An analysis of the Betty Hill "star map"

originally posted by: james1947
Again Thank you...Oh, by the way, I'll probably come out of this with far better results than before...

You're welcome and good luck, but that shows a large degree of confirmation bias before you even use the alternate software.

originally posted by: Arbitrageur

originally posted by: james1947
Again Thank you...Oh, by the way, I'll probably come out of this with far better results than before...

You're welcome and good luck, but that shows a large degree of confirmation bias before you even use the alternate software.

Actually man, it shows nothing of the sort. The only bias around here is you. What you think you "see" as "confirmation bias" is much more like 45 years experience working with images, data, and software...something I am quite sure you don't have. So, how about you keep an open mind, loose the bias; and we will see what OpenCV has to say...

Could have something by this evening...you'll want to get ahead of this...

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Well, that was easier than I thought it would be...

Sorry Arbitrageur, but even OpenCV says it's a match. Unfortunately OpenCV doesn't include a match quality, and only returns a binary (bool data type), but it is "true". So, Betty's template does in fact match local stars, just as I said.

a reply to: InTheLight

Now I don't know if Betty and Barney Hill's aliens/craft matched Erik and Kay Wilson's aliens/craft but if we can assume these people's experiences are true, then why not believe that the Greys are from Ursa Major?

If you are willing and open-minded james1947, could you do another analysis using that star cluster to the right and below in Ursa Major - then the one with the triangle to the left and the little stars in between...the fourth planet from our sun?

Your post goes right to the heart of the matter, can the map be matched up elsewhere ? If it can, it really is of no value.

However that doesnt preclude another alien race from living where you say.

The interesting/compelling thing about Zeta Reticuli is Fish matched this star system up(in pain staking fashion) and at the time didnt know this was a binary system as the map seems to indicate.

originally posted by: 111DPKING111
a reply to: InTheLight

Your post goes right to the heart of the matter, can the map be matched up elsewhere ? If it can, it really is of no value.

However that doesnt preclude another alien race from living where you say.

The interesting/compelling thing about Zeta Reticuli is Fish matched this star system up(in pain staking fashion) and at the time didnt know this was a binary system as the map seems to indicate.

I addressed the Hill-Wilson map back on page 1. And, IF it matches somewhere else, then serious questions must be raised. Number 1 on the list should "Match Quality".

As it turns out, the AForge matching methods give it a better score, just under what it gave my map. The manual method, would be about the same, just less that my score. The new software, the OpenCV template matching system gives the Hill-Wilson map a very low score, by not matching to any part of the target image (the hill-wilson map).

Although; 20 leo minor looks like a very good candidate for Earth like life.

a reply to: james1947

You want to dismiss very basic facts with the story and steer the conversation back to your "mathematics". How about understanding before you can even make an analysis, the method of retrieval is as important. The odds that a map like this with so much information can even be accurately remembered. The claim isn't that a map was dropped from the spacecraft as it left and was picked up by Betty. THAT would give you a direct copy to analyze. This map solely depends on Betty's memory through various questionable stages of recall.

- You're analyzing at least the second generation of the map. The "alien" has the original. With that transfer of information from her memory to paper 2 1/2 years later, it's human nature to omit or add portions to it.

- From Betty's own description, she did not sit and study the map. In order to have the amazing accuracy you claim, she would have at least had to view it for quite a while and needed to understand its importance. It was briefly shown to her which is why her worded description matches that. She also didn't draw the map in her dream journal when it was fresh in her memory. How important could it be to her if she didn't even draw it then?

- This isn't a map with three points which admittedly would be easy to remember. The map contains 25 dots: 2 large, 4 medium, 19 small. There are 11 lines drawn to 12 specific dots: 6 dashed, 5 solid, and several light lines. Trade and exploration/expedition routes are noted. Arranged on an area that's 8 1/2 x 11. All of this has to be remembered in a short span of time. It's very specific and would be extremely difficult, if not nearly impossible, to remember for anyone only an hour later, much less 2 1/2 years. You naively drew all of these features as if Betty remembered every single point.

Besides Betty's genius level memory you're claiming:

- The map is 100% part of a series of dreams Betty had, not from a real life experience. Remembering that level of detail from a dream doesn't happen. That's supported by studies. Believing 25 dots and their rough arrangement scattered on a page from a dream (which is what you have to do here) is laughable. She must have breezed through school being able to glance at a page for 10 seconds and committing it to memory. Even being able to do it nearly 3 years later.

- Then on top of that, she was told to draw the map under a form of hypnosis. Hypnosis has never been a reliable way to retrieve memories. Her hypnosis is the final step before you can even analyze the map.

Congrats... What you've done (and don't seem to understand) is to present evidence that the fantasy map that Betty sat down and drew happens to match a set of stars in the galaxy that you found by moving everything around. You claim (in order for this alien map to be a reality) six of those points are trade routes that have planets that support intelligent life. You have zero proof of this. How does your theory stand up to that level of questioning? You believe you have telepathic conversations with aliens, aliens have visited world leaders, and other odd beliefs. You have zero evidence of any of this.

Like Carl Sagan said:
"If you can pick and choose from a large number of stars, viewed from any vantage point in space you want, you can always find something resembling the pattern you're looking for."

originally posted by: Ectoplasm8
a reply to: james1947

You want to dismiss very basic facts with the story and steer the conversation back to your "mathematics".

So...I'm guessing that somehow, I'm NOT using "mathematics"? Are you serious?!?

How about understanding before you can even make an analysis, the method of retrieval is as important. The odds that a map like this with so much information can even be accurately remembered.

Kindly explain just how the "memory retrieval method" is important and affects the over-all probabilities.

What you are not understanding is that the methods of memory retrieval don't actually have much of an affect on the probabilities of Betty drawing that specific configuration. So what we are actually left with is a virtual binary; it is either TRUE or FALSE that the map, which is claimed to be a star map, matches any configuration of stars within local space. And, as we all have found out; it does!!! The "odds" Betty beat with that little feat: 1 in 7.9e93

- This isn't a map with three points which admittedly would be easy to remember. The map contains 25 dots: 2 large, 4 medium, 19 small. There are 11 lines drawn to 12 specific dots: 6 dashed, 5 solid, and several light lines. Trade and exploration/expedition routes are noted. Arranged on an area that's 8 1/2 x 11. All of this has to be remembered in a short span of time. It's very specific and would be extremely difficult, if not nearly impossible, to remember for anyone only an hour later, much less 2 1/2 years.

Well actually all Betty had to do is remember 7 fundamental shapes, and their relative positions; rather easy actually.

- The map is 100% part of a series of dreams Betty had, not from a real life experience.

Well, in as much as you can't prove, or even offer much by way of direct evidence...I'll rely on something that has been proven over the past few thousand years: Mathematics. And, Mathematics tells me that Betty's map is the product of a real life experience.

And you're right remembering that much detail doesn't happen from a dream...so guess what!?!!

Congrats... What you've done (and don't seem to understand) is to present evidence that the fantasy map that Betty sat down and drew happens to match a set of stars in the galaxy that you found by moving everything around.

Nothing was moved around.

You claim (in order for this alien map to be a reality) six of those points are trade routes that have planets that support intelligent life. You have zero proof of this. How does your theory stand up to that level of questioning? You believe you have telepathic conversations with aliens, aliens have visited world leaders, and other odd beliefs. You have zero evidence of any of this.

Yes Ecto I have zero proof that any of the worlds have any kind of life. Patients, man...Science doesn't happen over night...AND, I'll be pointing out that 58 years ago, when Betty saw that map, nobody on Earth knew anything about Exoplanets, and now we have nearly 4000.

So, I think my theory "stands up" rather well!!! And, have you notice, that everytime I get pushed to up the technology, if you will, the match gets stronger, and the probabilities are more "set"...perhaps you should quit while you're ahead.

And, is the Ad Hoc BS really necessary? You are attempting to comment on something you have absolutely no knowledge of, you not only diminish your argument, but show your own bias.

Like Carl Sagan said:
"If you can pick and choose from a large number of stars, viewed from any vantage point in space you want, you can always find something resembling the pattern you're looking for."

Sadly, Carl was an idiot! Though as he said "If we can pick and choose from a large number of stars..." the problem is that we can't "pick and choose", and we don't have a "large number of stars". Carl didn't think about the problem, and likely simply stated what his "handlers" wanted him to say. Him "not thinking about it" is actually pretty obvious; based on the general lack of his "large number of stars", there are a total of 2826 stars to choose from. That's much smaller than the Gliese catalog that M. Fish, and Sagan would have known, vastly smaller than the Hipparcos table I used, and that is vastly smaller than any of the newer surveys. Then there is the "pick and choose" BS. M. Fish set the criteria for star selection based on Betty's claim that the stars represented trade and exploration routes; thus she thought the only stars of interest would be classes "K", "G", "F". Rather intelligent thinking on her part. Using this criteria the available stars for matching becomes even smaller, thus decreasing the odds that any sort of match can be found, yet there it is!

a reply to: james1947

You're relying on Betty's memory, that's it. If you think I'm clueless in my response, how about scientific studies?

Human memory is notoriously unreliable, especially when it comes to details. Scientists have found that prompting an eyewitness to remember more can generate details that are outright false but that feel just as correct to the witness as actual memories.

In day-to-day life, this isn’t a bug; it’s a feature. We can’t possibly remember every tiny detail we see, but our memories would feel incomplete if there were big swaths of gray running through them. So the brain fills in the details as best it can, borrowing from other memories and the imagination in order to build what feels like a complete picture.

LINK


This is only one part of the problem. Then you have to factor in the reliability of dreams. Then the reliability of hypnosis. The deeper you think about this (which you avoid) the more you realize how ridiculous it is. Again, you made a match to Betty, not an alien.

I never knew he was an astronomer too!!, sorry, that's BENNY Hill.....

originally posted by: Ectoplasm8
a reply to: james1947

You're relying on Betty's memory, that's it. If you think I'm clueless in my response, how about scientific studies?

Well Ecto, actually NOW I do think you clueless!

Just as soon as you can explain HOW any memory issues will affect any of the mathematics, the astrometrics, the Computer A.I. I will begin to think you as perhaps going in a productive direction. The problem is that nothing about Betty's memory, or the way the recall happened, or anything in Betty's psychology can have any affect on the drawing itself, the mathematics, the astrophysics, the Computer Science used in this analysis.

And, you, like some others, seem to think that this is about something other than Betty's map, it isn't.

You see, no matter "HOW" Betty's came up with the final drawing, it is still a 1 in 7.89e93 chance...quite impossible in practical terms. Yet, you insist on continuing to "jump-up-and-down" about an issue that doesn't exist. The sheer magnitude of the probability really should have been your first "clue"...

a reply to: Ectoplasm8

"- The map is 100% part of a series of dreams Betty had, not from a real life experience. "

All very good points, even if the map 100% genuine, Im not sure there are enough dots to uniquely identify this sector of space.


But the proof is in the pudding, 3d star maps are available, we can all start testing it out with programs like Celestria.

celestia.space...

It was able to take me straight to the reference star HIP 26737 or right to zeta reticuli.

a reply to: james1947


Kevin Randle agreed to post a link to your work on his Blog and ask for some input there.



Some of Kevins earlier blogs on the map

Link1

Link2

Link3

Link4

Hello! Please pardon a relatively uneducated average human for jumping in here, but I couldn’t resist. I don’t really understand half of what you folks have been saying, but I did read every post. I don’t understand the science as well as I should, so for the sake of hypothesis I will state that I am arbitrarily assuming that James is correct; i.e. the map drawn by Betty Hill matches a configuration of real astronomical objects.

So, James, you have proven that Betty Hill drew a map of a real “place” in space which was not known by humans to exist at the time she drew the map. What you have not, and can not, prove is how she acquired that information. You (and many others) are making the assumption, which I propose is somewhat of a leap of faith, that Betty was given this information by extraterrestrials, based on the back story, that is, the abduction experience. However, as several of you have pointed out, said story is full of holes, inconsistencies, and other flaws.

For those who do not arrive at this thread already believing in extraterrestrials visiting Earth and abducting humans, this hypothesis as to the origin of the map is no less improbable than many other possibilities, such as entities (human or otherwise) from the future, a collective unconscious pool of knowledge, a vision of a real faraway place, a telepathic communique from some unknown entity, etc. etc.

Personally, my problem with the Betty Hill map is entirely different than the question of whether it matches a real, but at the time unknown to “us,” place; it is the WHY. Reading hundreds of UFO sighting reports, abuction experiences, etc., even if I were to arbitrarily assume that only 10% are real, leads me to one personally inescapable conclusion: they don’t want us to have proof that they’re really here, or really real. Why, then, would a presumably intelligent extraterrestrial provide Betty such proof? It seems reasonable to me that it would have known, from Betty’s reactions if nothing else, that we didn’t have those stars mapped yet, and he would have (or should have) taken into account the possibility that Betty could remember it. Did this advanced being make a dumb mistake, or not consider the consequences, or what? (If so, I’m thinking it was probably reprimanded or demoted when the Fish map came out! )

It just doesn’t make any sense to me that, out of all the abductions, experiments, landings, etc. that exist in UFOlogy, Betty Hill should have been given something that could prove her experience was real when such an occurrence is so scrupulously avoided and prevented in nearly all other cases.

I don’t have a *good* alternate theory, there could hardly be one, but I humbly submit that, even if you did prove that Betty drew a reasonably accurate map of a real group of astronomical objects, that in no way leads conclusively to the conclusion that she received it visually from an extraterrestrial map!

Heike

a reply to: Heike57

even if you did prove that Betty drew a reasonably accurate map of a real group of astronomical objects, that in no way leads conclusively to the conclusion that she received it visually from an extraterrestrial map!

What then, magical faeries? The problem is proving it does uniquely identify this sector of space.

Another negative
Zeta 1 and 2 are sun-like and could possibly support an alien civilization, but no exoplanets have been discovered around either - en.wikipedia.org...

originally posted by: 111DPKING111
a reply to: Ectoplasm8

"- The map is 100% part of a series of dreams Betty had, not from a real life experience. "

All very good points, even if the map 100% genuine, Im not sure there are enough dots to uniquely identify this sector of space.


But the proof is in the pudding, 3d star maps are available, we can all start testing it out with programs like Celestria.

celestia.space...

It was able to take me straight to the reference star HIP 26737 or right to zeta reticuli.

Not really, to me, it appears to be confirmation bias. And! And the OP was not willing to expand his science and search in Ursa Major where another alien said he came from. Just saying!

originally posted by: Heike57
So, James, you have proven that Betty Hill drew a map of a real “place” in space which was not known by humans to exist at the time she drew the map. What you have not, and can not, prove is how she acquired that information. You (and many others) are making the assumption, which I propose is somewhat of a leap of faith, that Betty was given this information by extraterrestrials, based on the back story, that is, the abduction experience. However, as several of you have pointed out, said story is full of holes, inconsistencies, and other flaws.

True, I cannot prove that Betty was "given" the map by Extraterrestrials. I can, however, determine what is the most probable. Using basic probability, and a bit of Bayesian Inference we can determine what the most likely source of Betty's map is. The selection of probable sources is small, and Extraterrestrials would be at the top.

One of the few components of Betty's story that isn't "full of holes, inconsistencies, and other flaws" is her map, it is stable, constant, and unchanging (unlike the stars it depicts), and can therefore can be analyzed objectively.

Personally, my problem with the Betty Hill map is entirely different than the question of whether it matches a real, but at the time unknown to “us,” place; it is the WHY. Reading hundreds of UFO sighting reports, abuction experiences, etc., even if I were to arbitrarily assume that only 10% are real, leads me to one personally inescapable conclusion: they don’t want us to have proof that they’re really here, or really real. Why, then, would a presumably intelligent extraterrestrial provide Betty such proof? It seems reasonable to me that it would have known, from Betty’s reactions if nothing else, that we didn’t have those stars mapped yet, and he would have (or should have) taken into account the possibility that Betty could remember it. Did this advanced being make a dumb mistake, or not consider the consequences, or what? (If so, I’m thinking it was probably reprimanded or demoted when the Fish map came out!

"WHY" is a good question. I don't think that ET thought that Betty would be able to remember. The techniques that they use seem to be related to neurotransmitters associated with sleep. So Betty should have been a something like a "sleep walking" state, which should allow for easy manipulation and control, with virtually no chance of (substantial?) memory.

Even Astronomers might not know that some of the stars were not mapped yet, so Betty probably didn't either.

So, was it a dumb mistake, or was it part of a calculated experiment designed to learn about Human memory, and perhaps other aspects.

originally posted by: InTheLight

Not really, to me, it appears to be confirmation bias. And! And the OP was not willing to expand his science and search in Ursa Major where another alien said he came from. Just saying!

No actually, just going with the "numbers"; computer says my interpretation is a closer match.

I have already done that search and study of the HillWilson map. And, while is is a very good attempt (one of the best alternates), my interpretation (based on the Fish interpretation) seems to have a better "match quality"

Yet... all your ("james1947") evidence is based on Betty's regressive hypnosis sessions. You can't have it both ways: either you're a scientist or not. Nonsense recounted from regressive hypnosis is not evidence. It is not science. It's garbage. Therefore your "star map" analysis is pure bunk.

Sheer mental excreta retrieved whilst in a dreamy/sleepy state does not constitute evidence. Therefore you - "james1947" - are a time-wasting fool. Go away and stop wasting the time of otherwise sensible adults.

p.s. you don't seem to post on any other topics on ATS; got any vested interest in perpetrating this B&B Hill abduction myth?

Sensible and impartial users, please read this

a reply to: BenutzerUnbekannt

This is also worth a look

And this is gold

originally posted by: BenutzerUnbekannt
Yet... all your ("james1947") evidence is based on Betty's regressive hypnosis sessions. You can't have it both ways: either you're a scientist or not. Nonsense recounted from regressive hypnosis is not evidence. It is not science. It's garbage. Therefore your "star map" analysis is pure bunk.

No, no it is not bunk.
Although, yes, it is based on a drawing Betty drew as a result of a post hypnotic suggestion.

However, the "map" is anything but "nonsense"! As I have shown; it is a close match to local stars when viewed from HIP_26737. I've also shown that Betty didn't "just draw" it; the probability of doing what Betty did are orders of magnitude beyond astronomical...1.03e-94.

Betty predicted the existence and relative positions of 4 stars, which have been identified. On a lesser note, Betty also predicted the existence of planets, so far 16 have been discovered.

What makes this "map" not nonsense is the fact that an abductee returned with information that could be verified by science.