UFOs (UAPs): Explanations?

MR:

Let's walk through the witness's statement one more time in more detail, since this is an educational experience for you.I will split up the text and add my comments. The witness's statement are indented. My comments are not.

I was camping on beautiful Mt. Shasta for five days, close to the peak not far from Panther Meadows. I was sitting out on my chair just staring at the beauty of the peak of the mountain as the sun was setting.
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The witness fails to record the exact date and time, or specify his location accurately, or note which direction he is looking in the sky from moment to moment. These are the most basic parameters of any competent UFO report. This witness has failed to give the most basic information to allow investigation. Instead, we had to deduce things from his other statements and from the date on which he posted the report.

About twenty minutes before it got dark I saw a bright white spherically shaped ball of light coming from a north-east direction
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The time indicator here narrows down the time window, at least. It is this, along with the vague location information that he was "close to the peak" on Mt Shasta.

The description here is very vague. The witness admits later that he has no clue what he's looking at. He describes it as a "white spherically shaped ball of light". Stars and planets are often white, or can look white. They are circular in appearance. The witness uses the word "sphere" when he most likely means "circle". To guess that something that looks circular might be spherical is understandable, but this is not what the witness actually observed. The "ball" description is interesting, though. It suggests that, possibly, the witness might have been able to discern that the object had a diameter, rather than being a point source. That would be consistent with looking at a planet rather than a star. It's hard to tell, though. It is quite possible to mistakenly report stars as looking like "balls", when actually they do not.

At first I told myself it must be a drone. But as it flew slowly and silently over the tops of the forest it it began to act like a strobe light.
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Stars and planets rising from near the horizon - as was seen by this witness - can certainly look like they are flying slowly. Certainly they are silent. The witness's mistake here is to assume that he's looking at something inside Earth's atmosphere. It is telling, however, that the witness does not appear to even have considered the possibility that he might be looking at something outside the Earth's atmosphere. He seems to have immediately jumped to the conclusion that the thing must be relatively close to him (within a few miles, as opposed to the actual distances of billions of miles or more).

It eventually flew over to, hmmm maybe a couple of thousand feet to the top of the mountain off to the right a bit from my angle. It basically just stopped or parked itself in one spot and began to strobe.
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The use of the word "eventually" here is instructive, especially following the previous description of the object's "flight" as "slowly". This is all consistent with watching the planet Mars (as it turns out) rising above the horizon due to the slow rotation of the Earth.

The "couple of thousand feet" estimate is pure guesswork. The witness clearly doesn't appreciate that he has no way to accurately judge the distance to the sighted object. Since he assumes, incorrectly, that the object is within a few miles of him, he deduces from the terrain nearby (and probably knowing the approximate height of the mountains) that the object might be "a couple of thousand feet" above the mountain top. This is a rookie error and he is completely unaware of the difficulty inherent in judging the distance to a small light in the sky by eye alone.

I just sat there and watched it wondering at this point if it was mechanical or spiritual because it could be anything.
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The witness has obviously been primed to think that a "spiritual" explanation is a live possibility when you see a light in the sky. By "mechanical", I assume the witness means that he wondered if the light could be artificial. After all, some lights are natural and others are artificial. No visible "mechanisms" are reported by the witness, so he has no actual cues that anything actually mechanical is involved.

By now, you should have noticed that this witness does not use language very precisely when making his statement. This tends to cast doubt on his other descriptions such as saying the object was "flying". By "flying", it seems likely that he is merely referring to the object being seen in the sky. Since he has already clearly assumed it is inside the Earth's atmosphere, he concludes that there must be something preventing it from falling to the ground - i.e. it is "flying". The slow movement that he observed is also, in his mind, consistent with the "flying" and "hovering" he has observed from man-made and animal objects.

This lack of facility with language also means we should take the description of the object "strobing" with a large grain of salt. Note that the witness does not provide details of the reported "strobe". Nowhere does he specify how often the thing blinked on an off, whether it ever dimmed completely, whether the "strobing" was regular or irregular, etc. This information is relevant, but he doesn't realise that, just like he doesn't realise that giving an accurate time, location and direction of observation is important.

 

(continued...)

It was by itself for about ten minutes or so and then, all of a sudden three more of the same bright white lights of spheres came from the same direction that the first one came. As they got closer to the first one they too began to strobe.
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In 10 minutes, the Earth rotates by 2.5 degrees, which means that a "new" 2.5 degree slice of sky rises above the horizon every 10 minutes and the whole sky rotates 2.5 degrees (bear in mind that it is 180 degrees from horizon to horizon). Clearly, "new" stars rising over the horizon (or nearby terrain) would be noticeable after 10 minutes, especially if any of those stars are especially bright. DaveC's investigation has shown that, in fact, some especially bright stars were rising in just the right place at just the right time to make it quite unsurprising (not to mention nicely consistent) that this witness reports seeing "new" lights after 10 minutes.

The witness describes the new lights as being "the same" as the first one he noticed. He does not talk about exact colour in any detail; he describes everything as "bright white lights". There is no way to know if this is accurate, but one point worth noting is that the human eye is not good at perceiving colour from point source lights at night. Vision of stars with the naked eye depends a lot on the rods in the eye rather than the cones. Rods are not sensitive to colour. This is one reason why stars tend to just look white with the naked eye, even though they vary in colour.

The colour of the planet Mars is noticeable with the naked eye, but it can go unremarked upon if it doesn't occur to you that it's different from the colour of a typical star.

Another factor is that these objects were seeing close to the horizon. Also, it wouldn't have been dark yet, so the residual twilight would make it much harder to pick out colour variations between stars and Mars. In fact, I think this is probably the dominant factor in this witness's report of the colour.

The witness does not give details about the relative spacing between the objects he reports - another relevant and important piece of data that he neglects to tell us about. Stars in the sky all rotate together - the apparent "distance" between stars doesn't change as they rise. This is consistent with the witness's (lack of) a statement about the spacing. Note that he does not say, anywhere, that the observed objects ever got closer or farther from one another, or that they flew around one another, or anything like that.

The witness does say "As they got closer to the first one ...". This is puzzling. We might be tempted to interpret this as a change in the relative spacing between the observed objects. However, given this witness's lack of facility with language, previously documented, I think that what he most likely means is "As they approached the initial location of the first one..." If that's what he means, again it wouldn't be surprising that he observed "strobing" when the new stars were at approximately the same location as the first one he saw, because presumably he would then be looking though similar atmosphere towards the new stars. It is reasonable to suppose that any "twinkling" observed would be similar.

They ended up stopping in place maybe five hundred feet or so from the first one. At this point I was taken back.
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This actually reinforces the previous interpretation of the witness's statement about getting closer to the first one. What the witness appears to be saying is that he noticed that the new stars stopped relative to the first one. That is, the spacing between the first one and the new ones did not change over time. Which, again, is totally consistent with looking at stars and/or the planet Mars.

This witness reports being "taken aback". There appears to be no reason for that reaction, unless the witness was expecting some other behaviour from objects he thought might be "spiritual" or "mechanical".

The guesstimate of "maybe five hundred feet" is obviously spurious and worthless, for reasons given above.

All four of these orbs where just sitting there for about 30 or 40 minutes flashing like a strobe light. They would get very bright and increase in size to up to maybe 3-4 times their initial size to decreasing in size and brightness to a barely visible low spherical light. I thought to myself they must be communicating or doing something energetically in that space.
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It is not clear what "just sitting there" means. Probably, it means that the objects appeared stationary relative to one another. After the stars/planet had risen sufficiently above the horizon, of course they would maintain the same apparent separation. But also, there movement relative to the terrain below would become less noticeable, because the witness was not focused on the spacing between the objects and the terrain.

This time, the objects are reported as "flashing like a strobe light". The problem here is again the lack of specificity in the witness's description. Strobe lights can flash slowly or very quickly or somewhere in between. Which was it? The witness doesn't tell us. The best we can say is that stars twinkle and that the witness's description is certainly consistent with observing twinkling stars, which could be described (somewhat inaccurately) as "flashing like a strobe light". We have already established that this witness is not good at precise descriptions - or at least has not attempted a precise description in this report.

I’ve had one other phenomenon of light happen on Mt. Shasta, well two others really at different times. I have been thinking about reaching out for months but for whatever reason I’m doing it now.”
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The witness says that the lights he saw "could have been anything". His addition at the end here, about "one other phenomenon of light" is a completely useless addendum, since no details are provided at all. That "one other phenomenon", one supposes, could also equally "have been anything". Quite possibly more stars and/or planets.

There is very little room for doubt at this point that this was a mistaken sighting of the planet Mars and some bright stars.

 

Yes, I'm well aware that the witness uses the word "flew". But "flew" is an interpretation - an assumption - not an observation. See above.

The use of the word "flew" goes nowhere towards proving that what was seen was not a star or planet.

Please read my posts above and acknowledge your error in your next post. Otherwise, I'll start to suspect you're trolling.

See above for details.

At this point, you will be aware that I have put loads more effort into this that you have. I have very helpfully walked you through the available evidence and its correct interpretation, in two slightly different ways.

Please acknowledge the help I have given you in your next post. It is polite to thank people who help you.