Great UFO documentary

[Gustav]

..... in order to feel at ease?

an unwarranted presumption.

 

[Balerion]

light is processed by the eye and sent to the brain where it is formulated into a image. it is an representation of something

now what?

Now I see why you spend so much time on the banned list.

 

[Gustav]

indeed
sci prefers to celebrate malice and dishonesty....

Aww, what happened to our Reiku? Did him get a timey time out?

Score one for the good guys. Pimps up, trolls down. Holla if you hear me.

I hope you enjoy the ban, troll.

Now I see why you spend so much time on the banned list.

 

[Balerion]

indeed
sci prefers to celebrate malice and dishonesty....

And look at who those posts are directed at.

1) Reiku (currently banned, formerly permabanned)
2) Gustav (fresh off the banned list, certain to return at some point)
3) Chipz (troll, destined for the banned list)

I've been here for almost ten years; I call them as I see them. I do not condescend quality members of this forum.

 

[Gustav]

chipz is a troll because he had a critical response to your crap and deserves to be banned?

Aww, what happened to our Reiku? Did him get a timey time out?

Score one for the good guys. Pimps up, trolls down. Holla if you hear me.

Reiku frequently says things which border on insanity, but he's never wrote anything as brazenly retarded as this. This post should actually go into the douche bag hall of fame.

I do not condescend quality members of this forum

of which you are one?

/smirk

you just parrot standard talking points, kid

 

[Chipz]

And look at who those posts are directed at.

1) Reiku (currently banned, formerly permabanned)
2) Gustav (fresh off the banned list, certain to return at some point)
3) Chipz (troll, destined for the banned list)

I've been here for almost ten years; I call them as I see them. I do not condescend quality members of this forum.

JDawg, I've been here much longer than you -- and you haven't been here 10 years, maybe 6 or 7 tops? I'm not a troll, in fact I'm one of a few who make valuable contributions to Computer Science & Technology, I'd make more if there were other developers around. If I recall correctly; you first came here interested in physics while in school for your bachelors. How did that end up? How come your contributions to science are in the Political sub-boards? Gustav ends up banned due to intentionally inflammatory remarks and Reiku ends up banned for copy&paste mathematics. Roughly more than half of your total posts are accusations of "trolling", which (if spidergoat is correct) is ironically a bannable offense which is unenforced. You should work to improve your contributions.

 

[Gustav]

i witnessed jdawg's birth too.
he is a pathological skeptic that trolls the pseudoscience forums...

Aww, what happened to our Reiku? Did him get a timey time out?

Score one for the good guys. Pimps up, trolls down. Holla if you hear me.

his m.o

/chuckle

he is alright tho

 

[river]

there is more to be learned about the world and the Universe from the unconventional than from the conventional

since the conventional go round and round with their thinking , which leads to nothing new . learned

 

[Ripley]

there is more to be learned about the world and the Universe from the unconventional than from the conventional

since the conventional go round and round with their thinking , which leads to nothing new . learned

Yeah. Vertical vs. lateral. Pimps, is it? vs. trolls, according to Dwag. But squares vs. new wave feels more appropriate here now. But the place use to be so excitingly lateral. Oh well; c'est la vie.

 

[Balerion]

JDawg, I've been here much longer than you -- and you haven't been here 10 years, maybe 6 or 7 tops? I'm not a troll, in fact I'm one of a few who make valuable contributions to Computer Science & Technology, I'd make more if there were other developers around. If I recall correctly; you first came here interested in physics while in school for your bachelors. How did that end up? How come your contributions to science are in the Political sub-boards? Gustav ends up banned due to intentionally inflammatory remarks and Reiku ends up banned for copy&paste mathematics. Roughly more than half of your total posts are accusations of "trolling", which (if spidergoat is correct) is ironically a bannable offense which is unenforced. You should work to improve your contributions.

I've been here since 2003. As I said: Almost 10 years. And going by your join date--2010--apparently your math needs work. If you've been here longer than that, you must be a sock puppet of some permabanned idiot. I'm not surprised, given that attitude. Perhaps the moderators should check your IP.

And you're mistaken about my involvement in physics. And I have no idea what your contributions are to the CS&T forum are, but this is not that forum, and all I see you do here is troll.

And I have a couple thousand posts here. To say that "roughly half" are accusing trollers of trolling is absurd.

 

[wynn]

an unwarranted presumption.

Why?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

As a scientist, I firstly dispute the use of the word "object" instead of "image", which can be the only assumption drawn without any material evidence. Likewise, the word "flying" (ie, propelling through the air) presupposes that the image is an object. Finally, the word "unidentified" is redundant in that it simply admits that they don't know what they're talking about. Thus, the combined term "unidentified flying object" (and its acronym "UFO") conveys no discernible scientific meaning.

Admissions from the film itself:

• "the surface wind was 25 to 28 mph; it reached 37 mph" (in trying to rule out that the "objects" that "moved" against the wind could not possibly be balloons) — Pilots know that wind at the surface can be virtually unrelated to winds at altitude.
• The objects or their flight "appear(s)/seems to be" (used six times) — Note the use of the word "appear(s)" or "seems", consistent with the idea of "image".
• "They are definitely not free-falling" — It is a well-known fact that free-falling objects reach a terminal velocity that is "steady", and that the motion of free-falling objects can appear "horizontal" to ground observers.
• "They are not meteors [or] birds" — Another conclusion made without explaining how they reached it.
• "They are not ... any kind of known aircraft" — Emphasis on the qualifier "known". Post WW2 saw many high-performance experimental aircraft, and many of them were tested over the sparsely-populated western states. I met a former aeronautical scientist whose work on a very small ceramic torus for the B-58 Hustler in the 1950s that was classified Secret because its shape and composition obviously showed it was designed to decelerate air through the transonic range indicated that the B-58 was the first US supersonic bomber, whose speed was classified (ie, could neither be confirmed nor denied by the government), and thus, not "known".
• "the distance is assumed to be" (used two times) — The distances to the "objects" are unknown, and thus, the average speed of 326.75 mph is ridiculously precise, and assumptions with a leeway of a factor of 2 (used in the film) or more is highly inaccurate.

However, the period musical score for government military documentaries was rather patriotically stirring.

You seem to missing a key fact: These events were all studied by the AF and the results of these investigations published in Project Bluebook documents.

UFO was a term coined by Capt Ruppelt, who ran Bluebook, as a replacement for the common language at the time, flying saucers, which resulted from the Arnold press report. Others have since adopted the language "unidentified aerial phenomenon" to further generalize the concept.

You don't really expect a complete scientific analysis in a documentary film, do you? These analyses were done by the same people responsible for our national defense - the USAF and other US intelligence agencies. While not beyond reproach, this was all on the level and was treated quite seriously. We would need to go to the original Bluebook docs for futher [and perhaps corrected] details. But the point is that this was directed by the USAF and not "some nutty UFO group" as is commonly believed.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

UFOs are one thing. Alien spaceships are quite another. UFO just means you saw something in the sky that you couldn't identify. Common examples include the planet Venus and weather balloons.

There's no hard facts supporting alien spaceships.

There is no reason to conclude that this phenomenon [these phenomena] can be explained with prosaic explanations either. I think the first mistake is to make this about either ET, or weather balloons. There are other possibilities. And it takes quite a leap of faith to conclude that one can explain this all with weather balloons - a leap of faith that goes beyond reason and rational thinking, imo. This is why debunkers have to cherry pick their facts; or even deny the established facts.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

It's not nonesense, I have witnessed them myself.

Okay, but even if you saw ET, you can never prove it. You can only share what you have observed and let the chips fall where they may. Trying to prove your experience through argumentation is not only futile, it discredits your position. To you it may be fact - you saw ET. To us, it's just another story with no supporting evidence.

 

[Balerion]

There is no reason to conclude that this phenomenon [these phenomena] can be explained with prosaic explanations either. I think the first mistake is to make this about either ET, or weather balloons. There are other possibilities. And it takes quite a leap of faith to conclude that one can explain this all with weather balloons - a leap of faith that goes beyond reason and rational thinking, imo. This is why debunkers have to cherry pick their facts; or even deny the established facts.

No one is saying that every UFO case is a weather balloon. Stop knocking down straw men. He gave an example of a common case, however, and your blind dismissal of it speaks to your bias. You want these to be alien spaceships. You want this to be a conspiracy to hide them. The notion of it is thrilling and terrifying, and you don't want to give that up for some mundane explanation such as "weather balloon" or "secret fighter plane." That's too boring, right?

And what facts are cherry-picked, exactly? And what "established facts" are we denying?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Cifo, based on your response, I now realize that you probably only watched the last few minutes of the film. Correct? Is this what you consider an objective review of the subject?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

No one is saying that every UFO case is a weather balloon Stop knocking down straw men. He gave an example of a common case, however, and your blind dismissal of it speaks to your bias.

Actually, my official conclusion on this matter after about 30 years of serious interest and research is that I don't have one. If you wish to twist this into some ulterior motive, then that only speaks to your own bias. I merely argue the facts as I seem them after a great deal of effort to understand this phenomenon, one way or the other. And I was only using the weather balloon explanation to be indicative of all prosaic explanations. It wasn’t a straw man.

You want these to be alien spaceships. You want this to be a conspiracy to hide them. The notion of it is thrilling and terrifying, and you don't want to give that up for some mundane explanation such as "weather balloon" or "secret fighter plane." That's too boring, right?

I have nine years of public posts as a moderator/mentor at Physicsforms, saying otherwise. I have never made such arguments and have specifically argued against conspiracy theories. So you are way out of line and just fantasizing. This is exactly what I mean when I say that debunking is often a religion in its own right. Gustav is right about that. You are literally creating reality in your own mind here. Nothing more.

And what facts are cherry-picked, exactly? And what "established facts" are we denying?

One example would be this thread where you intentionally ignore the facts, never mind learning them first, for a crackpot theory of your own. Your theory might be fine if the premise of the thread were true.
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=112538

 

[Balerion]

Actually, my official conclusion on this matter after about 30 years of serious interest and research is that I don't have one. If you wish to twist this into some ulterior motive, then that only speaks to your own bias. I merely argue the facts as I seem them after a great deal of effort to understand this phenomenon, one way or the other. And I was only using the weather balloon explanation to be indicative of all prosaic explanations. It wasn’t a straw man.

What facts? I have yet to see you present one. All you've done so far is dismiss reasonable explanations without any sort of qualification. All you do is say "That's not the case, and I have 30 years of research to back it up." If you really do (which I sincerely doubt) then you should have no trouble presenting some of these "facts" you keep talking about. And yes, it absolutely wrecks your credibility that to this point you have provided exactly none.

I have nine years of public posts as a moderator/mentor at Physicsforms, saying otherwise. I have never made such arguments and have specifically argued against conspiracy theories. So you are way out of line and just fantasizing. This is exactly what I mean when I say that debunking is often a religion in its own right. Gustav is right about that. You are literally creating reality in your own mind here. Nothing more.

Well, for one, we aren't at "Physicsforms," so that comment means absolutely nothing to me. Secondly, the only position you've taken here at all is that you don't "officially" endorse the ET theory (a qualifier that did not go unnoticed). You dismiss rational explanations without so much as a reason why, let alone an alternative theory. Your best effort on that account has been "there are other possibilities," which is to say absolutely nothing at all.

One example would be this thread where you intentionally ignore the facts, never mind learning them first, for a crackpot theory of your own. Your theory might be fine if the premise of the thread were true.
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=112538

What facts did I ignore? The ET myth is very much like the Chupacabra myth. Or the Bigfoot myth, if you like. The Yeti, even. It's regional, is the point.

I pose the question again: And what facts are cherry-picked, exactly? And what "established facts" are we denying?

 

[GeoffP]

As something I might pull out of the air right off the bat, I'd be interested to know why so much of the 'Roswell Incident' seems to be on the black list. Stanton Friedman made a request under the Freedom of Information Act some time back about it and got an article so massively blacked out that it was near worthless - possibly as much as 2/3 blacked out? Can't recall.

Steven Aftergood of Secrecy News writes that on July 28, 1995, the General Accounting Office published a report on the Roswell Incident that said all the Roswell records had been destroyed. Now it's been discovered that the CIA has destroyed the budget records for that period in Roswell also.

The records were demanded by New Mexico Congressman Stuart Schiff, now deceased. The report found that "some of the records concerning Roswell activities had been destroyed" and that "there was no information available regarding when or under what authority the records were destroyed."

In fact, all of the activity records for the Roswell Army Air Force Base between 1947 and 1952 had been destroyed, in direct violation of the law. No reason for the destruction of the records was ever found.

Now, it turns out that the CIA's budget records for the same period are missing. These budget reports would have revealed details of budgetary allocations, including possible allocations involving Roswell or other UFO-related activity. In response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking declassification of the intelligence budget totals from 1947 and 1948, the Central Intelligence Agency says that it cannot find this information.

"We are unable to locate a document containing, or a series of documents from which we may deduce, the aggregate U.S. intelligence budget figure for Fiscal Year 1947," wrote Kathryn I. Dyer, CIA Information and Privacy Coordinator, in a June 27 letter to the Federation of American Scientists.

Likewise, "We are unable to locate a document containing, or a series of documents from which we may deduce, the aggregate U.S. intelligence budget figure for Fiscal Year 1948."

http://www.alien-ufos.com/ufo-alien-discussions/2445-us-freedom-information-act-ufos.html

The first question is: is the above true? One might objectively start there and wrangle the issue around.

Not sure why a UFO might crash, mind you.

 

[Balerion]

As something I might pull out of the air right off the bat, I'd be interested to know why so much of the 'Roswell Incident' seems to be on the black list. Stanton Friedman made a request under the Freedom of Information Act some time back about it and got an article so massively blacked out that it was near worthless - possibly as much as 2/3 blacked out? Can't recall.

Probably because--get ready for this--it's classified information!

Why don't believers ever consider that the blacked-out information might actually be a matter of national security? That maybe it might be bad for us if the Russians or Chinese or God-knows-who found out what we were doing in the 40s?

The first question is: is the above true?

Given that this comes from a place called "Secrecy News," I'm going to venture a guess and say no. Just as I'm skeptical when I hear that a group called "Noah's Ark Ministries" claims to have discovered that mythical boat. You have to consider the source.

But even if we allow that files have been destroyed, it does not mean that the government is hiding alien technology. It might simply mean (if true, which it almost certainly isn't) that they don't want information getting out. To make the leap from that to "they're hiding aliens!" is ludicrous.

Not sure why a UFO might crash, mind you.

I presume by this you mean an alien spacecraft? It wouldn't. Because it doesn't exist. Well, I'm sure there's a planet somewhere with a spacefaring alien race, so let me amend: There have been no alien spacecraft on Earth, so don't worry about it.