(Part 2 with Map) The Phoenix Lights - Laying To Rest The Myth

a reply to: NYCUltra

Your point about the TRACON is right, but, and this is a big but, if they use a secondary radar, as most do, they only see transponders not the return from the aircraft itself.

So if whatever it was didn't have an active transponder returning a signal to the radar they're not going to see a thing. Most primary radar is set to ignore everything above a certain altitude because it sees everything. So to reduce screen clutter it removes everything above that set altitude. The controller can set it to display how they want to make it as easy on them as possible.

originally posted by: ZetaRediculian
a reply to: Arbitrageur
I wonder though, is this more of a distortion of memory rather than a distortion of perception?

Even if that's the case, it would be just as true with the Phoenix lights case as what I've seen in the documentaries are recollections years later.

But I made a thread which addresses your comment in more detail, about memory also being unreliable (in addition to visual perception being unreliable), regarding a significant decline in accuracy of recollection which occurred after only a few years:

You Have No Idea What Happened (We get many details wrong when recalling past memories)

originally posted by: ZetaRediculian
a reply to: Arbitrageur
I wonder though, is this more of a distortion of memory rather than a distortion of perception? There could be witnesses that observed lights but over time "remember" details. Just curious, do we know how long it was after the event that the pictures were drawn?

And to be fair, we don't really know how people do react when giant spaceships of unknown origin do a fly by. Its sort of like doing a study where the participants receive a placebo only and nobody gets the actual drug. So I'm sort of holding out that this was the experiment to fill in that gap

I'll check in the original re the time delay, but that wasn't a factor in other events of the same nature.

Your 'to be fair' escape clause smacks of special pleading to reject an argument with artificially unmeetable criteria. To follow your line of reasoning, a sighting of a true giant mothership would also require the witness forget seeing the fireball swarm satellite reentry that was also happening in front of his eyes.

Arby's point is also worth repeating -- this is NOT a malfunction of the human perceptual process, it is fully consistent with the evolution and training of a normal functioning visual cortex -- make a 'best fit' match quickly so that dangers can be detected soon enough for counter action, with a bias towards 'false positives' [which only waste effort] versus false negatives [which result in transformation into saber tooth tiger turds].

a reply to: JimOberg

Your 'to be fair' escape clause smacks of special pleading to reject an argument with artificially unmeetable criteria.

I think you misunderstood me but that's ok since I rather like your work here and can't get enough of it to be honest. Not special pleading since what you HAVE shown is that these events can trigger a wide variety of perceptions including giant spaceships. No doubt about that. But I am questioning if this is the equivalent of a true double blind study. Where a double blind study means that neither the participants nor the researchers know if the participants received the target...drug or a placebo.

So I equate the perceptions of rocket reentry swarm events to the placebo effect where some people see spaceships and some people see a light swarm.

originally posted by: ZetaRediculian..... But I am questioning if this is the equivalent of a true double blind study. Where a double blind study means that neither the participants nor the researchers know if the participants received the target...drug or a placebo.
So I equate the perceptions of rocket reentry swarm events to the placebo effect where some people see spaceships and some people see a light swarm.

Thanks for the kind words.

Point taken. I used the term to signify that neither the witnesses nor the investigators knew the nature of the stimulus, and the rocket's controllers didn't intend or ever find out its spectacular consequences. Granted it's not the classic meaning of a deliberate double-blind test, but in practical terms, I suggest it accidentally possessed all the useful features of such a test -- no prejudicing foreknowledge by either test subjects or test result assessors.

I also stretched the metaphorical meaning of 'Rosetta Stone', to try to make a point through analogy. But I'm hoping the new twist on these classic cases attracts wider attention and criticism.

The relevance to the Phoenix cases is intimate -- it bridges the otherwise daunting gap between moving group of bright lights and the NORMAL human perception, based on the witnesses' own subconscious memories of previous perceptions, of a large structured light-equipped craft.

originally posted by: _BoneZ_
It's well-known that some witnesses saw a large black triangle, while others saw individual lights and/or planes in a vee formation.

If anybody is keeping track (I still haven't seen a witness list published), I found this comment by Kurt Russell interesting that he saw "six objects", so I take it as another witness for multiple objects instead of one big one, though he couldn't identify the 6 objects so he didn't know what they were:

Kurt Russell​- Actor, Pilot, Witness to the Phoenix Lights..

Russell first calls them "6 lights" and later refers to them as "6 objects", but as already noted the airport radar didn't display objects above 3000 feet and if the planes were above 10,000 feet then that's above their radar's 3000 feet ceiling so of course they didn't show on that radar, which explains why that's what the tower reported when Russell asked what those 6 objects were. Since the tower didn't confirm them as planes Russell didn't know what they were other than lights. Apparently it didn't make too much of an inpression on him because he apparently forgot about the incident until he saw a documentary on TV talking about it which jogged his memory, then it dawned on him that he was the civilian pilot mentioned in the documentary who reported the lights to the tower on his landing approach.

I find it interesting he mentions 6 lights rather than the 5 seen in this recreation of what some witnesses thought they saw:

A careful analysis of the video showed there were actually 6 objects, though many people apparently reported 5 lights as shown in that artist's rendering, and it may have looked that way when two of the lights were almost coincidental from certain viewing angles. Russell was apparently able to see all 6 objects.

Did the military do a stealth exercise when they knew people would be out looking for a comet?

originally posted by: T2Times
Did the military do a stealth exercise when they knew people would be out looking for a comet?

There's nothing stealthy about deploying flares that can be seen 60 miles away in the later event, and in the earlier event all planes had both their white lights and navigation lights on, which doesn't seem stealthy at all, so I have no idea where you got some notion about so-called "stealth exercise".

In a stealth mission with stealth aircraft such as F117 they wouldn't have lights on, but the aircraft over phoenix weren't stealth aircraft.

originally posted by: Arbitrageur

originally posted by: T2Times
Did the military do a stealth exercise when they knew people would be out looking for a comet?

There's nothing stealthy about deploying flares that can be seen 60 miles away in the later event, and in the earlier event all planes had both their white lights and navigation lights on, which doesn't seem stealthy at all, so I have no idea where you got some notion about so-called "stealth exercise".

In a stealth mission with stealth aircraft such as F117 they wouldn't have lights on, but the aircraft over phoenix weren't stealth aircraft.

From an earlier post

And that the vee formation of lights were aircraft heading from near Las Vegas, Nevada, to Davis-Monthan Air Force base in Tuscon, using the interstate as a flight marker.

A flight flying in formation, is being led by only 1 aircraft. That aircraft, in 1997, leading 4 other aircraft, is definitely NOT going to meander through the sky in order to follow an interstate. Your assumption at the end of that sentence is illogical. A flight of 5 would be led as directly as possible to their next navigation point. When leading a formation, you make as few turns as possible. Also, in 1997, flying at night, you would fly a heading to a Nav point, or follow GPS routing. If an interstate happens to fall beneath you, so be it, but they would not logically "use and interstate as a flight marker"

I like the rest of your analysis. Eyewitnesses, Meh.