I experienced a "classic" UFO sighting: Nov. 28, 2010

Don't sweat it...
It was just swamp gas or a weather balloon! HaHaHa LOL
Nice documentation; It's always pleasing to see a skeptic become more aware.
Keep looking up, and in enough time you'll see more than you bargained for. The hardest thing about proving extraterrestrial existence, is getting someone to look.

EXCELLENT POST , star and flag ,

i was having similar UFOs sightings , starting from 25 August 2009 , i would see them several times in a week, but the best sightings happend in April and june 2010 when the sky was very clear which is the best condition for these things to appear. The ufos look like stars and their light become very bright but not always , they start appearing in the evening after sun set , i sometime see some flashes just before the UFOs sightings start happening , however the most impressive thing about my sightings is that one of the ufos more than once appeared much closer or with a big change in his level of altitude which was much lower than an airplane level of altitude but all i could see was light . just recently i saw a UFO is the same time when this UFOs sightings would happen ( post-sunset evening) but this time i could see two sources of light in the UFO, i saw it twice .
let me know what you think about this very intresting phenomenen .

This *still* isn't my full response and analysis of the OP (aren't I a tease..), but a few comments...

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
I've previously stated I've been out at approximately the same time, and saw no such bright object in the same place.

I think this is a rather important point, and it's partly why I posted those 'test' images a page back.. I was a little disappointed (but unsuprised), that no-one other than S.O. responded, and no-one at all managed to spot the elephant in the room.. I'll come back to this, and why I posted those images, when I post a fuller response to the description given in the OP.

My location near the Phoenix/Scottsdale border is well-populated.

Which does create a bit of a problem if there are no decent corroborating reports. Maybe I've missed them, but I haven't seen any here..

Also, as has been mentioned elsewhere in this thread, no corroboration other than several eye-witness accounts of varying degrees of similar objects.

so, *where* are those, exactly? I guess i'll have to go back over the thread to find anything, but as i said above, I don't recall anything except a couple of unsupported ooh-ooh-me-too posts. If they had been posted *before* this thread, they might count. But me-too posts on a site-owners thread? Seriously, I'm happy to properly address any supporting evidence, so links and cites are more than welcome, but it needs at least a tiny semblance of credibility. Just saying such support exists, without citing it and allowing it be analysed...? Well, that's hardly 'denying ignorance'.

I'll be back later (probably not before tomorrow night), to post the full response. In the meantime, if any other skywatchers can take a look HERE, and spot the problem/s..and then tell me *how* they found it/them, it would be appreciated.

Originally posted by CHRLZ
so, *where* are those, exactly? I guess i'll have to go back over the thread to find anything, but as i said above, I don't recall anything except a couple of unsupported ooh-ooh-me-too posts.

To be clear... I was referencing people stating somewhat similar sightings of similar "objects" at different places and times.

Rather than being coy about the "puzzle," why not just post what you believe to be the issue?

I experienced a similar sighting last night, driving from southern cal north on I-15, about 30 miles north of Las Vegas on I-15 there was a very bright star in the sky to the northeast, it was pure white bright light, and it was moving to the northwest, then to the southeast, I was getting my camera ready, and it suddenly veered off toward the south very quickly and began to dim in intensity... I was stopped and thought ... THIS IS IT! its real.. OMG and then I could hear the engines.... The bright white light faded and as it moved further south, I was able to see that it was simply a military/air-force aircraft and the bright star was the landing lights, it was headed to Nellis AFB.



The only strange thing was the fact that it had no other lights, no blinking lights colored or other. Only the bright lights in the front... Which at first appeared much like what the OP described, not saying that is what happened in that case... Just thought I'd share.

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
To be clear... I was referencing people stating somewhat similar sightings of similar "objects" at different places and times.

OK, so there are no actual corroborations of the particular event being discussed here.

Rather than being coy about the "puzzle," why not just post what you believe to be the issue?

'Timid'? 'Coy'? Moi? Au contraire.

FTR, I don't think there is a single issue, I think there are quite a few... And the reasons for not just posting the full response are quite simple:

1. I was (still) hoping someone, anyone, would 'get it', and the longer the time I gave, the more chance of that happening. It seems it isn't going to happen, granted - and I guess that may be my fault for making the puzzle too difficult, or it was just too boring, or maybe everyone has lost interest, perhaps...

2. I don't live on the Interweb, and the full response is quite lengthy and requires a good bit of cut and paste and a little more polishing. I'm thorough, although some might use a different word...

Oh, and I have one more seemingly obscure question - a test of your memory of the events of that evening.

What movie was on the IPad*, and about how far through it were you?
And I'd like to also now point out that you said Ipad, so that is *this* device, yes?:
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/6455ed30d0cf.jpg[/atsimg]
(Image: AFP Source: The Daily Telegraph/The Australian)

Like the puzzle, that question is relevant in a way you may not expect... And I promise it's the last 'diversion' before I post the full response.

reply to post by CHRLZ


Do you think something on the iPad screen temporarily burned into SO's retina... and moved with his eyes?

IRM

reply to post by CHRLZ


Done playing games. Just get on with it already.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


Why don't you stop playing games and answer his question. What movie were you watching on the ipad and how far was it through?

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


Or they grow their ships for free. Roswell ship reported to be "alive"?

Thanks for sharing a spectacular sighting.

reply to post by CHRLZ


do you not find it patronising when somebody who was not there tries to tell you what you saw?
i know i do, it all ways turns out to be what they think it was based on their experiences of U.F.O.'s or what ever, which in most cases is zero. therefore they tell you not to believe your own eyes, there is no way you could of seen it, it was not real. because they have no other explanation for it, and can not accept some things are unexplainable.

IRM - It's good to see there are those who can think a little laterally - while that's not exactly my point, it goes to show the relevance. By the way, for those who are criticising me in advance for what they believe will be my conclusion, I do not actually have a conclusion. I do, however see some issues in the description of events.

OK, here we go:

– Skeptic Overlord
Most people here on ATS who have been around awhile know me as being "skeptical" that UFO sightings represent something of non-terrestrial origin. I've been on record several times stating that I simply don't believe we mere earthlings would be interesting for any advanced civilization capable of interstellar travel. However, last night I experienced something that defies terrestrial explanation.

Whilst such an introduction is interesting, it could be construed as an 'appeal to authority'. Are such claims more worthwhile? Is one from a true believer who peppers sites with numerous sightings, less worthwhile? I simply raise that as something to think about. As far as I am concerned all claims should be dealt with on their merit, within reason.

First, my reason for being outside at 10:30 in the evening in Phoenix. Without getting into details, we've had a problem with nocturnal critters in our back yard. So for the past few nights I've been sitting outside in the hopes of seeing what problem critters are coming into the area. With iPad and a couple beers (and a couple Nat Sherman's cigarettes), it's rather enjoyable.

It is good that the location and time was provided, as these are of course important in identifying celestial objects in the sky at the time. So to summarise, it appears that the alleged sighting took place at 10:30pm on 2010/11/28 in Phoenix Arizona, USA, and looking a little North of due East.

The account of the sighting is a mix of 70/30 information discovered at the time, and going back to the tools available to confirm what I saw. I'm doing my best to document as much detail as I can so that others may compare against the sky and research what I may have seen.

Sighting Details
It was a clear night, 50 degrees or so, with low humidity, and the time was about 10:30 mountain time. I happened to look up at the stars, as I always do whenever I'm out at night, and noticed a bright star that I don't recall seeing before. So I paused the Netflix movie on my iPad and launched the SkyWalk app to figure out what it was. The nice thing about the app is that you can point the iPad up at the sky, and the app is aware of the angle and direction so as to give you a detailed star map of where it's pointed.

Just to repeat, here is a stellarium screenshot of that region, showing the view on 2010/11/28 at about that time from Phoenix, in the direction of the constellation of Auriga:

As mentioned earlier, please ignore the time stamp, as Stellarium is showing my local time, not the time in Phoenix.. Nailing the exact time is not that important, as it really only affects the height above the horizon of the objects, and means they may be slightly tilted.

Also, I've included the ecliptic line for interest, but there were no planets in that region of sky that would be likely to have affected the observation.

But at this point I have some observations about the description. First up, as night sky observers well know, it takes time for one's eye to adjust to a dark sky. How bright and big is an IPad screen? I'll tell you - it's about as bright as a typical TV, and it's quite large. Yes, I'm sure it can be turned down somewhat, but I would invite readers to take one outside (or a portable DVD player, or a mobile phone or digital camera) - and view the lit screen for a while. Then look at the sky and see how long it takes before your eye adapts and you get a good view of the stars. Menkalinan is *not* a bright star by any means. The size of the Ipad also means that it will affect a large area of your retina - again experienced observers will know that you can use 'averted vision' to help overcome the slightly poorer low-light ability of a non-night-adopted central retina - but here, the large size of the screen will affect that too. That's why the length of time S.O. had been watching the movie, and even the movie itself (was it a 'bright' movie, or something dark like a batman movie.. ), could well be significant.

*I* would never take a phone, dvd player, Ipad, etc out with me when night viewing - your night vision is very severely compromised for at least a minute or so, indeed it can take ten to fifteen minutes to begin to get the true night-adaptation effect to return.

So how is this relevant? Well, I know I would have great difficulty seeing anything but the very brightest stars initially, if I just 'happened to look up' as per the OP description. And those very brightest stars would be severely dimmed, and therefore it would be much less obvious if you were looking for something out of place. Yet S.O. recognised immediately - in a quite obscure region of sky - that something was out of place. Impressive.

Anyway, let's just assume it was dark movie, or that S.O. took a bit longer to let his eyes adapt.

From the view shown above, S.O. would have been looking a little North of due East, and the area of interest is about 40° up. In that region of sky, there are no 'famous' or easily identifiable asterisms (or constellations, starsigns, whatever you wish to call them). Note that the nearest bright stars are probably Castor and Pollux at the base of Gemini, and the nearest recognisable asterisms are Orion and Taurus, off to the South of East. Now this raises a bit of a problem for me. I regard myself as a pretty keen skywatcher, and I know the (Southern) heavens pretty well (feel free to check my posting history..). But I gotta tell you, if I was staring at one of the more boring areas of the sky, there is no way I would quickly notice a star out of place. Now maybe S.O. is a far better observer than me, or maybe there is something about Auriga that makes it an interesting area of sky for you northern hemisphere guys (it's not all that readily visible from where I live..). I'll be fascinated to hear about that – always eager to learn.

So I'd love to hear why/how one would spot a 'new' star in Auriga, unless *very* familiar with the sky in that region. Is S.O. very familiar with it for some reason? Judging from what follows in his report, I think it's a question that needs to be asked. If this strange new star was in Orion's belt, or near the Great Bear's tail, then fair enough.. But Auriga? How many folks here had even heard of Auriga before this? Be honest...

Now here's the rub - remember those 'test images' I posted? Well, every single one of them had a very bright object added. An extra star of the approximate magnitude described by S.O. In the very first one, the star was added in right next to Orion (near the horizon) to help make it obvious. Yet no-one spotted any of them. Hey, maybe there was no reason to be looking for that, or maybe nobody bothered to look anyway.

But I would point out that S.O. had no reason to be expecting something to be wrong either, as he looked up at that region of sky...

So, is it really that easy to spot out of place stars, in regions of sky without notable patterns? I don't think it is, but as I said, maybe S.O. has a much better sky knowledge than me, maybe he just knows *that* area well, or maybe the object was much brighter than he described.

Ok, moving on - it's worth noting that Capella (Alpha Aurigae) at mag 0.08 is a VERY MUCH brighter star than Menkalinan (Beta Aurigae) at mag 2.0. (Larger numbers=dimmer) The Stellarium screenshot above uses diferent sizes to approximate the difference in brightness, and you can see that Menkalinan is much 'smaller' = much dimmer...

As near as I can figure, the bright "star" was to the left and slightly higher than the Menkalinan star in the Auriga constellation, making nearly a right triangle with the Capella star, also of the Auriga constellation. This new "star" appeared to be about 1.5 times the distance to the north from Menkalinan than Menkalinan is from Capella. It was slightly brighter than both of those stars.

As mentioned above, Capella is MUCH, MUCH brghter than Menkalinan! (that's one of the reasons I'll almost guarantee you have never heard of Menkalinan before, either..). So to say "it was slightly brighter than both of those stars" is *very* odd, given those two stars are of vastly different brightness. Surely one would compare it to just one of them, or perhaps say something like "it was brighter than Capella, by as much again as Capella is brighter than Menkalinan"... Which leads to the next problem - if it was indeed brighter than Capella, then that is an object that would not likely be missed by other observers, even webcams, etc. There would surely *have* to be corroborating reports. (After all, Capella is the 6th brightest star in the night sky, after Sirius, Canopus, Alpha Centauri, Arcturus and Vega, so if it was slightly brighter, that puts it in the very top few..)

My immediate thought was a satellite

It may be pertinent to ask about S.O.'s astronomical observing knowledge. Satellites are only visible in the hour or so after dusk (or before dawn) from mid latitudes like Phoenix. That's the very first thing you learn about them if you are planning to find one. As the night progresses, the sky above you moves into deep shadow and there is NOTHING to illuminate the satellite. Let me repeat that. You will NOT see satellites LATE at night, from mid latitudes. And, apart from geostationary satellites, they move quite quickly, steadily and smoothly (similar to a high flying aircraft). While they are sometimes adjusted in orbit by little thrusters, these movements would be almost imperceptible from the ground.

and I went back to watching Netflix. About 15 minutes later, I noticed that the "star" I saw was a bit lower in the sky relative to Menkalinan, no longer forming a right triangle with Capella. Again, I thought my feelings of a satellite (possibly geo stationary) were confirmed as Capella and Menkalinan would be rising through the night.

Again, as Menkalinan is quite a dim star, there would need to be an interval while S.O.'s eye adjusted. And as above, no, it wouldn't/couldn't be a satellite, unless they are now fitting them with self illumination.. It is also worth noting that stellar objects in that region of the sky would be moving upwards and rotating slightly in an anti-clockwise direction. So any star that was left (North) of Menkalinan/Capella would naturally move slightly upwards, but be slightly lower relative to those stars, just as described.

As I was thinking perhaps I should grab our binoculars, it suddenly moved.

Puzzling. A sky-aware skeptic, seeing an object that shouldn't be there, and he hasn't reached for binoculars, let alone a camera/tripod? Ah well, I hope he has learned his lesson!

The motion was rapid, and appeared "downward" from my position -- though the motion also could have been to the north east. The motion didn't seem to be perpendicular to the horizon, and may have been slightly to the north (left). When the "star" hit a position that appeared to be at about 20 degrees elevation, it split into two with both portions going immediately in opposite directions and out of sight within seconds. As best I can tell, the two new "pieces" went north and south, but it's hard to be certain on exact direction.
(NOTE: At the time, I noted the two nearby stars but not the actual names. I obtained those by using SkyWalk and setting the time to yesterday evening when the observation happened.)

Additional Information
The light of the object seemed to be pure white, no distinguishable flashing, and no flicker.
No sound either before or after as far as I could tell.
When it began to drop, I stood and walked back a bit for a better view. It's unlikely the observed effect was due to any latent adjustment of my eyes from watching a relatively bright LCD screen in the night.
I had not yet finished the first cerveza Tecate I brought along.

My Interpretation
Going back to the beginning of the post, my reflexive thoughts have always been that "things in the sky" are not of fantastic origins beyond this earth. But this defies explanation as something earth-bound technology could produce, especially in the apparent speed of the two "objects" that broke away and apparently split to travel north and south at an exceptionally high rate of speed.

All you have is my word; the word of someone who habitually doubted extraordinary explanations of things like this, suddenly compelled to post his observations of something extraordinary.

There is no way to explain this sequence of events that I am aware of. No terrestrial craft or phenomena does this, to my knowledge, and if it was controlled, either by earthly means or other, one would have to ask, why would it do this, and what happened to the craft, or remnants, if any? If I had seen such a phenomenon, I think I would have rung the local meteorology bureau and airports to see if they had any information, maybe even travelled say ten miles in the direction of the sighting and asked around, visited local constabulary, etc.

No, I don't think it was an after image from watching the movie, nor do I have any reasonable explanation whatsoever for the movement, so yes, if it existed, it was most interesting, and currently unexplainable. I did consider other possibilities, like perhaps a reflection from the Ipad or something else on the inside of spectacles, or from behind a window, but he didn't mention glasses or being behind a window..

But I do have problems with the description of events as outlined above, and I am troubled by the lack of any corroborative reports for the incident.

And that's as close to a conclusion as I can offer. I'm happy to elaborate on any point that may be disputed, and also to answer any questions (unlike some), but... there you have it. It's simply an uncorroborated sighting claim of a UAP/UFO. Seems to me that's about it, unless some new evidence turns up.

Originally posted by lifeform11
Do you not find it patronising when somebody who was not there tries to tell you what you saw?
i know i do, it all ways turns out to be what they think it was based on their experiences of U.F.O.'s or what ever, which in most cases is zero. therefore they tell you not to believe your own eyes, there is no way you could of seen it, it was not real. because they have no other explanation for it, and can not accept some things are unexplainable.

Lifeform, would you please quote where I told someone what they saw? Also, please quote where I have said things cannot be unexplainable.

Thanks in advance.

reply to post by CHRLZ


i know you mean well, but trying to assess somebody else's sighting is near impossible, for a start it depends on the person who is assessing it, what they believe before hand, this will always shape their opinion or conclusion.

there is nothing wrong with forming a opinion about what you think it was, but at the end of the day none of us know if that conclusion was the correct conclusion.

Puzzling. A sky-aware skeptic, seeing an object that shouldn't be there, and he hasn't reached for binoculars, let alone a camera/tripod? Ah well, I hope he has learned his lesson!

this is what i mean, to me it is not puzzling at all, it takes a certain amount of time to compute that what you are seeing is in the first place worth filming. when you start to understand you might be seeing something weird, you then go through a process of doubt, "no it can not be" "am i seeing this right" and you stay glued untill you see something that makes it so obvious it is not normal, at which point the response is wow, what the hell and you stay glued. you do not want to miss any part of it in case it does something else you might miss, so it would depend how close to hand a camera or binoculars were.

i am not sure if this is how it would of gone with S.O., but from my experience of my sighting i had, this was my process to tee, what i was witnessing was far more important to me at the time, proving it to somebody else was a after thought, even though we had a camera i never attempted to get it, because i knew i had to look around for it, charge it, get the settings right etc, in which time i may of missed something that either put the sighting further into the unknown or something that suddenly explained what i was seeing, or it could be gone when i get back.

i have told a few people who i can trust about it in my personal life, and they all try to be 'rational' about it and try to come up with 'logical' explanations, which is fine, the only problem is what they propose never matches all the observed facts i had, and they are explanations based on their already made up viewpoints on these subjects.

i only wish i could imprint my vision of what i saw that day into their heads but i cannot, therefore it is impossible for them to come to any conclusion based on my observed event, because they did not see it, they can only come to a conclusion based on their beliefs.

Originally posted by lifeform11
i know you mean well

I appreciate that sentiment. It sometimes seems to be not widely held..

but trying to assess somebody else's sighting is near impossible, for a start it depends on the person who is assessing it, what they believe before hand, this will always shape their opinion or conclusion.

Of course, that is correct. Which is exactly why we look for evidence, corroboration, and also look closely at the story. For surely, as I have said, claims need to be judged on their merit. ATS, sadly, just like other conspiracy forums, does contain those who make up stories. I'm not saying that S.O. has made this up, but the claim needs to be analysed from all aspects. That's what I have tried to do, including actually going out and doing what I have said, eg using a bright screen device and then looking up at the stars..

I'm by no means saying that unsupoorted anecdotes shouldn't be posted, or should be ignored, but I do believe they need to be scrutinised carefully, and given a weighting, if you like, that reflects their believability.

there is nothing wrong with forming a opinion about what you think it was, but at the end of the day none of us know if that conclusion was the correct conclusion.

Indeed, as stated above, I can draw no conclusions about this one. But there are aspects of the story that I find odd.

Puzzling. A sky-aware skeptic, seeing an object that shouldn't be there, and he hasn't reached for binoculars, let alone a camera/tripod? Ah well, I hope he has learned his lesson!

this is what i mean, to me it is not puzzling at all, it takes a certain amount of time to compute that what you are seeing is in the first place worth filming. when you start to understand you might be seeing something weird, you then go through a process of doubt, "no it can not be" "am i seeing this right" and you stay glued untill you see something that makes it so obvious it is not normal, at which point the response is wow, what the hell and you stay glued. you do not want to miss any part of it in case it does something else you might miss, so it would depend how close to hand a camera or binoculars were.

I agree, but in this case, he saw the object out of place. He then went back to his movie... It's not like this all happened suddenly, and after all, he runs a conspiracy site...
Now there are times when my camera isn't handy, but is isn't often. If I see the proverbial good one and it takes more than a few seconds, I will be surprised if I miss it. Having said that, indeed, last night at about 9pm I was out on a motor scooter in a rural area (yes, I'm a weirdo!), and I didn't have my camera. There were low, scattered, scudding clouds, and this was near to an airport, so I was watching numerous cool scenes where aircraft appeared and disappeared, lit up 'pathways' in the clouds.. and also the crescent moon was popping out at various moments. And as I was moving, everything seemed doubly odd and 'deceptive'. It was eerie stuff and fun to watch, and any of these would have made for a good ufo video - but no camera.. Ah well.

What's my point? I sort of agree. But the facetious old comment 'pictures or it didn't happen' actually has some merit...

i have told a few people who i can trust about it in my personal life, and they all try to be 'rational' about it and try to come up with 'logical' explanations, which is fine, the only problem is what they propose never matches all the observed facts i had, and they are explanations based on their already made up viewpoints on these subjects.

Yep, but you have to take it on the chin - and the whole point is that you need to eliminate all the possibilities before heading into unknown and unproven theorems like the ETH. That's how science (and the law..) works. Maybe it shouldn't be fully applicable to ufology, but it is a pretty useful starting point..

For me, if I come up with a great sighting, I expect to be grilled over hot coals!! And I won't take it personally - if there are holes in my story I might need to rethink, or accept that I got some stuff wrong, or my memories are not serving me correctly, then so be it. After all, it's all about how you perceived something, if there is no actual evidence.

i only wish i could imprint my vision of what i saw that day into their heads but i cannot, therefore it is impossible for them to come to any conclusion based on my observed event, because they did not see it, they can only come to a conclusion based on their beliefs.

We need Spock and a Vulcan mind-meld!

Anyway, it's all fair in love and war, and after all, it's only a story on a conspiracy forum... Readers will make their own decisions, and it's all good..

reply to post by CHRLZ


I had to read through 23 pages of stuff and I find your comments rather self indulgent.

You try to come across as some sort of Expert (do not know what in) but ask some of the most ridiculous questions known to man.

Firstly, the Poster Skeptic Overlord has no proof so none of your questions are appropriate as with no proof nothing you can ask can be answered any more clearly without some verifiable data.

As the Poster said he unfortunately does not have any data besides his word then why ask your pointless questions.

You seem to want to attract attention to your ignorance. The Poster gave a rather detailed description of what he thought he witnessed but without a camera or witness his story is what it is.

You obviously class yourself as some sort of thinker/expert but after reading your posts here and on other threads you are clearly neither. Stop badgering the Poster as with no proof your questions will always hit a brick wall.

Whatever is, is!

Originally posted by CHRLZ
How bright and big is an IPad screen? I'll tell you - it's about as bright as a typical TV, and it's quite large.

I'll tell you instead. It was set to 50% brightness while outside.

*I* would never take a phone, dvd player, Ipad, etc out with me when night viewing

I never claimed to be night-viewing.

So I'd love to hear why/how one would spot a 'new' star in Auriga, unless *very* familiar with the sky in that region.

Apparently, in your haste to be an expert debunker, you neglected to comprehend my posts on the subject which explained a new object, brighter than the surrounding bright stars.

Now here's the rub - remember those 'test images' I posted? Well, every single one of them had a very bright object added. An extra star of the approximate magnitude described by S.O. In the very first one, the star was added in right next to Orion (near the horizon) to help make it obvious. Yet no-one spotted any of them.

My, aren't you clever.

So, is it really that easy to spot out of place stars, in regions of sky without notable patterns?

If you and your wife site outside in the evening a lot, talking and looking up, especially at the brightest stars that come out early -- certainly.

I am troubled by the lack of any corroborative reports for the incident.

As am I. But still felt compelled to relate what I saw, in the manner I saw it.

And that's as close to a conclusion as I can offer.

I don't recall seeing anything that would be classified as a conclusion on your post.

reply to post by CHRLZ


you have the correct approach in my opinion for everything else, it would work if there was some detectable evidence to go with the witness statement, or if there were photo's/video's with the witness statement.

it just never works when all you have is the witness statement. lets just say that somebody actually saw a u.f.o. that had no explanation.

all science would do is put it down to something normal, plane/helicopter/balloon, regardless of all the observed facts from the witness, or if they were truly stumped then they would go onto questioning the persons eye sight and mental condition, but if the person was able to prove they would pass those things with flying colors, then they would go onto optical illusions etc. science simply does not accept that there are some things that have no explanation, or there is something paranormal worthy of further study. so even if a person actually see's a space craft with aliens in it, without evidence science will always try to explain it as something 'logical' regardless. but that does not mean the person did not see what they claimed, it just means it is not accepted due to lack of evidence.

if after all the assessing the scientist is still stumped then they would just say, well it is unknown. which means the best case scenario would be that it was a unidentified flying object, and we actually got no where in terms of finding out what it was. but if the process is done and a theory is put forward, then it is all purely guess work and the conclusions could well be wrong. you see this on the news all the time, some debunker says it was a helicopter, the witnesses are like "there is no way it was a helicopter, helicopters cannot travel that far that fast"

science is useful for when there is some form of evidence, but when it is just witness accounts science becomes bias, and would never conclude the person witnessed a U.F.O. or something paranormal, because as far as science is concerned everything has a logical explanation, and there is no evidence of paranormal things.

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
I'll tell you instead. It was set to 50% brightness while outside.

Does it really drop to a point where night adaptation is that rapid? Do you not notice the lag time required before you can see stars of mag 2,3,4..? I invite any other IPad owners to try this out... But thanks for the new information...

*I* would never take a phone, dvd player, Ipad, etc out with me when night viewing

I never claimed to be night-viewing.

You said the primary purpose was looking for 'nocturnal critters'. I would have thought moderately dark-adapted eyes might be useful for that.

So I'd love to hear why/how one would spot a 'new' star in Auriga, unless *very* familiar with the sky in that region.

Apparently, in your haste to be an expert debunker, you neglected to comprehend my posts on the subject which explained a new object, brighter than the surrounding bright stars.

I don't see where you explain your immediate recognition of something wrong, in a bland, boring part of the sky without a recognisable pattern.

Now here's the rub - remember those 'test images' I posted? Well, every single one of them had a very bright object added. An extra star of the approximate magnitude described by S.O. In the very first one, the star was added in right next to Orion (near the horizon) to help make it obvious. Yet no-one spotted any of them.

My, aren't you clever.

Hmm, I thought we were supposed to be civil? These last two (bolded) responses sound a little like they don't quite meet that criteria... ah well, must have misunderstood.

FTR, those scenes were of the early evening summer sky from the US at the moment. Given the 'intruders' were brighter than Capella, and some of them were posted next to recognisable star patterns, it seems strange that no-one spotted them. I was pretty sure that the first one would get spotted really quickly, but no. I guess everyone is different in how they recognise stuff...

So, is it really that easy to spot out of place stars, in regions of sky without notable patterns?

If you and your wife site outside in the evening a lot, talking and looking up, especially at the brightest stars that come out early -- certainly.

But your wife wasn't there this time? That's a shame. But I'll accept that explanation - I find it a bit unlikely, especially given the looking-up-from-the-IPad-and-immediately-spotting-it bit, but let's just call it 'plausible'.

And that's as close to a conclusion as I can offer.

I don't recall seeing anything that would be classified as a conclusion on your post.

???? Well.. perhaps that's WHY I said it was "as close to a conclusion as I can offer". Here I am letting the reader decide for themselves - that's what ATS should be about, no?