Do you believe in UFOs & flying saucers ?

steddyeddy

COVID wrote: »

So, 7 people swear that they saw bulshít that you do believe in = good.
15 people swear that they saw bulshít that you don't believe in = bad.

You're confusing your fantasies with reality, dream on.

Do you know what radar and FLIR imaging is? It's not a matter of witnesses in this case.

And yes I think a pilot if better trained to observer and characterise aerial phenomena than the general public. You don't I see.

You also have to realise that scientists are saying there's a mystery here. They're starting from an agnostic positon as in all scientific matters. You're starting from a position that everyone who thinks there isn't a mystery here is an idiot. Attacking people for wanting to get to the bottom of a mystery has never led to scientific enlightenment.

steddyeddy

I think my position here is being misrepresented so I'll explain. I think that we lack a sufficient explanation for the unexplained aerial phenomenon being reported.

As Carl Sagan concluded at the 1969 debate,

“scientists are particularly bound to have open minds; this is the lifeblood of science. We do not know what UAP (unidentified aerial phenomenon) are, and this is precisely the reason that we as scientists should study them.”

Banana Republic 1

Hamsterchops wrote: »

Have you every seen an unidentified flying object?

A UFO of course is just an aerial phenomenon that you can't explain (hence unidentified), & probably not at all connected to little green men from Mars.

So what are UFOs and have you ever seen something in the sky that you couldn't explain?

In the past many people have mistaken aircraft, weather balloons, silver party balloons, and even bright planets in the night sky as UFOs, but of course under scrutiny they usually have a rational & logical explanation. More recently drones have been mistaken as UFOs.

Then in the last month we've had video clips released from the Pentagon actually showing real UFOs filmed darting around at amazing speeds & doing manouvers that would be impossible for any manned craft to do. The G forces would be so powerful as to kill any human occupants, so what was witnessed by the US Navy pilots and the aircraft carrier radar?

Are UFOs terrestrial or extraterrestrial craft?

Illusions or really there, imagination or reality?

What are UFOs !

Yes there called military aircraft

steddyeddy

Banana Republic 1 wrote: »

Yes there called military aircraft

Hmmmm

COVID

steddyeddy wrote: »

I think more dangerous is the ridiculing of scientific efforts to investigate such phenomenon. I posted articles from scientists, trained observers and radar operators.

You've referred to them all as childish when reciting poetry and pretending to watch football to get a reaction out of people.

Whether you like it or not it's an area worthy of investigation. The fact is there's a mystery out there. Yes people who say "I believe" are wrong but so to are the people who say "I know".

Worse still are those who lambast scientists for investigating such mysteries. You haven't attacked just those who have suggested that there's aliens visiting but all of those who maintain that there's a mystery worth investigating.

I'll leave you with the aforementioned article from Scientific American on the issue of scientific investigation. I'll post the link here and thereby put faith in you that you can do more than dismiss scientists who take an interest in this as "childish".

When it comes to aliens, flying-saucers, Martians, and UFOs, I'll quote Christopher Hitchens on religion here: ''That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence."

Btw, I did watch the match, 2-0 Chelsea, it wasn't very good, but at least it really did happen!

igCorcaigh

COVID wrote: »

When it comes to aliens, flying-saucers, Martians, and UFOs, I'll quote Christopher Hitchens on religion here: ''That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence."

Btw, I did watch the match, 2-0 Chelsea, it wasn't very good, but at least it really did happen!

But there is evidence. It may be poor evidence, or evidence that can be discredited after investigation, or not. But I think it is worthy of investigation.

An issue I have with the thread title is the word "believe".

I don't think any concept of belief is relevant to any form of enquiry in to the world, at least in terms of how many understand the word to mean.

I don't believe in anything in that sense. I prefer to use the word as to mean subscribing to certain values, or principles. But even there, I find it too absolutist.

Strumms

What would happen, if tomorrow the US government came out with a press release along the lines of....

“ we are announcing the discovery of a new planet, xxxxxxxxx light years away and we can conclusively determine that there are beings ,intelligent life forms inhabiting said planet with the ability to travel throughout the solar system and indeed to other galaxies possibly....”

Be a bit mad...

steddyeddy

COVID wrote: »

When it comes to aliens, flying-saucers, Martians, and UFOs, I'll quote Christopher Hitchens on religion here: ''That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence."

Btw, I did watch the match, 2-0 Chelsea, it wasn't very good, but at least it really did happen!

So now you're saying there's no such thing as UFOs.

Well I can prove you wrong there. UFOs are reported on all the time. Trained observers such as pilots are describing objects moving in ways that are distinct from commercial aircraft. That's a fact. You're stating the the reports aren't happening and therefore, there's no mystery.

Here's the New York Times reporting testimony from 2 Navy airforce pilots reporting on a UFO. UFOs are very real and that's a fact. What they are is up for debate.

2 Navy Airmen and an Object That ‘Accelerated Like Nothing I’ve Ever Seen’

Hovering 50 feet above the churn was an aircraft of some kind — whitish — that was around 40 feet long and oval in shape. The craft was jumping around erratically, staying over the wave disturbance but not moving in any specific direction, Commander Fravor said. The disturbance looked like frothy waves and foam, as if the water were boiling.

Commander Fravor began a circular descent to get a closer look, but as he got nearer the object began ascending toward him. It was almost as if it were coming to meet him halfway, he said.

Commander Fravor abandoned his slow circular descent and headed straight for the object.

But then the object peeled away. “It accelerated like nothing I’ve ever seen,” he said in the interview. He was, he said, “pretty weirded out.”

COVID

steddyeddy wrote: »

So now you're saying there's no such thing as UFOs.

Well I can prove you wrong there. UFOs are reported on all the time. Trained observers such as pilots are describing objects moving in ways that are distinct from commercial aircraft. That's a fact. You're stating the the reports aren't happening and therefore, there's no mystery.

Here's the New York Times reporting testimony from 2 Navy airforce pilots reporting on a UFO. UFOs are very real and that's a fact. What they are is up for debate.

Getting there.

So no Martians, alien abductions, flying saucers, uninvited visitors from other planets and galaxies, or farmers from rural Brazil being frogmarched onto a 'spaceship'.
So what's left?

Oh, UFOs, basically stuff in the sky that we can't quite see properly.


OPINION
CULTURE
Probing Extraterrestrial Abduction
November 27, 20136:30 AM ET
MARCELO GLEISER

According to Villas Boas, he was plowing fields with his tractor when he was taken against his will by a group of ETs measuring about 5 feet tall. On their spaceship he was put in a room where he saw some kind of gas come out of the walls, making him sick. Then a very attractive female, naked, with long platinum-blonde hair, fire-red pubic hair and deep-blue cat eyes, came to him and forced him to have intercourse.



I want on that spaceship, right now!

Carry on.

bangkok

speaking of Brazil...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varginha_UFO_incident

this was a very good case and received a lot of attention

bangkok

Strumms wrote: »

What would happen, if tomorrow the US government came out with a press release along the lines of....

“ we are announcing the discovery of a new planet, xxxxxxxxx light years away and we can conclusively determine that there are beings ,intelligent life forms inhabiting said planet with the ability to travel throughout the solar system and indeed to other galaxies possibly....”

Be a bit mad...

yea would be, be interesting to see how society would react... however, if they came out and said we are in possession of many downed UFO's, technology that is 1 million years in advance of ours, alien bodies, live aliens etc, we could potentially see a break down of society

IAMAMORON

bangkok wrote: »

yea would be, be interesting to see how society would react... however, if they came out and said we are in possession of many downed UFO's, technology that is 1 million years in advance of ours, alien bodies, live aliens etc, we could potentially see a break down of society

I wonder where they are hiding all this evidence they have found?

Fingers crossed the society breaker downers don't find it, there would be anarchy and chaos on the streets.... almost like a disaster movie.

bangkok

IAMAMORON wrote: »

I wonder where they are hiding all this evidence they have found?

Fingers crossed the society breaker downers don't find it, there would be anarchy and chaos on the streets.... almost like a disaster movie.

s4 would be a good place to look if you could get in...

Timberrrrrrrr

IAMAMORON wrote: »

I wonder where they are hiding all this evidence they have found?

Fingers crossed the society breaker downers don't find it, there would be anarchy and chaos on the streets.... almost like a disaster movie.

This could be a pretty decent thread if it wasn't for constant idiotic posts like this.

IAMAMORON

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

This could be a pretty decent thread if it wasn't for constant idiotic posts like this.

It would be an even better one if we heard your opinion on anything.....

COVID

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

This could be a pretty decent thread if it wasn't for constant idiotic posts like this.

As was mentioned by another poster, the problem is the thread title.

If it were (although a bit unwieldy): The Lock Ness Monster: Reported sightings, out of focus grainy photos, and blurred footage of same...fill your boots here.

Then I wouldn't bother posting.

If however, it read: Do you believe in The Lock Ness Monster?

Then I'd probably chip in for the craic.

And there you have it!

Timberrrrrrrr

IAMAMORON wrote: »

It would be an even better one if we heard your opinion on anything.....

I gave my opinion on something, you even quoted it.

Rhys Essien

Here's a video of an ex-RAF pilot who was flying for Aer Lingus in 1962 telling his story of a strange encounter they had on a flight from Cork to Brussels.

https://www.rte.ie/archives/2017/0518/876182-pilot-sees-unidentified-flying-object/

jmlad2020

Rhys Essien wrote: »

Here's a video of an ex-RAF pilot who was flying for Aer Lingus in 1962 telling his story of a strange encounter they had on a flight from Cork to Brussels.

https://www.rte.ie/archives/2017/0518/876182-pilot-sees-unidentified-flying-object/

Inb4 IAMMORON Posts "Swamp gas or Pilot was drinking on the job" without watching the video.

Cracking find btw.

Kunta Kinte

IAMAMORON wrote: »

I wonder where they are hiding all this evidence they have found?

Fingers crossed the society breaker downers don't find it, there would be anarchy and chaos on the streets.... almost like a disaster movie.

It`s so obvious. The evidence is being hidden in all the wet pubs in Ireland.`That`s the real reason why they haven`t been reopened for so long wouldn`t you agree?

steddyeddy

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

This could be a pretty decent thread if it wasn't for constant idiotic posts like this.

The thread seems to go like this:

Poster 1: A navy pilot states that he and 5 colleagues observed an object moving beyond the capabilities of current aviation technology.

Poster 2: Go ahead and believe in aliens ect, loch ness, bigfoot ect.

Poster 1: Here's an interview with the pilot and radar operator. How would you explain the witness testimony?

Poster 2: I don't believe in aliens anyone who must believe (insert trope here). There's never any videos.

Poster 1: Here's a video recorded by 6 pilots who observed an object displaying acceleration and manavourability in excess of anything we have on earth. Here's another interview with the radar operator stating that this object moved approximately 20,000 miles an hour.

Poster 2 : I'm watching the football. I'm not interested in these discussions. No one takes it seriously.

Poster 1: Here's an article from the renowned Scientific American in which they state

Why should astronomers, meteorologists, or planetary scientists care about these events? Shouldn’t we just let image analysts, or radar observation experts, handle the problem? All good questions, and rightly so. Why should we care? Because we are scientists. Curiosity is the reason we became scientists. In the current interdisciplinary collaborative environment, if someone (especially a fellow scientist) approaches us with an unsolved problem beyond our area of expertise, we usually do our best to actually contact other experts within our professional network to try and get some outside perspective. The best-case outcome is that we work on a paper or a proposal with our colleague from another discipline; the worst case is that we learn something new from a colleague in another discipline. Either way, curiosity helps us to learn more and become scientists with broader perspectives.

Poster 2: You can keep believing UFOs along with the childish people in that video and who wrote that article ect.


Let's be honest it's not a debate amongst equals is it? The sceptics on this thread are being remarkably reductive and emotional on this issue. These recent events, captured on camera have changed the debate to the point where prominent scientists, military experts are stating there's a mystery to be solved.

The sceptics seem to be stating that anyone who even considers this a mystery should be shouted down. This is the antithesis to science. It is them who are dismissing evidence, dismissing the scientific method and dribbling nonsensically about football and attacking anyone who states there's a mystery to be solved.

maccored

steddyeddy wrote: »

The sceptics seem to be stating that

the cynics you mean. sceptics are open to new information and generally are in between believing and dismissing.

Cynics think they know it all already - and usually in these cases think they have superior intelligence to those who aren't cynical alongside them. (prob think they are more intelligent than the other cynics if the truth were told)

steddyeddy

COVID wrote: »

As was mentioned by another poster, the problem is the thread title.

If it were (although a bit unwieldy): The Lock Ness Monster: Reported sightings, out of focus grainy photos, and blurred footage of same...fill your boots here.

Then I wouldn't bother posting.

If however, it read: Do you believe in The Lock Ness Monster?

Then I'd probably chip in for the craic.

And there you have it!

Ah c'mon you're joking aren't you. Let me get this straight you have people posting articles from major news outlets and scientific journals here and in contrast you have you failing to understand them, dribbling out a few words like football, aliens and the rest and being generally being unable to comment on the details of claims.

But despite all this you think the thread title is the problem? You expect us to believe that a thread title change would up your ability to analyse scientific journals?

steddyeddy

maccored wrote: »

the cynics you mean. sceptics are open to new information and generally are in between believing and dismissing.

Cynics think they know it all already - and usually in these cases think they have superior intelligence to those who aren't cynical alongside them. (prob think they are more intelligent than the other cynics if the truth were told)

That's interesting that you say that. You know that scepticism isn't a thing in science in the way many amateurs think it is. Sceptics are generally closed minded.

Scientific investigation uses the scientific method. It starts from a position of agnosticism. Sceptics generally start from a position of it's not this. Scepticism has a very bad name amongst the scientific community as it creates a taboo around studying the unknown.

As another publication on the scientific study of unidentified aerial phenomenon states:

We, as scientists, cannot hastily dismiss any phenomenon without in-depth examination and then conclude the event itself is unscientific.

Such an approach would certainly not pass the “smell test” in our day-to-day science duties, so these kinds of arguments similarly should not suffice to explain UAP. We must insist on strict agnosticism.

silliussoddius

Well you can't really start with the idea that UFOs are alien and use grainy photos and eye witness accounts as proof. We don't have any current conclusive proof of what an alien craft should look like to compare what is presented as evidence against, so I don't think the "regular" scientific method can be applied.
Given that proof of life else wehere in the universe would be the biggest breakthrough in modern science, let alone that what we are calling UFOs are the proof then I think the approach should be to try see if these reports can be explained via earthly reasons.
Also who gets to decide what is alien and not, when you have bat sh!ttery like To the stars, MUFON, etc. out there.

igCorcaigh

COVID wrote: »

As was mentioned by another poster, the problem is the thread title.

If it were (although a bit unwieldy): The Lock Ness Monster: Reported sightings, out of focus grainy photos, and blurred footage of same...fill your boots here.

Then I wouldn't bother posting.

If however, it read: Do you believe in The Lock Ness Monster?

Then I'd probably chip in for the craic.

And there you have it!

And I did bring up the thread title.
Because the word "believe" not only does it conjure up ideas of X Files and such, but I think the concept of belief is not one that is relevant to any point of enquiry.

I think COVID, I don't really understand your contribution to the thread. Your mentioning of Martians and stuff maybe a form of criticising the whole idea of UFO evidence? I don't know, I am a slow learner.

igCorcaigh

silliussoddius wrote: »

Well you can't really start with the idea that UFOs are alien and use grainy photos and eye witness accounts as proof. We don't have any current conclusive proof of what an alien craft should look like to compare what is presented as evidence against, so I don't think the "regular" scientific method can be applied.
Given that proof of life else wehere in the universe would be the biggest breakthrough in modern science, let alone that what we are calling UFOs are the proof then I think the approach should be to try see if these reports can be explained via earthly reasons.
Also who gets to decide what is alien and not, when you have bat sh!ttery like To the stars, MUFON, etc. out there.

Yeah, exactly.
With limited evidence, we rule out certain more likely explanations, which can easily be done with the vast amount of UFO material.

We never impose a theory such as alien life on the findings.
We filter through, until we are left with interesting findings.
And then we have an honest discussion.

steddyeddy

igCorcaigh wrote: »

Yeah, exactly.
With limited evidence, we rule out certain more likely explanations, which can easily be done with the vast amount of UFO material.

We never impose a theory such as alien life on the findings.
We filter through, until we are left with interesting findings.
And then we have an honest discussion.

Exactly that. We can rule out other explanations. We also have footage taken by pilots using infrared cameras. The real data would be the actual radar data that is being described by radar operators.

The operator in the Nimitz encounter stated that the went from 0 to 20,000 mph in a second. We need scientists to analyse this data to account for glitches, human error ect.

We don't need conclusions yet. We need a detailed investigation.

igCorcaigh

steddyeddy wrote: »

Exactly that. We can rule out other explanations. We also have footage taken by pilots using infrared cameras. The real data would be the actual radar data that is being described by radar operators.

The operator in the Nimitz encounter stated that the went from 0 to 20,000 mph in a second. We need scientists to analyse this data to account for glitches, human error ect.

We don't need conclusions yet. We need a detailed investigation.

What I would love to see is a paper, peer reviewed etc, collating all of this data, and concluding that no technology that we know of, or artefacts in data, can account for the findings. If such a thing can be done with any confidence. Would it be feasible, scientifically or politically?

(of course, part of the barriers to decent investigation is that the topic is a kiss of death to many a scientific career).

COVID

igCorcaigh wrote: »

What I would love to see is a paper, peer reviewed etc, collating all of this data, and concluding that no technology that we know of, or artefacts in data, can account for the findings. If such a thing can be done with any confidence. Would it be feasible, scientifically or politically?

(of course, part of the barriers to decent investigation is that the topic is a kiss of death to many a scientific career).

I do wonder why?