In a post to another thread (link), Magical Realist wrote:
I undertook to watch part of that video. I watched the section on the so-called Phoenix lights, which starts about 7 minutes in to the above video and goes for about 10 minutes. This event occurred in 1997. Unidentified lights of varying descriptions were seen in the sky by hundreds of people (perhaps thousands), in a space of about 300 miles from the Nevada line, through Phoenix, to the edge of Tucson.
If you watch the linked video, you'll see statements from some eyewitnesses, some "reconstructed" footage of what they describe, and some examples of actual footage of some of the lights. You'll also see criticism of the then Governor, who in a press conference made light of the idea of that these lights (and related eyewitness descriptions) were evidence of one or more alien spacecraft.
Magical Realist regards what is presented here as "very convincing" evidence for alien spacecraft. And taken at face value, the evidence presented sounds solid.
Almost immediately after reports of the lights started flooding in to TV stations and the like, the military explained that it had dropped some flares from planes. But many people claim that such flares can't account for all the observations - for example the apparent movement of the lights observed by some witnesses, and their appearance over a wide area. On the face of it, this military explanation sounds implausible.
But how much skeptical analysis is present in the video? Answer: none. The possibility that there is a mundane explanation for the Phoenix lights is canvassed in the video only so as to dismiss it without asking serious questions. In other words, the above video doesn't present an unbiased investigation of the lights. Instead, it presents the sightings with a pre-defined conclusion in mind: that they were of alien origin.
I did a brief web search about this event. It took very little time or effort. Immediately, I found that somebody later actually have claimed to have perpetrated a deliberate hoax using flares tied to weather balloons. That's one possible explanation, but again it seems unlikely to be able to explain all of the eyewitness accounts over such a wide area. So now what?
Well, as you would expect, there's a wikipedia page on this. Also, a number of skeptics have taken a look at the matter.
It turns out that there were two distinct events here, not one. That is, the lights seen moving in a vee formation were different from the slowly moving or mostly stationary lights seen over the city of Phoenix. The moving lights were most likely a squadron of several airplanes, and the stationary lights were likely flares - either as described by the military (the most likely explanation) or perhaps put up by a hoaxer.
Here are a couple of links if you want to find out more from a skeptical point of view. The first one is the wikipedia page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Lights
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/08-05-21/
There's not a lot to discuss here, as far as I can see. All I really want to say is if this is an example of some of the most convincing evidence for aliens visiting Earth, then I'd say alien hunters need to come up with something a lot more convincing.
Magical Realist said:I have a very convincing video of some of the best cases for ufos every made. Its about an hour and 47 minutes long though. But if you really want to objectively weigh the GOOD evidence, you can start there:
"Out Of The Blue"
I undertook to watch part of that video. I watched the section on the so-called Phoenix lights, which starts about 7 minutes in to the above video and goes for about 10 minutes. This event occurred in 1997. Unidentified lights of varying descriptions were seen in the sky by hundreds of people (perhaps thousands), in a space of about 300 miles from the Nevada line, through Phoenix, to the edge of Tucson.
If you watch the linked video, you'll see statements from some eyewitnesses, some "reconstructed" footage of what they describe, and some examples of actual footage of some of the lights. You'll also see criticism of the then Governor, who in a press conference made light of the idea of that these lights (and related eyewitness descriptions) were evidence of one or more alien spacecraft.
Magical Realist regards what is presented here as "very convincing" evidence for alien spacecraft. And taken at face value, the evidence presented sounds solid.
Almost immediately after reports of the lights started flooding in to TV stations and the like, the military explained that it had dropped some flares from planes. But many people claim that such flares can't account for all the observations - for example the apparent movement of the lights observed by some witnesses, and their appearance over a wide area. On the face of it, this military explanation sounds implausible.
But how much skeptical analysis is present in the video? Answer: none. The possibility that there is a mundane explanation for the Phoenix lights is canvassed in the video only so as to dismiss it without asking serious questions. In other words, the above video doesn't present an unbiased investigation of the lights. Instead, it presents the sightings with a pre-defined conclusion in mind: that they were of alien origin.
I did a brief web search about this event. It took very little time or effort. Immediately, I found that somebody later actually have claimed to have perpetrated a deliberate hoax using flares tied to weather balloons. That's one possible explanation, but again it seems unlikely to be able to explain all of the eyewitness accounts over such a wide area. So now what?
Well, as you would expect, there's a wikipedia page on this. Also, a number of skeptics have taken a look at the matter.
It turns out that there were two distinct events here, not one. That is, the lights seen moving in a vee formation were different from the slowly moving or mostly stationary lights seen over the city of Phoenix. The moving lights were most likely a squadron of several airplanes, and the stationary lights were likely flares - either as described by the military (the most likely explanation) or perhaps put up by a hoaxer.
Here are a couple of links if you want to find out more from a skeptical point of view. The first one is the wikipedia page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Lights
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/08-05-21/
There's not a lot to discuss here, as far as I can see. All I really want to say is if this is an example of some of the most convincing evidence for aliens visiting Earth, then I'd say alien hunters need to come up with something a lot more convincing.