UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record

[Hurkyl]

So, to conclude, I think w can all agree that the UFO phenomenon yields no evidence of extraterrestrial visitation.

The evidence is inadequate, at worst -- it is definitely not nonexistent.

The best explanation for the prevalence of reports is: confusion, illusion, delusion, and hoax. ... Until better evidence is available, these seem to be the best explanations

They may be the best hypotheses and/or rationalizations, but I don't think they count an explanation unless they actually have evidence supporting them

 

[FlexGunship]

They may be the best hypotheses and/or rationalizations, but I don't think they count an explanation unless they actually have evidence supporting them

Hmm...

"Explanation" does imply a definite result which isn't available in some cases. It can be shown that a significant number are adequately explained by "confusion, illusion, delusion and hoax"... but, you're right, for the remaining 1% it can only be put forth as the best hypothesis.

 

[jreelawg]

Fresh Report of UFO Over China Marks 8th Time Since June
Flashing Lights in the Sky Prompt Shut Down of Airport in Inner Mongolia

http://abcnews.go.com/International/fresh-report-ufo-chinas-skies/story?id=11814100

 

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http://abcnews.go.com/International/fresh-report-ufo-chinas-skies/story?id=11814100

Interesting story. Noteworthy, is ..

The Chinese government had said on previous occasions that the lights claimed to be UFOs were military exercises ..

One side or the others - a definite possibility.

 

[alt]

Explain to your gullible friend that it equals "holy trinity". Hell, I'm an atheist and even I know this ****

Don't want to labor on this, but the palm sign thing is not the holy trinity - it is JC saying 'I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end' etc.

... what happened to this thread?!

I think someone started posting lots of religious iconology for some reason, with labels such as .. "doves with laser beam, saucers with laser beam" etc, though it seems now, the opposite was intended. Very apt to confuse, that !

 

[alt]

Interesting story. Noteworthy, is ..

The Chinese government had said on previous occasions that the lights claimed to be UFOs were military exercises ..

One side or the others - a definite possibility.

.. and from page 2 of the same report;

A day after the sighting, however, an anonymous source told China Daily that authorities already discovered the identity of the UFO after an investigation but could not publically disclose the information because "there was a military connection."

The pic on the same page, taken by a civilian, doesn't look like venus, or gas, or hallucination. Very interesting. Looks very man made to me, albeit probably on the quiet !

 

[jreelawg]

http://abcnews.go.com/International/fresh-report-ufo-chinas-skies/story?id=11814100

I really don't know how to interpret this one. Are news agencies like ABC, held to strict accuracy policy?

In the video, it looks like the beam on one of the UFOs might be photoshopped, in the way that it appears to be in front of the tree. It could be an illusion, or a camera effect, or something.

One thing odd to me, is the reoccurrence of UFO's at the airport. If the Chinese military admit that some of the lights are the result of a military experiment, why are they doing it over the airport? Accidental? If it was top secret, why would they admit it was them?

 

[alt]

I really don't know how to interpret this one. Are news agencies like ABC, held to strict accuracy policy?

In the video, it looks like the beam on one of the UFOs might be photoshopped, in the way that it appears to be in front of the tree. It could be an illusion, or a camera effect, or something.

One thing odd to me, is the reoccurrence of UFO's at the airport. If the Chinese military admit that some of the lights are the result of a military experiment, why are they doing it over the airport? Accidental? If it was top secret, why would they admit it was them?

When they said military, did they say it was theirs ? I couldn't see that. Might have missed it though, even though I've checked.

 

[jreelawg]

When they said military, did they say it was theirs ? I couldn't see that. Might have missed it though, even though I've checked.

Your right, it does just say they claimed that some other lights, thought to be UFO's, were military experiments.

But, it would be kind of a funny thing for a military experiment to be carried out in a foreign county at an airport. Or in your own country at an airport for that matter. Imagine the mess they would cause if they crashed a plane.

 

[alt]

Your right, it does just say they claimed that some other lights, thought to be UFO's, were military experiments.

But, it would be kind of a funny thing for a military experiment to be carried out in a foreign county at an airport. Or in your own country at an airport for that matter. Imagine the mess they would cause if they crashed a plane.

Well, even without crashing a plane, it would be pretty stoopid to do military experiments / exercises over your own countries airport - and draw all this attention to your military.

A hoax by Chinese or foreigners would be unlikely too. The authorities would have caught up with them by now, and dealt with them severly and probably, quite publicly. If I wanted to perpetrate a UFO hoax, last place would be over an airport, particularly if I was a Chinese citizen in China.

It doesn't look like a hallucination, or gas, or Venus.

And a mistaken conventional aircraft would have been ID'd by now ? Maybe not - maybe that's the most likely explanation.

 

[FlexGunship]

I really don't know how to interpret this one. Are news agencies like ABC, held to strict accuracy policy?

: Uproarious laughter:

Have you watched MSNBC or Fox? It actually seems as if news agencies are actively trying to avoid unbiased stories.

It doesn't look like a hallucination, or gas, or Venus.

And a mistaken conventional aircraft would have been ID'd by now ? Maybe not - maybe that's the most likely explanation.

Heh... doesn't look like a hallucination. Touche.

One of the images is clearly a long exposure taken of a stationary object. The unsteadiness of human hands of obvious. The problem is, if a single image like that is considered evidence, what other mistakes are being allowed?

 

[alt]

: Uproarious laughter:

Have you watched MSNBC or Fox? It actually seems as if news agencies are actively trying to avoid unbiased stories.



Heh... doesn't look like a hallucination. Touche.

One of the images is clearly a long exposure taken of a stationary object. The unsteadiness of human hands of obvious. The problem is, if a single image like that is considered evidence, what other mistakes are being allowed?

A long exposure taken of a stationery object - I'm nearly all the way with you on that. But one thing; would there still be 2 or 3 sets of twin dots (lights) in that case ? Wouldn't they be blurred into a streak too ?


Edit would/wouldn't

 

[FlexGunship]

A long exposure taken of a stationery object - I'm nearly all the way with you on that. But one thing; would there still be 2 or 3 sets of twin dots (lights) in that case ? Wouldn't they be blurred into a streak too ?Edit would/wouldn't

Not necessarily. As an avid astrophotographer, I'm used to seeing it (bump the tripod, or try to catch a quick shot by hand). All it means is that the camera was relatively stationary for a brief moment. If you think of the CCD or CMOS sensor as always accepting photons when the shutter is open, then when more photons hit one area repeatedly, the charge adds up and you get a bring point.

This picture looks as though it was steady twice with some shifting motion in between and before or after. I was just looking through my uploaded pictures to see if I could find a good example, but it turns out I don't usually upload bad pictures. Sorry.

I suggest you try it with a parked car and an exposure on the order of 3 to 10 seconds. If you have a sufficiently dark background, you should be able to create the effect.

 

[603nothing]

my dad may work at a nuclear plant, and he said lately they may have been having oddball briefings on where the plants see themselves in the future and operation changes. he didn't get into too much detail with me (his son, right?) but said things haven't been uniform like they may have been in the past 8 years or so.

 

[FlexGunship]

my dad may work at a nuclear plant, and he said lately they may have been having oddball briefings on where the plants see themselves in the future and operation changes. he didn't get into too much detail with me (his son, right?) but said things haven't been uniform like they may have been in the past 8 years or so.

You're talking about Seabrook, right? I've got friends that work there, and I live nearby. Just SOP. The plant is coming to the end of it's life; that's all. They are working on deciding to either ramp up production of the second reactor (which was never installed), or close out the plant entirely. The state legislature has been dealing with it for a while.

There have been two NRC inspections in the last two months, as well. Maybe you posted in the wrong thread?

 

[603nothing]

^yep that's kind of the impression I got from him, he's about to retire so I think it's ok. funny small world!
I live in salem btw.

 

[jreelawg]

Have you watched MSNBC or Fox? It actually seems as if news agencies are actively trying to avoid unbiased stories.

Yes, but usually when it comes to politics. What can we say about the latest trend of UFO reporting and mainstream news agencies? Has there been a shift? In a few years, will they be reporting ghost sightings? Maybe it's normal, I just hadn't noticed before?

 

[FlexGunship]

Yes, but usually when it comes to politics. What can we say about the latest trend of UFO reporting and mainstream news agencies? Has there been a shift? In a few years, will they be reporting ghost sightings? Maybe it's normal, I just hadn't noticed before?

If you look at the way the media handled the Mexican air force sighting, you'll have a good metric of how UFOs are handled.

1. Instantly report whatever you're told
2. Find anyone claiming to be an expert
3. Broadcast the crap out of it

In the case of the Mexican UFO, ABC had UFOlogists on before anyone bothered to check out their backgrounds.

I remember a particularly spicy (if not slightly unrelated) moment on MSNBC where the anchor woman realized halfway through the interview that the UFOlogist was a total nut job, and kept trying to end the interview.

This also happened when Jack Thompson appeared on several news agency's prime time news as a "school shooting expert" during and after the Virginia Tech massacre to blame video games.

In a Fox News interview conducted several hours after the shooting occurred and before the killer was identified, controversial lawyer Jack Thompson, referred to by Fox News as a "School Shootings Expert", stated that the shootings were motivated from playing violent video games. There were claims that Cho was a devoted player of Counter-Strike, but further investigation revealed little to no proof of gaming activities.[13] Thompson even went as far as blaming Bill Gates for promoting the game and ordering him to take it offline even though Counter-Strike is owned and operated by Valve.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_coverage_of_the_Virginia_Tech_massacre#Inaccurate_media_reports

The major media/news outlets are much more interested in getting your attention first, than being accurate about it. This means that, in order to get the news out quicker, they must sacrifice some accuracy in the process.

 

[jreelawg]

The major media/news outlets are much more interested in getting your attention first, than being accurate about it. This means that, in order to get the news out quicker, they must sacrifice some accuracy in the process.

True, but they usually try and get there facts strait at the same time. To make the story compelling, they have a bunch of opinions and bring about speculation. So they say, "according to blank", but at least they usually try and quote people correctly. If your the journalist, making an untrue statement as a fact is practically suicide.

Claims in this report, are as follows:

A Chinese airport was shut down for more than an hour last month because air traffic controllers saw what they believed to be a UFO buzzing the airport, according to reports out of the country.
..
The alert was triggered by bright lights in the sky that moved erratically, but reports claim that air traffic controllers at the Hohhot Air Traffic Management Bureau spotted the object on their radar.
..
The Chinese government had said on previous occasions that the lights claimed to be UFOs were military exercises, but the government denied the Sept. 11 incident happened at all.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/fresh-report-ufo-chinas-skies/story?id=11814100

Which reports claim?

 

[jreelawg]

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-07/09/content_10084698.htm

Here are the two pictures from the China Daily report.

The first is the same as the close up suspected to be a long exposure.

 

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http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-07/09/content_10084698.htm

Here are the two pictures from the China Daily report.

The first is the same as the close up suspected to be a long exposure.

The 1st pic - the one on the left, sure seems suspect. Note the building on the left - the roof line seems to have a parallel 'ghost' image - probably a result of double / long exposure. As does the power line cable near it.

Edit;
In fact, I just turned my screen brightness up - the building on the right has the same thing.

 

[alt]

Not necessarily. As an avid astrophotographer, I'm used to seeing it (bump the tripod, or try to catch a quick shot by hand). All it means is that the camera was relatively stationary for a brief moment. If you think of the CCD or CMOS sensor as always accepting photons when the shutter is open, then when more photons hit one area repeatedly, the charge adds up and you get a bring point.

This picture looks as though it was steady twice with some shifting motion in between and before or after. I was just looking through my uploaded pictures to see if I could find a good example, but it turns out I don't usually upload bad pictures. Sorry.

I suggest you try it with a parked car and an exposure on the order of 3 to 10 seconds. If you have a sufficiently dark background, you should be able to create the effect.

This picture looks as though it was steady twice with some shifting motion in between and before or after

Sure looks like it.

 

[603nothing]

are there really any pictures out there that would actually be convincing? LOL...please explain

 

[jreelawg]

This picture looks as though it was steady twice with some shifting motion in between and before or after

Sure looks like it.

Yes, but when you compare the "UFO", and the buildings, the degree of shift is only enough to make the "UFO" less wide. And this would also explain why it looks so funny.

I agree it seams suspicious, however according to the source, this picture was taken in a place and time which correlates with the "UFO" that was supposedly caught on radar and caused the airport to shutdown.

 

[FlexGunship]

Yes, but when you compare the "UFO", and the buildings, the degree of shift is only enough to make the "UFO" less wide. And this would also explain why it looks so funny.

We'll I don't suspect the buildings covered much ground during the time of the exposure (maybe ~2 seconds), however the object in the sky is almost certainly moving. Further more you can see that it has a blinking light.

I suggest you compare it carefully to a long exposure image of a known aircraft. This picture was taken with a tripod. Which means it doesn't have the "unintentional blur."

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Long_exposure_photograph_of_aircraft.JPG

Simply image that only a fraction of the time is the shutter left open, and that it is skewed slightly. The UFO picture was probably done with a point-and-shoot which will also artificially raise the brightness on the image if it's average luminance is too low. So some details might be washed out.

I agree it seams suspicious, however according to the source, this picture was taken in a place and time which correlates with the "UFO" that was supposedly caught on radar and caused the airport to shutdown.

Caught on radar? Further supports the airplane theory.

EDIT!

I change my guess to "long exposure helicopter!"

 

[jreelawg]

I change my guess to "long exposure helicopter!"

I think you nailed it.

 

[alt]

Now all we got to do is work out why they would shut down the airport - if indeed that was the case. If it was, could it be because of some itinerant / new / inexperienced pilot getting lost / disorientated and presenting a hazard to air traffic ?

And why would the authority claim 'military exersises' ? To cover up the above stupidity, particularly if it was one of theirs ?

(I'm just taking some guesses here)

 

[FlexGunship]

Now all we got to do is work out why they would shut down the airport - if indeed that was the case. If it was, could it be because of some itinerant / new / inexperienced pilot getting lost / disorientated and presenting a hazard to air traffic ?

And why would the authority claim 'military exersises' ? To cover up the above stupidity, particularly if it was one of theirs ?

(I'm just taking some guesses here)

Well, China has a reputation for covering any "slip ups" not just catastrophic ones.

It's possible that the pilot of the helicopter was on government business, but simply didn't file a flight plan. Perhaps he suffered a fuel shortage and was forced to land prematurely. Or, maybe there was a crime and the suspect had evaded capture by Chinese officials (there seems to be a faint glow below the helicopter in the image suggesting a search light sweeping out a large arc).

Do what you need to do... everyone else be damned... then cover it up as thought there were no mistakes made. Here in the U.S. we have become accustomed to public employees being held accountable (usually), but the same is not true in most other nations. Step one is usually to establish the infallibility of the ruling government.

EDIT: After posting this, I actually did a search for admitted Chinese government mistakes. Even small slip ups. I can't find a record of any of them that have been openly admitted to. Oddly, the same was true of Iran, Libya, India, and the UAE. I'm not suggesting they have something in common, I'm just pointing it out.

EDIT PART 2: I have found Iran admitting that the US has made a mistake on many occasions. Israel is clean, they admitted to a mistake recently. An ex-ruler of Pakistan admitted to mistakes. Tiger Woods is clean. Pachauri admitted to a mistake on the IPCC report, and he's an Indian, but not a member of the ruling party.

 

[FlexGunship]

I don't usually like double-posts, but this doesn't really fit within the purview of my previous post above. I think we should all pull a really important piece of information.

This event was most likely a helicopter. Yet, individuals on the ground reported it (obviously) as NOT being a helicopter. Or at least there are no reports of a helicopter being photographed in China on the news.

Next time someone says in a UFO report: "It wasn't a helicopter, that's for sure." Let's all be skeptical of that claim. Even if he or she starts saying "it didn't make any noise... it had no marker lights... it didn't behave like a helicopter." Those are some of the same things that we've understood from this report. There was even a heavy handed government cover-up with radar confirmation, and everything!

But it was just a helicopter.

EDIT: Lastly, what would we be thinking about this UFO report, if we didn't have this picture? Did the increase in evidence point us more strongly to an otherworldly or secret military explanation? That seems to be a prevailing trend; the more information you have, the more mundane the event.

EDIT 2: Just fixing typos. Sorry.

 

[alt]

I don't usually like double-posts, but this doesn't really fit within the purview of my previous post above. I think we should all pull a really important piece of information.

This even was most likely a helicopter. Yet, individuals on the ground reported it (obviously) as NOT being a helicopter. Or at least there are no reports of a helicopter being photographed in China on the news.

Next time someone says in a UFO report: "It was a helicopter, that's for sure." Let's all be skeptical of that claim. Even if he or she starts saying "it didn't make any noise... it had no marker lights... it didn't behave like a helicopter." Those are some of the same things that we've understood from this report. There was even a heavy handed government cover-up with radar confirmation, and everything!

But it was just a helicopter.

EDIT: Lastly, what would we be thinking about this UFO report, if we didn't have this picture? Did the increase in evidence point us more strongly to an otherworldly or secret military explanation? That seems to be a prevailing trend; the more information you have, the more mundane the event.

In this case, the increase in evidence did quickly resolve the matter. And I agree with you on the prevailing trend.

It is not a fait accompli, however, that they must all fit into this trend.

(Though granted, the vast majority are little more than fête champêtre .. lol ..)