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Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

dni.gov

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Re: Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

#91

Post by sillysaurusx »

drcode wrote: post #66
DoreenMichele wrote: post #40

A reminder that UFO stands for Unidentified Flying Object. This is just a report on what the military saw in the air and could not identify. It neither confirms nor denies popular ideas about aliens visiting earth. In most cases, you can guess these are probably aircraft from other countries. In some cases, they may be experimental aircraft being developed in secret by some organization or other. I am someone who thi…

Do you really think there is a single human being that reads HN and thinks "UFO" means 100% aliens? I sorta doubt anyone here needs such a reminder.

Yes, I think the reminder is helpful. In fact I saw a fella on HN argue that because some rocks on Mars looked a bit like faces, we should consider the alien possibility. (This was many months or years ago; HN becomes an orange blur after awhile, but it was surprising enough to stick in my memory.)

Edited to tone down the intro sentence a bit.

Re: Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

#92

Post by aliasEli »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #40

A reminder that UFO stands for Unidentified Flying Object. This is just a report on what the military saw in the air and could not identify. It neither confirms nor denies popular ideas about aliens visiting earth. In most cases, you can guess these are probably aircraft from other countries. In some cases, they may be experimental aircraft being developed in secret by some organization or other. I am someone who thi…

Actually, I really prefer the term UAP (Unexplained Aerial Phenomenon) over the term UFO (Unidentified Flying Object). Using the name object makes everybody assume that it is physical object, which may or may not be true.

Re: Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

#93

Post by krferriter »

wydfre wrote: post #49

The best quote I've got on UFOs is from Leroy Chiao, a former ISS commander. "Probably some sort of secret military program" [0]. Cannot find original on youtube any longer. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1eWnHHMrck&t=30s

I don't really like that explanation either because, as they state in this OP document, each report has to be looked at individually because they are all actually different. He says "these objects" as if the reports are all the same and explainable by the same thing. It is possible a handful of them are actually experimental aircraft (judging by their inclusion of that as one possible explanation for some incidents in the report and their statement that the reports disproportionately come from the area around DoD testing facilities, it's plausible), but that doesn't mean all the reports are examples of that, or even that a significant number of them are.

Re: Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

#94

Post by marc_io »

I found it quite curious how they defined UAP as “Airborne objects not immediately identifiable” in the last section of the report.

I guess the whole point of dropping the UFO acronym was to change the idea of “objects” for “phenomena”, which is much broader in scope. By keeping the word “objects” in the definition, they make the same mistake of defining upfront what is being reported.

Re: Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

#95

Post by JumpCrisscross »

aliasEli wrote: post #85
xbar wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

80 encounters with multiple sensors. 143 reliable encounters with one sensor (144 minus 1 balloon). RF emission in a few encounters. They could conceive of no explanation for any of them.. They have a lot of data and cannot explain much.

No, they said that in most cases crucial data was lacking. Yes, they probably have a lot more data, but they won't release it to the general public for "security reasons".

> they won't release it to the general public for "security reasons"

This is pretty clearly non-scare quotey security reasons territory. We are unsure if what’s on the scope is an adversary’s. Publishing a detailed quantification of how little we know and in what form would be a self goal.

Re: Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

#96

Post by Retric »

xbar wrote: post #76
tailspin2019 wrote: post #2

Direct link to the PDF report: https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelima... > "Most of the UAP reported probably do represent physical objects given that a majority of UAP were registered across multiple sensors, to include radar, infrared, electro-optical, weapon seekers, and visual observation." > "Some UAP appeared to remain stationary in winds aloft, move against the wind, maneuver abruptly, or…

80 encounters with multiple sensors. 143 reliable encounters with one sensor (144 minus 1 balloon). RF emission in a few encounters. They could conceive of no explanation for any of them.. They have a lot of data and cannot explain much.

This is the reminder after they explained millions of identified objects or sensor artifacts. In theory a non trivial fraction of these may be sensor errors for example, but so far they haven’t been identified as such. Ditto for clouds, balloons, drones, aircraft, missiles, falling space debris, etc etc.

Re: Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

#97

Post by krferriter »

JohnBooty wrote: post #63

This part caught my eye. These objects include birds, balloons, recreational unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), or airborne debris like plastic bags It never occurred to me how utterly "alien" a wind-borne plastic bag's behavior might seem on radar. A constantly shifting radar cross section, sudden directional changes no "actual" flying craft could manage, etc. After all it's an object with significant surface area but…

Visual experiences are often misleading especially at thousands of feet of altitude and in the ocean where reference objects for judging scale and distance are scarce. The military, and airlines and flight schools generally, explicitly train people about how visual perception can easily be flawed or mislead by normal/everyday things with non-interesting explanations.

Re: Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

#98

Post by freyr »

xbar wrote: post #76
tailspin2019 wrote: post #2

Direct link to the PDF report: https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelima... > "Most of the UAP reported probably do represent physical objects given that a majority of UAP were registered across multiple sensors, to include radar, infrared, electro-optical, weapon seekers, and visual observation." > "Some UAP appeared to remain stationary in winds aloft, move against the wind, maneuver abruptly, or…

80 encounters with multiple sensors. 143 reliable encounters with one sensor (144 minus 1 balloon). RF emission in a few encounters. They could conceive of no explanation for any of them.. They have a lot of data and cannot explain much.

Only 18 exhibited unusual behavior that exceeded the capabilities of known technology.

For the rest, I imagine they can conceive of explanations, but they lack sufficient data to explain with certainty.

Re: Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

#99

Post by tw04 »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #59
busyant wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am someone who thinks there likely is alien activity on earth Can you elaborate on why you think this (or provide some additional detail)? For example, do you mean "intelligent" life? Or is this more along the lines of panspermia? Thank you.

No, I don't care to elaborate on my personal opinions about this topic. I only noted that because I habitually remind people on HN that UFO just stands for Unidentified Flying Object and the reason the US government is interested is for national security reasons. I noted it just to suggest "If you are inferring that I am on your side in thinking only nutters believe in aliens you are wrong." I have no desire to have…

I think if you threw out why you feel there is alien activity with a "not looking to debate it" that would be more interesting than saying you think people are going to argue with you. If you've stated reasoning in the past maybe just link to that?

Re: Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

#100

Post by egfx »

wydfre wrote: post #49

The best quote I've got on UFOs is from Leroy Chiao, a former ISS commander. "Probably some sort of secret military program" [0]. Cannot find original on youtube any longer. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1eWnHHMrck&t=30s

Oh yeah I watched that live on the news and I was kind of startled that he just said “well looks like the trend lines are moving and the cats out out of the bag I guess I’ll just come out and say…” I really remember this interview because I’ve always suspected this was a very advanced craft. I had an encounter in the mid 90’s and what impressed on me by looking at it was that this was something that moved, not in a natural way like a bird or a plane (or drone) but more like you were peering into a video game world like TRON. I cannot shake that feeling and it’s obvious if you’ve ever witnessed this craft. So that’s interesting right there.
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