A physicist explains ghosts in our digital reality

[river]

Perfect. I'll settle for your head.

Please present such "incontrovertible proof" or withdraw that statement.

Read.

In 1952 the White House flap.

 

[river]

Intriguing.
How do you get from "require more "proof" [evidence]" to "won't investigate"?
I'm also highly interested as to what "investigation" you personally have done.
Presumably, given your numerous claims that certain posters here have never "investigated" the subject, you mean something considerably more involved and arduous than just reading books and looking at videos and the like.
Do tell, I'd be fascinated as what your investigations consist of.

And what do your case files present against?

 

[Daecon]

Read.

In 1952 the White House flap.

Obviously not incontrovertible. Try again.

 

[Randwolf]

Read.

In 1952 the White House flap.

Obviously a complete fail. Try again.

This should be reported - except that I don't report posts - ever.

 

[Dywyddyr]

And what do your case files present against?

I'm sorry I don't quite understand your answer to my question - and it's not due solely to the execrable grammar.
Could you rephrase it please?

 

[Magical Realist]

Obviously a complete fail. Try again.

This should be reported - except that I don't report posts - ever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_Washington,_D.C._UFO_incident

 

[Bells]

The reason I can be more certain a particular ufo is an alien craft is because I take all the evidence together.

What evidence?

You cannot be certain that it is anything without further proof.

People used to be convinced that aliens and their UFO's were from Mars. They too were certain. We know they are wrong.

How can you be certain it is not fake? Or a plane? Or something else entirely? Like balloons, for example?

I don't start from scratch with every sighting, assuming the ufos don't exist. I assume they do exist, and hence for me the prospect of a silver disc in the sky being one, or of 62 kids seeing aliens come out of a flying saucer, is much more plausible to me than to a skeptic. If we live in a reality where ufos are real, then the next unexplained sighting that comes along can be much more certain to be a ufo than to a skeptic who continues to live in a reality where ufos don't exist and never can exist. Why is such certainty offputting to you folks? What I fail to understand is the certainty of the skeptic, who just knows for a fact the sighting isn't an alien craft and is instead mundane in origin. There's no way anyone could know that in advance. So we look thru the whole field, weigh the accounts, and judge the evidence based on the conclusions we make. That's real objective science. Not this status quo habit of denying a phenomena in advance of actually looking into it.

Which is the point I was making.

You are incapable of being objective and you cannot understand why people might question or look for other explanations first before jumping to conclusions. Which is exactly what you do.

You want to believe so much, that the explanation could be more mundane is inconceivable to you.

The point is that you don't know anything about what those kids saw. All you heard were words from people who are so biased that they have altered these kid's experience to match their own and their own beliefs. You did it as well when you completely disregarded what one of those kids said because it didn't fit into the narrative that they were all terrified and ran screaming to their teachers, when they actually did not if the children themselves are to be believed.

For you to complain that people are denying anything without even looking into it, when you consistently refuse to acknowledge scientific explanations for a phenomena because it doesn't fit into what you want it to be is laughable.

You need to be more objective and discount everything it could be. But you don't do that. And that's where you are failing and will continue to fail.

You refuse to entertain that it is a possibility. Much like the religious zealots who are certain that God is real.

 

[Bells]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_Washington,_D.C._UFO_incident

It was the weather.

In 1952, Washington, D.C. became the only American city in history to be invaded by an alien fleet. On July 19, city air traffic controllers noticed a cluster of weird blips on their radar screens. When they contacted nearby planes to ask if they had seen anything unusual, one pilot responded that he’d seen six bright lights “streaking across the sky.” But this was only the beginning.

When the weird blips returned a week later, jets scrambled to intercept. The pilots reported glowing lights that flew away from them. The encounter made all the papers. After all, what could possibly jam up radar screens and escape from pilots except real UFOs?

How about temperature inversions? A layer of cold air trapped under a layer of warm air, temperature inversions are capable of some weird things—including turning up on radar screens. They can also create illusions, especially if there’s a handy layer of moisture trapped there to reflect ground lights back at unsuspecting pilots. And the conditions in Washington that summer just happened to be perfect for moisture-loaded temperature inversions. ​

 

[Bells]

An example of how weather can affect vision and make things appear to be something else entirely:

Note the inversion and what it does to the Earth's horizon?

And see that little black dot there just off center?

UFO or something else MR? What do you think it is?

From the website:

"The black dot is a Chinook helicopter from Odiham."​

I could post that here and told you it was a UFO and you'd have believed me.

 

[tashja]

Who knows? There could be a different version of the same earth in another dimension. Interdimensionals could be in a parallel reality right here beside us and we'd only see them when they opened up portals.

Astronomer and columnist for Astronomy Magazine, Bob Berman, wrote something similar in his book:

http://www.amazon.com/Zoom-Everything-Moves-Galaxies-Blizzards/dp/0316217409

Could there be a major parallel universe right here among us? Most of our bodies and our planet and indeed every atom everywhere is utter emptiness. If the universe were compressed and all of its spaces were removed, you could squeeze everything that exist into a ball smaller than a supergiant star, such as Orion's Betelgeuse. It's not totally far-fetched that these wide-open spaces in our bodies allow for cohabitation with creatures or objects of some other realm. Perhaps -- since we're now letting ourselves speculate without a shred of supporting evidence -- conscious entities whiz through our everyday lives like ghosts, as oblivious to us as we are to them.

Page 200

Zoom: How Everything Moves: From Atoms and Galaxies to Blizzards and Bees​

 

[Dywyddyr]

From the website:
"The black dot is a Chinook helicopter from Odiham."
I could post that here and told you it was a UFO and you'd have believed me.

Bah!
Given that's England in the photo (I recognised the hedge down on the left even before you mentioned Odiham) that's probably not a Wokka at all: it'll be another f*cking cloud working itself into a rainstorm.

 

[Magical Realist]

It was the weather.

In 1952, Washington, D.C. became the only American city in history to be invaded by an alien fleet. On July 19, city air traffic controllers noticed a cluster of weird blips on their radar screens. When they contacted nearby planes to ask if they had seen anything unusual, one pilot responded that he’d seen six bright lights “streaking across the sky.” But this was only the beginning.

When the weird blips returned a week later, jets scrambled to intercept. The pilots reported glowing lights that flew away from them. The encounter made all the papers. After all, what could possibly jam up radar screens and escape from pilots except real UFOs?

How about temperature inversions? A layer of cold air trapped under a layer of warm air, temperature inversions are capable of some weird things—including turning up on radar screens. They can also create illusions, especially if there’s a handy layer of moisture trapped there to reflect ground lights back at unsuspecting pilots. And the conditions in Washington that summer just happened to be perfect for moisture-loaded temperature inversions. ​

Nope. That was the lie put out by the airforce. Here's how it was debunked:

"Almost from the moment of General Samford's press conference, eyewitnesses, UFO researchers, and Air Force personnel came forward to criticize the temperature inversion/mirage explanation. Captain Ruppelt noted that Major Fournet and Lt. Holcomb, who disagreed with the Air Force's explanation, were not in attendance at Samford's press conference. Ruppelt himself discovered that "hardly a night passed in June, July, and August in 1952 that there wasn't a [temperature] inversion in Washington, yet the slow-moving, solid radar targets appeared on only a few nights."[30]

According to a story printed by INS, the United States Weather Bureau also disagreed with the temperature inversion hypothesis, one official stating that "such an inversion ordinarily would appear on a radar screen as a steady line, rather than as single objects as were sighted on the airport radarscope."[31]

Also, according to Ruppelt, when he was able to interview the radar and control tower personnel at Washington National Airport, not a single person agreed with the Air Force explanation. Michael Wertheimer, a researcher for the government-funded Condon Report, investigated the case in 1966. He found that the radar witnesses still disputed the Air Force explanation, but that did not stop the report from agreeing with the temperature inversion/mirage explanation.[32] Ruppelt related that on July 27 the control tower at Washington National had called the control tower at Andrews AFB and notified them that their radar had an unknown object just south of the Andrews control tower, directly over the Andrews AFB radio range station. According to Ruppelt, when the Andrews control tower personnel looked they all saw "a huge fiery-orange sphere" hovering over the range station.[33] When Ruppelt interviewed the tower personnel several days later, they insisted that they had been mistaken and had merely seen a bright star. However, when Ruppelt checked an astronomical chart he found that there were no bright stars over the station that night, and that he had "heard from a good source that the tower men had been 'persuaded' a bit" by superior officers to claim that their sighting was merely a star.[34]

There were also witnesses who claimed to see structured craft and not merely "glows" or bright lights. On July 19 an Army artillery officer, Joseph Gigandet, was sitting on the front porch of his home in Alexandria, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington. At 9:30 p.m. he claimed to see "a red cigar-shaped object" which sailed slowly over his house. Gigandet estimated the object's size as comparable to a DC-7 airplane at about 10,000 feet altitude; he also claimed that the object had a "series of lights very closely set together" on its sides. The object eventually flew back over his house a second time, which led Gigandet to assume that it was circling the area.[35] When the object flew away a second time, it turned a deeper red color and moved over the city of Washington itself; this occurred less than two hours before Edward Nugent first spotted the unknown objects on his radar at Washington National. Gigandet claimed that his neighbor, an FBI agent, also saw the object.[35] Dr.James E. McDonald, a physicist at the University of Arizona and a prominent ufologist in the 1960s, did his own analysis of the Washington sightings. After interviewing four pilot eyewitnesses and five radar personnel, McDonald argued that the Air Force explanation was "physically impossible."[36] Harry Barnes told McDonald that the radar targets "were not shapeless blobs such as one gets from ground returns under anomalous propagation", and that he was certain the unknown radar blips were solid targets; Howard Cocklin agreed with Barnes."====https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_Washington,_D.C._UFO_incident

 

[Magical Realist]

An example of how weather can affect vision and make things appear to be something else entirely:

Note the inversion and what it does to the Earth's horizon?

And see that little black dot there just off center?

UFO or something else MR? What do you think it is?

From the website:

"The black dot is a Chinook helicopter from Odiham."​

I could post that here and told you it was a UFO and you'd have believed me.

Wow..A helicopter? Must mean ufos don't exist then. lol!

 

[Magical Realist]

What evidence?

You cannot be certain that it is anything without further proof.

What evidence? Are you kidding me? Get back with me after you've studied the evidence for few says, because you obviously don't have a clue what you're talking about.

People used to be convinced that aliens and their UFO's were from Mars. They too were certain. We know they are wrong.

So what? That doesn't mean ufos are fake. It doesn't logically follow at all in fact.

How can you be certain it is not fake? Or a plane? Or something else entirely? Like balloons, for example?

By the incredible speeds these things fly, often thousands of miles an hour. By their sudden change of direction. By their shape and size, many shaped like saucers, cigars, and triangles. And by their consistent silent running. Or else a low unfamiliar hum.

Which is the point I was making.

You are incapable of being objective and you cannot understand why people might question or look for other explanations first before jumping to conclusions. Which is exactly what you do.

I rule out the mundane long before presenting anything here. I only present the best documented cases. There's nothing you can suggest about these things that I haven't already considered and found inadequate. That comes from years of personal study. Something you should do before telling me what to believe.

You want to believe so much, that the explanation could be more mundane is inconceivable to you.

Since ufos exist, the mundane isn't the only explanation there is. It's certainly one of them, but one we rule out before concluding alien craft.

The point is that you don't know anything about what those kids saw. All you heard were words from people who are so biased that they have altered these kid's experience to match their own and their own beliefs. You did it as well when you completely disregarded what one of those kids said because it didn't fit into the narrative that they were all terrified and ran screaming to their teachers, when they actually did not if the children themselves are to be believed.

I know exactly what those kids saw. They told us what they saw. Their reports were all taken a day after the event occurred, and 35 pictures were drawn before the ufo investigator arrived that day. We go by what the witnesses say, not by what you or some other armchair skeptic wants it to be.

For you to complain that people are denying anything without even looking into it, when you consistently refuse to acknowledge scientific explanations for a phenomena because it doesn't fit into what you want it to be is laughable.

There is no scientific explanation for these 4 compelling examples I gave. None at all. That's why I selected them.

You need to be more objective and discount everything it could be. But you don't do that. And that's where you are failing and will continue to fail.

Bullshit. I discount all sorts of accounts I see reported on the web and on youtube. I know a plane at night when I see it. I know what a metallic balloon looks like at 2000 feet. And I know what meteors look like. Alien craft look nothing like these things. They have common characteristics that clue us as to their identity. If you knew about this field, you'd know this already. But you don't. Like all skeptics you speak out of ignorance.

You refuse to entertain that it is a possibility. Much like the religious zealots who are certain that God is real.

Still waiting for the mundane explanations for these events that I've somehow overlooked. Why aren't you giving us them? Simple. Because there isn't one, however much you want there to be one. You're just going to have to live with the fact that ufos are real, that we don't know where they come from, and that they defy mundane explanation.

 

[Kittamaru]

Not according to Kittamaru's "rules". Read his rules for the Religion forum. He says that forum gets a pass on the scientific method.

Wrong - the method still applies there and here. It is merely modified to allow functionality within the scope of the metaphysical.

 

[Magical Realist]

Wrong - the method still applies there and here. It is merely modified to allow functionality within the scope of the metaphysical.

"Acceptable evidence for claims in this sub-forum includes the use of biblical texts and passages.

In general, this forum will be given a pass on the scientific method, as the very nature of discussions going on within are of a metaphysical standard, and thus are difficult, if not outright impossible, to "prove".

 

[Kittamaru]

"Acceptable evidence for claims in this sub-forum includes the use of biblical texts and passages.

In general, this forum will be given a pass on the scientific method, as the very nature of discussions going on within are of a metaphysical standard, and thus are difficult, if not outright impossible, to "prove".

Thank you for recounting what was posted... where does that say it is exempt?

If my terminology/phrasing is inadequate or unclear, then I apologize - to me, giving a pass on something means the rules are loosened. That doesn't mean removed or exempted. If my understanding of that phrase is incorrect, again, I apologize and will update it to be more clear.

 

[paddoboy]

Wow..A helicopter? Must mean ufos don't exist then. lol!

There we go again. More total intellectual dishonesty.
We all know UFOs exist. And there is always a remote possibility that we may have at some time been visited in the past by Aliens.
But as of the 18/8/2015 at 0838hrs, we have no evidence of such.
Although we have plenty of evidence of UFOs
But again, no evidence that they are extra terrestrial in origin or controlled by advanced Aliens.

Now those facts may get all hot and bothered, emotional and see you fly off on one of your tantrums again, but that's the way it is.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, not some crazy half baked idea that every UFO is of Alien origin.
The facts that totally over ride all your fabricated fairy tales, and sightings and anal probings, all of course observed in out of the way places, or to a group of impressionable gullible school children is the following my dear friend.
Any Alien controlled craft to visit Earth, would be in advance of us and our technologies.
They would be intelligent enough to realise that our species was on the verge of space travel.
Why would they, while realising that we were not just dumb animals, but also an advanced civilisation, not make proper contact by radio or whatever means, and announce their arrival? Why would they not land in Central park in New York, or Hyde Park in London or Sydney......or to the seat of government.
They would not need to be afraid of us, and I really don't believe if such a scenario was on the cards that we would be hostile towards them. [unless of course they were openly aggressive]
See? That's the reasonable logical assessment of what any Alien origin visitor would do.....Certainly not the out of the way visitations to gullible individuals and children, nor any kidnapping and anal probing or anything similar.
Put those gullible unlikely scenarios with the facts that people do suffer from hallucinations, atmospheric disturbances do occur with startling effects, people playing tricks, balloons, dust, cloud formations, and a myriad of other legitimate alternatives, and your imaginary alien origin UFOs are just simply a figment of your imagination, lack of critical research, and simply down right defiance due to your obvious evidenced anti science stance.

 

[paddoboy]

I rule out the mundane long before presenting anything here. I only present the best documented cases. There's nothing you can suggest about these things that I haven't already considered and found inadequate. That comes from years of personal study. Something you should do before telling me what to believe.

Oh sure you did! Just as you have for Bigfoot or some appartition or smudgy photograph or Poltergeist.
I don't believe you for one moment.
The most likely logical reasons for your Aliens, Bigfoots, ghosts and Poltergeists, is that you are impressionable and gullible far more than most [forgetting Tonto]
And after believing such nonsense for so long, you are now unable to accept any other alternative, under any circumstances.
There is a medical name for such conditions.

 

[Bells]

There we go again. More total intellectual dishonesty.
We all know UFOs exist. And there is always a remote possibility that we may have at some time been visited in the past by Aliens.
But as of the 18/8/2015 at 0838hrs, we have no evidence of such.
Although we have plenty of evidence of UFOs
But again, no evidence that they are extra terrestrial in origin or controlled by advanced Aliens.

Now those facts may get all hot and bothered, emotional and see you fly off on one of your tantrums again, but that's the way it is.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, not some crazy half baked idea that every UFO is of Alien origin.
The facts that totally over ride all your fabricated fairy tales, and sightings and anal probings, all of course observed in out of the way places, or to a group of impressionable gullible school children is the following my dear friend.
Any Alien controlled craft to visit Earth, would be in advance of us and our technologies.
They would be intelligent enough to realise that our species was on the verge of space travel.
Why would they, while realising that we were not just dumb animals, but also an advanced civilisation, not make proper contact by radio or whatever means, and announce their arrival? Why would they not land in Central park in New York, or Hyde Park in London or Sydney......or to the seat of government.
They would not need to be afraid of us, and I really don't believe if such a scenario was on the cards that we would be hostile towards them. [unless of course they were openly aggressive]
See? That's the reasonable logical assessment of what any Alien origin visitor would do.....Certainly not the out of the way visitations to gullible individuals and children, nor any kidnapping and anal probing or anything similar.
Put those gullible unlikely scenarios with the facts that people do suffer from hallucinations, atmospheric disturbances do occur with startling effects, people playing tricks, balloons, dust, cloud formations, and a myriad of other legitimate alternatives, and your imaginary alien origin UFOs are just simply a figment of your imagination, lack of critical research, and simply down right defiance due to your obvious evidenced anti science stance.

What is it with you and anal probing?

Because this seems to be a running theme with you and you keep introducing it into these discussions.

For example, from previous UFO threads:

What really doesn't follow, is the fact that if some sufficiently advanced ET were to visit us, after travelling for so long over such great distances, that they would just hover around an airport for a few minutes before disappearing, to anal probe some lone individual lost in a forest, and then return home unannounced.

MR responds to that comment and ignores your anal probe comments:

So because the UFO was there for only a few minutes and then quickly ascended thru the clouds and is saucer-shaped, it can't be of ET origin? That doesn't follow at all.

What do you do?

Keep at it:

Again what doesn't follow that shows it was not a UFO of Alien origin is the facts that if some sufficiently advanced ET were to visit us, after travelling for so long over such great distances, that they would just hover around an airport for a few minutes before disappearing, to anal probe some lone individual lost in a forest, and then return home unannounced.
And of course what else doesn't follow is that their craft just happens to be saucer shaped and an identical replica as that envisaged by the mythical dream of UFOs.
It's a UFO, that's all.

Again..

I've answered it a 100 times. Time and distance.
And of course if both those are conquered, then to suggest they would just make a quick visit, anal probe some poor schnook, and disappear, is the height of stupidity and gullibility.

And again, despite others trying to discuss the subject while ignoring your continued reference to anal probing, you just kept right at it..

Alien space craft are not going to come here, hover just below the clouds for a minute or two, and shoot off back home....that doesn't follow. They are not going to harass any lone vehicle driving on a lonely road, to again quickly disappear from whence they came...that doesn't follow. They are not going to kdnap some poor lonesome schnook, and anal probe him, before returning him to whence he came and then again disappear...that does not follow. They are not going to come here after traversing many light years of travel to just do any of the things I have suggested, and then quickly disappear and return home...that just does not follow.
What does follow is that what was seen was either imagined, an illusion, a trick, a meteorological event, and as such is unexplained.

And it wasn't just one thread. Here too:

I click on a random page and there you are:

The counter argument is simply the paranormal is unscientific and does not exist, other than in gullible people's imaginations.
Bigfoot if a real entity, would not just be seen every now and then, in fleeting blurry photos, and we would have at least some physical evidence of their existence by now.
UFO's of alien origin, are just as unlikely, as it makes no sense for any Alien to come here over thousands of L/years, grab isoltaed individuals, anal probe them and than disappear again.
Anyone who believes any of the above are real are gullible fools and highly impressionable.
That's it, pure and simple, and as long as you want to wear your "right"to post and believe what ever you chose like a badge of honour, you and your posts will be suitably rebuked for such nonsense.

Not to mention in this thread, when you decided to make an offensive and very homophobic remark.

He isn't making any such about anal probing claims. You are. Repeatedly.

And not just in the Fringe sub-sections. You also tried to pull this offensive stunt in the science forums as well:

So says our second in charge to claims of conspiracies, Bigfoot, beliefs in giants, ghosts, goblins, UFOs and Alien anal probing. Wow!

Actually just the opposite.
The claims by certain nuts of ghosts, goblins, Bigfoot, anal probing Aliens, and other general conspiracies of outrageous proportions, are a total amusing issue for me. Always good for a laugh.

There are plenty more. Around 60 returns on google alone, for just this site and in each instance, you are the one that introduces it. So what's the deal?

Why do you think this is appropriate? What part of you believes this is appropriate?