Best Evidence & Content that Counters Pseudo-Skepticism Regarding the Topic of UFOs
Monday, July 14, 2014
UFO Debunkers Hate Logical Thinking
Leslie Kean asks: "Is this the case UFO skeptics have been dreading?"
http://metamorphosis.democraticunderground.com/11352800
Answer: It probably is! Ms. Kean has an article over at HuffPost: UFO Caught on Tape Over Santiago Air Base, and it's going viral!
Journalist Leslie Kean is the author of UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go on the Record. The book has received praise from people as diverse as Dr. Michio Kaku, Astronomer Derek Pitts of the Franklin Institute, and Rudy Schild of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
The case mentioned is a sighting from Chile in 2010, presented to the public in a March 13 press conference. In Ms. Kean's words:
The stunning conclusion: The Chilean jets were being stalked by a UFO.
Please note: Chile's CEFAA is only one of a number of agencies established by governments that think UFOs are worthy of serious, scientific study. Those other countries are: Brazil, Peru, Equador, Uruguay, Argentina, Belgium, France and Britain. France's GEIPAN is part of their national space agency: CNES.
What makes this particular incident harder to dismiss?
CEFAA officials collected seven videos of the El Bosque UFO taken from different vantage points. Bermúdez commissioned scientists from many disciplines, aeronautical experts, and air force and army photogrametric technicians to subject the videos to intense scrutiny. They all came to the same conclusions.
As I said, this has gone viral: There are articles on Business Insider, and MSNBC.com.
'Debunkers' like Robert Shaeffer are already weighing in on the case:
Sheaffer has admitted that he hasn't examined any of the videos: \
Here's one of the videos:
Answer: It probably is! Ms. Kean has an article over at HuffPost: UFO Caught on Tape Over Santiago Air Base, and it's going viral!
Journalist Leslie Kean is the author of UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go on the Record. The book has received praise from people as diverse as Dr. Michio Kaku, Astronomer Derek Pitts of the Franklin Institute, and Rudy Schild of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
The case mentioned is a sighting from Chile in 2010, presented to the public in a March 13 press conference. In Ms. Kean's words:
It was a glorious, sunny morning on Nov. 5, 2010, when crowds gathered to celebrate the changing of the Air Force Command at El Bosque Air Base in Santiago. From different locations, spectators aimed video cameras and cell phones at groups of acrobatic and fighter jets performing an air show overhead. Nobody saw anything amiss.
But afterward, an engineer from the adjacent Pillán aircraft factory noticed something bizarre while viewing his footage in slow motion. He turned it over to the government's well known Committee for the Study of Anomalous Aerial Phenomena, or CEFAA, for analysis.
The stunning conclusion: The Chilean jets were being stalked by a UFO.
Please note: Chile's CEFAA is only one of a number of agencies established by governments that think UFOs are worthy of serious, scientific study. Those other countries are: Brazil, Peru, Equador, Uruguay, Argentina, Belgium, France and Britain. France's GEIPAN is part of their national space agency: CNES.
What makes this particular incident harder to dismiss?
CEFAA officials collected seven videos of the El Bosque UFO taken from different vantage points. Bermúdez commissioned scientists from many disciplines, aeronautical experts, and air force and army photogrametric technicians to subject the videos to intense scrutiny. They all came to the same conclusions.
As I said, this has gone viral: There are articles on Business Insider, and MSNBC.com.
'Debunkers' like Robert Shaeffer are already weighing in on the case:
"They're 'unexplained cases' only if you ignore the explanation. That's what's going to happen in this case."
Sheaffer has admitted that he hasn't examined any of the videos: \
Sheaffer said there wasn't yet enough data available to judge what really happened at El Bosque. "It's going to be like the Phoenix Lights in 1997. We're going to have to go and sit down and look at it," he said. (Coincidentally, Kean and Blumenthal's story came out on the 15th anniversary of the Phoenix Lights incident in Arizona.)
Here's one of the videos:
Ms. Kean has a Facebook page, linked from her website
Edited to add - for those who think the Phoenix Lights case has been thoroughly debunked: The explanation usually given was that witnesses saw flares dropped by Air Force jets during a training exercise. That's disputed by Ms. Kean and by Former Arizona Governor Fife Symington III:
Symington says he saw a large triangular "craft of unknown origin" with lights. "It was dramatic. And it couldn't have been flares because it was too symmetrical," he says. "It had a geometric outline, a constant shape."
Other witnesses also related the fact that the lights maintained a constant spacing throughout the sighting, unlike parachute flares which would drift with the wind. Also, the timing is off:
People sometimes confuse the sightings of the objects at around 8:30 that evening with the row of lights videotaped at 10 p.m. and shown repeatedly on television news. These later lights most likely were flares, according to video analysts. People who saw the earlier objects were outside watching the Hale-Bopp Comet, and saw something entirely different.
Source.
Source.
Each video included three different, mainly horizontal loops flown by the UFO within seconds of each other. The object made elliptical passes either near or around each of three sets of performing jets. It flew past the Halcones, F5s and F16s at speeds so fast it was not noticed by the pilots or anyone on the ground below.
The UFO passes the F5s.
Images show it as a dome-shaped, flat-bottomed object with no visible means of propulsion. The rounded top reflects the sun and appears metallic; the bottom is darker and flat, emitting some form of energy which is visible in photo analysis. Infrared studies show the entire object is radiating heat, just like the jets.
Close up of the UFO from the Halcones video.
This extraordinary machine was flying at velocities too high to be man-made. Scientists have estimated the speed, depending on the size of the object, to be at least 4000 - 6000 mph. Humans inside this object could not survive. And, somehow, it made no sonic boom, a noise similar to thunder which occurs whenever something exceeds the speed of sound (750 mph at sea level).
The shock waves generated from an object at such high velocities would normally be enormous. But no known aircraft or drone could possibly fly this fast at such low altitudes anyway. Our fastest air-breathing jet, the SR-71, has a maximum speed of just over 2,000 mph, but that's at high altitudes.
And, this strange object is clearly operating under intelligent control. It zooms toward each set of jets at about their height, circles around and zooms back out again. Pilots who were shown the trajectory of the object in the three flybys were amazed that this maneuver is characteristic of reconnaissance aircraft coming in for a quick look at others in the sky.
Astronomer Luis Barrera from the Metropolitan University of Sciences in Chile, who has an asteroid named after him, was one of eight highly skeptical scientists who analyzed the footage. He was able to rule out a meteoroid, pieces of meteors or comets, space junk, a bird or an airplane.
"The object performed a risky flight maneuver in front of the Halcones from W-E-W, at low altitude and high speed," Barrera concluded. "It had intentional movements. It moved east with 25 degrees inclination, which is the same angle of spacecraft when entering the atmosphere."
Images show it as a dome-shaped, flat-bottomed object with no visible means of propulsion. The rounded top reflects the sun and appears metallic; the bottom is darker and flat, emitting some form of energy which is visible in photo analysis. Infrared studies show the entire object is radiating heat, just like the jets.
This extraordinary machine was flying at velocities too high to be man-made. Scientists have estimated the speed, depending on the size of the object, to be at least 4000 - 6000 mph. Humans inside this object could not survive. And, somehow, it made no sonic boom, a noise similar to thunder which occurs whenever something exceeds the speed of sound (750 mph at sea level).
The shock waves generated from an object at such high velocities would normally be enormous. But no known aircraft or drone could possibly fly this fast at such low altitudes anyway. Our fastest air-breathing jet, the SR-71, has a maximum speed of just over 2,000 mph, but that's at high altitudes.
And, this strange object is clearly operating under intelligent control. It zooms toward each set of jets at about their height, circles around and zooms back out again. Pilots who were shown the trajectory of the object in the three flybys were amazed that this maneuver is characteristic of reconnaissance aircraft coming in for a quick look at others in the sky.
Astronomer Luis Barrera from the Metropolitan University of Sciences in Chile, who has an asteroid named after him, was one of eight highly skeptical scientists who analyzed the footage. He was able to rule out a meteoroid, pieces of meteors or comets, space junk, a bird or an airplane.
"The object performed a risky flight maneuver in front of the Halcones from W-E-W, at low altitude and high speed," Barrera concluded. "It had intentional movements. It moved east with 25 degrees inclination, which is the same angle of spacecraft when entering the atmosphere."
Sunday, July 13, 2014
DEBUNKING EXTRATERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE
Excerpt from the article, "Zen ... and the Art of Debunkery Or, How to Debunk Just About Anything."
DEBUNKING EXTRATERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE
• Point out that an "unidentified" flying object is
just that, and cannot automatically be assumed to be an alien spacecraft. Do
this whether or not anyone involved has assumed it to
be an alien spacecraft.
• Label all concepts such as antigravity or
interdimensional mobility as "mere flights of fancy" because "phenomena having
no conventional explanation cannot possibly exist." Then if an anomalous craft
is reported to have hovered silently, made right-angle turns at supersonic
speeds or appeared and disappeared instantly, you may summarily dismiss the
report.
• Declare that there is no proof that life can exist in outer space. Since most people still behave as if the Earth were the center of the universe, you may safely ignore the fact that Earth, which is already in outer space, has abundant life.
• Concede that life elsewhere in the universe is statistically probable, but that if it existed it couldn't possibly get here from there because we can't get there from here.
• Point out that the SETI program (which believes ET civilizations communicate via Earth's 20th-century radio technology, and which listens fruitlessly for such signals from deep space) assumes in advance that extraterrestrial intelligence can only exist light-years away from Earth. Equate this faith-based assumption with conclusive proof; then insist that this invalidates all terrestrial reports of ET contact.
• If compelling evidence is presented for a UFO crash or some similar event, provide thousands of pages of detailed information about a formerly secret military project that might conceivably account for it. The more voluminous the information, the less the need to demonstrate any actual connection between the reported event and the military project.
• When someone produces purported physical evidence of alien technology, declare that no analysis can prove that its origin was extraterrestrial; after all, it might be the product of some perfectly ordinary, ultra-secret underground government lab. The only possible exception would be evidence obtained from a landing on the White House lawn -- the sole circumstance universally agreed upon by generations of debunkers as conclusively certifying extraterrestrial origin!
• If crack military pilots flying state-of-the-art aircraft report having closely pursued or radar-tracked UFOs, assert that in most cases they must have seen Venus or Jupiter, and that pilot incompetence and poor equipment must have accounted for the rest. If one of these objects was confirmed to have hovered motionlessly for a matter of minutes before taking off at blinding speed, attribute it to a "government missile test gone wrong."
• If photographs or videos depicting anomalous aerial phenomena have been presented, argue that since images can now be digitally manipulated they prove nothing. Assert this regardless of the vintage of the material or the circumstances of its acquisition. Insist that the better the quality of a UFO photo, the greater the likelihood of fraud. Photos that have passed every known test may therefore be held to be the most perfectly fraudulent of all!
• Declare that "95 percent of all UFO sightings have been explained, and the remaining five percent are probably cases of mistaken identity." This will get people arguing about the remaining five percent, effectively heading off any embarrassing questions about the actual grounds upon which the claimed 95 percent might originally have been "explained."
• Argue that all reports of humanoid extraterrestrials must be bogus because the evolution of the humanoid form on Earth is the result of an infinite number of accidents in a genetically isolated environment. Avoid addressing the logical proposition that if alien visitations have occurred, Earth cannot be considered genetically isolated in the first place.
• Insist that extraterrestrials would or wouldn't, should or shouldn't, can or can't behave in certain ways because such behavior would or wouldn't be logical. Base your notions of logic on how terrestrials would or wouldn't behave. Since terrestrials behave in all kinds of ways you can theorize whatever kind of extraterrestrial behavior suits your arguments!
• Stereotype contact claims according to simplistic scenarios already well established in the popular imagination. If a reported ET contact appears to have had no negative consequences, sarcastically accuse the claimant of believing devoutly that "benevolent ETs have come to magically save us from destroying ourselves!" If someone claims to have been traumatized by an alien contact, brush it aside as "a classic case of hysteria." If contactees stress the essential humanness and limitations of certain ETs they claim to have met, ask "why haven't these omnipotent beings offered to solve all our problems for us?"
• When reluctant encounter witnesses step forward, accuse them of "seeking the limelight with their outlandish stories!"
• Ask why alleged contactees and abductees haven't received alien infections. Reject as "preposterous" all medical evidence suggesting that such may in fact have occurred. Categorize as "pure science-fiction" the notion that alien understandings of immunology might be in advance of our own, or that sufficiently alien microorganisms might be limited in their ability to interact with our biological systems. Above all, dismiss anything that might result in an actual investigation of the matter.
• Travel to an isolated, indigenous village in the heart of the Amazonian jungle. Upon returning, report that "nobody there told me they had seen any UFOs." Insist that this proves no UFOs are reported outside cultures whose populations are overexposed to trashy science fiction.
• Though hypnotic regression by a multitude of therapists and researchers has yielded consistent contactee testimony in widespread and completely independent cases, declare that hypnosis is unreliable at the best of times and is always worthless in the hands of non-credentialed practitioners. Be sure to add that the subjects must have been steeped in the ET-contact literature, and that, regardless of their skills, credentials and codes of ethics, the hypnotists involved must have been asking leading questions.
• Avoid mentioning the many contact and abduction cases in which the experiencers' memories were readily recalled, with no need for hypnosis.
• If someone claims to have been emotionally impacted by a sighting or contact experience, point out that strong emotions can alter perceptions. Therefore the claimant's recollections must be entirely untrustworthy.
• Maintain that there cannot possibly be a government coverup of the ET question . . . but that it exists for legitimate reasons of national security!
• When government agencies, with their state-of-the-art security measures, multiple clearance levels, impenetrable compartmentalization and so forth, are accused of a UFO coverup, insist that a coverup is impossible because "everyone knows the government can't keep secrets!" Ignore the legacy of the Manhattan Project, any number of other top-secret military and intelligence operations , and the entirety of those incalculably costly, utterly opaque activities funded by the United States Congress' Black Budget.
• Accuse conspiracy theorists of being conspiracy theorists and of believing in the existence of conspiracies! Insist that only accidentalist theories can possibly account for repeated, organized patterns of suppression, denial and disinformational activity.
• If you represent the military, assure the public that the military doesn't study UFOs because "it's been determined that UFOs are not a threat to national security." Sidestep the questions of how in heaven's name such a determination could even have been made, and why the military, which has always been first in line to diligently analyze advanced foreign technology, has abandoned all curiosity and is now diligently looking the other way.
Saturday, July 12, 2014
Stellar UFO Coverage from the Spooky Weather Blog
06 Jun 2014
06 Jun 2014
Richard Dolan: UFOs and 9/11 (Understanding the Two Greatest Conspiracies of our Time). Richard Dolan speaks about the parallels, overlaps and significance of the UFO and 9/11 cover-ups. Talk given at Conspiracycon ...
29 Jan 2014
29 Jan 2014
The overall problem with Tyson's declaration that UFOs do not necessarily equate to aliens, and that your own lack of expertise requires you to not jump to conclusions, and that the sightings could be anything mundane, is the ...
02 May 2013
02 May 2013
The photographer, Rob Hartland, discovers the UFOs when reviewing the thousands of photos he takes of the sky. According to Perth Now, Hartland has taken more than 20,000 photos of the day-time sky in the past six ...
13 Nov 2007
13 Nov 2007
Several pilots offered dramatic accounts of witnessing UFOs - including a transparent flying disc and a triangular craft with mysterious markings - as they insisted their questions needed to be taken seriously more than 30 ...
07 Dec 2011
07 Dec 2011
The Skeptics on the issue of UFOs are absolutely wrong in their analysis of the data. Official studies into the sighting reports actually confirm that a significant percentage represent real and unique phenomena (ie UFOs).
17 Mar 2013
17 Mar 2013
Abby then talks to BTS producer, Manuel Rapalo, about UFO phenomena by highlighting a few notable cases of UFO sightings in the US. Abby then talks to Max Keiser, host of the 'Keiser Report', banks that are 'too big to ...
18 Nov 2008
18 Nov 2008
“Since when is name-calling a scientist's appropriate response to something?” he says. “He calls me a charlatan without giving any reason for it, and he labels UFOs a pseudoscience without stating why. It's science by ...
07 Jul 2009
07 Jul 2009
It's like UFO enthusiasts. The mainstream knows there's something crazy about UFOs. But they just right now don't know what, so they don't give the UFO enthusiasts very much airtime at all, unless it's some 'human interest' ...
12 Dec 2010
12 Dec 2010
There is actually a large element of truth to the claims that the US Government is concealing information about UFOs. Despite the opinions of some great anti-corruption commentators, there is more to the UFO/disclosure ...
14 Oct 2010
14 Oct 2010
Well, if one considers various military documents that take seriously the UFO situation then it is likely that as part of the cover up a decision was made by those managing NASA (in the early days) to downplay evidence of life ...
01 Jan 2009
01 Jan 2009
Whenever they present you, in any kind of public discussion, it's most often in the context of the other crazies like you, ...the ones who think UFOs and aliens were responsible, or those who have been listening to Elvis for ...
10 Nov 2013
10 Nov 2013
The idea that reports of UFOs could not represent the visitation to the Earth of a technological civilisation, or a number of them, in the face of this data, seems very unlikely. If we are being observed by advanced forms of life we ...
http://spookyweather.blogspot.com/
Check back at the site from time to time and search for "ufos" in the search box bottom-right.
Check back at the site from time to time and search for "ufos" in the search box bottom-right.
Skeptics vs. Believers: Let’s Do the Math on UFOs
It seems every time I peruse a website addressing the UFO subject, I see articles from skeptics that usually begin with a title such as “Is this a UFO, or a tractor?” This just seems like shooting fish in a barrel. Of course it’s a tractor. Or a balloon. Or Jupiter. Or swamp gas!
The fact is that most all who are interested in the subject would agree that all but a few percent of sightings reported are explainable as some kind of natural object or phenomena. So do we really need an article that exemplifies that well known fact? Of course it is a tractor. It’s just a tractor that looks a lot like a space ship when seen in the right light.
Stanton Friedman has a very good formula that defines skeptics at his website. And though the “Father of Roswell Ufology” is pretty savage in the way he treats skeptics, they are usually no less so in their treatment of believers. But Stan can cite decades of research on one incident, which obviously leads to expertise. Most skeptics spend very little time researching one incident, comparatively speaking. But then, that’s what happens when you only have five percent of the total with which to work.
But seriously, with all the new science happening and the building consensus that we will find life outside this planet, isn’t it time to quit talking about swamp gas? A good first step in this process would be if the mainstream media would become less snarky on the subject. Is it any wonder that true experts tend to avoid mainstream news shows? James Fox, an otherwise well respected UFO researcher, learned this lesson when he agreed to star in Chasing UFOs on the National Geographic Channel. He seemed more surprised than anyone at the final cut made by the network, which as usual made a mockery of the entire subject. James found out that he was appearing in just one more show where people run around at night with fancy equipment, but this one just features more profanity. How many more “___ Hunter” shows do we need anyway?
What a weird paradox. We have been trained well by the mainstream media, who cannot broach the subject without wearing smirks on their faces and acting as if the whole subject is beneath them and worth derision and ridicule. Yet these are the same media who devoted weeks to coverage of Anna Nicole‘s death and whether or not to tube-feed Terri Schiavo. The same media who spent all day watching O.J. Simpson being driven in his getaway car at a blazing 35 mph, puts something as potentially life changing as extraterrestrial visitation at the end of the newscast with the puppy stories and other weird news. In fact, The Huffington Post will publish this under “Weird News.” My question is, why is this subject “weird”? It seems to me that it is of extreme national security
concern that unknown objects are invading our air space, messing with our nukes, and our military seems powerless to intervene. If people really are being abducted and experimented upon, is everyone alright with that?
These are questions that deserve serious, well-funded study. But presently, it is a very rare scientist who does not do his research on UFOs by paying his own way. Virtually no one receives grants for funding, like those who study more traditional subject matter. And while there is no doubt in my mind that greenhouse gasses will gravely wound civilization if left unchecked, it will take years. And that can be seen asa
Source:
http://www.etupdates.com/2012/08/31/skeptics-vs-believers-lets-do-the-math-on-ufos/#.U8ID-stOUdU
The fact is that most all who are interested in the subject would agree that all but a few percent of sightings reported are explainable as some kind of natural object or phenomena. So do we really need an article that exemplifies that well known fact? Of course it is a tractor. It’s just a tractor that looks a lot like a space ship when seen in the right light.
- Let’s Get Serious
Stanton Friedman has a very good formula that defines skeptics at his website. And though the “Father of Roswell Ufology” is pretty savage in the way he treats skeptics, they are usually no less so in their treatment of believers. But Stan can cite decades of research on one incident, which obviously leads to expertise. Most skeptics spend very little time researching one incident, comparatively speaking. But then, that’s what happens when you only have five percent of the total with which to work.
But seriously, with all the new science happening and the building consensus that we will find life outside this planet, isn’t it time to quit talking about swamp gas? A good first step in this process would be if the mainstream media would become less snarky on the subject. Is it any wonder that true experts tend to avoid mainstream news shows? James Fox, an otherwise well respected UFO researcher, learned this lesson when he agreed to star in Chasing UFOs on the National Geographic Channel. He seemed more surprised than anyone at the final cut made by the network, which as usual made a mockery of the entire subject. James found out that he was appearing in just one more show where people run around at night with fancy equipment, but this one just features more profanity. How many more “___ Hunter” shows do we need anyway?
- This Subject Deserves Better
What a weird paradox. We have been trained well by the mainstream media, who cannot broach the subject without wearing smirks on their faces and acting as if the whole subject is beneath them and worth derision and ridicule. Yet these are the same media who devoted weeks to coverage of Anna Nicole‘s death and whether or not to tube-feed Terri Schiavo. The same media who spent all day watching O.J. Simpson being driven in his getaway car at a blazing 35 mph, puts something as potentially life changing as extraterrestrial visitation at the end of the newscast with the puppy stories and other weird news. In fact, The Huffington Post will publish this under “Weird News.” My question is, why is this subject “weird”? It seems to me that it is of extreme national security
concern that unknown objects are invading our air space, messing with our nukes, and our military seems powerless to intervene. If people really are being abducted and experimented upon, is everyone alright with that?These are questions that deserve serious, well-funded study. But presently, it is a very rare scientist who does not do his research on UFOs by paying his own way. Virtually no one receives grants for funding, like those who study more traditional subject matter. And while there is no doubt in my mind that greenhouse gasses will gravely wound civilization if left unchecked, it will take years. And that can be seen asa
Source:
http://www.etupdates.com/2012/08/31/skeptics-vs-believers-lets-do-the-math-on-ufos/#.U8ID-stOUdU
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