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UFOs shows government competence as either surprisingly high or low

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Re: UFOs shows government competence as either surprisingly high or low

#211

Post by tgflynn »

simonh wrote: post #173
tgflynn wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mick West's explanation of the FLIR1 video (the one from the Nimitz incident), that it was an ordinary aircraft, makes zero sense because given the quantity and quality of situational awareness data available to the pilots who captured the video it would require an extraordinary degree of incompetence to make such a mistake. I'm no expert on naval technology but given my limited understanding of carrier strike group…

It doesn't take incompetence to make a mistake, any of us can make mistakes even in things we're highly competent in. Optical artefacts are particularly difficult to account for. Take Go Fast for example, they're highly competent experienced aviators, but they still very clearly completely misidentified what, in hindsight, is obviously a bird. Clearly if trained operators can make a mistake like that, other mistakes…

> Optical artefacts are particularly difficult to account for.

We're not talking about optical artifacts. The aircraft had radar and it also had access to data from radars installed on the surface ships. The entire system is designed to make identifying friendly targets easy and to give pilots an overview of the tactical situation. IFF in aerial combat has been a solved problem almost since World War II.

Re: UFOs shows government competence as either surprisingly high or low

#212

Post by sthnblllII »

stevenhuang wrote: post #204
TeMPOraL wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we talking about the three US military videos that surfaced in recent years? I've seen all of them clearly and thoroughly explained away. In one case, you could literally use the numbers on the recording and some middle-school level geometry skills to calculate that the tracked object is a bird. And it's quite easy to guess why these videos were released. They're technology demonstrators. The general public can t…

I've been following this topic closely and it was never the case that there was a definitive explanation. There were many theories and counter theories. It would be misleading to say the matter is settled. It's also doubtful to propose this is a technology demonstration. The ability to track objects is not a differentiator; there are plenty videos online showing similar HUDs. In any case the public release has been d…

That is simply not true. Here are the explanations for all three at a middle school level. There is literally nothing interesting in those videos and interpreting them as evidence as Extraterrestrial Aliens is simply inexcusable at this point.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jWWGmiZs4JA&pbjreload=101

Re: UFOs shows government competence as either surprisingly high or low

#213

Post by Pyramus »

Sharlin wrote: post #17
Pyramus wrote: post #5

The author's explanations of UFOs: (A) Honest mistakes (B) New Govt. Tech (C) Hoaxes & Lies (D) Aliens, Etc. It seems an obvious oversight to me that unexplained physical phenomena are missing, e.g. weather/atmospheric effects that are extremely rare and wait to be discovered. In terms of likelihood the complementary event is "we have discovered all existing weather/atmospheric effects" which has probability zero. Th…

Unknown or poorly understood physical phenomena are included in (A): "…and natural phenomena that we now poorly understand."

Yes you are correct - still don't see why they could be subsumed under honest mistakes which lead to this oversight.

Re: UFOs shows government competence as either surprisingly high or low

#214

Post by simonh »

tgflynn wrote: post #211
simonh wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't take incompetence to make a mistake, any of us can make mistakes even in things we're highly competent in. Optical artefacts are particularly difficult to account for. Take Go Fast for example, they're highly competent experienced aviators, but they still very clearly completely misidentified what, in hindsight, is obviously a bird. Clearly if trained operators can make a mistake like that, other mistakes…

> Optical artefacts are particularly difficult to account for. We're not talking about optical artifacts. The aircraft had radar and it also had access to data from radars installed on the surface ships. The entire system is designed to make identifying friendly targets easy and to give pilots an overview of the tactical situation. IFF in aerial combat has been a solved problem almost since World War II.

I’m not sure which case you’re referring to, but in the FLIR1 incident they were tracking something optically while nothing appeared on radar. The proposed explanation is that the object was a much bigger commercial plane than they thought, much further away. Cameras are just as much, if not more susceptible to optical effects than human eyes. It’s quite plausible that a plane could be thought to be say 20km away, when actually it was 5x as far and outside radar range.

IFF and radar aren’t going to help you if tye object isn’t actually where you think it is, so most of your sensors are looking in the wrong place.

In the Go Fast case we actually have all the instrument data we need. From the data on the recording and some basic trigonometry we can see the object was very small only a metre or so across, was approximately half way between the plane and the surface, and was actually only travelling at modest speed commensurate with that of a bird. I can’t _prove_ to you that it was a bird, but I leave it to you to come to your own conclusions.

Re: UFOs shows government competence as either surprisingly high or low

#215

Post by simonh »

stevenhuang wrote: post #208
simonh wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't take incompetence to make a mistake, any of us can make mistakes even in things we're highly competent in. Optical artefacts are particularly difficult to account for. Take Go Fast for example, they're highly competent experienced aviators, but they still very clearly completely misidentified what, in hindsight, is obviously a bird. Clearly if trained operators can make a mistake like that, other mistakes…

Consider for a moment that it's not a bird. Have the epistemic humility to realize that such pedestrian explanations are likely to have been proposed and ruled out during internal analysis, before public release. Also, birds don't move like that on radar.

Have you actually reviewed the analysis, using the instrument data in the video to calculate that it was a typical size and was actually moving at a typical speed and altitude for a bird? If so, what is your critique of the calculations?

Re: UFOs shows government competence as either surprisingly high or low

#216

Post by mensetmanusman »

badRNG wrote: post #114
graderjs wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible that your bias against believing this means your interpretation is a lot of bizarre takes dressed up as the only possible conclusions. What I don't get is the arrogance of every side about this subject. We have no answers. We have no understanding. The government seems to be about to admit as much. But the true believers are sure, and the true debunkers, yourself included, are sure. To me, you're both j…

> What I don't get is the arrogance of every side about this subject. We have no answers. We have no understanding. The government seems to be about to admit as much. But the true believers are sure, and the true debunkers, yourself included, are sure. To me, you're both just tin foil hat flunkies clinging to your own special precious version of the coming apocalypse. Your own special cult. Generally speaking, it see…

I thought the reasonable approach was to believe in aliens (not here per se) due to the law of large numbers.

Re: UFOs shows government competence as either surprisingly high or low

#217

Post by adamredwoods »

Sacho wrote: post #133
graderjs wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we should all be engaging in this topic critically and openly. With curiosity rather than certainty, when none exists. I think we should not be so casual or strident in just dismissing or discounting other human beings personal experiences. Especially when there are so many people with stories. These humans are valuable, and their stories are valuable. We shouldn't dismiss that, or disrespect them. But also,…

No way. Modern research has demonstrated how unstructured and unscientific our reasoning is, easy to fool and game, falling prey to a plethora of biases. If anything, rejecting your own and other people's personal experience should be the default, because the information we gather when not taking the utmost care to calibrate our instruments is pretty much garbage. A quick example of this would be how unreliable eyewi…

Theory and Observation in Science: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/science-theory-observatio...

Re: UFOs shows government competence as either surprisingly high or low

#218

Post by mensetmanusman »

Swenrekcah wrote: post #162
badRNG wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I don't get is the arrogance of every side about this subject. We have no answers. We have no understanding. The government seems to be about to admit as much. But the true believers are sure, and the true debunkers, yourself included, are sure. To me, you're both just tin foil hat flunkies clinging to your own special precious version of the coming apocalypse. Your own special cult. Generally speaking, it see…

I want to add that I think we should make a clear distinction between (1) “believing” in aliens and (2) believing aliens have visited us. I am for instance virtually certain that life in general and intelligent life in particular abounds in the Universe. I am even more certain that any accounts people tell and have told of alien sightings are lies or misunderstandings.

How many thousands of people would have to agree on a sighting (that you were not a part of) for you to consider?

Re: UFOs shows government competence as either surprisingly high or low

#219

Post by azekai »

iamacyborg wrote: post #200
StavrosK wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm Greek and live in Greece, I don't know of anyone here having seen an alien spaceship or anything that looks like one.

I'm sure there are plenty of Greek folks who think they've seen an alien.

There may be other culturally appropriate explanations. Strange lights in the sky were reported as dragons in Northern England a 1000 years ago, for example.

Re: UFOs shows government competence as either surprisingly high or low

#220

Post by Swenrekcah »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #218
Swenrekcah wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to add that I think we should make a clear distinction between (1) “believing” in aliens and (2) believing aliens have visited us. I am for instance virtually certain that life in general and intelligent life in particular abounds in the Universe. I am even more certain that any accounts people tell and have told of alien sightings are lies or misunderstandings.

How many thousands of people would have to agree on a sighting (that you were not a part of) for you to consider?

Not so many if any of them were working at any of the many companies and institutions that would detected such a thing and had measurements to support it.

A 100 years ago if a few thousand people all swore they saw a flying saucer over Stonehenge it would be rather convincing. Nowadays, such a sighting is impossible to witnesses without the object also being caught on any number of detectors around the globe, so if they don’t support the eyewitnesses I’m inclined to believe the sensors.

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