UFOs (UAPs): Explanations?

Because MR has been touting these UFO communities, that have become, as Vallee noted, like cults, who will essentially believe everything they are told or shown about UFO's. He criticised both skeptics and the scientific community and these cult like groups and believers.

MR quoted the shorter quote in response to others criticising what he was posting as evidence, that an unidentified light in the sky automatically signaled aliens.

The reality is that Vallee, even in his beliefs, discounts such claims and argued that "ufologists" push a certain agenda, targeted at the vulnerable and those who are easily led *cough* into believing anything they see. He criticises skeptics and the scientific community for failing to study credible witnesses to UFO's and argues that that refusal drives even reliable witnesses into the arms of the nutbags.

You don't say..

I have often asked what leads people to go from bright light in the sky to something otherworldly.. And I never actually get a response that explains or articulates or demonstrates that reasoning.

Most people will look at everything that goes inbetween first. More rational explanations, like a helicopter, plane, drone, etc.. Yet, for some reason, that seeking of a rational explanation is deemed irrational for some, while they leap directly to something not of this planet or this time as being more rational.

Until further proof is forthcoming, I think most rational or thinking human beings would say it is a helicopter first.

Yes, because leaping to it being a helicopter or a plane, makes as little sense as leaping to it being an alien in an alien spacecraft.....

You should read his book.

James has already answered this brilliantly.

 

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That's a picture of Venus taken at midday, during the period where it is brightest in the sky. To wit, on a clear day, during those periods, you can see it during the day and yes, it does generate UFO reports.

You do behave as though you are in some kind of cult.. But instead of to a specific believer, it is to a belief system. You do behave like the people Vallee comments about. In short, you are kind of gullible and believe even the most ridiculous things and you claim it as being fact.. Kind of like what Vallee describes as what people in cults behave like. You didn't understand that from when I quoted that passage in full and what I was addressing to Yazata?

Did you actually understand what I wrote, MR? And in the context of Vallee's full quote and what it was in response to?

I mean, I get that you like to take some things out of context, but this kind of borders on the ridiculous.

 

Venus is one of the natural objects most often mistaken for a UFO in the sky, including by pilots. One Air Canada pilot plunged the passenger jet into a dive after seeing a moving light out of the cockpit window, believing a colision was imminent with a ufo. Its an optical illusion, but many fall for it. The light he had seen was Venus. In fact many pilots report seeing a ufo, when it is in fact venus. It is actually quite common. https://www.seeker.com/airplane-ufo-or-venus-176

Perhaps you should go back and read what I actually said, in context and then note the sites you quote from and link to and you might grasp what I actually meant. But I doubt you are capable of such introspection.

 

When I said it looks like a disc, I only mean that it has apparent size and that it does not look like a point-like star. It's not large, and to most people it looks like a very bright star (assuming they don't think it's an alien craft, of course, which is very common).

Who knows? You might even be right about "most people" in this instance. But it only takes some people to think it's a UFO, and that's enough to support a regular stream of UFO reports that are really the planet Venus.

I hate to break it to you, but some people are idiots.

A lot of people rarely look at the night sky, especially when they live in cities full of light pollution, as so many do these days. They are not familiar with the stars and the planets.

But sometimes they do. Which is enough to generate UFO reports that are really the planet Venus. See?

Many supposed "sightings" of UFOs have been convincingly debunked with reference to the planet Venus. Why, I even gave you a beautiful example when I exploded the Ravenna County incident for you. Remember? It's linked above so you can refresh your memory.

You're back to the nervous laughter again, I see. Are we shaking your world with our pesky skepticism?

 

And yet:

The strange fact is that Venus has been responsible for many UFO sightings over the years. This skeptical explanation causes discomfort for many UFO believers, who claim that eyewitness UFO reports by pilots are the most reliable in the world. After all, they claim, experienced pilots are familiar with normal lights in the night sky - surely no pilot could possibly mistake a planet for a nearby flying object!

Robert Sheaffer, a columnist for Skeptical Inquirer magazine and veteran UFO investigator, told Discovery News that "there is a long history of Venus (or some other bright planet or star) being perceived as something that it isn't. Even the UFO proponent Jacques Vallee wrote back in 1966 that "no single object has been misinterpreted as a 'flying saucer' more often than the planet Venus."

In fact, Sheaffer noted, "During World War II, B-29 crews making night bombing raids in Japan reported being followed by a 'ball of fire' that turned out to be Venus. Since then, numerous police officers and pilots have made the same mistake, as did Jimmy Carter, who reported seeing a UFO back in 1969 that turned out to be in exactly the same place as Venus."

​

And it's not just pilots..

Roy Craig’s riveting book UFOs: An Insider’s View of the Official Quest for Evidence, about his investigations for the U.S. Air Force’s Colorado Project, includes an account of veteran police officers in Georgia chasing a mysterious, fast-moving object “about 500 feet above the ground.” Yep, it was Venus. ​

It is caused by an optical illusion. Being in a moving object, and seeing a stationary object in the sky, can seem like that light or object is moving. Hell, people mistake planets for UFO's while stationary. Take for example this photo from a UFO site:

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The photo was taken on the 17th of May in 2012.

Do you know what was bright in the night sky in the first half of the year in 2012?

Venus and Jupiter.

It is actually more common than you realise. I explained that it is an optical illusion. Do you understand how this happens? Next time you drive your car at night, pick one object in the night sky out of your driver's side window, for example. Now check out your window as you drive in a straight line and you will see that it looks as though it is moving along with your car. Now, imagine that object is a very very bright planet, like Venus, at dawn or dusk.

And it is not just planets like Venus. Lenticular clouds also result in reports of UFO's.. For example:

In Texas on June 15, 2015 there were more than 50 reports of alien spacecraft hovering over the state. Meteorologists confirmed that the bizarre formations were in fact lenticular clouds although not everyone was convinced, including members of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON).​

The extent to which people pushed that they were UFO's was actually quite, well, spectacular and yes, despite some at MUFON stating they were lenticular clouds, people did remain unconvinced. Other UFO sites also reported they were UFO's, cloaking themselves in clouds:

Despite statements made by authorities and experts regarding the true identification of the clouds, reports submitted to the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) just keep on coming. On Wednesday, June 10, 2015, a citizen presented a similar incident that happened on May 16, 2015.

According to the post featured in the MUFON website, the individual wrote: "It looked like a cloud at first, but its appearance was circular and disappeared before there [sic] eyes." The report was made by the person in behalf of friends, who saw the actual incident.

"It will be cleared out as a lenticular cloud," says Fletcher Gray, MUFON volunteer chief investigator in Texas. He adds that due to combination of the low pressure system, lower temperatures in the upper atmosphere and occurrence of rains and hails lately, the submitted reports pertain to clouds only.

UFO enthusiasts said the sightings are "cloaked UFOs," which occur when the spaceships that travel in disguise as lenticular clouds de-cloaked. A total of 56 UFO sightings reported in the past month are still up for Gray's review at the moment, including a photograph of a green garbage can lid that a guy claimed is a UFO. ​

People are willing to believe anything, if they want it strongly enough.

Now, you have said that pilots do not often mistake Venus for a moving UFO. Do you have evidence to support that assertion? Because Venus is one of the brightest things in the sky at dawn or dusk and is the one thing that is most often mistaken for a UFO. Do you have any evidence to suggest otherwise?

I take it you still do not understand what Vallee meant in the full quote (from which you quoted a small portion, leaving out all context) and what I meant in responding to Yazata.

MR, you are demonstrating exactly what Vallee said in that quote. Take for example clear evidence that pilots mistake Venus for UFO's or even other planes, you respond with the assertion that they do not often mistake Venus for a UFO. Despite all evidence to the contrary. This is what Vallee meant by cult like beliefs among 'ufologists'. Do you understand now?

 

Magical Realist was presented with overwhelming evidence that the Portage County UFO was the planet Venus (mostly), but he refused to believe it. He just ignores evidence he doesn't like.

 

Hmm.. Why did you cut the rest of the sentence, which actually provides the context? In other words, why did you quote only a portion and take it so far out of context?

The sentence in full:

On the one hand, it actually answers your question. On the other hand, your taking it out of context actually turns it into a different thing altogether.

Pretty poor form, Yazata.

Yes, which was addressed in the sentence in full. But you chose to post it out of context and leave out that bit.

Yes I know. I have actually read a few of his books.

The book where he discusses the dangers of UFO cults is called "Messengers of Deception: UFO Contacts and Cults". He mentions it in his introduction of another book, which MR quoted from, out of context (what is it with the two of you!). And I would bet that MR has not read any of his works and seeing how he posted his quote, I'd wager he is pulling them from quote mining sites.

And oh yeah, I have read that book too.

The inter-dimensional beings, you mean?

Did you read Vallee's comments about research in California about alien abductions? How scientists found that people who had no experience with UFO's, etc, were suddenly recounting abduction events that were entirely invented in their own minds and how they were all virtually identical.. To wit, in the section titled "the abduction reports" in Messengers, Vallee sounds the warnings about just how easy it is to fool others into believing these stories of abductions and even pass lie detector tests and how 'we' are expected to view this as being somehow scientific. Where he complains about ufologists who resort to arguments about lie detector tests proving the existence of alien abductions and 'contact events', despite research that it is not realiable and despite the study in California which showed directly, how easily the mind can be led to or imagine a UFO abduction or contact scenario, despite the person having never experienced it.

Don't you find it interesting that MR seems to not latch on to those realities (or ideas) about UFO's?

I personally think he's a kook. But his books are entertaining.

I do, however, agree with his opinion of just how people are willing to believe that something is a UFO or aliens, despite a complete lack of evidence to support that claim. That what ufologists demands people accept as being scientific or real, has no basis in reality at all and is not scientific in the slightest.

I think most skeptics are the ones who keep saying that they are unknown. It's the believers who demand that they are aliens who are leaping above and beyond all rational thought, ignoring even clear cases of earthly objects, because it does not fit into what they want it to be.