Phoenix Lights - UFO witness summary (11/3/2015)

originally posted by: HorusChrist
come on folks I know it was 97 and cell phones weren't as prevalent but I know people had cameras then, no one could stop and take a pic if thousands saw it? Besides one video that shows just lights? I mean take a pic of this huge v shaped craft. Nothing? Gotta assume hoax then.

Im struggling mightily to figure out why you think this is a hoax? 911 phones light up, tons of testimony, it happened. We can debate all day about what it was, but it was a hoax because no picture? Do you think the entire city was in on this hoax?

Hopefully this reinforces the opposite thought, we know this event happened with a large population seeing it, but no pics... If a case like this cant produce several photos, what chance do other cases have?

originally posted by: 111DPKING111
a reply to: JimOberg



I didnt see the witness testimony i was looking for in the OP video but the issue is observation time and proximity. I simply dont see how someone could watch this fly directly over their house while observing it for minutes and be mistaken. Ive never read anything to make me think this is a good ET case(imo probably a black project), but I personally have a hard time with the A10s completely explaining everything.

I think that's the going-in position of most folks, myself included -- until I became aware of the series of spectacular mass sightings involving fireball swarms that created exactly the same type of large light-studded solid craft descriptions. Gobsmacked.

originally posted by: TeaAndStrumpets
....
So, what you're suggesting here, Jim -- what you constantly suggest here at ATS -- falls short not just in individual UFO cases like the Phoenix Lights. It actually fails to explain entire categories of UFO cases. Thousands and thousands of cases.

I'm not trying to explain thousands and thousands of cases, I'm arguing for the plausibility of a class of stimuli that has been shown to engender SOME reports that are striking similar to classic 'giant mothership UFO' reports.

How much witness testimony are you prepared to throw out just because you already 'know' the one thing those witnesses couldn't possibly have seen?

You're determined to misunderstand and misreport what I've been asking, and falsify my fundamental position, aren't you? I've never declared any explanation to be impossible, I've just been arguing that ANOTHER explanation is ALSO possible and needs to be weighed as an option. Yes, I suggest that the argument "it couldn't be anything ELSE but aliens" is inadequately established.

From the same source as above:

No scientist who examines the subject objectively can claim for long that UFOs are solely the products of simple misidentification of normal objects and events.

Seems like a pretty radical statement... but it's not. It's all been said before. That particular statement was about 40 years ago. By Hynek. A scientist whose integrity, by the way, has not been questioned even by skeptics, even though he spent the better part of his life studying the UFO topic. And there he is, saying that it's basically intellectually dishonest to pretend that this misperception hypothesis can explain what we're seeing at the core of the UFO phenomenon.



And here you are Jim, 40 years later, still doing exactly that.

I feel justified in doing so because we've learned a lot more about the types of prosaic stimuli that can and HAVE engenderd classic UFO reports, including those that absolutely stumped Hynek and CUFOS -- central example, the 1967-8 Soviet wave of 'sickle' [or 'crescent'] UFOs, which Hynek [and McDonald, and other ufological luminaries] in print fully accepted as absolutely impossible to have been caused by human technological activities. But they were.

You're not just telling witnesses that they're mistaken. You're telling a good many of them that they actually must be lying, or must be going insane. Because misperception isn't always a viable possibility.

We were having such a nice candid exchange of views here until you showed up spewing delusional fantasies of what you're SURE was my message, but you've entirely missed it. Like the space objects that I've shown cause MANY canonical UFO reports, it's gone way over your head.

What I am saying is simply this: those people out there who are tempted to write off the entire phenomenon as witness misperception... first, maybe you owe it to yourselves to examine the serious history of the topic and see how this misperception theory that some people keep pushing has basically been disproven. It's not even that it's merely wrong; it's that it is so incorrect, its explanatory reach so limited, that any person who keeps promoting that hypothesis even after they claim to have seriously studied the topic has actually either not seriously studied the topic, or has ignored inconvenient data.



Yet it is Jim Oberg that keeps urging people to take a closer look at "the data"? Isn't that interesting? Yep. Don't people want to know more about how such divergent opinions can exist? I hope they do. Is "witness misperception" always a viable alternative hypothesis? No, actually, it isn't. But don't trust my word. To see what I mean, go read "The UFO Experience," a classic book in its category.



Once you lose the absolute barrier (armor?) that the misperception hypothesis provides, you've finally got to truly entertain the possibility that an intelligence we can't yet identify is somehow involved. And once you entertain that possibility, things like what these Phoenix Light witnesses claim to have seen are really not all so unbelievable. It'll become easier to cut through all the nonsense (on both sides) once you allow yourself to honestly consider other possibilities.

What's your assessment of the significance of the consistent witness capability to report "giant mothership UFOs" when reentry fireball swarms are known to have been what they were actually looking at?

so many naysayers on the first 80 % of that opening page.....I gotta tell ya
I'm a pilot....60 plus years experience.......I saw the big one over Dallas........ for 12 seconds....so, start with that....OH...yea....it could have been a 400 foot long cigar shaped titanium.....MAN MADE thingy.....easily.....but it was going in and out of cloak on a ground track to take it over Dallas Love Field ....he was one minute out.....on a heading of 340 6000 AGL....maybe 4000....unfamiliar object and I was shocked not see a sun reflection off the nose like all the 757's and md 80 series going by...Tell me.....

a reply to: TeaAndStrumpets

Here's the problem with your "misperception theory," Jim, as written by someone with much more knowledge than either of us. (Nevermind that Blue Book Special Report #14 basically disproved your misperception hypothesis over 60 years ago....)

awesome. bring it up to any psych department at any university and report back.

Since so many people here seem to think this case is solved, I guess someone's gonna have to go tell these people (and a bunch of their neighbors) that they're all either lying, or were simply hallucinating.

youtu.be...




The poor, naive souls in that video need to be reminded of how completely unreliable human senses are. And lots of members here seem well-versed on that topic.

All of the people in that video segment saw the UFO, at the same time. It floated slowly over them, for minutes. No sound. A bunch of their neighbors saw it, too. Their story has not changed in nearly 20 years.

Listen to their language. Notice how nervous yet confident they are. That means something. Listen to the specificity with which they speak: Light wells on the object they saw.... shaped like a carpenter's square, "clear as day," she said.... a right 'arm' to the craft, and then looking over all the way down the "left arm"... it absolutely blocking out the sky behind it... remembering that a neighbor or relative commented that he could've hit the thing with a tennis ball....possibly a very slight mound when looking from the rear towards the front... how clearly the entire shape could be seen as it flew directly through the crack in the mountain.

Same things they said back in 1997....

Am I saying we should accept every single thing they say as absolutely true and accurate? Of course not. But please, let's crack the door open a little and let some fresh air and some common sense seep in.

Some skeptics will tell you that it doesn't matter how certain a person thinks he is, since people can always be wrong... or that it doesn't even matter if a dozen or more witnesses all over the same neighborhood describe the same thing.

However, consider: if those same witnesses had seen exactly what they claim to have seen that night, and all described it the same way as they have up 'til now, but then simply added that they'd also seen a tiny Canadian flag at the tip of the V, well then all of a sudden it's all accepted as true. The witnesses would be praised as exceptional. One detail added, and they've miraculously become credible. "But isn't witness testimony fundamentally flawed, and inherently inaccurate?" (Well, that depends. Credibility is determined after examining the reality that's implied by the witness testimony, and then gauging just how uncomfortable that reality would make the skeptic feel. Inverse relationship -- as discomfort increases, credibility decreases. Even though it's the same witnesses' ears and eyeballs that are involved.)

And some skeptics will claim that here we're just watching attention seekers in action, enjoying their 5 minutes of fame. Why, those witnesses probably have a book or movie deal in the works, right? Like so many other UFO witnesses. (How many others, exactly? Let's count 'em. Turns out it wouldn't take that many hands....)

Maybe it's apparent to other people here, maybe not, but most witnesses lean towards silence. Those that come forward are no less averse to ridicule than most people. It's just that their desire for answers, or their need to let the rest of us know that something strange is indeed going on, outweighs their fear. To me, it seems like these people really don't want to be doing this, but they recognize that they have a sort of civil duty to do so. Clearly, it's a burden. You can hear their frustration. Just like so many other witnesses.

It's so incredibly easy to be an armchair skeptic and just dismiss all witness testimony as inherently unreliable. Easy, so long as the witnesses aren't in sight. But the people in these clips now have faces. They're are just average people, like any of us, but the analysis has changed, right? What does your gut tell you now?

It could've been any one of us who saw what they saw. So if you're a skeptic, forget for a moment that you don't think true UFOs are real or likely, and ask yourself... if you saw a true UFO with your own eyes, with the same level of certainty that's conveyed by these people, would you believe it? Why? Why would you believe yourself, but not believe them? That sounds like a silly question with an obvious answer, I know, but go deeper with it. It's not silly. How sure are you that your perceptual skills are on the far right-hand side of that bell curve, or that you yourself are immune to whatever it is you think all these UFO witnesses must be suffering from?

Can you imagine actually seeing something so crazy with your own eyes, right there in front of you, like you could reach out and touch it... seeing it with other people present, so that you know you're not going crazy... but then having your word and even your character beaten down by "skeptics" who have literally zero first-hand data about the event? Average, innocent witnesses like those on this clip being beaten down and defeated not by intellectual rigor and the zealous search for truth, but instead by shoddy, cowardly, light-weight "skepticism."

Not all skepticism is of that variety, thankfully. But too much of it is, and it seems like it's getting worse. So how can the shoddy, cowardly and lightweight type of skepticism be identified and separated from the genuine, admirable kind? Not easily. But sometimes there are ways to tell the difference.

As to the Phoenix Lights...

If you call yourself a skeptic and consider the case solved, and you know that the wave of UFO phone-ins throughout Arizona travelled at, near, or possibly slightly above the maximum possible airspeed of A-10s carrying those loadouts, and you've found a way to adequately reconcile that with your conclusion, then you might still be a real skeptic.

If you call yourself a skeptic and consider the case solved, and you've calculated how long it takes an A-10 traveling at even its slowest possible airspeed to go from horizon to horizon, and you've found a way to adequately reconcile that with the other available and reliable information, then you might still be a real skeptic.

If, however, you call yourself a skeptic and consider this case solved, but you don't know or have not sought to know the basics of A-10 airspeeds & loadouts & altitudes... or, even worse, if you didn't recognize that such an issue does still or did ever exist... well, then you're probably a practitioner of the shoddy, cowardly and lightweight style of skepticism. The kind of skepticism that unfairly beats down on average people like you've seen in these videos.

UFOs are a fun and almost academic type of exercise for many people here in the forum... like debating what kind of tree you'd be if you could be any tree at all. Whatever.... But it's not 'academic' for many, many real people. For more than a million real people. People who no longer have the option of choosing sides in some fun new online debate game.

Some people, probably quite a few in these forums, know with absolute certainty, just as firmly as it's possible to know anything in this world, that UFOs are real and are here and that some are the product of an intelligence beyond "Humanity, Earth, 2015." People who know have lost the luxury of wondering if it's all just witness misperception.

So, shoddy skeptics: maybe reconsider your simplistic UFO notions. You or a family member may be the next witness.

a reply to: JimOberg

But Jim, it wasn't a fireball swarm, it wasn't anything extraordinary that could bring about the misperception that undoubtedly exists in such cases.

It was a triangular formation of lights taking up 1 degree of arc that could only be identified as planes by someone looking at them through a telescope, so fairly distant.

That they resulted in multiple reports of massive chevron shaped craft appears ludicrous.

Yes it does need to be looked at in context with similar cases, so yes inference can be drawn from Kiev and similar, but inference should then also be drawn from numerous cases where similar massive chevron / triangular craft have been reported.

Are we to take all these reports as misperception or is it more likely that there is another phenomenon involved here.

originally posted by: JimOberg
What's your assessment of the significance of the consistent witness capability to report "giant mothership UFOs" when reentry fireball swarms are known to have been what they were actually looking at?

Oh god... you're already mischaracterizing and trying to nudge the issue. No one has claimed that human witnesses are not consistently capable of misidentifying fireball swarms. The issue, even as you have said, is the frequency of those misidentifications and the ratio of misidentifications to correct identifications.

What we should care about is the percentage of human witnesses who actually do identify the fireball swarm as a UFO with windows and doors and all that, vs. the percent who get it right. Right? And that's been the problem, because you consistently misreport what that data looks like. At least THREE times in the past I've pointed you to the very data you mis-cite so that you can see that the data simply does not say what you would like it to say, nor does it say what you apparently want everyone else to think it says.

That record is clear in the comment history, if anyone cares. Want someone to pull it up?

If you're going to stomp around the place thumping your chest and demanding to be treated like some UFO expert, then behave like an expert and actually read and avoid misrepresenting the things you cite.

Just out of curiosity... what do re-entry fireball swarms have to do with anything that was reported during the Phoenix event?

Again, Red Herring fallacy.

And confirmation bias.

This was almost certainly the TR-6 TELOS which is currently based out of Edwards AFB and Groom Lake.

The TR-6 « TELOS » is designed for use as a transatmospheric low observable reconnaissance platform with global reach and a long loiter time over target. Employing active electromagnetic, electronic and visual camouflage it is able to penetrate all currently know defensive systems from transorbital height.

The TR-6 utilizes five electrogravitic generators for propulsion and is considered a « VSTOL » craft not needin a runway. The landing gear is strictly for maneuvering while on the ground. The wings foldfor hangar stowage.

Currently there are only a handful of hangars in the world that can accept the TR-6, with most of them in the US, he entire airframe acts as a multi-band communications relay capable of directly interfacing with all current US military satellite networks.

The skin employs active visual camouflage using a starfield lighting pattern along with other active stealth techniques. The TELOS plateform is also capable of operating in space as well as docking with military space stations via a ventral docking hatch.

The TR-6 is current flown by the 412th test wing at Edwards AFB. It has seen test flights out to Iceland and Scotland since September 2015.

originally posted by: PindarAln
This was almost certainly the TR-6 TELOS which is currently based out of Edwards AFB and Groom Lake.

The TR-6 « TELOS » is designed for use as a transatmospheric low observable reconnaissance platform with global reach and a long loiter time over target. Employing active electromagnetic, electronic and visual camouflage it is able to penetrate all currently know defensive systems from transorbital height.

The TR-6 utilizes five electrogravitic generators for propulsion and is considered a « VSTOL » craft not needin a runway. The landing gear is strictly for maneuvering while on the ground. The wings foldfor hangar stowage.

Currently there are only a handful of hangars in the world that can accept the TR-6, with most of them in the US, he entire airframe acts as a multi-band communications relay capable of directly interfacing with all current US military satellite networks.

The skin employs active visual camouflage using a starfield lighting pattern along with other active stealth techniques. The TELOS plateform is also capable of operating in space as well as docking with military space stations via a ventral docking hatch.

The TR-6 is current flown by the 412th test wing at Edwards AFB. It has seen test flights out to Iceland and Scotland since September 2015.

If you say so.

originally posted by: chunder
a reply to: JimOberg



But Jim, it wasn't a fireball swarm, it wasn't anything extraordinary that could bring about the misperception that undoubtedly exists in such cases.


.....


Yes it does need to be looked at in context with similar cases, so yes inference can be drawn from Kiev and similar, but inference should then also be drawn from numerous cases where similar massive chevron / triangular craft have been reported.



Are we to take all these reports as misperception or is it more likely that there is another phenomenon involved here.

In my report, with a dozen heavily-documented cases of people sincerely reporting a large structured object passing slowly, silently throught the sky, at the very same time that we later could determine that a large satellite reentry was occurring, same area, same time, same direction of motion -- what are the alternate explanations to subconscious misinterpretation?

Yes, I've seen the desperate attempts to explains it as an extraordinary vehicle following the satellite reentry fireball to study it or suck its energy, or use it as camouflage. Can anybody do any better?

originally posted by: draknoir2
Just out of curiosity... what do re-entry fireball swarms have to do with anything that was reported during the Phoenix event?



Again, Red Herring fallacy.



And confirmation bias.

The degree to which bright fireball swarms can elicit descriptions similar in MANY ways to other 'giant UFO mothership' reports strikes me as significant. The fireball swarms are of particular interest because their presence, timing, and motion can be determined with great accuracy and dependability. OTHER causes of similar raw visual stimuli [bright lights in night sky] are undocumentable, but MIGHT lead to similar witness reactions.

a reply to: TeaAndStrumpets

No one has claimed that human witnesses are not consistently capable of misidentifying fireball swarms.

Haven't you said repeatedly that Hynek ruled out misperceptions over 40 years ago? What was Hyneks take on the fireball swarms? What did blue book have to say about it? You are going in circles.

The issue, even as you have said, is the frequency of those misidentifications and the ratio of misidentifications to correct identifications.

Lets go with 50/50. That tells me that misperceptions can't be ruled out nor does it resolve this case or any other case where an exact cause hasn't been identified.

If you're going to stomp around the place thumping your chest

..

one could read your entire diatribe with that image in mind....I may have to animate that.

originally posted by: 111DPKING111

originally posted by: HorusChrist
come on folks I know it was 97 and cell phones weren't as prevalent but I know people had cameras then, no one could stop and take a pic if thousands saw it? Besides one video that shows just lights? I mean take a pic of this huge v shaped craft. Nothing? Gotta assume hoax then.

Im struggling mightily to figure out why you think this is a hoax? 911 phones light up, tons of testimony, it happened. We can debate all day about what it was, but it was a hoax because no picture? Do you think the entire city was in on this hoax?

Hopefully this reinforces the opposite thought, we know this event happened with a large population seeing it, but no pics... If a case like this cant produce several photos, what chance do other cases have?

people that saw flares just made honest mistake but the v shaped thing never existed, just a few people made up that hoax.

or if there is proof let's see it but until then safe to assume it's just yet another hoax like all ufo sitings. Law of averages says at least one bit of proof would have been found in all this time of UFO studies. Mirage Men woke me up to it. Govt likes people focusing on silly stuff instead of revolution.

originally posted by: TeaAndStrumpets
Since so many people here seem to think this case is solved, I guess
tldr but yeah just cuz they seemed to be telling the truth is meaningless. none coulda taken a pic?

a reply to: 38181

I wouldnt say they are the best of the best as they can only fly max six aircraft in formation. The Red Arrows are far more superior with nine aircraft...

Fireball swarms......yezz......pesky got tam fireballs......LOL
hey....take back the statementabout recent got tam fireball swarms......( somethin' a shill would bring up.....)

originally posted by: JimOberg

originally posted by: draknoir2
Just out of curiosity... what do re-entry fireball swarms have to do with anything that was reported during the Phoenix event?



Again, Red Herring fallacy.



And confirmation bias.

The degree to which bright fireball swarms can elicit descriptions similar in MANY ways to other 'giant UFO mothership' reports strikes me as significant. The fireball swarms are of particular interest because their presence, timing, and motion can be determined with great accuracy and dependability. OTHER causes of similar raw visual stimuli [bright lights in night sky] are undocumentable, but MIGHT lead to similar witness reactions.

Jim, I know people can and do connect the dots and fill in structures when viewing distant lights in formation. I've already stated that's what happened at least twice in the Phoenix case. Flaming satellite parts, however, have absolutely nothing to do with this case, unless you're privy to some coincidental reentry that we aren't.

My contention is [still] that it's highly unlikely for anyone to confuse a distant formation of independent lights with a clearly visible, slow moving, up close, solid object. I even went so far as to list the possible explanations for such eyewitness testimony, none of them having anything to do with Alien technology.

So long as there's a loose end that needs to be ignored for the narrative to fit I'm not on board with declaring it mass hysteria, unrelated happenings in Kiev notwithstanding. If I lived in Russia I'd be nervous about flaming balls hurtling from space too. It's like they attract them.

originally posted by: TeaAndStrumpets

It could've been any one of us who saw what they saw. So if you're a skeptic, forget for a moment that you don't think true UFOs are real or likely, and ask yourself... if you saw a true UFO with your own eyes, with the same level of certainty that's conveyed by these people, would you believe it?

"True U.F.O." ?

Why would anyone, skeptic or otherwise, not believe that there are flying objects that some cannot identify?