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As a US Navy fighter pilot, I witnessed unidentified anomalous phenomena

thehill.com

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Re: As a US Navy fighter pilot, I witnessed unidentified anomalous phenomena

#201
post #27

On the subject of the term UFO. The term Unidentified Flying Object is perfectly fine. But then some people say "Aha, you mean aliens, right". No, It is like the SQL NULL, No unidentified object matches any other unidentified object. If I meant aliens I would have said it was an Identified Flying Object(IFO) or perhaps an Extrateresteral Flying Object(EFO), But all I said was that something was flying and I could not…

the Unidentified part is ok. but one plausible explanation of many of these is that they're purely optical/EM, ie there's no Flying Object

so at least until we're able to gather more data, UAP is much better

Re: As a US Navy fighter pilot, I witnessed unidentified anomalous phenomena

#202

In grad school in astronomy, there was a fellow grad student who was extremely excited after a night's observations that he'd discovered something remarkable -- it was a long hoped for distant galaxy that appeared in his images that night, and had all the right spectral signatures because it appeared in different filters, different exposures, and you could see it there in the image files, raw. Turned out, it was nois…

> I wonder how much some of these unidentified phenomena might be checked for some similar effects. come on, man. at some point, after enough of these reports, toeing the line you're toeing starts to look ludicrous. these are trained observers, pilots who know what to expect in the sky. and do not take lightly that there is still a certain amount of embarrassment (a social cost) to even coming forward, so to even mak…

> At least watch this 60 Minutes short piece about this phenomenon with interviews with real Navy pilots before you assert things like this

https://youtu.be/VCH7BWGpl5s

Re: As a US Navy fighter pilot, I witnessed unidentified anomalous phenomena

#203
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of explanations for these videos that don't involve alien species traveling multiple light years to troll American air force pilots, like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsEjV8DdSbs and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGzJ9dx3n4o .

Even one that the Navy itself patented.. https://patents.google.com/patent/US10144532B2/en

Sure, why not, what are we looking at though, some kind of microwave propulsion for spacecraft? Was a prototype ever built?

Re: As a US Navy fighter pilot, I witnessed unidentified anomalous phenomena

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence (Sagan Standard)

Exactly how many eyewitness accounts, devoid of good physical evidence, constitute "Evidence" with a capital "E"? If this number is "infinity" for you, that is unreasonable.

It would require an extraordinary number

Re: As a US Navy fighter pilot, I witnessed unidentified anomalous phenomena

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence (Sagan Standard)

Exactly how many eyewitness accounts, devoid of good physical evidence, constitute "Evidence" with a capital "E"? If this number is "infinity" for you, that is unreasonable.

Depends on whether physical evidence is obtainable.

I.e. If you come out of a room and tell me you saw something in there, ok, let's consider it.

If you come out of a room and say you saw something there, but the security camera placed there doesn't show it, you have no photos on the iPhone you had at the ready, nobody else saw it, etc... Yeah the number of such reports needed climbs quite high.

Re: As a US Navy fighter pilot, I witnessed unidentified anomalous phenomena

#206

In grad school in astronomy, there was a fellow grad student who was extremely excited after a night's observations that he'd discovered something remarkable -- it was a long hoped for distant galaxy that appeared in his images that night, and had all the right spectral signatures because it appeared in different filters, different exposures, and you could see it there in the image files, raw. Turned out, it was nois…

> I wonder how much some of these unidentified phenomena might be checked for some similar effects. come on, man. at some point, after enough of these reports, toeing the line you're toeing starts to look ludicrous. these are trained observers, pilots who know what to expect in the sky. and do not take lightly that there is still a certain amount of embarrassment (a social cost) to even coming forward, so to even mak…

How many experienced sailors once reported seeing mermaids? Until we understand the source of these sightings, it's entirely plausible pilots are all seeing something that doesn't actually exist for some reason or another. We won't know why until the phenomena is no longer mysterious, but there's always a high likelihood a given unknown is mundane, as opposed to fantastical or extraterrestrial.

The article is right we need to destigmatize reporting and collect data: Because whether the origin of the issue is earthly or not, we need to understand it.

Re: As a US Navy fighter pilot, I witnessed unidentified anomalous phenomena

#208
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? Are you seriously asking why commercial airliners don’t have 4K GoPros to record UAP/UFOs?

No, that’s not what I’m asking, because a GoPro costs about $400. I’m asking why they don’t have something 10x better than a GoPro.

Two Boeing 737 Max aircraft crashed because they didn't have a backup angle-of-attack sensor. According to a former NTSB director, "this is a fairly simple external device that can get damaged on a regular basis."

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/30/politics/boeing-sensor-737-ma...

I'm guessing the reason they didn't put a lifesaving backup sensor on the plane might be sorta similar to the reason they don't add high-definition cameras in case of UFOs.

Re: As a US Navy fighter pilot, I witnessed unidentified anomalous phenomena

#209

There's a real problem with people being close-minded towards anything that seems fantastical. This includes scientists and other professionals who ought to know better. Obviously it's unscientific to jump to conclusions and assume that anything that doesn't make sense must be aliens or magic or whatever but at the same time, it's also unscientific to ignore physical observations just because they seem like something…

Yeah, exactly. Galileo was persecuted for stating the earth revolves around the sun. Anything fantastical is immediately seen as taboo and this still happens today.

I personally find UAPs/UFOs fascinating. There's some unexplained phenomema going on and no one knows what it is. There's a massive taboo around claiming aliens/intelligent life, which makes it a subject few will admit to or investigate seriously. Then you have things like Fermi's paradox, a thought experiment that shows it is unlikely for the universe to only have 1 intelligent species in it.

Most likely there is some natural phenomena behind all of this, but I really hope it's something more interesting.

Re: As a US Navy fighter pilot, I witnessed unidentified anomalous phenomena

#210

There's a real problem with people being close-minded towards anything that seems fantastical. This includes scientists and other professionals who ought to know better. Obviously it's unscientific to jump to conclusions and assume that anything that doesn't make sense must be aliens or magic or whatever but at the same time, it's also unscientific to ignore physical observations just because they seem like something…

Every time one of those fantastic items gets explained, it's always mundane and boring, and never dampens the enthusiasm for the next one.

I recall one about B+W photographs of "wood elves" taken around 1910 or so by a couple girls. The girls insisted it was genuine. Photographic experts declared the photos were genuine and could not have been faked.

When the girls were in their 80's, they finally confessed that the "wood elves" were drawn on paper, cut out, and propped up with sticks. They took photos of it with a brownie camera. They laughed with glee at the credulous people who took it seriously (because they so wanted to believe in wood elves).

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