UFOs (UAPs): Explanations?

Tryin' to turn over a new leaf here, and hope others follow suit.

Mine too.

 

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It helps that people are ''under oath'' and the fear of perjury may help witnesses to be truthful, but I'm sure some aren't truthful, and it may be challenging to prove perjury. When witnesses are cross-examined however, that is when a jury can determine if the witness was originally telling the truth or not. So, I think my position now is witnesses are not entirely unreliable, unless proven to be otherwise.

In other words, in general, I'll give someone the benefit of the doubt, but when it comes to UAP's, it's pretty easy to tell right away, who is reliable and who isn't. MR had posted a video a few pages back about a guy who had a substance abuse problem, and he was burned by getting too close to an alleged UFO/space craft. That guy wasn't reliable in my opinion.

 

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OTOH if you hear the same account given by several independent witnesses, you are faced with accounting for that. How could they have seen the same thing if they are assumed to be in error? Short of positing some collusion between the witnesses, the only answer is that what they're saying is the truth. Multiple eyewitnesses giving the same account is a good way to rule out any assumed unreliability of single eyewitnesses. And the best ufo accounts do that.

 

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It is not always deliberate collusion. If the witnesses have a chance to communicate before they are interviewed, then it is likely their reports will be more similar than if they hadn't. This happens unconsciously. That's why it's difficult often to find multiple "pristine" witness accounts - though not unheard of.

Even if the witnesses don't collude, a poorly-executed interview with them can result in the same problem. For example, if they were interviewed by someone who is not an expert, (heck, it could just be the first reporter than reached them) the interviewer an inadvertently bias their recall.

This is not uncommon. Reading deep into some of the reports, you often find experts expressing frustration about the witnesses being influenced by contact with others, and spoiling the pristineness of the witness's recall of events.

The Ariel School UFO Incident in 1994 - one of the most famous UFO events on record - involves the interviewers expressing some of these frustrations.

Well, it's not the only answer, and "the truth" is too strong a term to describe it anyway.

Humans don't see "truth"; they see an interpretation of an imperfect image. (If humans saw truth, no one would ever accidentally drive through a red light, thinking it was green.) It's hard enough to get an accurate read of our surroundings on a good day, let alone when seeing something totally unprecedented.

There are other ways multiple witnesses can produce similar reports that do not correspond to reality.

It doesn't rule out unreliability, no.

Multiple eyewitness seeing the same thing certainly adds weight to a conclusion of bona fide events, yes.

 

Interesting article on science's role in investigating UAPs. My thanks to CC for finding it.

Why science suddenly has a lot to say about UFOs and UAP
UAP are no laughing matter anymore.
https://bigthink.com/hard-science/ufo-uap-science/

Excerpt:

"...A case in point is a paper recently posted on a scientific server by three scientists from the Main Astronomical Observatory of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. For their study, Boris Zhilyaev and colleagues used two observation stations — one in Kyiv, and the other 120 kilometers away. Color video cameras recorded objects moving across the daytime sky at high speed, with exposure times set to just one millisecond and the frame rate set to no slower than 50 frames per second.

The cameras did record several hits. Some of the objects were luminous, while other very dark objects registered zero albedo, meaning they reflected no sunlight. What all of the objects shared in common, though, was that they were moving at extremely high velocities — up to 282 kilometers per second. Compare that with the Earth’s escape velocity of 11.2 km/s, which is the speed required to overcome our planet’s gravity and escape into space. No physical human-engineered object could get close to such velocities within the Earth’s atmosphere. Yet based on colorimetric methods, the scientists determined that the observed objects were only a few miles above our planet’s surface.

Interestingly, the data showed that the objects’ brightness was correlated with their speed. That might lead us to speculate whether these objects are extraterrestrial spacecraft using some unknown propulsion system. Here again, science provides at least some help. Based on papers such as one published in 2010 by Harold Puthoff from the Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin in Texas, we can theorize what the signatures of exotic propulsion systems might be. If a ship had a kind of warp drive capable of modifying the space-time continuum, nearby observers might see a blue-shift toward higher frequencies of light, observe time running faster, and feel the presence of anti-gravitational forces..."

 

True, but we're not talking about a crime, in this example. I'm talking about a drug/substances abuse user who is making wild allegations (they were wild to me) about getting close to an unidentifiable aircraft, and no one anywhere in the vicinity saw the spacecraft land. Only him. He had burns, etc...

Remember this story a few pages back? You thought maybe the guy had fallen on a bbq grid, which is also funny. I just think the whole thing was made up...how he had burns on his body, not sure. But, no way a UFO landed and flew away, and only he saw it.

 

From the article:

• The reason is simple: We now have the means and the sample size to apply the scientific method to UAP sightings. You cannot take a sighting, stick it in a lab, and replicate the observations. This is true no matter how many people observed the phenomenon.

We were just discussing the scientific method and how I didn't really understand how it could be applied to UAP sightings, and other reports. I'm skeptical that space aliens have visited Earth, but how impressive that using the scientific method may give us some clues.

CC - nice article!

So, just a random science question...(human-made) rockets ''overcome'' Earth's gravity, so I'm confused by what they mean by the statement ''No physical human-engineered object could get close to such velocities within the Earth’s atmosphere.'' Could someone explain?

 

"A rocket, continuously accelerated by its exhaust, can escape without ever reaching escape speed, since it continues to add kinetic energy from its engines. It can achieve escape at any speed, given sufficient propellant to provide new acceleration to the rocket to counter gravity's deceleration and thus maintain its speed."--- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_velocity

 

I didn't read the article but I assume that's because of the friction (and heat) that would be generated by the atmosphere. Maybe there are talking about at those speeds, you would no longer be within Earth's atmosphere?

 

These are two very different scenarios.

Human-engineered objects have an upoper limit on their velocity within the atmo because
1] the drag increases exponentially, and at some point in its acceleration it require more thrust than any propulsion we have, and
2] that drag creates heat, and at some point, given sufficient gain in velocity, any human craft will melt and disintegrate.

A rocket is designed to achieve its very high velocities outside the bulk of the atmosphere, expressly because of 1] and 2]. This is why rockets start by pointing up, rather than down range. The first few minutes of flight are intended to get out of the thickest part of the atmo as soon as practival, before it turns horizontal(ish) to speed up down range.

While that may be true, it is kind of a red herring, since it only applies in space, and not - as wegs' question specifies - in atmosphere. No human craft could achieve escape velocity while in the atmo.

 

I don’t want to open any can of worms.

 

it could. It would just require a nuclear explosion under it…

 

Note that the question is in the context of UAP sightings, (and whether they could be human craft).
1. Humans don't have such technology.
2. Also, pretty sure if a UAP were emitting a nuclear explosion every second, that would show up in the report.
3. And, as before, it would still disintegrate from heat caused by friction with the atmo.

 

You think a nuclear explosion can acceleate a human craft such that it is travelling 11km/s in the atmosphere? Care to share your thought process / calculations?

 

Thank you for explaining this! So, what the article pointed out was that these “UFO’s” could achieve escape velocity while IN the atmosphere. Okay, got it.

So, does this point to space alien life? Potentially? Seeing that the article states that no humanly engineered craft can currently do this. Could there be another explanation for these “UFO’s” ?

 

If it were concluded that this escape velocity, all it points to is that it's not anything we know we can do. Who did/can do it, is still a matter of speculation.

Certainly. That the above interpretation of observations is incorrect.

We do not know of any way artificial craft can move at escape velocity in the atmo.
We do know of many ways that humans can misinterpret dynamic artifacts (whether naked eye or via devices).

 

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2208.11215.pdf

Conclusions of the UAP study:


" The Main Astronomical Observatory of NAS of Ukraine conducts a study of UAP. We used two meteor stations installed in Kyiv and in the Vinarivka village in the south of the Kyiv region. 7 8 Observations were performed with colour video cameras in the daytime sky. A special observation technique had developed for detecting and evaluating UAP characteristics. There are two types of UAP, conventionally called Cosmics, and Phantoms. Cosmics are luminous objects, brighter than the background of the sky. Phantoms are dark objects, with contrast from several to about 50 per cent. We observed a broad range of UAPs everywhere. We state a significant number of objects whose nature is not clear. Flights of single, group and squadrons of the ships were detected, moving at speeds from 3 to 15 degrees per second. Some bright objects exhibit regular brightness variability in the range of 10 - 20 Hz. Two-site observations of UAPs at a base of 120 km with two synchronised cameras allowed the detection of a variable object, at an altitude of 1170 km. It flashes for one hundredth of a second at an average of 20 Hz. Phantom shows the colour characteristics inherent in an object with zero albedos. We see an object because it shields radiation due to Rayleigh scattering. An object contrast made it possible to estimate the distance using colorimetric methods. Phantoms are observed in the troposphere at distances up to 10 - 12 km. We estimate their size from 3 to 12 meters and speeds up to 15 km/s."

 

You did not engage in analysis of the last thing you posted; except for comments about the disposition of the poster.

Now you're on to the next shiny thing. Here, you post the entire opening section of an article word-for-word, without any contribution of your own.

What is asserted without argument can be dismissed without argument.

Not auspicious for good-faith discussion moving forward.

 

This is the same study I mentioned before. It details in scientific terms the measurements of UAPs in terms of velocity, altitude, size, and luminosity. It proves that contrary to other opinions science CAN study this phenomena and reach helpful conclusions about its nature. All that is needed now is further studies to replicate the results. NASA's investigation may provide studies of this nature that solidly establish the existence UAPs. As far as what they are, we are still largely in the dark. I guess we'll have to wait and see what they come up with.