Greetings, and welcome to the World Affairs Board!
The World Affairs Board is the premier forum for the discussion of the pressing geopolitical issues of our time. Topics include military and defense developments, international terrorism, insurgency & COIN doctrine, international security and policing, weapons proliferation, and military technological development.
Our membership includes many from military, defense, academic, and government backgrounds with expert knowledge on a wide range of topics. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so why not register a World Affairs Board account and join our community today?
I like how you say the ufologists will "officially" denounce it, very respectable. Question seems to be will this report lead to a more detailed report later that will be more revealing, this one looks set to underwhelm all sides of the debate.
Most UFOlogists have denounced/debunked "the Roswell Incident" because over time it's become clear that it was indeed a just weather balloon (albeit attached to a payload from a Top Secret project) and the supposed eyewitnesses have ruined their own credibility over the years.
When you really dig into these "amazing" UFO stories, the explanation is usually banal or at most mildly interesting.
I like how you say the ufologists will "officially" denounce it, very respectable. Question seems to be will this report lead to a more detailed report later that will be more revealing, this one looks set to underwhelm all sides of the debate.
Kind of impossible not to 'underwhelm' everyone when (if your being truthful) all you can say is something like:
'There is no conclusive proof based on the evidence reviewed to date that the objects in question are of extra terrestrial origin. All we can say for certain is that if in fact any of them are real, physical objects they are not the property of the US government.'
True believers will accept nothing less than a full and frank admission that yes, UFOs are real and yes the Government has been covering up that fact for decades.
The official report on the latest batch of 'UFO' videos is apparently due for release in a couple of days. Leaks say the it will state the bleeding obvious i.e. firstly, there is no conclusive proof in any of them that UFOs exist and secondly however that does not mean they do not exist. I expect it to be immediately officially denounced as a whitewash by true believers everywhere.
I like how you say the ufologists will "officially" denounce it, very respectable. Question seems to be will this report lead to a more detailed report later that will be more revealing, this one looks set to underwhelm all sides of the debate.
The official report on the latest batch of 'UFO' videos is apparently due for release in a couple of days. Leaks say the it will state the bleeding obvious i.e. firstly, there is no conclusive proof in any of them that UFOs exist and secondly however that does not mean they do not exist. I expect it to be immediately officially denounced as a whitewash by true believers everywhere.
I'll give an example of what a friend of mine showed me as "Proof" of UFOs. Guy comes to me says I have to see this video. Shows me one of 6 UFOs that "wink" into the sky then hover only to disappear one at a time. Solid proof.
Yes it was. Solid proof of a really good 155mm battery illum mission. After I saw it, I told him to watch and I would narrate without looking at the video. At the wink start counting Somewhere around 8 sec the objects will get bigger/brighter and start hovering. When they do that count down 2-3 min and they will disappear. And that's what happened. The wink was the fuze activating the payload expulsion charge. somewhere around 8 sec the chute and candle stabilize and the "Candle" will ignite. Candle burns for 2 min.
As soon as I finished, he smacks his forehead and goes ' No Shit".. Yea he was a Forward observer also. And had called plenty of illum missions. Saw what he wanted not what he knew
Humans really are poor observers. And even worse at realising they are.
I'll give an example of what a friend of mine showed me as "Proof" of UFOs. Guy comes to me says I have to see this video. Shows me one of 6 UFOs that "wink" into the sky then hover only to disappear one at a time. Solid proof.
Yes it was. Solid proof of a really good 155mm battery illum mission. After I saw it, I told him to watch and I would narrate without looking at the video. At the wink start counting Somewhere around 8 sec the objects will get bigger/brighter and start hovering. When they do that count down 2-3 min and they will disappear. And that's what happened. The wink was the fuze activating the payload expulsion charge. somewhere around 8 sec the chute and candle stabilize and the "Candle" will ignite. Candle burns for 2 min.
As soon as I finished, he smacks his forehead and goes ' No Shit".. Yea he was a Forward observer also. And had called plenty of illum missions. Saw what he wanted not what he knew
Reporting is multiple ships radar tracks this activity.
Everything I have read about the Tic Tac "incident" was that the only ship that tracked it was the USS Princeton. Multiple operators aboard the ship tracked it but it was one ship and one radar system
As regard your explanation of the water activity...for sure, thats a perfectly plausible explanation. I dont have an actual hard time believing there was an object or even that there wasn't (despite the reporting), I dont think its necessary to provide plausible explanations, thats not where the burden rests. We know there should be plausible explanations that we cant even think of. There needs to be multiple lines of concurring data to support the account that show something exceptional, yet to see that confirmed.
But ofcourse we are edging closer to the idea there may be something of material interest to national security to the USA, but only edging...
Exactly As Sagan said " Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof"
The quote that always gets me when I hear the pilot talking on various shows he claims that the plane radar didn't see it because it was being jammed.. That every freq used by the AESA radar was jammed and the RWR didn't go off is an extraordinary claim. The radar saw nothing , the pilot automatically jumped to "Its being jammed". Not nothing on radar, maybe something is wrong with the ATFLIR .
He also makes assumptions of speed and size based on ATFLIR. That sensor only gives direction
Let me be perfectly clear. I am not questioning the expertise or judgement of the pilot. He saw what he subconsciously wanted to see. The same as the sailors aboard the USS Vincennes saw what they were expecting (an attack by Iranian F-14) not what their sensors were telling them. A civilian airliner doing the exact opposite. Same as with all friendly fire incidents.
In a former life I was a trained observer. I've made the same mistake in training. Seeing what I wanted to see, thought would be there instead of what was there. A LAV-25 looks a lot like a BTR-60
if your told "There are BTRs in the area"
Just the mere mention of the term "UFO" and people go bonkers. We have people uploading millions of high quality videos onto Facebook and Youtube everyday and yet no one high quality video of a UFO. Always, always, vague images of what purports to be a UFO. A UFO that is out there playing hide and seek with us. If there were an alien visit from another planet does one really think they would play hide and seek. If they can get here then their technology makes us look like we are still in the stone age and then why bother screwing around with us. They can either land and announce their presence or just vaporize the F-18 and just be done with it. Call me a non-believer...
Agreed.
People are setting themselves up for a hard fall. I do empathise with the powerful "I want to believe" sentiment however. It seems to be culturally very strong in the USA.
The lack of plausibility of the activtiy observed actually matching plausible alien behaviour is undeniably a good point. Very suspicious. But since we are already taking the time to discuss an incredibly low probability possibility lets extend the thinking out onto further ridiculously low probability scenarios, we already have dipped our toes right....
I think it is possible for aliens to send drone tech that wouldnt be far beyound our current capabilities, leaving us underwhelmed. What would be surprising is that by the time that drone tech arrived on earth they wouldnt have developed far surperior tech that just "passed" it out...We are already developing Starshot on paper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_Starshot . None of this is ofcurse plausible
Alternatively humans experimenting with alien tech, so not actually aliens, would explain the behaviour, sounds like americans favourite tv show (spoilers sorry), it was like 20 years ago. So ya, it sounds so implausible, it was actually a tv show premise.
Would we expect underwhelming alien tech to be detected around our most advanced military equipment but nowhere else. I guess, kinda makes sense. I think if you accept the idea that aliens could be here then this second part isnt as much as a stretch as it looks, already have a one in a trillion event why not add another lotto win to the mix. Still the problem remains we dont have compelling evidence of what is an incalculable scenario in which it seems reasonable to believe it is astronomically low, so I dont get too worried about the fact that the described scenario also sounds implausible as described on the motive level...least of its worries...
I watched the video that JA Boomer posted and if I was going to investigate this, My first question would be "What did the other ships/sensors in the battle group see?"
Because the only evidence presented so far is one ship which BTW had just had a new radar installed, and 2 planes.
I would investigate the radar. First time at sea with it, could there have been some type of interference caused by other systems on the ship?
This also coincides with a new version of the ATFLIR on the F-18. Why no videos from Litening or Sniper Pods?
Where is the video from the other plane?
The waves/boiling water is easy to explain if you have ever been at sea. Sharks Dolphins attacking a school of fish/ Pod of whales or dolphins or gas discharge from the bottom of the sea (I know this happens in the Gulf from fissures near gas/oil deposits)
Why doesn't the Pentagon try to explain. Because those that believe rarely change their mind, and then the headline is Pentagon is Covering Up UFO encounters. What are they really hiding?
Reporting is multiple ships radar tracks this activity.
As regard your explanation of the water activity...for sure, thats a perfectly plausible explanation. I dont have an actual hard time believing there was an object or even that there wasnt (despite the reporting), I dont think its necessary to provide plausible explanations, thats not where the burden rests. We know there should be plausible explanations that we cant even think of. There needs to be multiple lines of concurring data to support the account that show something exceptional, yet to see that confirmed.
But ofcourse we are edging closer to the idea there may be something of material interest to national security to the USA, but only edging...
I watched the video that JA Boomer posted and if I was going to investigate this, My first question would be "What did the other ships/sensors in the battle group see?"
Because the only evidence presented so far is one ship which BTW had just had a new radar installed, and 2 planes.
I would investigate the radar. First time at sea with it, could there have been some type of interference caused by other systems on the ship?
This also coincides with a new version of the ATFLIR on the F-18. Why no videos from Litening or Sniper Pods?
Where is the video from the other plane?
The waves/boiling water is easy to explain if you have ever been at sea. Sharks Dolphins attacking a school of fish/ Pod of whales or dolphins or gas discharge from the bottom of the sea (I know this happens in the Gulf from fissures near gas/oil deposits)
Why doesn't the Pentagon try to explain. Because those that believe rarely change their mind, and then the headline is Pentagon is Covering Up UFO encounters. What are they really hiding?
So while literaly nothing has changed, 60 minutes and The New York Times have apparently brought this event into the mainstream and provided cover to discuss it.
Lets just say there was a physical object seen by eye witness, infrared cameras and the Nimitiz radar.
My question is regarding the forward looking Infrared cameras on the F/A 18 and their depth perception. Can it not be an illusion that the object is performing beyond earth capabilities because the cameras can't figure out the size and how far away the object is, so we can't determine its true speed using the cameras? Interested to hear anyone who has heard the account of the incident, the infrared camera claims and has an understanding of what the cameras can't and can do on this.
Just the mere mention of the term "UFO" and people go bonkers. We have people uploading millions of high quality videos onto Facebook and Youtube everyday and yet no one high quality video of a UFO. Always, always, vague images of what purports to be a UFO. A UFO that is out there playing hide and seek with us. If there were an alien visit from another planet does one really think they would play hide and seek. If they can get here then their technology makes us look like we are still in the stone age and then why bother screwing around with us. They can either land and announce their presence or just vaporize the F-18 and just be done with it. Call me a non-believer...
I watched the video that JA Boomer posted and if I was going to investigate this, My first question would be "What did the other ships/sensors in the battle group see?"
Because the only evidence presented so far is one ship which BTW had just had a new radar installed, and 2 planes.
I would investigate the radar. First time at sea with it, could there have been some type of interference caused by other systems on the ship?
This also coincides with a new version of the ATFLIR on the F-18. Why no videos from Litening or Sniper Pods?
Where is the video from the other plane?
The waves/boiling water is easy to explain if you have ever been at sea. Sharks Dolphins attacking a school of fish/ Pod of whales or dolphins or gas discharge from the bottom of the sea (I know this happens in the Gulf from fissures near gas/oil deposits)
Why doesn't the Pentagon try to explain. Because those that believe rarely change their mind, and then the headline is Pentagon is Covering Up UFO encounters. What are they really hiding?
The Pentagon is never going to open source real/full capabilities of those detection systems. When you let the OpFor know how accurate your system is, what materials it uses and some the technical problems that occur, They develop TTPs to maximize those flaws and weaknesses
Nice example of my naivety on display.
Still maybe in a report futher down the report the Pentagon could throw us some bones. if not techincal specs, atleast on if they feel they have a plauisible explanation in terms of errors that would give an account.
Leave a comment: