's what it was.

To be real fair most likely even a cruise missile would not look anything like a cruise missile if one zoomed past by when you're busy flying an airplane.

Let's not want to believe [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_X-Files:_I_Want_to_Believe

Re: American Airlines confirms UFO contact over New Mexico on Sunday

#199

I have a hypothesis about UFOs that everyone needs to ponder. You know how they are frequently just simple shapes? Okay well imagine you are making a game and you need an object to act as your player and you don't care what it looks like. The easiest way is to just drop in a primitive shape. So you just drop in a cylinder or whatever because it doesn't matter. I think that might be the kind of thing that's going on w…

It's called a Capsule Container, and it's a common replacement for an AABB or Sphere bounding container when representing avatars.

Re: American Airlines confirms UFO contact over New Mexico on Sunday

#200

Why poo poo this? This is what really irks me when people laugh this stuff off and spout off something about Fermi's paradox without even understanding it. Fermi's paradox only asks simply "if statistics say they are everywhere, well then where are they?" What if the answer is simply: "Zooming all around us and we occasionally see one". Period. The rest is assumption. Fermi's paradox does NOT presuppose contact. That…

It sounds like you’re saying “the absence of evidence IS evidence of an advanced alien civilization (because they’d hide)”. Or do I misinterpret?

Exactly. I'd even build upon Asimov a little: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and any sufficiently advance civilization would appear both magical technologically and would LIKELY trend towards being highly elusive.
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