Best UFO resources: you can't rely on Internet sources such as Wikipedia
November 25, 2014 9:55 AM Subscribe
Hyper.net's Best UFO Resources
This is a reference Website. It offers a collection of hand-picked UFO resources: real UFO pictures (see the "summary" and "technical overview" pages), video documentaries, video footage and testimonies, technical data and over 500 links to scientific studies, books, portals, newsfeeds, blogs and forums about UFOs. In short, by combining info from many diverse sources, our goal is to share a selection of valuable, representative (in a some cases unique UFO info and original research), as concisely as possible and offer some possible answers. Also provide a "starting point" for in-depth info and gems of real value in a labyrinth of (often false) information published on the fascinating subject of UFOs.The site also includes links to other organizations around the world, though the site hasn't yet added France's official, full-time state-run UFO department, GEIPAN (Group d'Etudes et d'Informations Sur Les Phenomenes Aerospatiaux Non Identifies; translation: Study Group and Information on Non-Identified Aerospace Phenomenon, covered previously). See also: Disclosure Project's UFO files, a list of official government comments and UFO archives released by various countries.
Excited to spend forever looking at these.
posted by gucci mane at 10:14 AM on November 25, 2014
posted by gucci mane at 10:14 AM on November 25, 2014
Fantastic -- my Thanksgiving order of "woo" arrived, and I'll even have the time to settle in and enjoy it :-) Thanks FLT!
posted by mosk at 10:22 AM on November 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by mosk at 10:22 AM on November 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
Of course, you can't rely on sources that don't pre-suppose the validity of the phenomena under discussion
posted by anazgnos at 10:39 AM on November 25, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by anazgnos at 10:39 AM on November 25, 2014 [3 favorites]
I'm not sure why the site calls them"UFO"s, since they've clearly decided they know what they are. Tradition, maybe?
posted by happyroach at 10:57 AM on November 25, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by happyroach at 10:57 AM on November 25, 2014 [2 favorites]
I looked at some of the photos in the first two links. I always them fascinating - some of them have obvious explanations (in my opinion, of course) like a specular glint of sun from a lake far below, or a blemish in the film, or cosmic ray impacts on your digital camera CCD, or aircraft viewed at unusual angles. Others, I have no idea - none at all. Maybe they're faked, maybe something else, I can't tell from looking at the versions online.
But here's the problem with all of the UFOs and alien abduction stories: Suppose you wanted to sort out the issue once and for all. Maybe you'd set up a massive monitoring experiment involving thousands - no, tens of thousands - no, go big, millions! - of cameras and video cameras. Put them in the hands of millions of volunteers, make them carry those devices for every moment of their waking lives, and ask them to record anything unusual and submit it to some centralized collection service. If these things are real, surely you'd find hundreds? thousands? of such events every month? Including some utterly spectacularly detailed views?
We've done this experiment, of course, and Facebook and Twitter are dominated by pets and babies. Cute kids, sunsets, and food. Garden photos. Kissy-face selfies. But no UFOs that stand up to scrutiny. It's almost like the UFOs stopped coming once enough people got smartphones.
posted by RedOrGreen at 10:58 AM on November 25, 2014 [16 favorites]
But here's the problem with all of the UFOs and alien abduction stories: Suppose you wanted to sort out the issue once and for all. Maybe you'd set up a massive monitoring experiment involving thousands - no, tens of thousands - no, go big, millions! - of cameras and video cameras. Put them in the hands of millions of volunteers, make them carry those devices for every moment of their waking lives, and ask them to record anything unusual and submit it to some centralized collection service. If these things are real, surely you'd find hundreds? thousands? of such events every month? Including some utterly spectacularly detailed views?
We've done this experiment, of course, and Facebook and Twitter are dominated by pets and babies. Cute kids, sunsets, and food. Garden photos. Kissy-face selfies. But no UFOs that stand up to scrutiny. It's almost like the UFOs stopped coming once enough people got smartphones.
posted by RedOrGreen at 10:58 AM on November 25, 2014 [16 favorites]
It's almost like the UFOs stopped coming once enough people got smartphones.
Ohohoho ... anything but. Behold, a website for your particular request: Recent UFOs, because there are still blurry, shaky videos and images taken in this modern age of omnipresent (improved?) cameras.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:03 AM on November 25, 2014 [4 favorites]
Ohohoho ... anything but. Behold, a website for your particular request: Recent UFOs, because there are still blurry, shaky videos and images taken in this modern age of omnipresent (improved?) cameras.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:03 AM on November 25, 2014 [4 favorites]
But here's the problem with all of the UFOs and alien abduction stories: Suppose you wanted to sort out the issue once and for all.
But no UFOs that stand up to scrutiny. It's almost like the UFOs stopped coming once enough people got smartphones.
You could never sort out the issue once and for all. It's not black and white like other issues that we can solve absolutely. The phenomenon seems to be a multilayered mystery that goes beyond whether can people can capture it on video. It almost seems to exist in order to defy logic thinking and scientific explanation.
The book Mirage Men is one of the best assessments of what might be going on , or at least one aspect of it.
posted by Liquidwolf at 11:07 AM on November 25, 2014 [2 favorites]
But no UFOs that stand up to scrutiny. It's almost like the UFOs stopped coming once enough people got smartphones.
You could never sort out the issue once and for all. It's not black and white like other issues that we can solve absolutely. The phenomenon seems to be a multilayered mystery that goes beyond whether can people can capture it on video. It almost seems to exist in order to defy logic thinking and scientific explanation.
The book Mirage Men is one of the best assessments of what might be going on , or at least one aspect of it.
posted by Liquidwolf at 11:07 AM on November 25, 2014 [2 favorites]
I long ago stopped believing in UFOs, but that said the "everyone has smartphones, where are the UFOs" argument doesn't seem that convincing to me. There are plenty of underphotographed real phenomena. Heck, there's a lot of phenomena that are photographed a lot, but don't get publicized.
All it takes is rarity and/or an unwillingness to consider unpopular viewpoints. Think of any number of well-documented but disbelieved social phenomena, including but not limited to sexism, racism, etc.
Possibly UFOs are unpopular because they are unreal. But a lack of photos on the front page of CNN is not proof of anything.
posted by DU at 11:07 AM on November 25, 2014 [3 favorites]
All it takes is rarity and/or an unwillingness to consider unpopular viewpoints. Think of any number of well-documented but disbelieved social phenomena, including but not limited to sexism, racism, etc.
Possibly UFOs are unpopular because they are unreal. But a lack of photos on the front page of CNN is not proof of anything.
posted by DU at 11:07 AM on November 25, 2014 [3 favorites]
There are plenty of underphotographed real phenomena.
But are there plenty of phenomena of genuine interest that are frequently witnessed but rarely photographed?
posted by Flexagon at 11:21 AM on November 25, 2014 [3 favorites]
But are there plenty of phenomena of genuine interest that are frequently witnessed but rarely photographed?
posted by Flexagon at 11:21 AM on November 25, 2014 [3 favorites]
>> There are plenty of underphotographed real phenomena.
> But are there plenty of phenomena of genuine interest that are frequently witnessed but rarely photographed?
Yeah, exactly. When there's something spectacular in the sky, we seem to have no shortage of video and photo records. But UFOs, suddenly, the best we can do is scale-free blue sky with wobbling specks but stationary camera artifacts? I don't buy it.
If UFOs had the occurrence rates implied by the fuzzy photos from the 70s, we should catch them in gorgeous full-color high res images and video on a daily basis now.
(I've worked on "fast radio bursts" and other radio transient sources, so I really do understand the difficulty in catching rare phenomena.)
posted by RedOrGreen at 11:33 AM on November 25, 2014 [2 favorites]
> But are there plenty of phenomena of genuine interest that are frequently witnessed but rarely photographed?
Yeah, exactly. When there's something spectacular in the sky, we seem to have no shortage of video and photo records. But UFOs, suddenly, the best we can do is scale-free blue sky with wobbling specks but stationary camera artifacts? I don't buy it.
If UFOs had the occurrence rates implied by the fuzzy photos from the 70s, we should catch them in gorgeous full-color high res images and video on a daily basis now.
(I've worked on "fast radio bursts" and other radio transient sources, so I really do understand the difficulty in catching rare phenomena.)
posted by RedOrGreen at 11:33 AM on November 25, 2014 [2 favorites]
Sure, lots. For instance, essential all transients go unphotographed. "What the heck was THAT?" "I dunno, it happened so fast." The time scale here will probably be on the order of up to 10s.
Lots of other things happen frequently (FSVO "frequently") but only in remote areas, such as landslides or rare animal sightings. Here the transient time could be up to minutes, if you can't/don't want to get out the camera and disturb an animal or hinder your escape from the landslide.
I realize that lots of UFO reports don't fall into these categories, but not all UFO categories have to have the same explanation. The ones where plenty of cameras and time were available and no reasonable explanation for a lack of photographs is forthcoming can be lies while the others remain unexplained.
posted by DU at 11:33 AM on November 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
Lots of other things happen frequently (FSVO "frequently") but only in remote areas, such as landslides or rare animal sightings. Here the transient time could be up to minutes, if you can't/don't want to get out the camera and disturb an animal or hinder your escape from the landslide.
I realize that lots of UFO reports don't fall into these categories, but not all UFO categories have to have the same explanation. The ones where plenty of cameras and time were available and no reasonable explanation for a lack of photographs is forthcoming can be lies while the others remain unexplained.
posted by DU at 11:33 AM on November 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
Yes, but a meteor is not under intelligent control while one theory for UFOs is that they are. Meaning evasive maneuvers.
If UFOs had the occurrence rates implied by the fuzzy photos from the 70s..
You are lumping an unknown and possibly non-zero number of real sightings in with a large number of known non-real ones. Frequency of real UFOs is completely unknown, therefore the probability of capturing one on camera is not computable.
posted by DU at 11:35 AM on November 25, 2014 [5 favorites]
If UFOs had the occurrence rates implied by the fuzzy photos from the 70s..
You are lumping an unknown and possibly non-zero number of real sightings in with a large number of known non-real ones. Frequency of real UFOs is completely unknown, therefore the probability of capturing one on camera is not computable.
posted by DU at 11:35 AM on November 25, 2014 [5 favorites]
It's almost like the UFOs stopped coming once enough people got smartphones.
Don't count me as a believer, but I have a hard time understanding why people think smartphones are capable of capturing UFOs. If we can say for the sake of argument that UFOs appear in the sky roughly the size of a commercial airplane--I'm sure there are lots of exceptions, but whatever.
Have you ever taken a pic of an airplane in the sky with your smartphone? Or better, a video? What's perfectly visible IRL is going to be a tiny speck on your computer screen; the fixed wide angle lens of your phone is not going to get a good shot of something so far away. Everyone has a smartphone but no one has a tripod, evidenced by about 90% of YouTube videos and their extreme shakiness. And that just gets worse at night.
Just because there are more cameras doesn't mean those cameras are suited to capturing UFOs.
posted by zardoz at 11:40 AM on November 25, 2014 [4 favorites]
Don't count me as a believer, but I have a hard time understanding why people think smartphones are capable of capturing UFOs. If we can say for the sake of argument that UFOs appear in the sky roughly the size of a commercial airplane--I'm sure there are lots of exceptions, but whatever.
Have you ever taken a pic of an airplane in the sky with your smartphone? Or better, a video? What's perfectly visible IRL is going to be a tiny speck on your computer screen; the fixed wide angle lens of your phone is not going to get a good shot of something so far away. Everyone has a smartphone but no one has a tripod, evidenced by about 90% of YouTube videos and their extreme shakiness. And that just gets worse at night.
Just because there are more cameras doesn't mean those cameras are suited to capturing UFOs.
posted by zardoz at 11:40 AM on November 25, 2014 [4 favorites]
Last month, I set up a big library display (complete with light up saucer and free toy aliens for the kids) of UFO books. People would look it over and a few of them would talk to me about the subject. I was surprised by the number of people that not only had a UFO encounter (UFO in the classic "I don't know what that is up there" sense) but then never did anything to follow it up. "I saw something in the sky... it was probably just a plane, but I dunno.. it didn't move like a plane."
Now, turning my chair around backwards for Real Talk and put my tinfoil hat squarely on my head, I wonder if this is all part of Their plan. Combine a large apathetic populace who will not follow up on a sighting with a strict, evidence based subset for whom it's a Smoking Gun Or Nothing and you have ideal conditions for maintaining secrecy. Sure, there are more cameras out there, but how many of them are pointed at the skies? There are more pictures being taken, but is each being examined as closely as it used to be? And if someone does get a picture of something they can't explain, what's in it for them to come forward? At best, they get a spot on the local news with the X-Files theme being played. At worst it's straight up ridicule (thanks to the High Strangeness that tends to accompany these events).
posted by robocop is bleeding at 11:41 AM on November 25, 2014 [3 favorites]
Now, turning my chair around backwards for Real Talk and put my tinfoil hat squarely on my head, I wonder if this is all part of Their plan. Combine a large apathetic populace who will not follow up on a sighting with a strict, evidence based subset for whom it's a Smoking Gun Or Nothing and you have ideal conditions for maintaining secrecy. Sure, there are more cameras out there, but how many of them are pointed at the skies? There are more pictures being taken, but is each being examined as closely as it used to be? And if someone does get a picture of something they can't explain, what's in it for them to come forward? At best, they get a spot on the local news with the X-Files theme being played. At worst it's straight up ridicule (thanks to the High Strangeness that tends to accompany these events).
posted by robocop is bleeding at 11:41 AM on November 25, 2014 [3 favorites]
> A meteor is not under intelligent control while one theory for UFOs is that they are. Meaning evasive maneuvers.
I think air force pilots are taught (and if they aren't, they should be!) that if you're having to undertake evasive maneuvers, you've already made a mistake. The best evasive maneuver is not to be there in the first place.
posted by RedOrGreen at 11:42 AM on November 25, 2014
I think air force pilots are taught (and if they aren't, they should be!) that if you're having to undertake evasive maneuvers, you've already made a mistake. The best evasive maneuver is not to be there in the first place.
posted by RedOrGreen at 11:42 AM on November 25, 2014
The best evasive maneuver is not to be there in the first place.
The implication being that real UFO sightings, if any, are probably rare. As noted above, there is no way to compute this number, so I cannot disagree with any argument about how rare they are.
posted by DU at 11:46 AM on November 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
The implication being that real UFO sightings, if any, are probably rare. As noted above, there is no way to compute this number, so I cannot disagree with any argument about how rare they are.
posted by DU at 11:46 AM on November 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
Combine a large apathetic populace who will not follow up on a sighting with a strict, evidence based subset for whom it's a Smoking Gun Or Nothing and you have ideal conditions for maintaining secrecy. Sure, there are more cameras out there, but how many of them are pointed at the skies?
I referred to the book Mirage Men earlier by Mark Pilkington. In the book one of the things he arrives at is that during the cold war the US govt perpetuated the UFO mythology so that people WOULD watch the skies and report what they saw .. in case it was a Soviet spy plane or or something like that.
But the govt didn't create the UFO myth. There was something genuinely unexplainable happening that even they didn't understand. They just exploited it as cover for their own aircraft and using people to watch the skies.
posted by Liquidwolf at 11:47 AM on November 25, 2014 [4 favorites]
I referred to the book Mirage Men earlier by Mark Pilkington. In the book one of the things he arrives at is that during the cold war the US govt perpetuated the UFO mythology so that people WOULD watch the skies and report what they saw .. in case it was a Soviet spy plane or or something like that.
But the govt didn't create the UFO myth. There was something genuinely unexplainable happening that even they didn't understand. They just exploited it as cover for their own aircraft and using people to watch the skies.
posted by Liquidwolf at 11:47 AM on November 25, 2014 [4 favorites]
My personal favorite image from an observing run at Palomar is an exposure that was completely ruined by a meteor streaking across the line of sight. Optical transients are a thing, and wide-field automated robotic telescopes are monitoring the skies every night (e.g.) - but I guess if you're willing to postulate targeted avoidance strategies, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by RedOrGreen at 11:48 AM on November 25, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by RedOrGreen at 11:48 AM on November 25, 2014 [2 favorites]
In my years of watching the sky I've seen a few things I could not explain away with aircraft or birds or whatever. The weirdest was a big reddish-orange orb (about the diameter of a full moon) that was slowly moving along, in and out of the clouds, across the sky on a dark and stormy night in northern Ontario about 8 years back. It was not the moon (that night was around the new moon) and my wife saw it as well, so it was not my imagination.
I remain unconvinced on an extraterrestrial intelligence explanation for unexplained aerial phenomena.
posted by fimbulvetr at 11:49 AM on November 25, 2014 [2 favorites]
I remain unconvinced on an extraterrestrial intelligence explanation for unexplained aerial phenomena.
posted by fimbulvetr at 11:49 AM on November 25, 2014 [2 favorites]
> I long ago stopped believing in UFOs
How is that possible? People continue to see flying objects that they can't identify.
There's a conflation between "observations of unidentified flying objects" and "observations of technological devices being flown by non-human beings" that's not accurate.
Most of these observations are mistakes; a few are hoaxes. Some of the remaining are scientifically-understood but rare atmospheric phenomena like sundogs, or, yes, swamp gas. Pilots are more prone to these than civilians, because many of them are so rare a pilot is lucky see them once in their career, but they're constantly looking at the sky.
In the past, quite a few of these observations have actually been of secret military craft - the stealth bomber in particular set off a wave of "triangular UFO" sightings, which in hindsight were bang on - "large black triangular silent flying object".
Two incidents about a decade ago, where units from the Mexican Air Force and then a months later the Iranian Air Force were scrambled to investigate persistent radar blips that seemed to be aircraft but were unable make visual contact or engage lead a few people to wonder if the US was testing invisible aircraft - but a lot more people like myself to wonder if they were testing a device that could produce coherent radar bogies (it really doesn't sound impossible, you can just fake the echoes from the radar pings yourself and send it to each radar emplacement. You'd need some serious computation and probably at least three radar sources, but the military has the bucks to do it.)
Another fascinating recent incident was the 2006 Chicago O'Hare Airport UFO sighting, which was seen by several pilots. Note the FAA's conclusion was that this was caused by a real, previously-unknown atmospheric phenomenon, but not one that posed any danger to airline traffic.
There are quite a few other interesting cases.
Please remember that when I was young, science denied the very existence of ball lightning - the theory was it was a big bright spot on your eyes created by a flash of lightning, i.e. "you misinterpreted what you saw" - even though airlines had a standard procedure for dealing with ball lightning (when you see the static build up, you're supposed to duck under the cockpit so your eyes aren't dazzled) and there were reports of ball lightning bouncing down the aisle of a commercial jet!
Now science understands ball lightning much better, has changed airplanes to help them discharge static as they go, and has produced ball lightning in the lab.
So don't be so sure that we understand everything we see yet.
That said, the idea of technological creatures flying around in spaceships seems far-fetched for a ton of good reasons.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:52 AM on November 25, 2014 [16 favorites]
How is that possible? People continue to see flying objects that they can't identify.
There's a conflation between "observations of unidentified flying objects" and "observations of technological devices being flown by non-human beings" that's not accurate.
Most of these observations are mistakes; a few are hoaxes. Some of the remaining are scientifically-understood but rare atmospheric phenomena like sundogs, or, yes, swamp gas. Pilots are more prone to these than civilians, because many of them are so rare a pilot is lucky see them once in their career, but they're constantly looking at the sky.
In the past, quite a few of these observations have actually been of secret military craft - the stealth bomber in particular set off a wave of "triangular UFO" sightings, which in hindsight were bang on - "large black triangular silent flying object".
Two incidents about a decade ago, where units from the Mexican Air Force and then a months later the Iranian Air Force were scrambled to investigate persistent radar blips that seemed to be aircraft but were unable make visual contact or engage lead a few people to wonder if the US was testing invisible aircraft - but a lot more people like myself to wonder if they were testing a device that could produce coherent radar bogies (it really doesn't sound impossible, you can just fake the echoes from the radar pings yourself and send it to each radar emplacement. You'd need some serious computation and probably at least three radar sources, but the military has the bucks to do it.)
Another fascinating recent incident was the 2006 Chicago O'Hare Airport UFO sighting, which was seen by several pilots. Note the FAA's conclusion was that this was caused by a real, previously-unknown atmospheric phenomenon, but not one that posed any danger to airline traffic.
There are quite a few other interesting cases.
Please remember that when I was young, science denied the very existence of ball lightning - the theory was it was a big bright spot on your eyes created by a flash of lightning, i.e. "you misinterpreted what you saw" - even though airlines had a standard procedure for dealing with ball lightning (when you see the static build up, you're supposed to duck under the cockpit so your eyes aren't dazzled) and there were reports of ball lightning bouncing down the aisle of a commercial jet!
Now science understands ball lightning much better, has changed airplanes to help them discharge static as they go, and has produced ball lightning in the lab.
So don't be so sure that we understand everything we see yet.
That said, the idea of technological creatures flying around in spaceships seems far-fetched for a ton of good reasons.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:52 AM on November 25, 2014 [16 favorites]
I remain unconvinced on an extraterrestrial explanation for unexplained aerial phenomena.
I agree. Extraterrestrial explanations should be the last option for weird things. There's a lot on this planet we don't yet understand.
posted by Liquidwolf at 11:52 AM on November 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
I agree. Extraterrestrial explanations should be the last option for weird things. There's a lot on this planet we don't yet understand.
posted by Liquidwolf at 11:52 AM on November 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
As someone who works in the generalized "space" field, I can tell you that space is hugely huge and the "sky" even as a two-dimensional projection of that isn't as much smaller as you might think. A LOT of territory goes uncovered.
That's even assuming the robots are looking for the right thing. That Palomar image was taken in the days when a human would look at each image. Most automated processing nowadays takes a streak and auto-correlates it to the star field and emits ra, dec and associated rates. If a streak doesn't fall into the right parameters, it's rejected as noise or falls into some other bug-like crack.
posted by DU at 11:53 AM on November 25, 2014
That's even assuming the robots are looking for the right thing. That Palomar image was taken in the days when a human would look at each image. Most automated processing nowadays takes a streak and auto-correlates it to the star field and emits ra, dec and associated rates. If a streak doesn't fall into the right parameters, it's rejected as noise or falls into some other bug-like crack.
posted by DU at 11:53 AM on November 25, 2014
but a lot more people like myself to wonder if they were testing a device that could produce coherent radar bogies (it really doesn't sound impossible, you can just fake the echoes from the radar pings yourself and send it to each radar emplacement. You'd need some serious computation and probably at least three radar sources, but the military has the bucks to do it.)
This is was speculated to be the explanation for the UFOs over LA ( or was it Washignton DC?) in the 1950s. Fake radar blips manipulated by US military.
posted by Liquidwolf at 11:56 AM on November 25, 2014
This is was speculated to be the explanation for the UFOs over LA ( or was it Washignton DC?) in the 1950s. Fake radar blips manipulated by US military.
posted by Liquidwolf at 11:56 AM on November 25, 2014
Making fake radar pings doesn't require computation unless you want them to look like something, in which case "serious computation" is kind of an understatement.
posted by DU at 11:58 AM on November 25, 2014
posted by DU at 11:58 AM on November 25, 2014
You could never sort out the issue once and for all. It's not black and white like other issues that we can solve absolutely.
Liquidwolf
Of course we can. This is playing a semantics game, as lupus_yonderboy notes. The question of what unidentified phenomenon might be is very open-ended, sure.
The question, "Are UFOs technological devices being flown/operated by non-human beings?" is a black and white, yes or no question. Either we are or we aren't.
Just because there are more cameras doesn't mean those cameras are suited to capturing UFOs.
zardoz
Sure it does. Not your average smartphones, but there are now more of more types of cameras of greater power than at any time in human history, and every day cameras are becoming more powerful, more ubiquitous, and cheaper. Is every camera out today capable of capturing good photos of aircraft? No, but there are plenty of cameras that are.
RedOrGreen is entirely right. As cameras become better and more widespread, it's less and less possible to think that strange things are there because "out there" keeps shrinking.
posted by Sangermaine at 11:58 AM on November 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
Liquidwolf
Of course we can. This is playing a semantics game, as lupus_yonderboy notes. The question of what unidentified phenomenon might be is very open-ended, sure.
The question, "Are UFOs technological devices being flown/operated by non-human beings?" is a black and white, yes or no question. Either we are or we aren't.
Just because there are more cameras doesn't mean those cameras are suited to capturing UFOs.
zardoz
Sure it does. Not your average smartphones, but there are now more of more types of cameras of greater power than at any time in human history, and every day cameras are becoming more powerful, more ubiquitous, and cheaper. Is every camera out today capable of capturing good photos of aircraft? No, but there are plenty of cameras that are.
RedOrGreen is entirely right. As cameras become better and more widespread, it's less and less possible to think that strange things are there because "out there" keeps shrinking.
posted by Sangermaine at 11:58 AM on November 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
Uh, to be clear I'm not saying that more cameras are not shrinking the unknown. What I'm saying is that "the unknown" still covers a LOT of territory. Surveillance is not as total as you think.
posted by DU at 12:01 PM on November 25, 2014
posted by DU at 12:01 PM on November 25, 2014
The question, "Are UFOs technological devices being flown/operated by non-human beings?" is a black and white, yes or no question. Either we are or we aren't.
Yes, that specific question may have an answer but that question doesn't ask enough. You should also ask are they being flown by anyone at all? Or are they a mass hallucination? I think the reason we doth understand it is because we refuse to consider that it might not be measurable by our standard questioning. Either that or the military has some incredible sic fi spaceships.
As cameras become better and more widespread, it's less and less possible to think that strange things are there because "out there" keeps shrinking.
I disagree. "Out there" gets bigger the more we learn, not smaller.
posted by Liquidwolf at 12:07 PM on November 25, 2014 [2 favorites]
Yes, that specific question may have an answer but that question doesn't ask enough. You should also ask are they being flown by anyone at all? Or are they a mass hallucination? I think the reason we doth understand it is because we refuse to consider that it might not be measurable by our standard questioning. Either that or the military has some incredible sic fi spaceships.
As cameras become better and more widespread, it's less and less possible to think that strange things are there because "out there" keeps shrinking.
I disagree. "Out there" gets bigger the more we learn, not smaller.
posted by Liquidwolf at 12:07 PM on November 25, 2014 [2 favorites]
Uh, to be clear I'm not saying that more cameras are not shrinking the unknown. What I'm saying is that "the unknown" still covers a LOT of territory. Surveillance is not as total as you think.
But this is a "god of the gaps" position. The argument about the ubiquity of modern cameras is not that it proves there could be no such thing as UFOs (in the sense of alien spacecraft), but that it proves the kinds of claims that were regularly being made about UFOs and alien abduction and so forth and so on in the latter half of the 1970s were deeply impluasible. Either the aliens radically changed their behavior as soon as cameras became ubiquitous or pretty much all the "close encounter" stories of the past are bogus. Once you've narrowed down the window for possible alien activity to things that are moving so high and so fast that no one has time to haul out a camera or to resolve the image once taken, you've pretty much eliminated all the lore on which the modern popular theory of the UFO was based.
Does that eliminate the possibility of hyper secretive, hyper cagey alien visitors? Of course not, but you really can't prove a negative of that kind.
posted by yoink at 12:21 PM on November 25, 2014 [2 favorites]
But this is a "god of the gaps" position. The argument about the ubiquity of modern cameras is not that it proves there could be no such thing as UFOs (in the sense of alien spacecraft), but that it proves the kinds of claims that were regularly being made about UFOs and alien abduction and so forth and so on in the latter half of the 1970s were deeply impluasible. Either the aliens radically changed their behavior as soon as cameras became ubiquitous or pretty much all the "close encounter" stories of the past are bogus. Once you've narrowed down the window for possible alien activity to things that are moving so high and so fast that no one has time to haul out a camera or to resolve the image once taken, you've pretty much eliminated all the lore on which the modern popular theory of the UFO was based.
Does that eliminate the possibility of hyper secretive, hyper cagey alien visitors? Of course not, but you really can't prove a negative of that kind.
posted by yoink at 12:21 PM on November 25, 2014 [2 favorites]
Typically when you think you've seen a UFO or an alien or a spaceman, it turns out you've just wandered into a shooting location for a Harlington-Straker film. Once I learned that I stopped worrying about them.
posted by George_Spiggott at 12:21 PM on November 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by George_Spiggott at 12:21 PM on November 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
Thanks for the links, filthy light thief! They're a good source of nostalgic fun on a cold, snowy afternoon. It's been a long time since I read anything about UFOs, but it seems the sightings have continued, and people like Dimitris Hatzopoulos are still trying to make sense of it all.
I think the subject of UFOs is too big for one summary or investigation, because there's at least a few interrelated phenomenon going on here.
- The original mystery of UFOs is the central phenomena. Whether they're real or not, photos and movies and videos and eyewitness testimony continue to pile up. But someone who only looks into sightings is going to be disappointed, because there's nowhere you can go with it all. In science you collect data, construct hypotheses, do experiments, and then collect more data which is used to modify the theories. But you can't do experiments on UFOs, because they aren't reproducible at will. So investigations of sightings will always dead-end in a flurry of photographs and frustration.
- Then there's the phenomena of belief in UFOs. This is a very big deal, but it has more to do with psychology and anthropology than anything unexplained. For many people UFOs have become a modern religion, or a convenient Thing That Science Cannot Explain that helps buttress their beliefs in conventional religion. (For instance, there's a positive correlation between UFO sightings and belief in Christianity. Countries that are still majority Christian tend to see more of them than countries with less mainstream acceptance of belief.) Then there's the people who say they have been abducted by aliens who are frightened by their experiences, and cults that believe in UFOs, and on and on.
- And the third phenomena is the convergence between government and UFOs. How much do They know that they aren't telling us? This is a rabbit hole that American UFO enthusiasts fall into with regularity, never to return. (Perhaps because it fits with a traditional distrust of government that many Americans feel?) There's a tremendous amount of nonsense in this area, but I do think there's an interesting story at the core, albeit not one about extraterrestrials. It's a story of two growing cults and the ways that they conflict with and use each other: on one side is the fledgling cult of UFOs typified by lone amateur researchers or conspiracy nuts, and on the other side is the massive cult of Secrecy that took hold of the US government after WWII. Whether the US government knows anything about UFOs or not, I'm quite certain they have a lot of real secrets about nuclear research, drones and the like that have remained hidden thanks to the cointelpro techniques that have worked so well on obsessed UFO enthusiasts.
posted by Kevin Street at 12:26 PM on November 25, 2014 [5 favorites]
I think the subject of UFOs is too big for one summary or investigation, because there's at least a few interrelated phenomenon going on here.
- The original mystery of UFOs is the central phenomena. Whether they're real or not, photos and movies and videos and eyewitness testimony continue to pile up. But someone who only looks into sightings is going to be disappointed, because there's nowhere you can go with it all. In science you collect data, construct hypotheses, do experiments, and then collect more data which is used to modify the theories. But you can't do experiments on UFOs, because they aren't reproducible at will. So investigations of sightings will always dead-end in a flurry of photographs and frustration.
- Then there's the phenomena of belief in UFOs. This is a very big deal, but it has more to do with psychology and anthropology than anything unexplained. For many people UFOs have become a modern religion, or a convenient Thing That Science Cannot Explain that helps buttress their beliefs in conventional religion. (For instance, there's a positive correlation between UFO sightings and belief in Christianity. Countries that are still majority Christian tend to see more of them than countries with less mainstream acceptance of belief.) Then there's the people who say they have been abducted by aliens who are frightened by their experiences, and cults that believe in UFOs, and on and on.
- And the third phenomena is the convergence between government and UFOs. How much do They know that they aren't telling us? This is a rabbit hole that American UFO enthusiasts fall into with regularity, never to return. (Perhaps because it fits with a traditional distrust of government that many Americans feel?) There's a tremendous amount of nonsense in this area, but I do think there's an interesting story at the core, albeit not one about extraterrestrials. It's a story of two growing cults and the ways that they conflict with and use each other: on one side is the fledgling cult of UFOs typified by lone amateur researchers or conspiracy nuts, and on the other side is the massive cult of Secrecy that took hold of the US government after WWII. Whether the US government knows anything about UFOs or not, I'm quite certain they have a lot of real secrets about nuclear research, drones and the like that have remained hidden thanks to the cointelpro techniques that have worked so well on obsessed UFO enthusiasts.
posted by Kevin Street at 12:26 PM on November 25, 2014 [5 favorites]
Kevin Street, did you read Mirage Men?
posted by Liquidwolf at 12:34 PM on November 25, 2014
posted by Liquidwolf at 12:34 PM on November 25, 2014
Nope, but looking at the Wikipedia summary it certainly sounds plausible.
posted by Kevin Street at 12:43 PM on November 25, 2014
posted by Kevin Street at 12:43 PM on November 25, 2014
I cannot for the life of me remember who it was, and my Google-fu is failing, but I remember awhile ago (10-15 years ago) some guy making the case that UFOs were not, in fact, "technological devices being flown/operated by non-human beings".
Instead, he was theorizing that they were a cryptid; a hitherto-undiscovered (but totally terrestrial) species with camouflage abilities who lived in the sky like amoeba live in water.
I know the science for this possibility is way woo, but I always liked the idea.
posted by jammy at 1:06 PM on November 25, 2014 [2 favorites]
Instead, he was theorizing that they were a cryptid; a hitherto-undiscovered (but totally terrestrial) species with camouflage abilities who lived in the sky like amoeba live in water.
I know the science for this possibility is way woo, but I always liked the idea.
posted by jammy at 1:06 PM on November 25, 2014 [2 favorites]
Either that or the military has some incredible sic fi spaceships.
I think this is a large part of it, especially sightings near military installations. I went to a talk by a NASA astrophysicist who had done some work for DARPA and the DOD and of course during Q&A someone asked about UFOs. He pointed out that the classic description of UFOs, small object moving erratically and more maneuverable than any aircraft, sound a lot like what drones would be doing when they started being available to the general public decades later. I mean, the CIA was working on dragonfly-sized drones 40 years ago which you can view at the CIA Museum in DC. Who knows what crazy stuff is being worked on in secret today?
posted by Sangermaine at 1:09 PM on November 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
I think this is a large part of it, especially sightings near military installations. I went to a talk by a NASA astrophysicist who had done some work for DARPA and the DOD and of course during Q&A someone asked about UFOs. He pointed out that the classic description of UFOs, small object moving erratically and more maneuverable than any aircraft, sound a lot like what drones would be doing when they started being available to the general public decades later. I mean, the CIA was working on dragonfly-sized drones 40 years ago which you can view at the CIA Museum in DC. Who knows what crazy stuff is being worked on in secret today?
posted by Sangermaine at 1:09 PM on November 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
> But you can't do experiments on UFOs, because they aren't reproducible at will.
Surely this is the old "observational science isn't science" argument? You could say the same thing about astronomy or geology - you can't reproduce an ice age or a nova...
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 1:12 PM on November 25, 2014 [2 favorites]
Surely this is the old "observational science isn't science" argument? You could say the same thing about astronomy or geology - you can't reproduce an ice age or a nova...
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 1:12 PM on November 25, 2014 [2 favorites]
But you can reproduce the evidence for ice ages or novas. Multiple investigators in different places find different kinds of evidence that point to the same phenomena. And they're understandable by use of our existing theories about the world.
UFOs are a little like gamma ray bursts, in that they're unpredictable one-time events. But even the GRBs have been recorded with regularity by multiple investigators. And it isn't even clear that all UFOs are representatives of the same underlying phenomena like GRBs are.
posted by Kevin Street at 1:19 PM on November 25, 2014
UFOs are a little like gamma ray bursts, in that they're unpredictable one-time events. But even the GRBs have been recorded with regularity by multiple investigators. And it isn't even clear that all UFOs are representatives of the same underlying phenomena like GRBs are.
posted by Kevin Street at 1:19 PM on November 25, 2014
That is, out of a set of four UFOs, one might be swamp gas, another one a camera artifact, one a deliberate forgery, and one might be genuinely unexplained. It isn't like studying ice ages, where you can find geologic evidence and fossils that fit into a single theory, or gamma ray bursts where all the observations are of a similar type.
posted by Kevin Street at 1:27 PM on November 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Kevin Street at 1:27 PM on November 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
Of course some aerial objects might not be identified. As several have pointed out, "unidentified" does not mean "alien from another planetary system." There is no more reason to consider aliens as the source than there is to consider leprechauns. Plenty of people claim to have seen the latter also.
Cameras are more ubiquitous than just smartphones. There are security cameras, and as we saw with the recent meteor in Russia, at any given moment a thousand Russian dashcams capture parts of the sky. The meteor event took just a few seconds, but there were hundreds of videos. Not one came from a smartphone, because the event was over faster than anyone could react. The photos were all taken by automated processes. Still, not many UFOs turning up on security or dashcam video.
posted by Repack Rider at 1:29 PM on November 25, 2014
Cameras are more ubiquitous than just smartphones. There are security cameras, and as we saw with the recent meteor in Russia, at any given moment a thousand Russian dashcams capture parts of the sky. The meteor event took just a few seconds, but there were hundreds of videos. Not one came from a smartphone, because the event was over faster than anyone could react. The photos were all taken by automated processes. Still, not many UFOs turning up on security or dashcam video.
posted by Repack Rider at 1:29 PM on November 25, 2014
How many of those dashcam videos are being rewatched for UFOs? The meteor made people go back and review footage they would not have reviewed unless someone ran into their car.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 1:34 PM on November 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by robocop is bleeding at 1:34 PM on November 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
2006 O'Hare International Airport UFO sighting. Just plop that into your favorite search engine when you get bored. We have no technology like that and if we did, we wouldn't hover it over one of the busiest airports in the world.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 1:48 PM on November 25, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by Mr. Yuck at 1:48 PM on November 25, 2014 [3 favorites]
How many of those dashcam videos are being rewatched for UFOs? The meteor made people go back and review footage they would not have reviewed unless someone ran into their car.
Well, yes - there is no "centralized collection service" who is rigorously and scientifically going through all this phone-cam and other-cam information.
If there is, I'd love to know about it. It'd be really swell if it was one that we could easily review/organize/query.
Unless, of course, telling me would get me killed/abducted. Then: I do *not* want to know about it.
posted by jammy at 1:51 PM on November 25, 2014
Well, yes - there is no "centralized collection service" who is rigorously and scientifically going through all this phone-cam and other-cam information.
If there is, I'd love to know about it. It'd be really swell if it was one that we could easily review/organize/query.
Unless, of course, telling me would get me killed/abducted. Then: I do *not* want to know about it.
posted by jammy at 1:51 PM on November 25, 2014
> There is no "centralized collection service" ... If there is, I'd love to know about it.
Jammy, of course there's the
> Unless, of course, telling me would get me killed/abducted. Then: I do *not* want to know about it.
Oh. Well, ok, forget I said anything.
posted by RedOrGreen at 2:00 PM on November 25, 2014 [4 favorites]
Jammy, of course there's the
> Unless, of course, telling me would get me killed/abducted. Then: I do *not* want to know about it.
Oh. Well, ok, forget I said anything.
posted by RedOrGreen at 2:00 PM on November 25, 2014 [4 favorites]
If we're really open minded, we'll accept the possibility that some explanations will be ... mundane.
posted by lodurr at 2:21 PM on November 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by lodurr at 2:21 PM on November 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
jammy: there is no "centralized collection service" who is rigorously and scientifically going through all this phone-cam and other-cam information
Nope, nothing central, and nothing "rigorously and scientifically" going through all this. Lots of disjointed efforts with varying degrees of understanding of potential explanations for the observances. This made me think of the relatively short-lived TV show, Fact or Fake: Paranormal Files, which reviewed claims of mysterious happenings, then tried to replicate the images and videos. Some of the attempts were a stretch, but some did a good job replicating what was seen on film. (And if you want more TV about the paranormal, here is a list of such shows, on IMDb, for hours of distraction.)
posted by filthy light thief at 2:25 PM on November 25, 2014
Nope, nothing central, and nothing "rigorously and scientifically" going through all this. Lots of disjointed efforts with varying degrees of understanding of potential explanations for the observances. This made me think of the relatively short-lived TV show, Fact or Fake: Paranormal Files, which reviewed claims of mysterious happenings, then tried to replicate the images and videos. Some of the attempts were a stretch, but some did a good job replicating what was seen on film. (And if you want more TV about the paranormal, here is a list of such shows, on IMDb, for hours of distraction.)
posted by filthy light thief at 2:25 PM on November 25, 2014
How many of those dashcam videos are being rewatched for UFOs? The meteor made people go back and review footage they would not have reviewed unless someone ran into their car.
Yes, but that's the "god of the gaps" problem. Back in the day, people were very gung ho about UFOs being witnessed by large crowds or behaving in very startling and dramatic ways--but wouldn't you know it, I'd just used up my last toll of film. Or it all got fogged when my clumsy nogoodnik kid pulled it out of the camera. Or, dang it, no one happened to have a camera. Now, suddenly, UFOs are amazingly discrete. Sure, they're out there, flying around, but they're doing their damnedest not to be seen so if we don't already know where to look, we don't bother to check the footage we've collected.
Now, sure, UFOs will always have some non-observed space in which to fly free, fly proud, fly green--but don't you think it's just a trifle odd that their flight paths seems to be dictated by our capacities for observation and recording?
posted by yoink at 2:50 PM on November 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
Yes, but that's the "god of the gaps" problem. Back in the day, people were very gung ho about UFOs being witnessed by large crowds or behaving in very startling and dramatic ways--but wouldn't you know it, I'd just used up my last toll of film. Or it all got fogged when my clumsy nogoodnik kid pulled it out of the camera. Or, dang it, no one happened to have a camera. Now, suddenly, UFOs are amazingly discrete. Sure, they're out there, flying around, but they're doing their damnedest not to be seen so if we don't already know where to look, we don't bother to check the footage we've collected.
Now, sure, UFOs will always have some non-observed space in which to fly free, fly proud, fly green--but don't you think it's just a trifle odd that their flight paths seems to be dictated by our capacities for observation and recording?
posted by yoink at 2:50 PM on November 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
Now, sure, UFOs will always have some non-observed space in which to fly free, fly proud, fly green--but don't you think it's just a trifle odd that their flight paths seems to be dictated by our capacities for observation and recording?
Not unless I disregard their capacity to evolve in response to their environment - the same capacity that is observed of every other living thing on this planet.
posted by jammy at 2:56 PM on November 25, 2014
Not unless I disregard their capacity to evolve in response to their environment - the same capacity that is observed of every other living thing on this planet.
posted by jammy at 2:56 PM on November 25, 2014
2006 O'Hare International Airport UFO sighting.
Yeah, that's actually a sighting that shows the suspicious nature of UFO reports. Supposedly witnessed by hundreds of people for several minutes, a dozen official reports, and NOBODY had a goddamn picture phone. Except much later a single witness pops up with an alleged photo. Dan Akroyd. Uh-huh.
Sorry, there is so much gibberish, gullibility, true-believerism, disinformation and utter nonsense infesting the field of UFOology. that there's no way to actually separate out meanings data, and won't be for probably centuries. It's a hopeless mess, and resembles Focault's Pendulum more than an investigation.
posted by happyroach at 3:09 PM on November 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
Yeah, that's actually a sighting that shows the suspicious nature of UFO reports. Supposedly witnessed by hundreds of people for several minutes, a dozen official reports, and NOBODY had a goddamn picture phone. Except much later a single witness pops up with an alleged photo. Dan Akroyd. Uh-huh.
Sorry, there is so much gibberish, gullibility, true-believerism, disinformation and utter nonsense infesting the field of UFOology. that there's no way to actually separate out meanings data, and won't be for probably centuries. It's a hopeless mess, and resembles Focault's Pendulum more than an investigation.
posted by happyroach at 3:09 PM on November 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
NOBODY had a goddamn picture phone.
Not that many phones had cameras to begin with in 2006 (maybe 40-50% of ones that were available to the average consumer?), let alone worthwhile ones that could take a decent shot of aerial phenomena.
posted by jammy at 3:46 PM on November 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
Not that many phones had cameras to begin with in 2006 (maybe 40-50% of ones that were available to the average consumer?), let alone worthwhile ones that could take a decent shot of aerial phenomena.
posted by jammy at 3:46 PM on November 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
Of course there are alien flown UFOs - how else are the Queen's reptilian relatives going to visit her? I think they are coming from 70 Ophiuchi in the constellation Ophiuchus.
(Why yes, I did just wiki Stars in the Constellation Ophiuchus, but the table was confusing, and I ended up reading about main sequence stars.)
posted by marienbad at 3:48 PM on November 25, 2014
(Why yes, I did just wiki Stars in the Constellation Ophiuchus, but the table was confusing, and I ended up reading about main sequence stars.)
posted by marienbad at 3:48 PM on November 25, 2014
It wouldn't matter how many people witnessed the UFO, when, or for how long. None of them would have cameras. Nobody ever well.
posted by happyroach at 3:53 PM on November 25, 2014
posted by happyroach at 3:53 PM on November 25, 2014
The question, "Are UFOs technological devices being flown/operated by non-human beings?" is a black and white, yes or no question. Either we are or we aren't.
In which Sangermaine gives the game away (emphasis added)
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 4:12 PM on November 25, 2014 [3 favorites]
In which Sangermaine gives the game away (emphasis added)
posted by Hello, I'm David McGahan at 4:12 PM on November 25, 2014 [3 favorites]
So I just spent a few hours reading Hyper.net, and it's interesting in a sort of meta, psychology of belief way. Hatzopoulos starts out in very objective manner and tries to dispassionately evaluate different sources of information, but as the pages go on you can see him leaning towards a couple of favorite explanations, citing them more often than anything else. In particular he seems to like the book Unconventional Flying Objects: A Scientific Analysis by Paul Hill (which was mentioned on Metafilter before, but I can't find the link), and favors the idea that UFOs are spaceships crewed by amphibious reptiles. Greys seem to be more of an American thing, not seen as often elsewhere.
posted by Kevin Street at 4:38 PM on November 25, 2014
posted by Kevin Street at 4:38 PM on November 25, 2014
Astronaut Gordon Cooper wrote a book called Leap of Faith, he described alien technology in the posession of the US, and seeing it personally. He discussed an engineer named Welling from Tremonton, Utah, who saw one up close in an area where I have been. Cooper described Welling figured out the drive, and made a couple. Cooper went to Tremonton and flew a small prototype on a tether.
posted by Oyéah at 5:30 PM on November 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Oyéah at 5:30 PM on November 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
I've built my own astrophotography rig and I've also tried photographing the ISS. Even knowing exactly when/where it is, it's still an undertaking to get a good result. People seem to be thinking the fact that there are a lot of high megapixel cameras out there means that if there are interstellar craft traispsing about the atmosphere we'd be able to take photos like method 2's results but reading what that really requires reveals the implausibility of that. There is no shortage of blurry and vaguely mysterious light photos, like method 1, though.
I have a fairly recent phone with a nice camera and I can't even take a good picture of the moon with it. I think people are vastly overselling the quality of low light photos offered by the typical inexpensive camera. I'm definitely not saying that there's some vast amount of evidence escaping the notice of low-quality surveillance cameras or instantly-obsolescent cameraphones, but it's not like everyone's running around with telescope-mounted DSLRs, either. I just don't think the necessary technology is widespread enough to be definitive on this basis. We're not far off, though, and maybe we'd be there already if we had access to the military panopticon or something.
That being said, I love the stories about how UFOs supposedly disabled IBCMs. It's the perfect cold war urban legend and I really wish someone would come up with a Close Encounters style version of the idea.
posted by feloniousmonk at 5:31 PM on November 25, 2014 [3 favorites]
I have a fairly recent phone with a nice camera and I can't even take a good picture of the moon with it. I think people are vastly overselling the quality of low light photos offered by the typical inexpensive camera. I'm definitely not saying that there's some vast amount of evidence escaping the notice of low-quality surveillance cameras or instantly-obsolescent cameraphones, but it's not like everyone's running around with telescope-mounted DSLRs, either. I just don't think the necessary technology is widespread enough to be definitive on this basis. We're not far off, though, and maybe we'd be there already if we had access to the military panopticon or something.
That being said, I love the stories about how UFOs supposedly disabled IBCMs. It's the perfect cold war urban legend and I really wish someone would come up with a Close Encounters style version of the idea.
posted by feloniousmonk at 5:31 PM on November 25, 2014 [3 favorites]
> Yeah, that's actually a sighting that shows the suspicious nature of UFO reports. Supposedly witnessed by hundreds of people for several minutes, a dozen official reports, and NOBODY had a goddamn picture phone. Except much later a single witness pops up with an alleged photo. Dan Akroyd. Uh-huh.
Mockery doesn't substitute for actually reading the link.
As noted in the Wikipedia article and the Chicago Tribune article linked from it, the FAA said that this was a real, if unspecified, weather phenomenon. This is not consistent with your theory, which seems to be, "Everyone's lying".
Do I think it's little green men? Of course not. Mostly likely it's actually some obscure atmospheric phenomenon, or some "security event". The second would perfectly explain the FAA's response, "It did happen, but don't worry about it."
This interesting paper has a lot more data, including many reproductions of primary sources and a ton of analysis.
It would be interesting to actually discuss the facts of this or any other without snark.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 5:32 PM on November 25, 2014
Mockery doesn't substitute for actually reading the link.
As noted in the Wikipedia article and the Chicago Tribune article linked from it, the FAA said that this was a real, if unspecified, weather phenomenon. This is not consistent with your theory, which seems to be, "Everyone's lying".
Do I think it's little green men? Of course not. Mostly likely it's actually some obscure atmospheric phenomenon, or some "security event". The second would perfectly explain the FAA's response, "It did happen, but don't worry about it."
This interesting paper has a lot more data, including many reproductions of primary sources and a ton of analysis.
It would be interesting to actually discuss the facts of this or any other without snark.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 5:32 PM on November 25, 2014
Personally, I think the odds that any extra-terrestrial intelligence has ever or will ever visit Earth are very low. Even though we have only developed the ability to detect exoplanets somewhat recently, and even though as DU points out, we don't really have any basis on which to estimate the probability of ET contact - I nevertheless think that we are basically alone.
But...
Let's say you're a chinook salmon, headed up the Yukon River to your spawning grounds. You spot a delectable caddisfly, so you swoop in and CHOMP... and suddenly you're dragged toward the banks! And then you get dragged up the bank, where no salmon ever goes, and hung up in this unbearably bright space, and someone huge alien creature you've never seen before grabs ahold of you and implants this device into your body. Or maybe you're just paraded around for a little bit and then they let you go.
Now, out of millions and billions of salmon, how many are caught and released? And how many are tagged? How many see some fisherman on the banks of the river and escape to tell the tale? 1%... 0.5? 0.001? Less? And what's the tale they have to tell... "Somebody somehow pulled me out of the river into the sky... and studied me! They put things in my body! They kept me alive in a special chamber until they were done!"
What do you suppose the other salmon have to say about that? Doesn't it sound like most abduction stories? Don't you think it's less than one in a billion who ever get caught and released? And even if most salmon had their equivalent of cell phone cameras, what are the odds their cameras could take a picture of a human from dozens of yards away, from underwater? And aren't the technology and abilities possessed by your average fisherman basically godlike and incomprehensible to salmon?
So like I said, I don't really think ET ever came to earth... but I can't help notice that the way alien abductees tell their story and the way a primitive animal would tell its story are very similar...
posted by mrbigmuscles at 5:38 PM on November 25, 2014 [4 favorites]
But...
Let's say you're a chinook salmon, headed up the Yukon River to your spawning grounds. You spot a delectable caddisfly, so you swoop in and CHOMP... and suddenly you're dragged toward the banks! And then you get dragged up the bank, where no salmon ever goes, and hung up in this unbearably bright space, and someone huge alien creature you've never seen before grabs ahold of you and implants this device into your body. Or maybe you're just paraded around for a little bit and then they let you go.
Now, out of millions and billions of salmon, how many are caught and released? And how many are tagged? How many see some fisherman on the banks of the river and escape to tell the tale? 1%... 0.5? 0.001? Less? And what's the tale they have to tell... "Somebody somehow pulled me out of the river into the sky... and studied me! They put things in my body! They kept me alive in a special chamber until they were done!"
What do you suppose the other salmon have to say about that? Doesn't it sound like most abduction stories? Don't you think it's less than one in a billion who ever get caught and released? And even if most salmon had their equivalent of cell phone cameras, what are the odds their cameras could take a picture of a human from dozens of yards away, from underwater? And aren't the technology and abilities possessed by your average fisherman basically godlike and incomprehensible to salmon?
So like I said, I don't really think ET ever came to earth... but I can't help notice that the way alien abductees tell their story and the way a primitive animal would tell its story are very similar...
posted by mrbigmuscles at 5:38 PM on November 25, 2014 [4 favorites]
I was joking with a Air Force officer on a plane ride. We were sitting over the wing. I asked why we never see OFOs just off the sides of planes anymore, he said beyond a point in time they stopped being visible, not that they stopped existing. I took this at face value, especially when there was masked dread on his face. I wasn't at all serious but something crossed his face that was. I am not particularly a believer nor am I. a fearful person, we are clearly our own worst enemy, and the enemy of all else on this rock.
posted by Oyéah at 5:38 PM on November 25, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by Oyéah at 5:38 PM on November 25, 2014 [4 favorites]
Lupus, you will note that I am one of the contributors to the NARCAP report you've linked.
The entire topic has been rendered toxic for public discussion, especially on the internet. It has become a proxy religion, entertainment channel, and cultural obsession for some number of people, and those who typically participate in the "field" in any public capacity, tend to be highly questionable and drag the entire topic right into the gutter. Most of the public considers it little more than a distraction for morons and sci-fi fanatics.
I wish it were otherwise, but that's not likely to ever be the case, sadly. For those of us who have been exposed to the serious side of the issue, it's nothing less than a curse.
posted by dbiedny at 5:41 PM on November 25, 2014 [6 favorites]
The entire topic has been rendered toxic for public discussion, especially on the internet. It has become a proxy religion, entertainment channel, and cultural obsession for some number of people, and those who typically participate in the "field" in any public capacity, tend to be highly questionable and drag the entire topic right into the gutter. Most of the public considers it little more than a distraction for morons and sci-fi fanatics.
I wish it were otherwise, but that's not likely to ever be the case, sadly. For those of us who have been exposed to the serious side of the issue, it's nothing less than a curse.
posted by dbiedny at 5:41 PM on November 25, 2014 [6 favorites]
60 comments and no mention of John Keel.
I encourage everyone in this thread to read these two books: The Mothman Prophecies and Operation Trojan Horse.
This Letterman interview is infotaining, as is this lecture on men in black, set to a montage of movie footage.
John Keel, along with Jacques Vallee and others, was a believer in the Interdimensional Hypothesis. Ufologists who subscribe to this theory conclude UFOs and other phenomena are indigenous, not extraterrestrial.
If you just want a concise summary of Keels' thoughts on the subject this takes four and half minutes.
posted by clarknova at 5:45 PM on November 25, 2014 [5 favorites]
I encourage everyone in this thread to read these two books: The Mothman Prophecies and Operation Trojan Horse.
This Letterman interview is infotaining, as is this lecture on men in black, set to a montage of movie footage.
John Keel, along with Jacques Vallee and others, was a believer in the Interdimensional Hypothesis. Ufologists who subscribe to this theory conclude UFOs and other phenomena are indigenous, not extraterrestrial.
If you just want a concise summary of Keels' thoughts on the subject this takes four and half minutes.
posted by clarknova at 5:45 PM on November 25, 2014 [5 favorites]
And suddenly the most promising urban areas have spaceports. I just hope the time traveling monkey-on-a-stick franchisers don't come with the freezer ships in my grandchildren's lifetimes. Nuking Jupiter a while back was such a bad idea, especially when we think life could exist under the ice on Enceladus? We really don't understand time well enough, maybe our ancestors are already there?
posted by Oyéah at 5:48 PM on November 25, 2014
posted by Oyéah at 5:48 PM on November 25, 2014
Don't forget the Dogon people, whose sacred cave revealed Sirius's neutron star companion and the specifics of of their co rotation 600 years ago. We only learned this in the eighties. Carl Sagan discussed these findings.
posted by Oyéah at 6:10 PM on November 25, 2014
posted by Oyéah at 6:10 PM on November 25, 2014
As noted in the Wikipedia article and the Chicago Tribune article linked from it, the FAA said that this was a real, if unspecified, weather phenomenon. This is not consistent with your theory, which seems to be, "Everyone's lying".
Yeah, I did read the report. "unspecified weather phenomenon" is not "rapidly rotating metal disk". Like I said earlier, "hundreds" of alleged witnesses, minutes of observation, no pictures. Massively different size and shape descriptions. And a long report with obvious bias and editorializing. Etcetera. In other words, same old, same old.
My judgement on the field being so tainted that useful information is impossible to find, stands.
posted by happyroach at 6:51 PM on November 25, 2014
Yeah, I did read the report. "unspecified weather phenomenon" is not "rapidly rotating metal disk". Like I said earlier, "hundreds" of alleged witnesses, minutes of observation, no pictures. Massively different size and shape descriptions. And a long report with obvious bias and editorializing. Etcetera. In other words, same old, same old.
My judgement on the field being so tainted that useful information is impossible to find, stands.
posted by happyroach at 6:51 PM on November 25, 2014
Years ago, out on the eastern side of Los Angeles County, in the Antelope Valley area near Edwards AFB where experimental aircraft are test flown I saw a bright silvery object ascend vertically, then fly ninety degrees horizontally repeatedly. It certainly wasn't flight that any conventional aircraft was capable of. It would flash brightly and then disappear completely. It would disappear from view and then reappear in a completely different position. I had a rugged old Jeep and wide open desert between me and the object - but no camera. I took off toward it, trying to get closer. I chased it for a good twenty minutes before I got close enough to identify it. A desert whirlwind (dust devil) had lifted a moderate sized piece of aluminum foil aloft. I made a first hand debunking of what might have been a good UFO story.
I have very little interest in unidentified, unexplained or unknown objects in flight, at sea or anywhere terrestrial. My interests are in the ongoing scientific studies focused on identifying and understanding natural phenomena.
I believe that the UFO reporting is most probably the result of over active imaginations and lack of conscientious investigation.
posted by X4ster at 9:05 PM on November 25, 2014
I have very little interest in unidentified, unexplained or unknown objects in flight, at sea or anywhere terrestrial. My interests are in the ongoing scientific studies focused on identifying and understanding natural phenomena.
I believe that the UFO reporting is most probably the result of over active imaginations and lack of conscientious investigation.
posted by X4ster at 9:05 PM on November 25, 2014
I didn't see anyone posting their own UFO sighting stories on this thread...
is their a thread like that?
posted by dougiedd at 11:35 PM on November 25, 2014
is their a thread like that?
posted by dougiedd at 11:35 PM on November 25, 2014
My judgement on the field being so tainted that useful information is impossible to find, stands.
Perhaps attending DefCon and speaking with Richard Thieme or visiting his web site or even reading the book UFOs and Government: A Historical Inquiry may change your judgement.
posted by rough ashlar at 6:33 AM on November 26, 2014
Perhaps attending DefCon and speaking with Richard Thieme or visiting his web site or even reading the book UFOs and Government: A Historical Inquiry may change your judgement.
posted by rough ashlar at 6:33 AM on November 26, 2014
I didn't see anyone posting their own UFO sighting stories on this thread...
As stated up-thread - the topic is toxic. Then you have the 30 day window where topics close here on The Blue. This may not be the best place for such a topic.
You may wish to wait for the next time some unidentified objects are reported in mass on the mainstream news and what was seen becomes a topic of the day on The Blue.
posted by rough ashlar at 6:37 AM on November 26, 2014 [1 favorite]
As stated up-thread - the topic is toxic. Then you have the 30 day window where topics close here on The Blue. This may not be the best place for such a topic.
You may wish to wait for the next time some unidentified objects are reported in mass on the mainstream news and what was seen becomes a topic of the day on The Blue.
posted by rough ashlar at 6:37 AM on November 26, 2014 [1 favorite]
We had a secretary at work who believed she had been abducted by aliens. She had been on the Jerry Springer Show to describe her abduction and report that they brought a message of Peace. She had taken shaky digital movies of their spaceships [a spot of light in a dark sky] and she showed me close-up photographs of their ship taken by a friend of hers [I suspect that friend of hers was not a very good friend, because the pictures looked like close-ups of a carnival Tilt-a-Whirl]. She was a very nice person and a good secretary, and I know it vexed her that I didn't treat any of that as real evidence of aliens. Still, she belonged to a UFO society and they all carried cameras with them.
posted by acrasis at 6:47 AM on November 26, 2014
posted by acrasis at 6:47 AM on November 26, 2014
Perhaps attending DefCon and speaking with Richard Thieme or visiting his web site
Well, visiting his website made at least one skeptic even more skeptical.
posted by Camofrog at 8:18 AM on November 26, 2014
Well, visiting his website made at least one skeptic even more skeptical.
posted by Camofrog at 8:18 AM on November 26, 2014
I brought up the O'Hare thing because I was shocked to hear about it on the top of the hour NPR news summary back then.
The other thing that made me extrude ectoplasm was an interview on The Diane Rehm Show with John E. Mack. Can't find it and I have e-mailed them.
Even if a bunch of people eat improperly prepared bread, you are not human if you don't find collective hallucinations both bizarre and fascinating. Not saying that is what happened, just that preserving your childhood sense of the world being a mysterious place is a good thing.
Science does not come from skepticism. It comes from investigation and not from invalidating topics.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 9:02 AM on November 26, 2014
The other thing that made me extrude ectoplasm was an interview on The Diane Rehm Show with John E. Mack. Can't find it and I have e-mailed them.
Even if a bunch of people eat improperly prepared bread, you are not human if you don't find collective hallucinations both bizarre and fascinating. Not saying that is what happened, just that preserving your childhood sense of the world being a mysterious place is a good thing.
Science does not come from skepticism. It comes from investigation and not from invalidating topics.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 9:02 AM on November 26, 2014
I'm sure this useless, dumb witness is confusing the facts and looking for fame and fortune by revealing his participation in this non-incident. It was just a flock of geese, obviously.
posted by dbiedny at 9:19 AM on November 26, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by dbiedny at 9:19 AM on November 26, 2014 [1 favorite]
Science does not come from skepticism. It comes from investigation and not from invalidating topics.
I was obsessed with UFOs for 20 years. I've even visited Area 51. After enough time not seeing anything and enough BS interviews on Coast to Coast with Richard Hoagland types, investigation turns into skepticism. This topic has invalidated itself.
posted by Camofrog at 10:02 AM on November 26, 2014
I was obsessed with UFOs for 20 years. I've even visited Area 51. After enough time not seeing anything and enough BS interviews on Coast to Coast with Richard Hoagland types, investigation turns into skepticism. This topic has invalidated itself.
posted by Camofrog at 10:02 AM on November 26, 2014
As a long-time subscriber, I've noticed that even the Fortean Times has become skeptical of alien intelligence explanations for UFOs. Recent years have had many debunking articles, even in the regular UFO column.
I didn't see anyone posting their own UFO sighting stories on this thread...
I posted one up above!
posted by fimbulvetr at 10:17 AM on November 26, 2014
I didn't see anyone posting their own UFO sighting stories on this thread...
I posted one up above!
posted by fimbulvetr at 10:17 AM on November 26, 2014
Even if a bunch of people eat improperly prepared bread, you are not human if you don't find collective hallucinations both bizarre and fascinating.
Yea, the poor people of Pont-Saint-Esprit in 1951 and all that bad bread.
posted by rough ashlar at 12:46 PM on November 26, 2014
Yea, the poor people of Pont-Saint-Esprit in 1951 and all that bad bread.
posted by rough ashlar at 12:46 PM on November 26, 2014
Perhaps attending DefCon and speaking with Richard Thieme, visiting his web site or even reading the book UFOs and Government: A Historical Inquiry may change your judgement.
Read it, visited the site. Same shit, different decade. There's always one more site, one more interview, one more group that's going to blow my mind and change my judgement back to what it was when I was 28. And always the data I get is only good for an Anthropological study of human belief systems.
posted by happyroach at 1:54 PM on November 26, 2014 [1 favorite]
Read it, visited the site. Same shit, different decade. There's always one more site, one more interview, one more group that's going to blow my mind and change my judgement back to what it was when I was 28. And always the data I get is only good for an Anthropological study of human belief systems.
posted by happyroach at 1:54 PM on November 26, 2014 [1 favorite]
There's always one more site, one more interview, one more group that's going to blow my mind and change my judgement back to what it was when I was 28.
damn, is there something that this DOESN'T apply to? Sometimes I still mourn how sure I was about things in my youth. Often a cringe about it, too, but I still mourn.
posted by lodurr at 8:18 AM on December 1, 2014
damn, is there something that this DOESN'T apply to? Sometimes I still mourn how sure I was about things in my youth. Often a cringe about it, too, but I still mourn.
posted by lodurr at 8:18 AM on December 1, 2014
« Older Hey you, don't watch that watch this! | We all scream Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by Liquidwolf at 10:00 AM on November 25, 2014 [3 favorites]