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U.S. unable to explain more than 140 unidentified flying objects, but no aliens

washingtonpost.com

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Re: U.S. unable to explain more than 140 unidentified flying objects, but no aliens

#61

Post by ALittleLight »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #58
ALittleLight wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. I am not saying that these UAP are definitely aliens. I am saying that the findings of the report make aliens a more likely explanation. The report found that physical objects exhibited behavior that suggests advanced technology - including flying at considerable speed without discernible means of propulsion. It's unfair to characterize this line of thinking as "We don't know what we saw, so aliens." Instead, what…

> I am saying that the findings of the report make aliens a more likely explanation. > I don't know what evidence you would expect to see if alien technology was operating in our atmosphere, but the described observations seem consistent with that conclusion. Could also be angels. Or IMHO, what I want it to be is visitors from a parallel Earth where the dinosaurs never died out and instead developed a hyper-advanced…

It could be angels or alternate reality Earths or whatever. Your prior belief in those things matters and the extent to which you think the observations reported in the DNI report match what you would expect to see were any of those the source of the phenomenon.

I think there is good reason to believe that aliens exist (size of the universe, number of planets) and traveling between star systems is consistent with what we know of physics. I also think observing advanced technology in the form of objects flying in our atmosphere is consistent with the "alien craft operating in our atmosphere" explanation. A surprising observation that is consistent with a theory should add confidence to that theory.

"Burden of proof" is not a useful concept here. I am not saying "It was aliens." I am saying "There is no reason to think the report rules out aliens which the headline suggests, and, actually, the report is consistent with aliens and that's surprising."

Re: U.S. unable to explain more than 140 unidentified flying objects, but no aliens

#62

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

ALittleLight wrote: post #61
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am saying that the findings of the report make aliens a more likely explanation. > I don't know what evidence you would expect to see if alien technology was operating in our atmosphere, but the described observations seem consistent with that conclusion. Could also be angels. Or IMHO, what I want it to be is visitors from a parallel Earth where the dinosaurs never died out and instead developed a hyper-advanced…

It could be angels or alternate reality Earths or whatever. Your prior belief in those things matters and the extent to which you think the observations reported in the DNI report match what you would expect to see were any of those the source of the phenomenon. I think there is good reason to believe that aliens exist (size of the universe, number of planets) and traveling between star systems is consistent with wha…

> "Burden of proof" is not a useful concept here.

I disagree entirely. It is key. You are discarding rationality here.

The "alien craft operating in our atmosphere" explanation is basically ruled out by how it's always liminal observations, never progressing to solid evidence, always a good fit to the limits of the sensors.

Re: U.S. unable to explain more than 140 unidentified flying objects, but no aliens

#63

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

double0jimb0 wrote: post #53
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What part of... rules out aliens? Because 1) Ruling _in_ aliens requires proof. Insisting that this specific scenario be ruled out is classic "shifting the burden of proof" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(philosophy) The train of thought that "we don't know what we saw, so ... aliens!" is somewhere between wishful and nutty. Extra-ordinary claims require extra-ordinary proof. 2) claiming that it's _d…

Dude, the pentagon left the door wide open saying “we don’t have the technological capabilities to determine the origin of these phenomenon”. And that “we won’t be able to report the origin of these phenomenon until we have the technological capabilities to do so”. I mean what other answer is their besides “it’s aliens” (as in it’s non-human technology) This report was an AP reading comprehension test.

> I mean what other answer is their besides “it’s aliens”

Almost anything, really. But why not leap to the conclusion that you want it to be? I agree that it is a test of thought processes.

Re: U.S. unable to explain more than 140 unidentified flying objects, but no aliens

#64

Post by ALittleLight »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #60
ALittleLight wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me rephrase things a little bit. Consider two realities, Reality A (RA) and Reality B (RB). In RA there are no aliens operating craft in our atmosphere and the report was motivated by your 3 explanations or similar. In RB there are aliens operating in our atmosphere. In which reality, RA, or RB, is the DNI report more likely to be published? I think the answer is clearly RB. For one thing, RB has all the same rea…

> Consider two realities We should not consider merely those two options, if you're speculating then there are a vast number of "possible" options that "cannot be ruled out". You're cherry picking, exhibiting confirmation bias etc. This is why there is a burden of proof on the hypothesis being proposed. Disagree strongly with your "not reasonable" about sensors and people. A mish-mash of vague noisy readings cannot r…

You can consider more realities than RA and RB, but RA and RB are still possible realities and what I wrote about them is still true. Even if you infinite other possibilities the relative likelihood of RA and RB still changes the way I describe.

If your radar reports some anomaly then the radar is probably malfunctioning. If the electro-optics report the same anomaly at the same time with the same characteristics, that's weird. If both these sensors, and others, agree on some strange data and you witness it with your own eyes and someone else does too... At some point you need to flip your conclusion from "sensor error" to "I'm observing something strange."

There's no basis that I'm aware of to refer to the observations as "A mish-mash of vague most readings".

Re: U.S. unable to explain more than 140 unidentified flying objects, but no aliens

#65

Post by ALittleLight »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #62
ALittleLight wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be angels or alternate reality Earths or whatever. Your prior belief in those things matters and the extent to which you think the observations reported in the DNI report match what you would expect to see were any of those the source of the phenomenon. I think there is good reason to believe that aliens exist (size of the universe, number of planets) and traveling between star systems is consistent with wha…

> "Burden of proof" is not a useful concept here. I disagree entirely. It is key. You are discarding rationality here. The "alien craft operating in our atmosphere" explanation is basically ruled out by how it's always liminal observations, never progressing to solid evidence, always a good fit to the limits of the sensors.

You are failing to think rationally about probabilities in part because you attach to an idea like "burden of proof" which reduces to the discussion to something like "You can't prove to my satisfaction that it is aliens so I'll assume it's not." That's just ignoring the argument I've made above.

It's also not correct to say that there's never solid evidence. The DNI report suggests there is compelling evidence. I've not seen anything to suggest that the observed phenomenon are at the limits of our sensors.

Re: U.S. unable to explain more than 140 unidentified flying objects, but no aliens

#66

Post by snowflake_ptr »

okareaman wrote: post #24

The most obvious explanation is that the American defense department is probing Chinese and Russian military with advanced drone technology and they would like the Chinese and Russians to think that the American military is also being probed and are equally baffled by it. PsyOps in other words. I doubt they are buying it. I assume that when the Chinese or Russians encounter any unexplained tech it is assumed to be th…

> The most obvious explanation

I beg to differ. The most obvious explanation is that we literally just don't know what these things are. The second most obvious is that these are foreign advanced drone technology. Saying that "we're actually trying to pull a psyop on our enemies" may or may not be more technologically feasible (at least, given the current state of the art of the private industry), but it's definitely not the most obvious.

I'm not going to call Occam's Razor, though, because militaries are up to spooky things.

Re: U.S. unable to explain more than 140 unidentified flying objects, but no aliens

#67

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

ALittleLight wrote: post #65
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Burden of proof" is not a useful concept here. I disagree entirely. It is key. You are discarding rationality here. The "alien craft operating in our atmosphere" explanation is basically ruled out by how it's always liminal observations, never progressing to solid evidence, always a good fit to the limits of the sensors.

You are failing to think rationally about probabilities in part because you attach to an idea like "burden of proof" which reduces to the discussion to something like "You can't prove to my satisfaction that it is aliens so I'll assume it's not." That's just ignoring the argument I've made above. It's also not correct to say that there's never solid evidence. The DNI report suggests there is compelling evidence. I've…

Burden of proof is irrational now? Rubbish. Have a nice day.

Re: U.S. unable to explain more than 140 unidentified flying objects, but no aliens

#68

Post by 252452d »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #57
anonAndOn wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

re #2: what's odd is that it is equipment failure that's been occurring for decades . One would hope that JIRA ticket wouldn't keep getting pushed back to the next sprint for 40+ years.

If it's not sensor artefacts, why have the readings not become clear over the last few decades, when the quality and quantity of sensors in use have improved by orders of magnitude? Why is it still liminal? Has the visibility of these things gotten worse in lockstep with the improvement in sensors? Or (Occam's razor time) it was never real readings to begin with. And, I never assumed a single cause and neither should…

LOL. You don't know shit, these craft are real and have been under development for nearly a century. They're going to fly one low over a US city eventually when it's time for a big funding boost.

Re: U.S. unable to explain more than 140 unidentified flying objects, but no aliens

#69

Post by thisiscorrect »

okareaman wrote: post #45
leesalminen wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See Iraq, as just one example. Remember Colin Powell’s charade at the UN?

That was a dumb pretext. Scott Ritter and others had debunked the weapons of mass destruction claim prior. Everyone knew George W. Bush was going to invade Iraq because Saddam had threatened to kill his father. He was going to finish the job daddy had failed to complete.

"Everyone knew George W. Bush was going to invade Iraq because Saddam had threatened to kill his father. He was going to finish the job daddy had failed to complete."

I suspect it was lobbying from AIPAC and from defense contractors that led the US into Iraq. Probably not personal vendettas by one man, even George Bush.

Re: U.S. unable to explain more than 140 unidentified flying objects, but no aliens

#70

Post by [deleted] »

double0jimb0 wrote: post #53
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What part of... rules out aliens? Because 1) Ruling _in_ aliens requires proof. Insisting that this specific scenario be ruled out is classic "shifting the burden of proof" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(philosophy) The train of thought that "we don't know what we saw, so ... aliens!" is somewhere between wishful and nutty. Extra-ordinary claims require extra-ordinary proof. 2) claiming that it's _d…

Dude, the pentagon left the door wide open saying “we don’t have the technological capabilities to determine the origin of these phenomenon”. And that “we won’t be able to report the origin of these phenomenon until we have the technological capabilities to do so”. I mean what other answer is their besides “it’s aliens” (as in it’s non-human technology) This report was an AP reading comprehension test.

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