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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

#251

Post by bitcurious »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #178
bitcurious wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here’s a completely bizarre experience I had that I attributed to bad luck. I saw a weird triangular drone/plane flying close to an airport. I went to take a picture of it (to identify later) and my phone died. Just up and black screened. An hour later I was eating dinner and turned back on with ~43% battery power remaining. It wasn’t a particularly cold day, but I attributed to an old battery not handling the temp w…

Could've been this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_RQ-170_Sentine...

I bet that was it! Thanks!

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

#252

Post by tgflynn »

simonh wrote: post #231
tgflynn wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read my comment that you initially replied to you would see that I was talking about the FLIR1/Nimitz video. You're the one who brought up Go Fast, I have made no comments about that here. > The proposed explanation is that the object was a much bigger commercial plane than they thought, much further away. I don't know which "proposed explanation" you're referring to but in a recent debate between Mick West an…

Cameras, like human eyes, have effectively infinite range. All it takes is an image bright enough, and as I’m sure you are aware, atmospheric effects can induce huge amounts of magnification and even project images from beyond the horizon. Unless you know something special about the ATFLIR camera that makes it specially limited in some way? At any given time an AEGIS system is going to be tracking dozens of targets.…

I'm not interested in debating all of the technical points with you here. I've looked into it in the past and come to the conclusion that Mick West's theory is highly improbable (which he now appears to be admitting if you check the latest posts on his blog).

I will however point out that this statement:

> Cameras, like human eyes, have effectively infinite range.

is not true in any meaningful sense. Cameras have finite angular resolution. There is sufficient information to determine the angular size of the object in the video. I don't have the exact numbers at hand but I think it corresponds to an F-18 sized object at a range between 20 to 30 miles, well within the F-18's radar range, which exceeds 60 miles. If the object is much farther away then it is also much larger and that hypothesis leads to a different set of problems.

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

#253

Post by simonh »

tgflynn wrote: post #252
simonh wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cameras, like human eyes, have effectively infinite range. All it takes is an image bright enough, and as I’m sure you are aware, atmospheric effects can induce huge amounts of magnification and even project images from beyond the horizon. Unless you know something special about the ATFLIR camera that makes it specially limited in some way? At any given time an AEGIS system is going to be tracking dozens of targets.…

I'm not interested in debating all of the technical points with you here. I've looked into it in the past and come to the conclusion that Mick West's theory is highly improbable (which he now appears to be admitting if you check the latest posts on his blog). I will however point out that this statement: > Cameras, like human eyes, have effectively infinite range. is not true in any meaningful sense. Cameras have fin…

>which he now appears to be admitting...

Er, I just checked Metabunk and his last post is from Wednesday, when he said, among other things:

"So we simultaneously have a radar that being jammed and giving all kinds of strange numbers, and you can't even get the airspeed, but is also able to hand over the exact position to the ATFLIR? It does not make sense."

So I'm not sure what you're talking about. His blog is just old posts about becoming a citizen.

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

#254

Post by tgflynn »

simonh wrote: post #253
tgflynn wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not interested in debating all of the technical points with you here. I've looked into it in the past and come to the conclusion that Mick West's theory is highly improbable (which he now appears to be admitting if you check the latest posts on his blog). I will however point out that this statement: > Cameras, like human eyes, have effectively infinite range. is not true in any meaningful sense. Cameras have fin…

>which he now appears to be admitting... Er, I just checked Metabunk and his last post is from Wednesday, when he said, among other things: "So we simultaneously have a radar that being jammed and giving all kinds of strange numbers, and you can't even get the airspeed, but is also able to hand over the exact position to the ATFLIR? It does not make sense." So I'm not sure what you're talking about. His blog is just…

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/claim-that-the-nimitz-flir1...

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

#255

Post by thrav »

grawprog wrote: post #207
thrav wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the point though, isn’t it? Many people have devoted their entire lives to “exploring the options” and still come up with basically nothing.

To be fair though, that can also be said about a lot of actual historical discoveries and scientific breakthroughs.

I’m much more willing to accept this corollary with Aliens than Bigfoot. Two very different topics.

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

#256

Post by stevenhuang »

sthnblllII wrote: post #212
stevenhuang wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Those explanations are misguided and thunderfoot is just rehashing (badly) the points raised by Mike West. See commentary by David Fravor, one of the jet pilots in the incident https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB8zcAttP1E&t=9671s

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

#257

Post by stevenhuang »

simonh wrote: post #215
stevenhuang wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

See David Fravor's commentary on the videos. He's one of the jet pilots from the Nimitz incident.

https://youtu.be/aB8zcAttP1E?t=9711

Specifically in the Go fast video: https://youtu.be/aB8zcAttP1E?t=9829

The object is shown colder than the ocean; it can't be a bird.

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

#258

Post by kcplate »

tgflynn wrote: post #152
andrewla wrote: post #150

Words fail to describe how skeptical I am of this, but let's focus on the particular point that the author is making. They correctly assert that if you look at the totality of UFO sightings, then A -- "Honest mistakes: This includes misunderstandings of familiar phenomena, delusions and mental illness, and natural phenomena that we now poorly understand" -- is by far the dominant conclusion. If we just look at the ha…

> what are some examples of the top 10 hardest to explain ones? The Nimitz 2004 incident taken as a whole seems to be in a category by itself in terms of how difficult it is to explain.

Call me skeptical, but why all of a sudden would a government go from “swamp gas” and “weather balloons” to “we don’t know what the hell it is”. Seems awfully contrived.

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

#259

Post by reinkaos »

ThalesX wrote: post #10

tl;dr; just a story of how I saw a UFO when I was young, nothing actionable... I feel somewhat bad for sharing life stories on a technical forum, but here it goes. As a young boy, 5-ish, I was sleeping with my mother and father in the room, and my grandmother rushes in, all pale, shouting something which directly translates to "Flying body! Flying body!". I distinctly remember having nightmares afterward with flying…

What you saw might have been ball lightning.

A friend and I saw one when we were kids. I only came to find out what it was many years later. From the distance it looked no different than an airplane light until it got really close, around 30ft from us. It looked like a ball of white light, a bit larger than a basketball. There was no clear contour, like when you look at a very bright lamp. It made no noise whatsoever. We lost it from sight for a moment and it was gone.

I'm not totally sure but I think the sky was clear that night.

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

#260

Post by sthnblllII »

stevenhuang wrote: post #256
sthnblllII wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Those explanations are misguided and thunderfoot is just rehashing (badly) the points raised by Mike West. See commentary by David Fravor, one of the jet pilots in the incident https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB8zcAttP1E&t=9671s

David Fravor's testimony is contradicted by the video evidence. What specifically in Dr. Mason's analysis do you think is incorrect? Thanks.
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