The Oldfield UFO Film - Evidence that some UFOs are mirages, page 2

reply to post by Arbitrageur

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Thanks for a very interesting thread, Arbitrageur.

Another mirage oriented discussion was raised by Phage & a couple of other members, whilst seeking a possible explanation for the daytime appearance of the Turkish UFO.


[edit on 24-8-2009 by Sam60]

reply to post by Arbitrageur

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Excellent post which encourages us ALL to be more Skeptical!

Obviously this doesn't explain the large star destroyer like ship I saw over my house 20 years ago, but it does a huge amount of debunking many mirages.

S&F!

reply to post by Arbitrageur

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as somebody who wants to believe, but only in things that hold up to scrutiny, I applaud your thread. I think it's good some ufologists such as Stanton Friedman do not bother considering reports that lack enough detail to make out surface texture and other features that are often lacking in many reports.

I always found it suspicious that in this film, the alleged UFO shrinks just as it reaches the edge of the window, which seemed like a refractive effect of the window itself. It is good to have my suspicions supported by further investigation.

-rrr

Originally posted by October
Thanks for that poster, i remember seeing this footage a long time ago and it was really interesting to see how they solved the original footage. Wonder how many more famous footage sighting are actually mirages, made me think that did!

Thank you for the valuable feedback, this is exactly what I was hoping this thread would do, is make people think. There might be other explanations besides automatically believing what your eyes or the camera tells you. I chose to focus on mirages in this thread but there is a long list of things that are worthy of further scrutiny when conducting UFO research.

Originally posted by HunkaHunka
reply to post by Arbitrageur

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Excellent post which encourages us ALL to be more Skeptical!

Obviously this doesn't explain the large star destroyer like ship I saw over my house 20 years ago, but it does a huge amount of debunking many mirages.

You're right there are plenty of unexplained sightings not explained by mirages or other atmospheric optical effects. But I do think mirages explain some. Thanks for the feedback.

Originally posted by Tifozi
Temperature inversions can be detected on radar (on the plane and on the ground), and they should be since they can bring an airplane down.

The phenomena was unknown untill recent years and some aircraft crashs have been explained since we discovered the phenomena (something about creating weird wings that cause stall if I remember correctly).

The modern radars are equiped to detect such things because they are dangerous and the pilots need to avoid them.

BUT my brother is a airline pilot and he says that they also can detect that it IS a thermal inversion, and if the pilot reports something on radar and doesn't say "I spotted a UFO near the thermal inversion X" that raises some questions.

That scenario explains some things, but also excludes another ones.

Just my 2 cents.

Great posts btw, S&F.

[edit on 24/8/09 by Tifozi]

Wow! Thanks for the great feedback! This type of feedback is helpful. Would it be possible for you to ask your brother about radar systems in use in 1986 ( if he was a pilot back then?). Radar today is not the same as it was in 1986.

The crash of Delta Flight 191 at DFW on August 2, 1985, due to a microburst "provided a dramatic catalyst that suddenly turned the search for an effective weapon against the microburst into a top priority, organized program. In addition to the fact that it was the second windshear accident with a large number of fatalities in three years, the Delta crash highlighted just how inadequate the detection and warning technology still was."

oea.larc.nasa.gov...

As a result, I believe it was in the 1990s that dramatic improvements were made in both air and ground based radar to better detect atmospheric conditions like microbursts, and wind shear. Therefore if a pilot made the same flight today with the same atmospheric conditions as in 1986, I believe that the more sophisticated radar systems of today would provide clearer feedback compared to what would have been seen on 1986 radar systems. Again if any other pilots want to jump in and elaborate on this, feel free, but your brother the pilot may know something about these radar improvements too, if he was flying before 1990 (or he could ask other pilots about them if he wasn't).

Thanks again!

reply to post by Arbitrageur

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My post didn't had a star, but I'm assuming you were replying to me.

I asked my brother to answer your post:

So now we know air radar can pick up unknown returns in the sky, possibly due to weather or atmospheric phenomena.

Yes, it can, and it should. The best way to put it so everyone can understand how temperature can affect air (and it's resistance/density) is to put your hand out of the window when driving your car. If it's a sunny day with a lot of heat, you actually don't feel that much of a punch from the air passing by...

But if you put your hand out in a cold day you feel a lot more air force pushing your arm back.

That's why helicopters can fly in some conditions near mountains, and that's why we have take different procedures according to the air temperature.

It seemed to me that the radar contact was not there more than it was there, so my take is whatever they were tracking was somewhat ephemeral (not persistent), any thoughts on that?

Completly agree. The way the radar report was made makes you think of a natural phenomena. A flying object behaves like a flying object, and it either has a strong radar presence, or a weak one, or even none at all. You can't have variations like the ones reported.

My personal view of this is that some of this phenomena was only discovered in recent years, so you can't assume everyone knew about it more than a couple of years ago, maybe some experts on the matter.

I have seen some weird things in many of my flights, but I always found an explanation, and sometimes after a flight of 3 hours, after pulling three or four legs, you actually feel pretty tired, and "visions" (not in the way of illusion, but just your eyes playing tricks on you) can occur.

What makes me look at this case with some doubts is the fact that neither the pilot nor the ground control found immediatly an explanation for the contact. But, maybe they didn't knew about them. When I was flying a Cessna for publicity I almost entered a restricted air space because the guy on the ground forgot to mention the note to me...

As to the drawings, it's weird. If I can remember the case (I've heard from it some time ago) he reported the movement of not one, but several UFO's (correct me if I'm wrong), all with the same shape.

You can have a natural phenomena and it can be visible, but one bigger than the two others? It's weird, honestly.

And that doesn't look anything like an airport sighting. Like I said, I've been in Cessnas, Airbus and now I'm co-pilot on a Fokker 100, and I've never seen an airport like that in different conditions. And I don't recall that natural phenomena can distort THAT much your sight. I mean, temperature differentials causing more distortion than fog? Don't buy it.

And if I recall the details correctly, that doesn't explain the multiple UFO's.

But I can assure you, according to my experience, that doesn't look like an airport at all. An airport can cause you to scratch your head (expecially if one of the lights goes of or something like that), but it doesn't appear to be 100 times bigger than your aircraft, neither it glows light into your cockpit to the point you feel your face warm.

reply to post by Arbitrageur

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No, I'm a pilot for three years now, but I'm an aviation enthusiastic since I'm a little boy.

As a result, I believe it was in the 1990s that dramatic improvements were made in both air and ground based radar to better detect atmospheric conditions like microbursts, and wind shear. Therefore if a pilot made the same flight today with the same atmospheric conditions as in 1986, I believe that the more sophisticated radar systems of today would provide clearer feedback compared to what would have been seen on 1986 radar systems.

Exactly. I mean, in Pearl Harbor they couldn't differ planes from birds, now our radars can tell us how the inside of a cloud looks like (you don't want to fly by one that is full of ice particles, lol) so that shows you how the radars have improved over the years.

In the early days of the radar era, radar waves could only outline big particles, meaning, that you can't make a difference from a flock of birds or a bunch of bombers.

Now, with the software upgrades and all, you can actually see particles inside the clouds and things like that. The computer upgrades and software evolution has enhanced the "eyes of the radars" a lot.

But in this case, I honestly can't make anything from it. The part where he says "I felt my face warm" makes me tilt my head and say "whaaat?". I don't follow the vocabulary (spaceships and all) because that can take you on the wrong path.

I can tell you a "UFO experience I had" some time ago...

I was flying to Madrid and there was a storm at 10 o'clock, 4 klicks if I recall. The clouds had the shape of an L, but very round, and we were looking at it from the front.

At the angle of the cloud (L) they were thiner, and there were a couple of clouds behind them that were producing lighting.

The funny thing is that from our point of view, the angle on the cloud had a straight area were you could see the lighting, but not on the rest of the cloud... So what you saw was a sort of disc shapped thing blinking far away. ONLY when we passed by it we could see the whole storm...

But that tells you how banal and natural phenomena can make you think that what you're seeing it's a UFO.

reply to post by internos

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I think you are misquoting me my friend, I never said any of them were wrong.

I think the pilot described what he saw to the best of his ability, but he didn't understand what he was looking at. So I did mention the pilot but I didn't mention the others you listed.

Brilliant work Arbitrageur!

As I have been saying for a while, what actually constitutes a trained observer is something completely different to most people's idea of what a trained observer is capable of.

Pilots, military/naval observers, police officers, and astronauts do not necessarily make good observers when it comes to UFOs. They are trained for specific jobs, and their training does not delve into the physics of our atmosphere, and relatively infrequently seen phenomena that can easily be mistaken for UFOs.

If you've seen my posts before, you'll know I am fascinated by meteors, and many of the same parallels can be made in this field. Unless you know the subject, it's very easy to not understand what you are seeing. The same can be said about "Chinese lanterns" to a lesser or greater degree. Until you have seen them (or the physics is carefully explained, as you have done with mirages) with you own eyes in a setting where you know what is behind the phenomena, it can be very easy to misunderstand what your eyes are telling you.

You could well be right about the "foo fighters" I think... I'm thinking that since this was during the war, and there were no doubt bombs being dropped, as well as incendiaries, the fires and light from them may have been the sources for the reflections/mirages, and with all that heat energy around, I'm sure the atmosphere would be ripe for temperature inversions and mirages!

As I recall, green was one color given in descriptions, and this is not far off yellow/orange in the visible spectrum. There is every chance that the air is acting as a prism, which would shift the color of the object/light source in the reflection I believe. The classic example of this happening in nature is of course the "green flash".

I used to think foo fighters were meteors or fireballs, and that would still be my next best guess as to what they might be, but I think your theory accounts for allot more than mine.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
Like I said the most significant unexplained part is the heat on the pilot's face and I have a theory on that too. If I saw what I thought was a mile wide spaceship shadowing me I guarantee you my adrenaline would be pumping and I would feel HOT!

I am not so sure about this theory... If you experience something very scary or distressing, it will make your blood pressure drop, and this can be life threatening. Then your body protects itself by increasing the release of adrenalin, which aims to maintain blood flow to the vital organs (brain, heart and lungs). Your body will not waste energy on increasing the blood flow to your skin and face and make it feel hot. Your face will probably be pale and perhaps clammy.

You can read a lot more about shock and it's symptoms here:
www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au...

reply to post by Arbitrageur

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If I saw what I thought was a mile wide spaceship shadowing me I guarantee you my adrenaline would be pumping and I would feel HOT!

Although I understand perfectly what you're saying, I think that the description of the pilot tends to the feeling that you have when you put your hand in front of a headlight of a car (for example).

If anything, this description CONFIRMS it's a mirage, rather than casting any doubt on it: "moving exactly in the same direction and with the same speed we were" That's EXACTLY what a mirage will do when observed in this manner my friend!!!

Agree. Anyone who has ever piloted understands how hard it is to keep up with something in the air. Although a "alien spaceship" could have a lot of speed in movements to keep up, airliners go up and down, forward and backward (even in AP with FD, with all the NAV, ALT and SPD on). I had the pleasure of travelling in a 747-400 in the cockpit and even this modern version can't keep a linear travel line.

Now let's find some thermal inversion, or some mirage that looks like a block with thousands squared lights

I guarante you, that in an approach with certain weather conditions you have to hold to your testicles because sometimes the runway doesn't look like a runway, at all.

But I still have doubts about a pilot not recognizing a runway. But according to one of the drawnings, you can possibly assume that he didn't recognized a secondary infraestructure on the airport, and not the runway itself.

And I can tell about a caracteristic in desert landings. Sometimes, you can actually see the runway in the air. That happens when the ground is too flat and the weather is clear and very hot. Those heat reflections ,that you can also see when you're driving down a highway, make the ground the color of the sky and the runway can be visible for many reasons, and when that happens, the runway actually appears to be flying. This can be stupidly dangerous if you are not landing on ILS but only on VA.

SO basically:


an aircraft doing a 360° turn, would see a mirage following it at some relative position rather than leaving it to its left or its right or wherever it is.

Well, one MAJOR thing about all of this is the banking of the airplane turn. If the banking of the airplane was set to, let's say, 30º (what is difficult since it becomes unconfurtable for the passengers) and the mirage still appears then it's a mirage. But if they turn that much with that much banking and the UFO disapears, then we have something. (because with the banking the window points down, and the object (if that high) will rise above the window))

a mirage can occour by night, and sometimes is a mirage, sometimes it's a reflection, sometimes is a thermal variation

Mirages can happen any time, friend. And weird **** happens all the time up there.

John Callahan, Former FAA Division Chief, is wrong


FAA is wrong


Kenju Terauchi is wrong, his crew is wrong, them all are wrong

OK, i give up, I have nothing else to say

The problem with UFO investigation, and pilot reports, is their ego.

I have seen this, and in Portugal we don't have that much sightings in airline flights.

In those days, it's possible they were all right, because of the technological context. But now, we have explanation for some things, and if the case was reviewed, maybe the ending was different, in my opinion.

Anyway, don't give up. I have seen things that made me carry my camera EVERY time that I fly, it's behind my seat, ready to grabe. Even my CO makes fun of me because of that.

I could tell you some things that I have experience that I still can't explain, but I would spend here all night. lol

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
reply to post by internos

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I think you are misquoting me my friend, I never said any of them were wrong.

I think the pilot described what he saw to the best of his ability, but he didn't understand what he was looking at. So I did mention the pilot but I didn't mention the others you listed.

Please don't think for a minute that my post was somewhat hostile towards you: we are in disagreement, but of course i won't change my opinion about you because of this: i consider you a precious resource for ATS, and i encourage you to keep on doing your brilliant work. People can't agree on everything, besides i find your OP extremely well done and i agree with most of it: also thanks to other's contribution we have learned something new, and this is basically what ATS is for.
Now, you didn't say that they were wrong, but you are implying it: if Bruce Maccabee came to the conclusion that they spotted something tangible, something that was actually there not just looking to be there, and you come to the conclusion that what they've seen was a mirage, then you are implying that he's wrong: if John Callahan, former FAA division chief stated that on 1986 some Japanese Airlines 747 flight was followed by a UFO for 31 minutes over the Alaskan skies, and also stated that the then FAA Administrator, Admiral Engen, had to hold a briefing the next day where the FBI, CIA, President Reagan’s Scientific Study Team had to meet in order to talk about the incident and you say that is was just some mirage, you are implying one of the two: or he was lying or all the aforementioned institutions were made of some bunch of people unable to distinguish a mirage from some actual thing, moreover basing their conclusions on FIRST HAND decumentation, made by professionals for professionals: FAA investigates only in case something represents a danger for the general flight safety: now since when a mirage deserves to be discussed at THAT level, my friend, in your opinion? Obviously something suggested that there was something there, so if you say that it was just some mirage, then you are implying that FAA is wrong.
Last but not least, Kenju Terauchi described many different things, not just some sticky one: sometimes it was "saturn shaped" and sized like "two aircraft carriers.", and sticking right in front of the plane, sometimes they were TWO ufos shaped like some rectangular box, filled with what he described at his best to be WINDOWS of something enlightened from the internal of what he was SURE to be some AIRCRAFT, then there was some "mothership" with two "smaller ships" in its closeness: the three were moving in some different manner.
Honestly, i refuse the idea of the mirage. If we want to blame him of having hit some bottles from the payload (they were carrying wine after all ) then i could even agree, but alcohol effects don't generate primary radar returns.

Tifozi, thank you for your extremely helpful posts, it's refreshing to learn new things: sometimes i can see Corse looking towards a completely different direction from Sardinia: and this happens even to other regions of Italy, i know that mirages are something that you can describe very close to some hallucinations after all:
here, this is a Corse mirage seen from Liguria:


where the observation point is 2, the target is 1 and the direction they were looking towards is indicated by the arrow:


I DO realize that people may have a wrong perception of what they see or believe to see, but ALL I'm trying to say is that the Jal 1628 encounter cannot be debunked this way: but of course i can't ignore the quality of the research by Arbitrageur, i'd say that if he/she'd put the same efforts on every youtube crock being posted here he/she would debunk the 99% of the stuff that gets posted here

You have also pointed out something extremely important: EGO is a factor that ruined many investigations, this is very true and very sad, so you have many points and i acknowledge this.

[edit on 24/8/2009 by internos]

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