Discovery Institute doesn’t believe in nuts&bolts aliens

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(2024-06-14, 07:53 AM)sbu Wrote: Radar picks up everything. Not only metallic objects. Radar observations are not good evidence for UFOs, e.g atmospheric phenomenas such as temperature inversions, humidity variations, or electromagnetic disturbances can create radar anomalies. These phenomena can cause radar to display objects that are not actually there. Visible observations correlated with radar are needed to even make a data point remotely interesting.

Pentagon acknowledged that there do exists abnomalies coupled with visual observations but that of course doesn’t mean it’s extraterrestial - it requires a vivid imagination to conclude that.

I’m sorry nbtruthman - there are no hidden nuts&bolts UFOs.

That makes me wonder what exactly radars are useful for.

Are all radar systems backed up by humans with binoculars in order to make an observation?

David
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(2024-06-14, 10:03 AM)David001 Wrote: That makes me wonder what exactly radars are useful for.

Are all radar systems backed up by humans with binoculars in order to make an observation?

David

They definitely don’t launch the ICBMs without multiple independent safeguards otherwise ww iii already would have happended.

Quote:On 6 September 1960, the Thule, Greenland, BMEWS site began generating warning reports at the lowest threat level that rapidly escalated up to the maximum level. It automatically sent a series of messages warning of an impending missile attack to the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Before alerts could be sent to the President and dispatched to the Strategic Air Command bombers, the alerts had to be validated by means of a direct telephone conversation between Command Center personnel and the radar site. An Air Force captain at the site asked for time to perform a check on the radar because he believed it was malfunctioning. He temporarily turned off the transmitter in the sector that was generating the alarms and noted that the echoes ceased. He correctly inferred that the echoes were caused by reflections from the Moon; a hostile missile threat did not exist. The great power and aperture of the BMEWS radar allowed it to detect reflections from the Moon, which was 384,400 km away.

https://archive.ll.mit.edu/publications/...lanets.pdf

Radar probably has a very high accuracy and is a very useful tool. After all there are radar systems all over the world in commercial airports and so forth. The problem is when malfunctions and abnomalies are abused to claim evidence for anything but the null hypothesis (or actually I don’t think it’s a problem - abnomalities are very interesting. It’s when the conspiracy theories shows their ugly face that bizarre things happens).
(This post was last modified: 2024-06-14, 11:42 AM by sbu. Edited 4 times in total.)
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(2024-06-14, 07:53 AM)sbu Wrote: Radar picks up everything. Not only metallic objects. Radar observations are not good evidence for UFOs, e.g atmospheric phenomenas such as temperature inversions, humidity variations, or electromagnetic disturbances can create radar anomalies. These phenomena can cause radar to display objects that are not actually there. Visible observations correlated with radar are needed to even make a data point remotely interesting.

Pentagon acknowledged that there do exists abnomalies coupled with visual observations but that of course doesn’t mean it’s extraterrestial - it requires a vivid imagination to conclude that.

I’m sorry nbtruthman - there are no hidden nuts&bolts UFOs.

You are so certain of what is really an opinion backed up only by absence of direct physical-to-the-touch evidence, where of course absence of such type of evidence is not evidence of absence.

I notice that you have not attempted to explain away the 1957 RB-47 case I described in post #15. I suppose you are inherently claiming that with the RB-47 case, somehow, temperature inversions and/or equipment malfunctions were responsible for the strong radar returns and ECM/ELINT signals recieved from the exact same direction as the observed brilliant light emitted by the object. Needless to say, this explain-it-away explanation won't work.

You disparage the general reliability and accuracy of radar, despite it's regular and essential use along with emitted electromagnetic IFF signals, in airport air traffic control where safety is paramount. If radar was as unreliable as you claim, it wouldn't be used in this way where many lives are at stake. And radar targeting and detection of other EM signals are universally used for A-A missile targeting by military fighter aircraft, a critical military capability not to be entrusted to a basically unreliable sensor.
(This post was last modified: 2024-06-14, 03:10 PM by nbtruthman. Edited 4 times in total.)
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(2024-06-14, 02:49 PM)nbtruthman Wrote: You disparage the general reliability and accuracy of radar, despite it's regular and essential use along with emitted electromagnetic IFF signals, in airport air traffic control where safety is paramount. If radar was as unreliable as you claim, it wouldn't be used in this way where many lives are at stake. And radar targeting and detection of other EM signals are universally used for A-A missile targeting by military fighter aircraft, a critical military capability not to be entrusted to a basically unreliable sensor.
Just to drive this nail really home, I seem to remember that some UFO's were first observed by people on a base, and then observed by radar! Others were first observed by pilots and then tracked by radar as well.

There are also accounts that the Roswell incident was a UFO crash and that the remains were taken away by the US airforce. OK that incident might have been a test of some secret plane, but I don't know, when F35's crash they do get reported.

David
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(2024-06-14, 07:53 AM)Laird Wrote: I guess that invites the question: if not radar combined with (matching) visuals - both by military personnel - then what would you accept as evidence of physicality?

Physical craft or physical bodies.

I used to think the UFO/UAP phenomenon was partly physical and partly something else, but the "something else" just seems more plausible now.

Nuts & Bolts people should keep looking for evidence, but it feels rather unlikely to me they will ever produce either craft or bodies.
'Historically, we may regard materialism as a system of dogma set up to combat orthodox dogma...Accordingly we find that, as ancient orthodoxies disintegrate, materialism more and more gives way to scepticism.'

- Bertrand Russell


(2024-06-14, 06:38 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: Physical craft or physical bodies.

I'm not sure that that answers the question. You'd need to look at the physical craft or physical bodies to know that they're real, surely, but you've ruled out visual evidence. (I'm being only a little facetious).
(2024-06-14, 07:22 PM)Laird Wrote: I'm not sure that that answers the question. You'd need to look at the physical craft or physical bodies to know that they're real, surely, but you've ruled out visual evidence. (I'm being only a little facetious).

Well even physical bodies wouldn't, by necessity, confirm Nuts & Bolts.

But I would assume some group of people would actually make physical contact with the visual evidence.

However the physical evidence we do have - Streiber's metallic ear(?) implant, the pancakes made by "Italian-looking" aliens - does not suggest Nuts & Bolts to me.
'Historically, we may regard materialism as a system of dogma set up to combat orthodox dogma...Accordingly we find that, as ancient orthodoxies disintegrate, materialism more and more gives way to scepticism.'

- Bertrand Russell


(2024-06-14, 07:47 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: I would assume some group of people would actually make physical contact with the visual evidence.

I see. So, in terms of sensory evidence for nuts-and-bolts UFOs, you accept only the tactile; the visual is strictly verboten.

(2024-06-14, 07:47 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: However the physical evidence we do have - Streiber's metallic ear(?) implant, the pancakes made by "Italian-looking" aliens - does not suggest Nuts & Bolts to me.

But you've limited the physical evidence by what seems to me to be an arbitrary rejection of all visual evidence, even that corroborated by radar.
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(2024-06-14, 08:06 PM)Laird Wrote: I see. So, in terms of sensory evidence for nuts-and-bolts UFOs, you accept only the tactile; the visual is strictly verboten.

But you've limited the physical evidence by what seems to me to be an arbitrary rejection of all visual evidence, even that corroborated by radar.

The visual evidence can be interpreted in myriad ways. Physical equipment is used by parapsychologist seeking to record ghosts, PK, and subtle bodies.

I'm actually more generous than most, because I allow for the possibility of unknown aspects of the universe to allow FTL technology.

However, even allowing for an as yet unknown means of FTL travel, a lot of the UFO/UAP stuff is Deeply Weird, and doesn't suggest applied science so much as something stranger.

Even the stories of abduction are at times odd, with probing of the body that seems much more low tech than we might expect from interstellar travelers. Additionally, some supposed aliens don't seem to be technologically advanced at all and instead seem like fantastical creatures such as goblins.
'Historically, we may regard materialism as a system of dogma set up to combat orthodox dogma...Accordingly we find that, as ancient orthodoxies disintegrate, materialism more and more gives way to scepticism.'

- Bertrand Russell



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