The rest of that pseudo-sensible piece I'll leave to Yazata to deal with - if he chooses to respond at all.
I post here (less and less) in order to discuss topics that I find interesting with people that I consider friends. If people want to disagree with anything I've said, that's their perogative. But I feel no interest or obligation to battle endlessly, especially in cases where what we might call "irreconcilable differences" exist. All that leads to is endless arguing in circles with no denouement in sight. That isn't enjoyable for me.
I'll just say that my position regarding the 'tic tacs' has always been this (quote from post #3695 on p. 185 of this thread):
"As I stated
over and over, my preliminary hypothesis at this point has nothing to do with alien spaceships and is merely that
something appears to have been physically there, and I don't know what it was. Simple and defensible."
http://sciforums.com/threads/in-defence-of-space-aliens.160045/page-185#post-3616963
Or post #3266 of this thread (p.164):
"My personal opinion is that if something reflects radar energy, is observable both visually and by cameras, and seemingly has physical effects on its surroundings (the water turbulence), then it seems reasonable (to me anyway) to hypothesize that something was physically there.
I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IT ACTUALLY WAS.
I have
NEVER argued that it was space aliens. (In this thread or any other thread.) I do hold that open as a possibility, but would give it a fairly low probability in my own estimation. My own speculations run towards some unknown and highly secret experimental aircraft type. (Although these things' observed performance seems to me to be far in excess of the current aeronautical engineering state-of-the-art.)
My argument in my last post was that arguments have repeatedly been made that each observational modality (radar, visual, cameras) might have flaws (however speculative and fanciful those flaws might be).
But the likelihood that all of those flaws coming together and co-occurring at the same time and place in just such a way so as the whole sequence of errors coheres into what appears to be a single physical event seems very remote (to me anyway). By far the simplest and most straight-forward hypothesis was that something was physically there that the radar detected, the pilots saw and their cameras recorded.
That's what I'm going with."
http://sciforums.com/threads/in-defence-of-space-aliens.160045/page-164#post-3610700
The UAP Preliminary Assessment's Executive Summary says.
"Most of the UAP reported probably do represent physical objects given that a majority of UAP were registered across multiple sensors, to include radar, infrared, electro-optical, weapon seekers, and visual observation."
That seems to coincide with my preliminary hypothesis stated above almost 100%
"In a limited number of incidents, UAP reportedly appeared to exhibit unusual flight characteristics. These observations could be the result of sensor errors, spoofing, or observer misperception and require additional rigorous analysis."
and on the subject of unusual flight characteristics:
"The UAPTF holds a small amount of data that appear to show UAP demonstrating acceleration or a degree of signature management. Additional rigorous analysis are necessary by multiple teams or groups of technical experts to determine the nature and validity of these data. We are conducting further analysis to determine if breakthrough technologies were demonstrated."
I have no objection to that. I certainly don't know precisely what the unusual flight characteristics were since that kind of detail is found in the classified report that neither I nor the critics have access to. In fact, my own hypothesis stated earlier in this thread was that the 'tic tacs' were experimental UCAVs (unmanned combat air vehicles). If they display flight characteristics too far in advance of the engineering state of the art, then my hypothesis becomes less likely, not more likely.
But bottom line here is that I have no way of knowing whether additional rigorous analysis will or won't verify the unusual flight characteristics and neither do our discussion board skeptics. But I do feel very strongly that the possibility can't simply be dismissed with sneers, sarcasm and ridicule. Doing so might be very disfunctional if in fact there is something there that we really need to know about.
Regarding sneers and ridicule, the Preliminary Assessment has this to say:
"Narratives from aviators in the operational community and analysts from the military and IC describe disparagement associated with observing UAP, reporting it, or attempting to discuss it with colleagues. Although the effects of these stigmas have lessened as senior members of the scientific, policy, military, and Intelligence communities engage on the topic seriously in public, reputational risk may keep many observers silent, complicating scientific pursuit of the topic."
They go on to say:
"The UAP documented in this limited dataset demonstrate an array of aerial behaviors, reinforcing the possibility there are multiple types of UAP requiring different explanations. Our analysis of the data supports the construct that if and when individual UAP incidents are resolved they will fall into one of five potential explanatory categories: airborne clutter, natural atmospheric phenomena, USG or industry developmental programs, foreign adversary systems, and a catchall "other" bin. With the exception of the one instance where we determined with high confidence that the reported UAP was airborne clutter, specifically a deflating balloon, we currently lack sufficient information in our dataset to attribute incidents to specific explanations."
Which seems to me to display an admirable "skeptical" attitude, a reluctance to draw premature conclusions as opposed to either a UFO "true-believer" or a determined "debunking" stance.
And in conclusion, showing that they are taking the phenomenon seriously:
"UAP pose a hazard to safety of flight and could pose a broader danger if some instances represent sophisticated collection against U.S. military activities by a foreign government or demonstrate a breakthrough aerospace technology by a potential adversary."
https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf
That's basically my position as well, so I'll let the Office of the Director of National Intelligence speak for me on this matter.
