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

originally posted by: draknoir2

originally posted by: TeaAndStrumpets

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

"True U.F.O." ?

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

yeah here are those but then there are ones that aren't identified at first but then shown to be hoaxes. so then they aren't a true ufo anymore. they are ifhs . . . identified flying hoaxes lol.

originally posted by: draknoir2

originally posted by: TeaAndStrumpets

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

"True U.F.O." ?

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

A "True UFO" is something that is truly identified as an intelligently controlled craft not of this world. I was originally confused also and thought it meant something that is truly unidentified rather than something that was just regularly unidentified. I was lambasted for asking what that meant a while back and boy did I feel dumb. PS, dont ask about main stream scientists.

a reply to: _BoneZ_

"All this banging of the drums that "uncorroborated witnesses claiming a solid object are all correct and everyone else is wrong" is very suspicious of some other sort of agenda trying to be played out. Or people just want to believe in aliens, etc. so much so that they will just ignore any other evidence. It's getting rather ridiculous, to be honest."

You yourself seem to have an agenda, and in support of it you place your faith in the testimony of only those eyewitnesses who support your hypothesis. A great many people do *not* want to believe in aliens. How difficult is it to recognize that such people would be inclined to interpret what they saw as separate military planes, or to entertain that interpretation upon reflection on the alternative? Add to that that the witnesses you interviewed (apparently) were interviewed some time after (how long after) the Phoenix events, at a time when the airwaves were filled with conflicting descriptions and interpretations or even later. Add to that that not all witnesses to ufo events, or other events, are equally competent. There might be wish-fulfillment operating on both sides of the witness testimonies you gathered.

What finally tips the balance for me on the question of the anomalous nature of the chevron is the well-recognized fact that within hours or less of its passing over Phoenix a diversionary display of flares was dropped by the military in a formation arranged to look like the lights of the chevron itself. Surely not a coincidence. Done for a purpose. And the purpose is obvious.

originally posted by: ZetaRediculian
A "True UFO" is something that is truly identified as an intelligently controlled craft not of this world.

That's a short list right there.

originally posted by: _BoneZ_

All this banging of the drums that "uncorroborated witnesses claiming a solid object are all correct and everyone else is wrong" is very suspicious of some other sort of agenda trying to be played out. Or people just want to believe in aliens, etc. so much so that they will just ignore any other evidence. It's getting rather ridiculous, to be honest.

Who was banging that drum... the Straw Man?

You know what quotation marks signify, yes?

a reply to: ZetaRediculian

Wrong. A UFO is an object that cannot be conventionally explained after all explanations have been explored and investigated. A UFO is also not necessarily ET.

originally posted by: PindarAln
a reply to: ZetaRediculian

Wrong. A UFO is an object that cannot be conventionally explained after all explanations have been explored and investigated. A UFO is also not necessarily ET.

goshdangit!

No but really, what does "True UFO" mean? That's the question. Hint: I'm not an ET proponent.

originally posted by: PindarAln
a reply to: ZetaRediculian

Wrong. A UFO is an object that cannot be conventionally explained after all explanations have been explored and investigated. A UFO is also not necessarily ET.

yeah people forget that but you could just look at what the letters U, F and O stand for, it's self explanatory. But these on this list:

en.wikipedia.org...

aren't really UFOs, they have been identified.

a reply to: HorusChrist

Please show me a commonly available pre-97 cell phone with a camera.

I want to flag this insightful and well-argued post, but as a newcomer here I haven't yet figured out how to do so. So I'm reposting it instead. Several misleading claims about human perception and consciousness operate at large in contemporary popular culture, and this post by TeaAndStrumpets effectively addresses one of them.

originally posted by: TeaAndStrumpets

originally posted by: JimOberg

Think about how a swarm of bright lights at night can be perceived under special circumstances -- what is the data trying to tell us, stop telling the data what it should be saying. Or imagining it has nothing to say for insight into this classic event.

Yes, exactly: stop telling the data what it should be saying, Jim. I couldn't agree more. Stop it with respect to this Phoenix Lights case, and with UFOs in general.

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

It is in Close Encounter cases [sightings at close range, under favorable visibility conditions] that we come to grips with the 'misperception' hypothesis of UFO reports... [I]t becomes virtually untenable in the case of the Close Encounter. Accepted logical limits of misperception are in these cases exceeded by so great a margin that one must assume that the observers either truly had the experience as reported or were bereft of their reason and senses.... Do we then have a phenomenon in which several people suffer temporary insanity at a given instant but at no other time before or after? If so, we have to deal with a new dimension of the UFO phenomenon. But the DATA of the problem -- the subject of this book -- would remain unaltered. Simply, the problem of their generation would need to be attacked from another direction.

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

And you're here once again urging people to "stop telling the data what it should be saying"?

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

From the same source as above:

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

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

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

Doesn't that make people wonder? I've honestly never understood it.

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

And just to be clear, I'm not saying that people are silly or whatever if they disagree with the almighty Hynek. No way, not at all. He wasn't right about everything.

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

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

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

a reply to: JimOberg

I have now reviewed as many of the witness statemets as I can and have reached a different conclusion. The bulk of the witnesses were actually incredibly accurate in what they described, especially those that reported what they saw within a year or two of the event.

Size, number of lights, shape, time, direction and heading, colour, time observed etc are all remarkably consistent with the formation of planes at high altitude. Yes some were convinced it was a single object but as the lights stayed pretty much in formation that is understandable.

Therefore I don't believe misperception played a part in the majority of reports.

It is also of note that even amongst those that thought they saw a solid object many reported a chevron shape as opposed to a triangle - which is an optical illusion that may be expected when seeing a V formation of lights but stars in the middle.

I can't go with the idea that there were 3 events, UFO, formation of planes and flare drop so I have to disregard the minority reports of a massive object - whatever caused them to be made.

originally posted by: chunder


I can't go with the idea that there were 3 events, UFO, formation of planes and flare drop so I have to disregard the minority reports of a massive object - whatever caused yhem to be made.

You don't "have to"... you choose to. An important distinction.

originally posted by: draknoir2

You don't "have to"... you choose to. An important distinction.

Fair enough - ok - I choose to disregard them but I do that based on the information available and a fair degree of research over a period of time. not any predisposition.

That a phenomenon exists worthy of scientific enquiry is without question and I can't rule out 100% the 3 event scenario, after all absurdity goes hand in hand with sightings, but on balance I choose to disregard the minority reports.

a reply to: [post=19998205]chunder....you were doing ok till ya said the witnesses must have seen the reported super close slow fly-over....were mistaken as it could have been high altitude formation of Air Force jets......
OH, please somebody....quit being metro and go outside and get a clue on the difference......for the love of Pete......before I croak from all the posts by good persons....but they may have lost all the good sense God gave them.......

originally posted by: Constance
How difficult is it to recognize that such people would be inclined to interpret what they saw as separate military planes, or to entertain that interpretation upon reflection on the alternative?

There was no interpretation when the lights were being viewed through binoculars or telescope. The planes were clear to see. One person even described the planes in great detail. Others could see the light configurations, consistent with FAA regulations for exterior lighting of planes. Aliens won't know FAA regulations, so aliens can definitely be ruled out.

originally posted by: Constance
a diversionary display of flares was dropped by the military in a formation arranged to look like the lights of the chevron itself. Surely not a coincidence. Done for a purpose. And the purpose is obvious.

A partial circle looks nothing like a chevron/triangle. The only purpose was the ongoing military training exercises that have been documented to be happening throughout the day and night.

The only thing that's obvious is too many people living around military bases still don't know what flares or formations of planes look like.


Ockham's razor:

Among competing hypotheses, the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions should be selected.

Which has the fewest assumptions:

* An unimaginably-large, structured craft of unknown origin flew across the state. But nobody cared enough to get pictures or videos.


* A formation of military planes traveled across the state, apparently with their landing lights on. And other military exercises continued throughout the evening hours. All documented by military press releases. Two videos (only one in circulation). And many corroborating witnesses, some with binoculars and telescope.


There's very few assumptions (almost nil) with the second one, and too many for the first. Not very hard to comprehend when everything is spelled out.

Another thing that bothers me about the "it was all A-10s" explanation is the darned size of those amber lights... the people who told me they were under it and close said the individual lights were hundreds of yards wide .. or at least as big as a neighborhood block as triangulating something on the move and an indeterminate distance above is difficult ... and along with the silence, does that sound like a flight of A-10s?

And I'd love to dig out the records I have, but they are on a hard drive from ... oh, 5 or 7 OS ago? But some of the people were retired AF and such, and a strange formation of planes will generate some mis-IDs, but this was something different, and one of the best cases for something unusual I've encountered.

Nothing fits as a good answer.. .well, unless the lunatic fringe isn't all lunatic, that is.

originally posted by: _BoneZ_
There was no interpretation when the lights were being viewed through binoculars or telescope. The planes were clear to see. One person even described the planes in great detail. Others could see the light configurations, consistent with FAA regulations for exterior lighting of planes. Aliens won't know FAA regulations, so aliens can definitely be ruled out.

The map and timeline of calls from that night indicate that the 8:30pm object traveled down the state at something like 400-450 miles per hour. Only high performance jets / fighter aircraft can do that at lower altitudes. And aircraft in formation at higher altitudes doesn't fit for several (hopefully obvious) reasons. Unless we want to just throw out 95% of all witness testimony, that is... in which case, why are we even bothering?

Witnesses from several locations / neighborhoods say they watched the craft glide slowly over them for 10 to 15 minutes, and that the object(s) then flew right through the peaks of a nearby mountain. Those peaks are about 1000 feet higher than the terrain the witnesses were viewing from, and only a couple of miles away. So, we know the altitude of the UFO had to be low for that portion of the sighting.

If the object was that low, and took 10-15 minutes to cover that much sky, it would have to have been flying extremely slowly for a fixed wing aircraft. In fact, it turns it it would have to have been flying impossibly slow... around 30mph / 26knots, which is slower than the slowest fixed wing aircraft can even fly. (It takes nothing more than high-school trigonometry to confirm this. Knock yourselves out.... How many skeptics here looked at those kinds of numbers before accepting this airplane hypothesis?)

The bottom line is...naircraft that can fly at 400-450 knots, at these altitudes, cannot also fly at 30 knots... or even 50 knots. Heck, any aircraft I can think of which can fly at 400 knots at low altitudes would almost surely fall out of the sky at any airspeed lower than 70-ish knots. (The Harrier / VSTOL aircraft are the exceptions... and all are very, very loud.)

So, what was going on that night, in your opinion? Were these "aircraft in formation" on some kind of new extremely long, 20-minute final approach, to some imaginary airport just on the other side of Squaw Peak? While testing secret, cutting edge high-lift technology which allowed them to fly that slow? And also testing sound-dampening technology which would allow them to fly almost silently?

Not reasonable....

It's also relevant to note that any aircraft would be in serious violation of FAA regulations if it exceeded 250 knots below 10,000ft. Yet that basically has to have happened for any of the witness testimony to make a lick of sense... or, again, are we just basically going to throw out all testimony altogether? (Witnesses are so unreliable, right? Geese, I'm not sure how some of those who endorse that viewpoint even make it safely through their morning commute...)

Next... why did so few of the witnesses report seeing the red and green aircraft position lights which are required to be on all aircraft and required to be on between dusk and dawn? People were hundreds or a few thousands of feet from several aircraft in formation, but couldn't make out the very lights whose job it is to stand out?

The FAA will investigate things as seemingly-trivial as forks falling from airplane cabinets during final approach. Yet, according to the "aircraft in formation" theorists, we've got hundreds of people who saw "aircraft in formation" flying at what had to have been 400-450mph at low altitude, with their position lights off... but the FAA just decided to let it slide?

Does that theory really make any sense?

Oh, also, why did many independent witnesses report seeing a small light aircraft flying above the UFO, at a significantly higher altitude, and also report being able to hear that small aircraft?

That's a problem....

"Aircraft in formation" just doesn't fit. Not to sensible people who know things about aircraft and what makes them fly. Same reasons the Black Project theory doesn't work either... except to that same group of skeptics. Aircraft formation only makes sense to people who are reaching out for some explanation, any explanation, that will allow them to ignore a possibly unsettling reality.

Whatever it was that all those people from the Ocotillo Hills and surrounding areas saw that night, it most certainly was not aircraft in formation.

originally posted by: Constance
The only purpose [behind the flare drop] was the ongoing military training exercises that have been documented to be happening throughout the day and night.

There must've been many other flare drops then, over that military test range, right? Why had the entire city not seen such a flare drop before, and why haven't they seen them since? If it was all just a flare drop, you'd think there'd Phoenix Lights type events all the time....

a reply to: TeaAndStrumpets

After all these years, and after all those tears, some people STILL trust range/speed estimates made at night of shapeless lights in the sky. Sigh.

originally posted by: _BoneZ_

Ockham's razor:

Among competing hypotheses, the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions should be selected.

Which has the fewest assumptions:

* An unimaginably-large, structured craft of unknown origin flew across the state. But nobody cared enough to get pictures or videos.


* A formation of military planes traveled across the state, apparently with their landing lights on. And other military exercises continued throughout the evening hours. All documented by military press releases. Two videos (only one in circulation). And many corroborating witnesses, some with binoculars and telescope.


There's very few assumptions (almost nil) with the second one, and too many for the first. Not very hard to comprehend when everything is spelled out.

Actually, the second scenario requires many, many assumptions. I just outlined them in a prior post. There are quite a few significant weaknesses in the "aircraft in formation" hypothesis.

Your first scenario, what we can maybe call the 'True UFO' hypothesis (whether the answer be ETH, EDH, time travelers, whatever) requires only one assumption -- and actually, it's less and less of an assumption, and more and more the emerging mainstream trend. (Take a look at the only thread I've ever started here for the science.) So what is this shift in assumptions that's taking place, right now? It's the emerging idea that other life should be out there in the stars, and some of it it should be intelligent, and also older than us, so should have arrived here on Earth by now.

Once you accept that we're all lucky/unlucky enough to be living through such massive changes in attitudes, assumptions, predictions, etc., you'll see that Occam's overused little Razor is being flipped on its head in this area of enquiry.

originally posted by: JimOberg
a reply to: TeaAndStrumpets

After all these years, and after all those tears, some people STILL trust range/speed estimates made at night of shapeless lights in the sky. Sigh.

Still don't believe in binocular vision, do you, Jim? Or the simple, move-my-head-a-foot-to-the-left kinds of triangulation we perform constantly every day?

If you think about it a little more, you'll probably finally see why it's those kinds of concepts -- the absolute most basic, actually -- that completely nullify your tired old "misperception" hypothesis.