Seeing is "not" believing.

Originally posted by C.H.U.D.
but thanks to you, I have a very good example that proves the point.

Thanks , I've learned a lot from your posts too, but Jim Oberg is really the one to thank, he's done a lot of good research on pilot misperceptions. I wasn't sure if I agreed with his "null hypothesis" until he clarified it:

The "Null Hypothesis" for UFO reports, of which I am one of a handful of champions, states that no extraordinary stimuli are required to produce the entire array of public UFO perceptions in all their rich variety, wonderment, and terror. Known phenomena have produced all types of what is commonly known as "UFO reports", including apparitions of flying disks, radar and radio interference, terrifying chases and "intelligent maneuvers", telepathic messages, "missing time" and hypnogenic narratives, recollections of participation in military UFO retrievals, actual "secret documents", and so forth. There seem to be no types of reports which have not been, on record, produced at some point or another by prosaic stimuli and/or circumstances.

Link

I can't find the quote on ATS but somewhere I think he expressed a view like mine, that he doesn't rule out ET visitation as a possibility for unexplained cases, but he doesn't know of any where that seems to be the most likely explanation. And as he so well demonstrates in that article, things which seem to be not of this world, can in fact be very much of this world once you understand the many ways we don't correctly interpret what we observe.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur

Do you consider a pilot taking "violent evasive action" to avoid a collision with an object that is nowhere near a collision course to be mundane? I hope I'm never on any such "mundane" commercial flight!

I wouldn't say that the pilot's behavior is mundane, but understandable considering what he thought he perceived. However, I only stated that the "collision course" aspect of the Coyne sighting was relatively mundane in comparison with the close encounter portion of the report. Wouldn't you say that is an accurate statement?

As far as defying the laws of physics, Paul Hill notes in his book Unconventional Flying Objects that it is possible to account for many reported UFO maneuvers - such as apparently "instantaneous" starts and stops - by way of explanations that are well within our current knowledge of physics. As you have repeatedly pointed out, human perception is fallible. Therefore, the fact that we see something that appears to violate the laws of physics is no indication that it actually is doing so.

It would seem, by your standard, that no evidence would be sufficient to establish the objective reality of any of such UFO reports in which the object described appears to do things that we are unable to explain by our current understanding of the natural world. Regardless of how many witnesses, how many corroborating videos or corresponding radar data, no matter the duration of the sighting or proximity of the object, if the object performs feats we can't explain or which seem to violate the laws of physics as we understand them, misperception is always more likely than the objective reality of the event.

A hundred witnesses to an alternately darting, hovering, silent 150-foot diameter disc fifty feet off the ground for two hours resulting in twenty identical videos of the event would have to be rejected by this standard, as the chance of a mass misperception and twenty hoaxed videos is more likely than such an event occurring in reality.

Originally posted by Orkojoker

Originally posted by Arbitrageur

Do you consider a pilot taking "violent evasive action" to avoid a collision with an object that is nowhere near a collision course to be mundane? I hope I'm never on any such "mundane" commercial flight!

I wouldn't say that the pilot's behavior is mundane, but understandable considering what he thought he perceived. However, I only stated that the "collision course" aspect of the Coyne sighting was relatively mundane in comparison with the close encounter portion of the report. Wouldn't you say that is an accurate statement?

Yes I think that's accurate. But what about the shape of the object being different than the pilots perceived? And the maneuvering capabilities? That's not just one but three different parallels between the cases.

As far as defying the laws of physics, Paul Hill notes in his book Unconventional Flying Objects that it is possible to account for many reported UFO maneuvers - such as apparently "instantaneous" starts and stops - by way of explanations that are well within our current knowledge of physics. As you have repeatedly pointed out, human perception is fallible. Therefore, the fact that we see something that appears to violate the laws of physics is no indication that it actually is doing so.

Yes, that was part of my point. I think we agree on a number of key points. One point it seems we disagree on, is that you apparently don't seem to think extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, or did I misinterpret what you said?

For example I find the claim that the helicopter was ascending rapidly when the collective was in the full descent position to be an extraordinary claim, since the helicopter apparently didn't appear to have any mechanical malfunction after it returned to base. Which is more likely, that this was an actual event, or was it a misperception issue?

Originally posted by Arbitrageur

For example I find the claim that the helicopter was ascending rapidly when the collective was in the full descent position to be an extraordinary claim, since the helicopter apparently didn't appear to have any mechanical malfunction after it returned to base. Which is more likely, that this was an actual event, or was it a misperception issue?

There was no indication that the helicopter was actually ascending during that period, only that the instrumentation was behaving as though the helicopter was ascending. Coyne simply saw the behavior of the instrument and made an unwarranted inference. Is temporary instrument malfunction - as reported in many UFO events - really all that extraordinary?

Regarding the Sagan quote, we may as well say that extraordinary claims cannot be proved by any means whatsoever. What evidence, for example, could possibly exist that would confirm that the Coyne incident took place as described? There is no testimony, video or radar evidence, or physical evidence that could make such an event appear likely. The event is not reproducible. What would suffice?

As for the apparent probability of a given event being the primary basis for our judgment of its having occurred, consider the phenomenon of a single person being struck by lightning on multiple separate occasions, which is reported to have happened. The odds of such a series of events must be extraordinarily low, I would think. Are we then to assert that it is so unlikely that we are better off to seek some more probable explanation for the burns and other trauma experienced by the alleged victim, even if we find ourselves unable to account as fully for the person's injuries in any other way?

reply to post by Orkojoker
Actually I have a theory about that.

Do you ever notice that the "best UFO cases" happened in the "good old days"? At least it seems that way to me. I suspect part of the reason might be advances in technology.

Advances in radar have resulted in more reliable and less spurious radar anomalies (though they still occur, but less frequently and more advanced radar units deal with anomalous readings better).

Cameras have become ubiquitous. So cases where we previously had only eyewitness testimony, often now have photos or video. I think it's possible that partly due to photographic evidence some cases might get debunked in early stages before they reach a legendary status that's possible without photos or video. However one case comes to mind that begs the question of why we don't have photos or video, the O'Hare UFO incident. How can we not have pictures or video of a UFO sighting at an airport where there are lots of people and lots of cameras, even on cell phones? Dan Aykroyd said he had video he would release in 2008 but I don't see where he ever did.

Regarding evidence for the Coyne incident, flight data recorders are often examined after an aircraft crash, or near miss. Here's an example of a near miss animation from flight data recorder and other data:

www3.ntsb.gov...
It was way too late to stop by the time they said "stop stop stop"

If a modern flight data recorder was on an aircraft that experienced the "near miss" the Coyne piloted helicopter is claimed to have experienced, it would be appropriate to examine the flight data recorder which often records altitude, and the position of key controls of the aircraft. From examining this flight data it would be possible to determine if in fact the recorded data shows an increasing altitude simultaneous with a descending position of the collective. Additionally many modern helicopters now have advanced optics and can certainly present real-time data on targets or "bogeys", though I don't know what recording capabilities if any are present, though as memory gets cheaper even recording capabilities could become readily available. It would be desirable to evaluate and improve pilot performance.

However I don't know if there was a flight data recorder or cockpit voice recorder on the Coyne helicopter, nor if it was policy at that time to review such data after a near miss such as they reported. But if such data were available it might shed some light on the incident, if not the object seen at least the extraordinary claims about the helicopter performance and behavior.

Hello C.H.U.D.,

Seems like my party chief and you were wrong on both counts: On being an false ET Starship or a meteorite; in my co-witnessed UFO event.

Look-up: Starchild:Meteoroids

" A meteoroid, is a piece of stony or metallic debris which travels in outerspace. The fastest meteoroids move about 42 kilometers per second.

When the meteoroid hits our atmosphere and starts to glow. This streak of light is known as a meteor.

If the meteor does not burn up completely, the remaining portion hits the earth and is then called a meteorite.

Tell me C.H.U.D., when is a meteor "still"?

After we saw the speeding white light, above the thin low lying cover [I'm surprised that you did not call that ball lightning.] I guess you took it as fact, that it was "an owl flying across the van 10 feet away."

The fiery plasma foofighter had to be very close to us, because it just appeared beneath the low cloud cover, when it lit up the Eastern sky, going straight down, very slowly with no fiery tale or smoke. It also appeared to not fly towards the horizon. Let me tell you truthfully, C.H.U.D., those U.F.O. sightings we saw that night were up close and personal; and I wish you were there that night so you could debunk me in front of my face.

Still, I can't prove a thing, but there were many U.F.O. sightings back in 1976.

Get the book, titled: The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, by, Edward J. Ruppelt, who was involved in project Blue Book. The writer tried to stage survey witness sites for a fiery plasma red or green foofighter event, at White Sands, New Mexico around 1951.
books:google.com

BLKMJK:

I'm sorry, but you are just going to have to wait, on my other ET and U.F.O. related events.
Dealing with a U.F.O. debunker is enough for one day. [Not meaning you]


Later,

Foofighter's forever,

Erno86

Originally posted by Erno86
Hello C.H.U.D.,


BLKMJK:

I'm sorry, but you are just going to have to wait, on my other ET and U.F.O. related events.
Dealing with a U.F.O. debunker is enough for one day. [Not meaning you]


Later,

Foofighter's forever,

Erno86

edit on 23-3-2011 by Erno86 because: typo

edit on 23-3-2011 by Erno86 because: DITTO

edit on 23-3-2011 by Erno86 because: added a few words

edit on 23-3-2011 by Erno86 because: ditto

Erno, from your description I do not think what you witnessed was a meteor and I am fascinated with your account. I really wish you would reconsider relaying your story. I just want to learn what others have witnessed and systematically exhaust other possibilities. Your story is still intact and quite remarkable.

Originally posted by Erno86
It seemed to have landed just beyond the mountain range in front of us, as we saw the foofighter disappear over the top of the ridge at the mountain in front of us.

My party chief said the fiery object was a meteorite. If that was a meteroite, it would have left a crater a thousand feet deep, and the impact would have shaken the Spinx.

So you never saw it hit the ground?

Then you didn't see a meteorite, which it may have become if it hit the ground, but you didn't see that happen so you don't know if it hit the ground or if it burned up before it hit the ground, either is possible. So CHUD is right, about the party chief incorrectly calling it a meteorite, since you didn't see it hit the ground, it sounds like a meteor as you describe below.

Originally posted by Erno86
Hello C.H.U.D.,

Seems like my party chief and you were wrong on both counts: On being an false ET Starship or a meteorite; in my co-witnessed UFO event.

Look-up: Starchild:Meteoroids

" A meteoroid, is a piece of stony or metallic debris which travels in outerspace. The fastest meteoroids move about 42 kilometers per second.

When the meteoroid hits our atmosphere and starts to glow. This streak of light is known as a meteor.

If the meteor does not burn up completely, the remaining portion hits the earth and is then called a meteorite.

Tell me C.H.U.D., when is a meteor "still"?

This is a very odd response, you start out by saying CHUD is wrong and then quote intformation that proves he is right. The party chief shouldn't have called it a meteorite if it wasn't on the ground. That was CHUD's point. You proved it. Why do you then say he's wrong?

Originally posted by Erno86
The fiery plasma foofighter had to be very close to us, because it just appeared beneath the low cloud cover, when it lit up the Eastern sky, going straight down, very slowly with no fiery tale or smoke. It also appeared to not fly towards the horizon. Let me tell you truthfully, C.H.U.D., those U.F.O. sightings we saw that night were up close and personal; and I wish you were there that night so you could debunk me in front of my face.

Debunk? Your party chief was there and he said it was a meteor (or something like that), right? As CHUD said, this idea that the meteor was close is a well known perception issue, that simply means your powers of observation are normal for a human. We all see the green dot that isn't there in the animation I posted, and we all think meteors are way closer to us than they really are.

This highlights a fact that's difficult for some people to accept but it's true. It's nearly impossible to judge the size, distance, or speed of an unknown object in the sky. Nobody can do it. Not you, not me, not anyone. That's a fact.

The only possibility for identifying things like distance and speed is when a trained observer sees a known object, like a familiar aircraft, they can then judge the distance of the aircraft from it's apparent size. But there's no way to judge distance with a "foofighter" or light in the sky because the size of the object is unknown. There's no way to estimate it, though some people erroneously THINK they can.

And everyone thinks meteors are way closer than we think.

If your party chief had called it a meteor instead of a meteorite, I'd give 100 to 1 odds that he's right. There's a chance it could have been something else, but your description is a perfect description of a meteor in virtually every respect, even the distance which you thought was close, since everyone thinks that, that's a typical description of a meteor.

By the way if anyone on ATS knows more about meteors than CHUD, I don't know who that would be, he seems to be our resident expert and I think he's giving you good information.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


I could be wrong, but I believe C.H.U.D., called my party chiefs description a "meteoroid", which is the wrong description of a meteor. My party chief, called it a "meteorite."

I've seen many meteor's many in my lifetime, including a sizeable one; one night. The sizeable meteor, came in very fast sporting a long fiery tail.

My description of the foofighter, was that it was slowly descending straight down, with no fiery tail from the low lying cloud cover. It was so close, that I could distinctly see the most beautiful, giant, fiery red orange flames, licking around and eveloping the entire orb.

I'm sorry to say that I did not search for the landing site later. But I did investigate the Fawn Grove Pa., USA, landing site of a co- witnessed landing of a fiery foofighter in front of a house, next to an orchard, in a field; including pictures of the slightly radioactive burn't out grass with three separate landing pod marks.

May I suggest, that you should search the witness files on some U.F.O. reporting websites concerning fireball's, fooball's or Foofighter's.

Originally posted by Orkojoker
As for the apparent probability of a given event being the primary basis for our judgment of its having occurred, consider the phenomenon of a single person being struck by lightning on multiple separate occasions, which is reported to have happened. The odds of such a series of events must be extraordinarily low, I would think.

Actually that's an assumption. The odds are actually very good that it would happen to *someone*, since there are lots of people, and also if you consider that lightning is a relatively common phenomenon (If memory serves - around 20 strikes per second (on average) occur all over the world).

You might be right if we were living in a world inhabited by only a few people, but the odds of something unlikely happening increase dramatically when there are lots of people ("lots of chances") - it's called the law of truly large numbers:

"That a particular specified event or coincidence will occur is very unlikely. That some astonishing unspecified events will occur is certain. That is why remarkable coincidences are noted in hindsight, not predicted with foresight."--David G. Myers

The law of truly large numbers says that with a large enough sample many odd coincidences are likely to happen.

For example, you might be in awe of the person who won the lottery twice, thinking that the odds of anyone winning twice are astronomical. The New York Times ran a story about a woman who won the New Jersey lottery twice, calling her chances "1 in 17 trillion." However, statisticians Stephen Samuels and George McCabe of Purdue University calculated the odds of someone winning the lottery twice to be something like1 in 30 for a four month period and better than even odds over a seven year period. Why? Because players don't buy one ticket for each of two lotteries, they buy multiple tickets every week (Diaconis and Mosteller).

Some people find it surprising that there are more than 16 million others on the planet who share their birthday. At a typical football game with 50,000 fans, most fans are likely to share their birthday with about 135 others in attendance. (The notable exception will be those born on February 29. There will only be about 34 fans born on that day.)

You may find it even more astounding that "In a random selection of twenty-three persons there is a 50 percent chance that at least two of them celebrate the same birthdate" (Martin).

On the other hand, you might say that the odds of something happening are a million to one. Such odds might strike you as being so large as to rule out chance or coincidence. However, with over 6 billion people on earth, a million to one shot will occur frequently. Say the odds are a million to one that when a person has a dream of an airplane crash, there is an airplane crash the next day. With 6 billion people having an average of 250 dream themes each per night (Hines, 50, though I don't think I've ever had more than 5 or 6 dream themes a night), there should be about 30,000 to 1.5 million people a day who have dreams that seem clairvoyant. The number is actually likely to be larger, since we tend to dream about things that legitimately concern or worry us, and the data of dreams is usually vague or ambiguous, allowing a wide range of events to count as fulfilling our dreams.

Of course, going back to the subject at hand, there are some places that have much higher rates of lightning, and if you happen to live somewhere like this, and you do a job that exposes you to lightning on a regular basis, the odds of you being struck more than once go up.

Take the case of Roy Sullivan, who was a park ranger in Shenandoah National Park, Virginia, which is just one of those hot-spots:

Roy Cleveland Sullivan (February 7, 1912 – September 28, 1983) was a U.S. park ranger in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. Between 1942 and 1977, Sullivan was hit by lightning on seven different occasions and survived all of them. For this reason, he gained a nickname "Human Lightning Conductor" or "Human Lightning Rod". Sullivan is recognized by Guinness World Records as the person struck by lightning more recorded times than any other human being. He died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the age of 71 over an unrequited love.

The odds of being struck by lightning for an ordinary mortal over the period of 80 years have been roughly estimated as 1:3000.[8] If the lightning strikes were independent events, the probability of being hit seven times would be 1:30007, or 1:22x1024. These numbers do not quite apply to Sullivan, however, who by the nature of his work was more exposed to storms than the average person. Virginia, where he lived, averages 35 to 45 thunderstorm days per year, most of which fall in June, July, and August. Between 1959 and 2000 lightning killed 58 people and injured at least 238 people in Virginia. In the United States, 3239 people were killed and 13,057 injured by lightning in the same period. Most of those were males between 20 and 40 years old caught outdoors.

Wikipedia


When large numbers are involved, the seemingly improbable becomes probable, like this amazing case:

When Sue Hamilton was working alone in her office in July 1992 when the fax machine broke down. Unable to fix it, she decided to call her colleague Jason Pegler, who had set off home a little earlier. Finding his home number pinned up on a notice board, she called him and began to explain the problem. But Jason quickly stopped her: "I'm not at home", he explained. "I just happened to be walking past this phone box when it rang, and I answered it!" .
The number Sue found on the notice board was not Jason's home number at all. It was his employee number - which was the same as the number of the phone box he was walking past when she called. It was a bizarre coincidence, one of those that fascinate and perplex us. From a chance meeting with a long lost friend to weird parallels between world events, coincidences hint at "spooky" laws in our universe.
Last year an amazing set of coincidences put Paula Dixon in the headlines - and saved her life. On a flight from Hong Kong to London, she began to feel ill. A call went out to any doctors on board the plane, and two - Professor Angus Wallace and Dr Tom Wong - duly emerged.

The laws of freak chance

If you believe that alien life (or just "life") probably exists somewhere other than here in this universe (as I do), then it's the law of truly large numbers, that makes it a realistic possibility.

reply to post by C.H.U.D.


Wow. I stand corrected, and my example is totally invalidated. Thanks for the very interesting info!

Originally posted by Orkojoker
reply to post by C.H.U.D.

 

Wow. I stand corrected, and my example is totally invalidated. Thanks for the very interesting info!

I totally admire your humility and ability to recognize when you feel you may be wrong and learn from it. I am always in that constant state. I love your youtube channel on your sig too.

Originally posted by Erno86

" A meteoroid, is a piece of stony or metallic debris which travels in outerspace. The fastest meteoroids move about 42 kilometers per second.

When the meteoroid hits our atmosphere and starts to glow. This streak of light is known as a meteor.

If the meteor does not burn up completely, the remaining portion hits the earth and is then called a meteorite.

Thanks for the lesson, but I have been researching the subject of meteor science for well over a decade, as well as observing and photographing them.

Originally posted by Erno86
Tell me C.H.U.D., when is a meteor "still"?

Technically, a meteor is never still. As you pointed out so rightly above, a meteor is the streak of light we see, when a meteoroid enters our atmosphere. It's only luminous because its moving very fast through our atmosphere, yet a meteor can appear to be still under the right circumstances.

If you stood in the middle of the rails, and looked along a very long and straight stretch of railway tracks, and a train far off in the distance was coming towards you - would appear to move from your perspective?

The key here is perspective - just as a train coming towards you wont seem to move, only get slowly bigger and bigger (till it eventually ran you over if you did not move), a meteor coming directly towards you in the atmosphere, will simply look like a stationary star that suddenly appears and grows in brightness before disappearing as fast as it appeared. I've seen this for myself, and it is a well documented phenomenon, known as a "point meteor" that most people only see during periods of strong meteor activity:

More about it here (scroll down a few paragraphs).

Originally posted by Erno86
After we saw the speeding white light, above the thin low lying cover [I'm surprised that you did not call that ball lightning.] I guess you took it as fact, that it was "an owl flying across the van 10 feet away."

Ball lightning is a fairly rare phenomena, where as owls are not uncommon. Also the description fits an owl better. Low flying and horizontal fits with owl behaviour, where as the majority of reports of suspected ball lightning I have come across, all point to it moving around fairly erratically. Given the above, and the fact that someone else there with you thought it was an owl, an owl, seems the more likely possibility. Perhaps it was not, but nothing in your description seems to point to it being anything else.

Originally posted by Erno86
The fiery plasma foofighter had to be very close to us, because it just appeared beneath the low cloud cover, when it lit up the Eastern sky, going straight down, very slowly with no fiery tale or smoke. It also appeared to not fly towards the horizon. Let me tell you truthfully, C.H.U.D., those U.F.O. sightings we saw that night were up close and personal; and I wish you were there that night so you could debunk me in front of my face.

You said in one of your posts:

It seemed to have landed just beyond the mountain range in front of us, as we saw the foofighter disappear over the top of the ridge at the mountain in front of us.

"beyond the mountain range in front of us" does not sound that close to me, and as Arbitrageur and myself have gone to great lengths to try and explain, it's virtually impossible to accurately judge the distance of an unidentified light that is in the distance. Since you saw it disappear behind the mountain range, all we can say for sure is that the light was further away than the mountain range. Have another look at the diagram I posted in my original post to you again, it shows exactly the scenario that is the likely cause of what you saw.

Also, as was pointed out before, we know that lots of people who see bright meteors, report them as being much closer than they actually were, as well as missidentifying them, and we know this is true from the cases in which fragments were recovered, many tens to a few hundred km away from where people reported the meteor to be close. In many cases, multiple people report the meteor as being close to them when they are 100s of km apart. It's foften the case with big fireballs that are seen across multiple states (or countries).

People report fireballs as UFOs as well as aircraft falling in flames from the sky, but do planes or foo-fighters result in rocks being found on the ground? Like this case a few years back, when a big fireball dropped meteorites in Edmonton, Canada.

A peace officer there who caught the event on his dash cam thought that:

Since he was only 15 kilometres away from the airport, he thought it might be a plane falling out of the sky, and had to check with colleagues at the office.

canada.com

In the article it also says:

Although many witnesses who contacted The Journal claimed to see something land, that was likely an optical illusion, said Chris Herd, an associate professor in the University of Alberta's department of earth and atmospheric sciences, and curator of the university's meteorite collection.

"What we probably saw was a fireball, which is the result of a rock coming into the atmosphere," he said.

Though the fireball was a bright light several kilometres up in the sky, it would have appeared much closer to anyone who saw it.

"What we know about fireballs is that they're bright burning up for a certain amount of time in the atmosphere, but then they stop burning brightly. If there's a rock that continues after that, it's falling in dark flight," Herd said.

From another source on the same event:

And locals at the Red Pheasant First Nation, 100 kilometres northeast of Saskatoon, said the walls of their band office shook when the fireball streaked overhead.

edmonton.ctv.ca

Note that they felt the sonic shock-wave and they saw the meteor overhead. The shock-wave from the meteoroids breaking the sound barrier is only felt if you are relatively close to the object. People further away did not hear any booms would have seen it lower in the sky, confirming that the further away a meteor is, the lower down on the horizon it is. In this case there were reports from people 600km away, where it would have appeared very low down on the horizon.

Also note that there was no report of seeing it crash, even though we know from the above that those who saw it "overhead" were closest to it.

If you read those reports, there are people who thought the meteor looked like "fireworks", "an aircraft about to crash", and even "a missile".

Now the meteor you probably saw was different to this one. All meteors are different, and no two are exactly the same, but the fact that many people can not identify meteors easily is proved by the above case, and many others like it.

You described your meteor as having "no tail" as if that is a characteristic that a meteor would not display, but not all meteors have obvious tails. I've seen meteors like you describe many times myself, and they are also reported all the time by much more experienced meteor observers than myself. There is also lots of photographic and video footage that shows these events are meteors that usually completely burn up high in the atmosphere.

You seem determined to convince us all that this was not a meteor even though your description fits meteors to a "T", and you have offered no evidence to support that it might be something else, apart from it seemed "close" which we know is something that meteors are very good at "seeming to be".

I'm just wondering why you think it could not be a meteor?

Originally posted by Erno86
Still, I can't prove a thing, but there were many U.F.O. sightings back in 1976.

There would have been many meteors too, so your point is?

Originally posted by Erno86
Get the book, titled: The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, by, Edward J. Ruppelt, who was involved in project Blue Book. The writer tried to stage survey witness sites for a fiery plasma red or green foofighter event, at White Sands, New Mexico around 1951.
books:google.com

How does that relate to what we are talking about here?

Originally posted by Erno86
BLKMJK:

I'm sorry, but you are just going to have to wait, on my other ET and U.F.O. related events.
Dealing with a U.F.O. debunker is enough for one day. [Not meaning you]

Personally, I find "debunker" to be a derogatory label, especially the way you used it (not even addressing the comment to me), and when I have been polite, as well as spending a lot of my own time to explain to you why there is a good chance that you may be mistaken about what you saw.

It's a bit like if I was walking along the street and I saw a stranger fall over and smack their face on the pavement, I would offer them a helping hand to get up. Fine if you don't want a helping hand, but what you said there is a bit like tell them to go F*** themselves.

In the time I've been studying meteors I've come across many reports that are very similar to yours... I'm not a "debunker" as you implied at the end of your post. I'm just trying to share over a decade's worth experience in a subject that has many public misconceptions. I would never debunk something for the sake of debunking it, however, if I see an obvious flaw in someone's reasoning, I will try to point it out.

I know nothing (or very little) about aviation compared to an aviation "expert". I would not be able to tell you the difference between a 727 and a 737. If I saw a jet, whilst being with an aviation "expert", and I commented "that looks like a 727", but the "expert" replied "no, that's definitely a 737, you can tell by the shape of..." I would be inclined to believe what they said, rather than what I had thought to be the case.

Is the expert being a debunker? Or is he offering helpful advice?

All I have done on this thread is offer factual data, backed up with actual examples/links, and offer my opinion based on my experience with meteors (and related subjects) that I have studied... if you want to ignore that, fine, but I'd appreciate it if you didn't make snide remarks and assumptions about me.

reply to post by Orkojoker


You're welcome Orkojoker. Glad you liked my post

Originally posted by C.H.U.D.
Now the meteor you probably saw was different to this one. All meteors are different, and no two are exactly the same, but the fact that many people can not identify meteors easily is proved by the above case, and many others like it.

You described your meteor as having "no tail" as if that is a characteristic that a meteor would not display, but not all meteors have obvious tails. I've seen meteors like you describe many times myself, and they are also reported all the time by much more experienced meteor observers than myself. There is also lots of photographic and video footage that shows these events are meteors that usually completely burn up high in the atmosphere.

You seem determined to convince us all that this was not a meteor even though your description fits meteors to a "T", and you have offered no evidence to support that it might be something else, apart from it seemed "close" which we know is something that meteors are very good at "seeming to be".

Erno's response to me was, in part:

Originally posted by Erno86
I've seen many meteor's many in my lifetime, including a sizeable one; one night. The sizeable meteor, came in very fast sporting a long fiery tail.

The problem with this statement, is that it's logically flawed. What you're saying is that you've seen meteors before therefore you know what all meteors look like, even the ones you haven't seen yet.

This was the exact same logical error made in the incident I cited earlier in the thread. Some of the witnesses were sure the UFO they saw wasn't a satellite re-entry, and the reason they were sure is that they had seen satellite re-entries before, as noted in this excerpt from my earlier post.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
www.zipworld.com.au...

Now, what can we make of these impressive testimonials? The satellite reentry was occurring right before their eyes, and these pilots made many, many perceptual and interpretative errors, including:...

4. The pilot did not believe the apparition was a satellite re-entry because "I have seen a re-entry before and this was different." These re-entries are particularly spectacular because of the size of the object, and the pilot was speaking from an inadequate experience base here.

Note the inadequate experience base reference. CHUD has a lot of experience observing meteors and knows more about them than I do (and I supsect he knows more than most ATSers), but I'm trying to learn and they sometimes even surprise me.

A meteoroid about the size of a truck entered the Earth's atmosphere, so you'd think it would make a crater when it hit, right (you said something about expecting a crater in your post). Well depending on the composition, density, cohesion of the material in the meteor, it may or may not leave a crater when it hits the ground and becomes a meteorite. Fragments like this were all that was left of the truck sized meteor, and this is right where they found it, and look at the size of that crater...wait...there isn't one:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/df52760fdd30.jpg[/atsimg]
So much for the "big bright meteors form a crater" theory. As far as I know, none of the fragments form that truck-sized asteroid formed any significant crater.

The Impact and Recovery of Asteroid 2008 TC3
www.nasa.gov...

If I can learn from CHUD, you can too, he has something to teach us. When your party chief, CHUD and I all think what you described was probably a meteor, what makes you so sure it wasn't? A large part of this thread has been about how we are fooled into misperceiving things. So far, every reason you've given for thinking it's NOT a meteor actually seems to support that it WAS a meteor.

C.H.U.D.--- I'm sorry if I ruffled your feathers a little bit. But may I suggest that you spend a little more time studying U.F.O. reports that describe speeding white lights and huge fiery balls of light.

The book, I recommended is an excellent example.

But honestly, I still can't believe that an owl would want to fly across a divided highway at night, with our vehicle travelling about 60 mph with full beam headlights on. Maybe, on some back country road it could have happened. But, like my accounting of the incident before, tells, that I saw the white light appear on the Eastern horizon; that was out of range of our headlights light beams.

Apparently, their is no convincing you about my ET Starship event. But I appreciate your input, and I look forward to the time where I can debate you again on this exciting topic.


Cheers,

Erno86

Here's a personal story on the subject. I used to work the late shift as a mainframe operator for a Hospital. I was scheduled to take my food break before my batching(taking the mainframe down for data processing). One night I left the hospital on my break to go get a meal, and I saw an object that had an odd shape. Up in the sky above the city fairly low it was a long bar shape with two very bright lights on either end of the bar. It was to the north of the road I was driving on. I watched it make a turn from north to facing south, it stopped a few seconds then shot off to the south across the road and continued south, and was out of sight in what I guessed was maybe 5 seconds. If you want to call that a military secret craft, what could it have been? I have read other ufo accounts describing bar-type ufos, usually they are speculated to be mother-ships carrying the smaller orb or disc shape ufos. I had no camera or cell-phone so its just another account with no proof, but I saw something odd. If the military has carrier-type craft then we must not be informed of our advanced technology.

Thing is, on sites like this, you get: Believers, who will believe anything, because they really want it to be true. You have debunkers, who believe nothing - they go into any case already formulating every way it can't be real, because in their minds, aliens or some odd technology they can't explain can't possibly exist, so every sighting must have a logical explanation. Then you do have a # of people that don't buy everything that comes down the pike, but don't dismiss everything either. If you want to read some books by someone of that mind, read Stanton Friedman - brilliant guy, and a solid researcher.

I believe in UFOs - be they aliens, or something else we don't understand (other dimensions, etc.) - but I still don't buy 99% of crop circles, 90% of abductions, and am quick to call a hoax or a fuzzy dot what it is. You my friend, have a fuzzy dot. That is - no pictures, no firm sighting other than a light, there is absolutely nothing we will be able to gleam from this. It could be many things. I doubt it's a test aircraft though. That convenient excuse gets so overused. The government has bases like Area 51 to test stuff like that. They don't fly it over populated areas (or over foreign soil), for hours on end, so everyone gets a good look at it. You don't fly a stealth blimp over a county for hours, etc.

In my opinion, the wealth of proof is overwhelming. Keep in mind, only -one- case has to be proven for it to be true. There are far too many cases that we can't prove a thing, that imo, makes it clear we are dealing with something we can't explain. Many older cases, cases where objects are seen by many people over a long period of time, and recent stuff, like objects over airports that fly upwards so quickly, it leave a hole in the clouds. We do not have technology that can do this, no matter what people tell you.

Believe what you want - don't dismiss out of hand though, what you saw, saying it -must- be military because you don't believe in aliens. Aliens are not going to stop flying around our planet just because you don't believe in them.

reply to post by BLKMJK


just another story..maybe you saw nothing but just want to pointlesy post and see what reactions you get.who is to say im wrong