Psience Quest

(2024-04-26, 06:30 PM)Laird Wrote: [ -> ]Red, white, and green. Huh. Now we just need one of them to leave behind a bowl of pasta and we can call this case closed.

More seriously, this is a very interesting article. Thanks for sharing.

Yeah totally obvious that the interstellar aliens decided to decorate their spacecraft with red, white and green lights (which of course have no Engineering reasons whatsoever) 🙄

It's easier to fool people than to  convince them that they have been fooled.

Mark Twain

(2024-04-27, 09:34 AM)sbu Wrote: [ -> ]Yeah totally obvious that the interstellar aliens decided to decorate their spacecraft with red, white and green lights (which of course have no Engineering reasons whatsoever) 🙄

It's easier to fool people than to  convince them that they have been fooled.

Mark Twain

  Nice!

(2024-04-27, 09:34 AM)sbu Wrote: [ -> ]Yeah totally obvious that the interstellar aliens decided to decorate their spacecraft with red, white and green lights (which of course have no Engineering reasons whatsoever) 🙄

It's easier to fool people than to  convince them that they have been fooled.

Mark Twain

I'll leave aside the 'interstellar aliens' portion, it's only one possibility among many.

As for red, white and green lights - the idea that they are only decorative and have no functional purpose implies that we know what the observed 'something' was and that we also know what purpose it would have.

In general I'm not much excited by this topic but have no intention to simply discard everything. I leave the topic open for these with more enthusiasm than myself to investigate.

(2024-04-27, 09:34 AM)sbu Wrote: [ -> ]Yeah totally obvious that the interstellar aliens decided to decorate their spacecraft with red, white and green lights (which of course have no Engineering reasons whatsoever) 🙄

Mine was a playful joke; yours is a serious albeit sarcastic point. Typoz makes a good point in response: without knowing the purpose of the craft themselves, we don't know what the purpose of the lights is.

More broadly, your implicit claim is that these craft are not piloted by interstellar aliens, and, somewhat more implicitly, that these craft have a prosaic explanation. OK then, please be explicit: what is that explanation?

(2024-04-27, 09:34 AM)sbu Wrote: [ -> ]It's easier to fool people than to  convince them that they have been fooled.

Mark Twain

In what way is this article fooling us? Be specific.

(2024-04-27, 12:27 PM)Laird Wrote: [ -> ]Mine was a playful joke; yours is a serious albeit sarcastic point. Typoz makes a good point in response: without knowing the purpose of the craft themselves, we don't know what the purpose of the lights is.

More broadly, your implicit claim is that these craft are not piloted by interstellar aliens, and, somewhat more implicitly, that these craft have a prosaic explanation. OK then, please be explicit: what is that explanation?


In what way is this article fooling us? Be specific.

This claim might simply involve a balloon with a flashlight, possibly part of a high school experiment. It reminds me of the balloons that were shot down by F-22s last year. Alternatively, it could be a kite caught by the wind. Balloons are capable of reaching altitudes significantly higher than even the most advanced jets, especially those available 50 years ago, which makes them difficult to visually inspect.

While I am not particularly interested in these objects, as I am confident they are of earthly origin, I don’t mind if others speculate that they might be extraterrestrial. What concerns me is the dangerous undercurrent in some online communities that believe the American government is hiding UFO remains, akin to flat earthers who think the government is concealing secret lands. I believe these types of conspiracy theories are a perilous distraction that can foster radicalism among vulnerable individuals—this is something society can do without.

(2024-04-27, 02:17 PM)sbu Wrote: [ -> ]This claim might simply involve a balloon with a flashlight, possibly part of a high school experiment. It reminds me of the balloons that were shot down by F-22s last year. Alternatively, it could be a kite caught by the wind.

No offence, but are you at all embarrassed to resort to supposed explanations that go beyond grasping at straws to sheer vacuity?

(2024-04-27, 03:50 PM)Laird Wrote: [ -> ]No offence, but are you at all embarrassed to resort to supposed explanations that go beyond grasping at straws to sheer vacuity?

Invoking the principle of Occam’s razor is not embarrasing. We know there are balloons flying across the american skies from time to time. We don’t know about any alien lifeforms at all.

Occam's razor applies when the explanation is sufficient. The ones you proposed manifestly are not. Did you even read the article?

(2024-04-27, 04:41 PM)Laird Wrote: [ -> ]Occam's razor applies when the explanation is sufficient. The ones you proposed manifestly are not. Did you even read the article?

Do you have any hard facts like radar data to suggest it wasn’t a balloon?

(2024-04-27, 04:42 PM)sbu Wrote: [ -> ]Do you have any hard facts like radar data to suggest it wasn’t a balloon?

Yes. For example, from the article:

Quote:In one bizarre incident, a Nebraska deputy sheriff reported “observing 30 to 50 [objects] flying independently of each other with a larger ‘mothership’ hovering for hours.”

Some of these objects also reportedly flew in “adverse weather conditions,” including “hovering” in winds of “30 mph with 40-plus mph gusts.” A briefing document prepared for the FAA administrator noted that sheriffs from several Colorado counties reported that the objects flew for “several hours at a time in less than optimum flying conditions (high winds and storm-like conditions).”

Balloons don't hover in 30 mph winds, nor could a balloon be mistaken for a mothership.

Hence my question: did you even read the article?