Live data from Hacker News

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

thehill.com

861–870 of 978 posts

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

#861
post #772

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure it could be a "field" that might as well be described as magic. But where's the craft's interaction with the atmosphere? Normally an object traveling thousands of miles an hour hits a fair amount of atmosphere. An object traveling fast enough actually turns atmospheric gases into a plasma. Plasma is not only hot but will reflect radio waves. Now you need to invent a second magic technology that explains the lack…

Sure it could be a "field" that might as well be described as magic. Do you believe in magic? That's a pretty good difference for me. Now you need to invent a second magic technology that explains the lack of plasma trails following the path of this supposedly hypersonic object. I don't, fields have gradients, but there's a previous question here, at least for me. If you start with the premise that this kind of pheno…

> Do you believe in magic? That's a pretty good difference for me.

I don't believe in magic. If you're going to suggest some super technology that might as well be indistinguishable from magic same incredulity as claiming it was just unicorn farts of dragon blood. Suggesting some craft operates via some "field" without any basis for how such a "field" might operate is just a long way of saying "magic". It's god of the gaps sort of reasoning, seeing a thing that you can't explain and jumping to the least rigorous and fantastical explanation.

> If you start with the premise that this kind of phenomenon is impossible

I'm starting from the premise of the universe and the things in it obeying some fundamental laws. If I see something that appears to break some fundamental law, insofar as I understand it, I'm going to question my perception before questioning some physical law.

Personally, I've got a pretty good understanding of how electronic sensors in cameras work, how cameras themselves work, how optics in cameras interact, how data from cameras is processed, and how that data is then stored. I'm no Fabrice Ballard but I've got a better understanding than the average person on the street. When I see a video of a "UAP" I'm going to think back to all that camera knowledge and think up the thousand different ways mundane things can be misinterpreted by cameras and people viewing the output from cameras.

Just being a skeptical person I'm also going to instantly question "eye witness" accounts. Eye witnesses are extremely unreliable. It's not that people are necessarily untrustworthy it's just everything a person "sees" is filtered through their imperfect senses, natural and unconscious apophenia, natural and unconscious pareidolia, preconceived notions, cultural biases, imperfect memory, and imperfect language. I don't put much weight into appeals to authority like "the observer is a PILOT". An Air Force pilot is as human as the next person with the above listed limitations on their perception or recollection of their perception.

Knowing what I do about how cameras in particular work, I also assume there's aspects of radars that are equally complicated (I do know a little bit about how radars work). So there's a thousand little ways a radar is going to give confusing readings just like an optical camera will. Radars come in different types depending on the intended task. There's air search radars just looking for anything roughly jet or missile sized and targeting radars that have very narrow beam angles to guide a weapon to the target. The way they estimate size, distance, and heading are going to be up to processing software.

If you want to have me even entertain the idea that something is a super high technology craft powered by a "field" you're going to have to at least show your work. Why is this phenomenon not a drone/bird/Piper Cub/Venus? You're also going to need a better explanation than "field", at least some falsifiable hypothesis of how such a "field" could possibly work. That hypothesis also needs to not fall down to any reasonable scrutiny.

It's unscientific and intellectually dishonest to jump to fanciful explanations for things. Even presupposing a phenomenon even exists is unscientific.

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

#862
post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original appears to have been deleted, but you may be referring to https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1qyu5i/my_ufo_encount...

It starts by saying..."...I am relaying information and supporting circumstances, I did not see a UFO personally. However, it is an interesting story."

This one? https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1qyu5i/my_ufo_encount...

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

#863

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Specifically it means things that happen in the future can affect things in the past (communication past the light cone). Sure, and that's not a problem so as long as self-consistency is preserved. > But to rewrite how a sequence of events happens, well that's a big fundamental change. Depends how you look at it. There are retrocausal explanations of quantum mechanics, for instance.

> Sure, and that's not a problem so as long as self-consistency is preserved. You break the lightcone... > Depends how you look at it. There are retrocausal explanations of quantum mechanics, for instance. Let me save people the time, there's critiques at the bottom but there is no actual evidence for retrocausal explanations: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-retrocausality/

> You break the lightcone...

The point is you can't. Existence would be a static 4D structure. No matter how you tried to change the past, your attempts are already part of your own history and clearly all failed.

> Let me save people the time, there's critiques at the bottom but there is no actual evidence for retrocausal explanations: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-retrocausality

There is no evidence for any interpretation of QM. That's what makes them interpretations and not distinct theories.

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

#864

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Q: What's the most likely explanation? A: Problems/glitches/bugs with the extremely complex radar system. Q: What's a likely explanation? A: We don't really understand everything there is to know about radar. Q: What's the least likely explanation? A: Alien craft buzzing around that nobody has ever managed to get a clear picture of.

If the radar system exhibited other types of "steady anomalies identifying nonexistent objects in space" that didn't happen to fit the "UFO expectation", we would be hearing of those too, no? Have we? Since the whole point of a radar system is identifying friend, foe or possible collision courses, it would seem to be extremely important that this basic function of a radar be extremely reliable, no? Also, what are the…

I've been hearing my whole life about the "it can only be aliens" explanation. Many, many of these have been debunked, but it never dampens the enthusiasm "yeah, but this one must be aliens!"

Why has nobody ever taken a photo of these alleged aliens?

It's up to the proponents to provide convincing evidence. "But I saw it with my own eyes!" is completely unconvincing. Anyone who claims to have never misinterpreted anything they saw is just not credible. Optical illusions affect everyone.

Sane drivers know this and take it into account when driving, that's why it doesn't cause (many) accidents, and is so ordinary nobody bothers to report it.

The human visual system is full of compromises and kludges that just happen to work well enough. Did you know that your eyes have a blind spot that your brain fills in for you? By guessing? That magicians rely on all kinds of errors your brain makes in perception?

But no, it must be aliens!

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

#865
post #596

Mick West's breakdowns of the Pentagon UAP videos was the nail in the coffin of this era of UFO hype for me. https://youtu.be/Le7Fqbsrrm8?t=665 These were supposed to be the smoking gun evidence. UFO believers inside the DoD and as high up as US Senators fought for years to get them declassified. As soon as they were public, they were all quickly identified as sensor glare, bokeh, or mis-understood perspective. More…

All of them? Lol, okay. Honestly it’s pretty disrespectful to these pilots, who clearly witnessed something that defies mainstream explanation. Not saying it’s aliens, but secret military projects that use highly classified propulsion technology is just as interesting, and far more concerning.

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

#866
post #676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> New Radar 80kft in a second? Remember that the speed of sound is ~1.1kfps (at atm). But 80 times that? The sonic boom from that would be INSANE. I'm going with new radar new glitch. Per the video, they don't describe seeing this movement except on radar and, from my understanding, not the other object with their physical eyes but the weapons systems (which the 60 minutes video even shows an example of a glitch with…

Your original comment was about "Most of these weren't things pilots saw with their physical eyes." - the interview I linked to seems to contradict that statement? Two pilots at the 8 minute mark go into depth about witnessing them.

Hey that's not fair, that comment was supposed to derail the entire conversation!

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

#867
post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBtMbBPzqHY scrub to 7 minutes in.

> New Radar 80kft in a second? Remember that the speed of sound is ~1.1kfps (at atm). But 80 times that? The sonic boom from that would be INSANE. I'm going with new radar new glitch. Per the video, they don't describe seeing this movement except on radar and, from my understanding, not the other object with their physical eyes but the weapons systems (which the 60 minutes video even shows an example of a glitch with…

>But 80 times that? The sonic boom from that would be INSANE.

Why are you being purposefully obtuse?

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

#868
Trying to rename UFOs to UAPs seems like a waste of effort to me. I don't think anyone that's already convinced they're made by aliens are suddenly going to be convinced that they're not.

If anything, this will fuel their speculations of cover ups, and they'll probably even think this name change was ordered by little green men.

I don't think anyone getting emails and letters about this stuff are going to see a drop in their volume about this stuff.

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

#869

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This subject is anything but ordinary. The former Deputy Secretary of Defense for Intelligence wrote a blog alleging that there are black projects hidden within DoD contractors that are reverse engineering non-human intelligence craft. He's presented enough evidence to congress for them to add specific legislation to bring these programs to light.

If that's true, then clearly they're doing something about it, so I don't understand why you think they're not doing enough for security. If it is aliens, why would they confirm it and start a race to get alien tech first? You can wait a bit for them to figure it out. If it's not aliens, why would they reveal the details of classified information?

The only thing I'm doing is trying to convince people this is not a waste in effort to track. Many have been hoping for government disclosure for decades, but now the timeline for that to happen seems to be accelerating

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

#870

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just let the damn scientists study the evidence and keep your opinions to yourself, damn. You obviously have a huge bias against studying things that are currently unexplained, so you're not helping the conversation. Keep that in the back of your head.

Solid scientists: Immunologist that thinks he saw UFO: https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/garry-nolan Guy who thought Oumuamua is alien spaceship (gathered evidence gives exactly zero reasons to think that): https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Avi-Lo... Theoretical physicist with his head deep in things like Alcubierre drive that appears from Einstein's equations when applied to such things as negati…

All you do is take one point from each of their accomplishments out of context and refute their entire credibility.

Gary Nolan is the one of the premiere immunologists and pathologists in the world. He has created multiple multi-million dollar companies. He was asked by the CIA to perform scans on people who had been encountered UAP and had health effects or death.

Avi Loeb is a renowned Harvard astrophysicist. Yes, he is studying Oumuamua because it was the first object outside our solar system to come by Earth. It also had an extremely odd shape and a trajectory that does not seem natural. He's simply hypothesized that it could be some kind of ET probing device passing Earth, but he's not definitively said so. All he's saying is no other physicist has come up with a proper explanation for what Oumuamua was, and so he wants to study other interstellar objects that come near by.

Eric Davis has been working for DoD for almost 3 decades. He's well known within the defense space to being an incredibly intelligent human being.

You can't just take one piece of their history and dismiss their entire credibility. What are your credentials that make you so important to dismiss these people as insane for just studying this phenomenon?

Post reply on HN