(2024-03-13, 10:46 PM)sbu Wrote: [ -> ]I engage with objective evidence, not with anecdotal evidence. A risk of relying on anecdotal evidence is that it can be used to spread misinformation and manipulate public opinion. Anecdotal evidence can be easily fabricated, exaggerated, or cherry-picked to support a certain agenda or narrative. Anecdotal evidence can also appeal to emotions, stereotypes, or prejudices that can sway people's judgments and decisions. Anecdotal evidence can also be used to discredit or undermine credible sources of evidence that contradict one's claims or interests.
I don’t doubt that there are people who think they have seen an UFO. But much more likely they have seen something mundane and interpreted what they saw according to their imagination. Without objective data how can others asses such accounts?
I mainly posted the quote by Denise for fun as she writes for the Discovery Institute who generally advocates for a viewpoint (ID) I know nbtruthman agrees with. Apparently UFOs aren’t on their agenda.
You complacently pronounce all the UFO cases I cited plus any and all others as mere "anecdotes" and consequently worthless, just imagination and misinterpretation of "mundane " events. This is laughable when actually considering the data in detail. It is ignoring so many corroborating factors - for instance what about the expertise of the observers who were sometimes pilots and police officers, multiple witness confirmations, and instrumental detection of accompanying electromagnetic phenomena?
I cite again the study report Fifty-Six Aircraft Pilot Sightings Involving E-M Effects – Haines (1992), at
http://www.nicap.org/papers/92apsiee.htm . Explain that away.
The Abstract of that report:
Quote:Reports of anomalous aerial objects (AAO) appearing in the atmosphere continue to be made by pilots of almost every airline and air force of the world in addition to private and experimental test pilots. This paper presents a review of 56 reports of AAO in which electromagnetic effects (E-M) take place on-board the aircraft when the phenomenon is located nearby but not before it appeared or after it had departed. These effects are not related to the altitude or airspeed of the aircraft. The average duration of these sightings was 17.5 minutes in the 37 cases in which duration was noted. There were between one and 40 eye witnesses (average = 2.71) on the aircraft. Reported E-M effects included radio interference or total failure, radar contact with and without simultaneous visual contact, magnetic and/or gyro-compass deviations, automatic direction finder failure or interference, engine stopping or interruption, dimming cabin lights, transponder failure, and military aircraft weapon system failure. There appears to be a reduction of the E-M energy effect with the square of increasing distance to the AAO. These events and their relationships are discussed. This area of research should be concentrated on by other investigators because of the wealth of information it yields and the physical nature of AAO including wavelength/frequency and power density emissions.
Let's try an acid test. There is the old saying: "the Devil is in the details". How about producing a plausible detailed point-by-point explaining away of each of the following two classic cases from my files, rather than just a vague blanket closed-minded dismissal? We're waiting.
(1) -- The Nash-Fortenberry UFO sighting
Location: Over Chesapeake Bay, VA
July 1952
The Nash-Fortenberry UFO sighting was an unidentified flying object sighting that occurred on July 14, 1952, when two experienced commercial pilots (William B. Nash and William H. Fortenberry) saw eight UFOs flying in a tight echelon formation over Chesapeake Bay in the state of Virginia. Though the encounter lasted only twelve to fifteen seconds, Nash and Fortenberry were able to offer a detailed moment-by-moment chronology of events, and a relatively accurate measurement of the objects’ motion and size when compared to well-known attractions. Both pilots were World War II U.S. Navy veterans, and had been trained in identification of enemy aircraft — Nash was a Naval Air Transport veteran who specialized in anti-submarine patrols, while Fortenberry worked with the Navy’s air experimental wing.
Nash stated that the sighting consisted of “six bright objects streaking towards us at tremendous speed…They had the fiery aspect of hot coals, but of a much greater glow…Their shape was clearly outlined and evidently circular!” He would go on to state that this color was the same on each craft, which themselves glowed around “twenty times” brighter than the city lights below them.
A little more of the extensive detailed sighting by two expert observers, from
https://www.ufoinsight.com/ufos/sighting...nberry-ufo :
The closer the objects got to the airliner the clearer the two men could see they were in a purposeful “narrow echelon formation”. The leader, according to Nash, was the “lowest” in the formation, with “each following craft slightly higher”. Then, the leader appeared to attempt to slow suddenly. Nash would continue:
“We received this impression because the second and third wavered slightly and seemed almost to overrun the leader, so that for a brief moment during the remainder of their approach the positions of these three varied. It looked very much as if an element of “human” or “intelligence” error had been introduced in so far as the following two did not react soon enough when the leader began to slow down and so almost overran him!”
As the two men continued to observe the row of glowing circular objects, they suddenly and with lightning speed changed their direction. They would “flip” on their edges with the glowing surface facing the pilots’ right. As they did so, the bottoms of the craft were “not clearly visible”.
This would lead the pilots to believe that the bottoms of the craft were, in fact, unlighted. The same appeared true for the edge of the objects. Nash would describe their overall appearance as being “much like coins”.
This encounter was corroborated by several groups of independent ground witnesses. The case has been recorded in the United States Air Force Blue book project as “unknown”, despite all their efforts to explain it away as something conventional. Major Dewey Fournet, who was involved with the Project Blue Book project years later, indicated that the incident was “one of the most detailed and reliable cases” of the times.
(2) - - The RB-47 multiple air and ground electromagnetic signals interaction case.
This is summarized at
https://science.howstuffworks.com/space/...47-ufo.htm. This has been considered one of the best UFO vehicle cases ever. A better and more detailed account is at
http://www.noufors.com/the_RB-47_ufo_encounter.html .
“Possessing the most sophisticated electronic intelligence (ELINT) gear available to the U.S. Air Force, the RB-47 could handle anything.
Unfortunately, in the morning hours of July 17, 1957, over the southern United States, an RB-47 came across something it was unprepared for.
In the first hint of what was to come, one of the three officers who operate the electronic countermeasures (ECM) equipment detected an odd signal. Moving up the radar screen, the blip passed some distance in front of the RB-47, then over Mississippi. Though puzzled, he said nothing. However, a few minutes later, at 4:10 A.M., the sudden appearance of an intense blue light bearing down on the aircraft shook the pilot and copilot. Even more unnerving, the object changed course in the blink of an eye and disappeared at the two o’clock position. The aircraft radar picked up a strong signal in the same spot. The UFO maintained this position even as the RB-47 continued toward east Texas.
The pilot then observed a “huge” light, attached, he suspected, to an even bigger something that the darkness obscured. When the electronics gear noted the presence of another UFO in the same general location as the first, the pilot turned the plane and accelerated toward it. The UFO shot away. By now the crew had alerted the Duncanville, Texas, Air Force ground radar station, and it was soon tracking the one UFO that remained (the second had disappeared after a brief time). At 4:50 radar showed the UFO abruptly stopping as the RB-47 passed under it. Barely seconds later it was gone.
This incredible case — considered one of the most significant UFO reports ever — remained classified for years. When it became known years later, the Air Force declared that the RB-47 crew had tracked an airliner. Physicist Gordon David Thayer, who investigated the incident for the University of Colorado Condon Report UFO Project, called this explanation “literally ridiculous".