Skeptic misses point behind UFO book

a reply to: Scdfa

J Allen Hynek cited 5.8% of cases remained unexplained out of 10,675 cases he and the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) staff analyzed:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Bill Birnes, publisher of UFO magazine, as well as MUFON have cited 5% as an approximate percent of reported cases that remain unexplained, though I doubt either of those sources had statistics as good as Hynek's 5.8%. I think Birnes said "about 5%" when he made that statement on the "UFO Hunters" show.

originally posted by: Arbitrageur
a reply to: Scdfa

J Allen Hynek cited 5.8% of cases remained unexplained out of 10,675 cases he and the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) staff analyzed
.

My question is -- assuming there WERE no 'true UFOs' [anomalous phenomena], how many reports would still remain unexplained? Lay down your bets.

originally posted by: JimOberg
My question is -- assuming there WERE no 'true UFOs' [anomalous phenomena], how many reports would still remain unexplained? Lay down your bets.

I don't understand what you mean by either "True UFOs" nor [anomalous phenomena].

However I think some can't be explained because we have an incomplete understanding of natural phenomena, like in the 2007 Alderny case which I'd call an UAP (unidentified aerial phenomenon) rather than a UFO, since I don't think there was what I'd call an "object" involved in the sighting.

"Report on Aerial Phenomena observed near Channel Islands, UK, April 23, 2007"-pdf

If that was the result of a natural phenomenon as I suspect, we don't understand it well enough to fully explain it. Other notable cases I'd put in a similar category include:

Captain Duboc sighting (pdf)
The BOAC Labrador sighting of June 29, 1954
JAL 1628

All those cases had visual observations involving what are most likely poorly understood natural phenomena, though the radar evidence in the last case didn't correlate with the visible evidence and it probably would have been ignored as a cloud if not for the visual display. If cases like these result from natural phenomena which we don't understand, would you call those [anomalous phenomena]?. If we understood more natural phenomena better I think we could better explain more cases such as those.

People call those UFOs but I think they are UAPs (unidentified aerial phenomena) which don't involve any solid object.

originally posted by: JimOberg
My question is -- assuming there WERE no 'true UFOs' [anomalous phenomena], how many reports would still remain unexplained? Lay down your bets.

That just doesn't seem very illuminating. The exercise can just as easily be turned around:

Assuming there WERE 'true UFOs', how many cases that were previously and frivolously discarded due to "witness misperception" would immediately become compelling UFO candidates again?

So which is more likely to be correct... assuming there are UFOs, or assuming there aren't? Fifty years ago, we would've known the answer to that question immediately. But now ... who knows? It's pretty obvious that the assumptions underlying that classical skeptical view -- "they can't get here from there", for example -- are gradually being dismantled. And I mean even in mainstream academia. The Kepler mission has of course had a large impact here.

So as of 2015 we've got well-known, reputable and even Ivy League scientists advocating such things as scouring the moon for ET artifacts... or using the JWST to search the asteroid belt for ET city lights... and we've got more mainstream acceptance of the idea of Von Neumann probes... and papers showing that, mathematically, an ET civilisation from the other side of the Milky Way could easily be here by now, even if they were travelling at only a small fraction of the speed of light and pausing for decades at each star... etc., etc.

Isn't it pretty much inevitable that the assumption will someday shift to "well of course, why wouldn't ET be here by now?!" To me, that certainly feels like where we're headed.

originally posted by: TeaAndStrumpets

originally posted by: JimOberg

My question is -- assuming there WERE no 'true UFOs' [anomalous phenomena], how many reports would still remain unexplained? Lay down your bets.

That just doesn't seem very illuminating. The exercise can just as easily be turned around:

....

Come on, give it a try.

originally posted by: TeaAndStrumpets
Isn't it pretty much inevitable that the assumption will someday shift to "well of course, why wouldn't ET be here by now?!" To me, that certainly feels like where we're headed.

Where have you been for the last 30 years? This paper from 1985 is talking about exactly that, and traces the history of the topic back to around 1950, though in relation to En Passant's question about the recollection of event time I find it interesting that one witness recalls the year as "probably 1951" while another recalls "before 1950", so 1951 and 1949 are at least two years apart, making a couple of hours time spread in recalling the Yukon satellite entry seem small in comparison:

"Where is Everybody?" An Account of Fermi's Question, by Jones, E. M., March 01, 1985

Part of the current debate about the existence and prevalence of extraterrestrials concerns interstellar travel and settlement. In 1975, Michael Hart argued that interstellar travel would be feasible for a technologically advanced civilization and that a migration would fill the Galaxy in a few million years.

1975. That was 40 years ago, so it seems more like where we've been than where we're headed.

originally posted by: Arbitrageur
a reply to: Scdfa

J Allen Hynek cited 5.8% of cases remained unexplained out of 10,675 cases he and the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) staff analyzed:

In 1966 in Michigan, J. Allen Hyneck "explained" two days of mass sightings, of over 100 witnesses.

Hyneck's explanation? Swamp gas. His explanation was met with national ridicule, and "swamp gas" has been the butt of jokes about ufo sightings ever since. Gee, thanks, Dr. Hyneck.

Fact is, Hyneck admits his job was to cover up UFO sightings by the Air Force, and he admits he did just that, he lied about UFOs for decades.

In his 1977 book, Hyneck admitted he enjoyed his role in covering up UFO sightings for the Air Force.

So late in life, he has a "conversion" and starts taking UFOs seriously for about ten years before he died.

And this is the person behind the statistic that 95% of UFO sightings are "explained"?

I was right to challenge this statistic.

Did he revisit all the UFO cases he covered up the first time around? Yes? No? Maybe?

This statistic should not be taken seriously for a number of reasons.

If for no other reason than the fact that these findings are over 30 years old!

That's right, over 30 years old! So at best, it deals only with reports from the first HALF of the decades of UFO reports.

The statistic was set decades before the internet, which finally gave people the ability to actually report UFO sightings!

As such, there is no rational reason to believe the statistic that 95% percent of UFO sightings are conventionally explained.

originally posted by: TeaAndStrumpets

originally posted by: JimOberg
My question is -- assuming there WERE no 'true UFOs' [anomalous phenomena], how many reports would still remain unexplained? Lay down your bets.

That just doesn't seem very illuminating. The exercise can just as easily be turned around:

Assuming there WERE 'true UFOs', how many cases that were previously and frivolously discarded due to "witness misperception" would immediately become compelling UFO candidates again?

So which is more likely to be correct... assuming there are UFOs, or assuming there aren't? Fifty years ago, we would've known the answer to that question immediately. But now ... who knows? It's pretty obvious that the assumptions underlying that classical skeptical view -- "they can't get here from there", for example -- are gradually being dismantled. And I mean even in mainstream academia. The Kepler mission has of course had a large impact here.

So as of 2015 we've got well-known, reputable and even Ivy League scientists advocating such things as scouring the moon for ET artifacts... or using the JWST to search the asteroid belt for ET city lights... and we've got more mainstream acceptance of the idea of Von Neumann probes... and papers showing that, mathematically, an ET civilisation from the other side of the Milky Way could easily be here by now, even if they were travelling at only a small fraction of the speed of light and pausing for decades at each star... etc., etc.

Isn't it pretty much inevitable that the assumption will someday shift to "well of course, why wouldn't ET be here by now?!" To me, that certainly feels like where we're headed.

You are right on the money. Thanks for the excellent post. Deniers are having a harder and harder time painting alien contact as unlikely. It was one thing in 1947, when we had no proof other stars even had planets. Before we went to the moon. Before we sent rovers to Mars. Before we sent our probes out of the solar system. Before we found Earth twins in the goldilocks zone.

There is a very good reason that sightings of flying saucers and claims of alien abduction have grown to such great numbers over the past decades. It's because they are real.

The denier argument sounds more archaic every day.

originally posted by: TeaAndStrumpets

originally posted by: JimOberg
My question is -- assuming there WERE no 'true UFOs' [anomalous phenomena], how many reports would still remain unexplained? Lay down your bets.

That just doesn't seem very illuminating. The exercise can just as easily be turned around:

Assuming there WERE 'true UFOs', how many cases that were previously and frivolously discarded due to "witness misperception" would immediately become compelling UFO candidates again?

So which is more likely to be correct... assuming there are UFOs, or assuming there aren't? Fifty years ago, we would've known the answer to that question immediately. But now ... who knows? It's pretty obvious that the assumptions underlying that classical skeptical view -- "they can't get here from there", for example -- are gradually being dismantled. And I mean even in mainstream academia. The Kepler mission has of course had a large impact here.

So as of 2015 we've got well-known, reputable and even Ivy League scientists advocating such things as scouring the moon for ET artifacts... or using the JWST to search the asteroid belt for ET city lights... and we've got more mainstream acceptance of the idea of Von Neumann probes... and papers showing that, mathematically, an ET civilisation from the other side of the Milky Way could easily be here by now, even if they were travelling at only a small fraction of the speed of light and pausing for decades at each star... etc., etc.

Isn't it pretty much inevitable that the assumption will someday shift to "well of course, why wouldn't ET be here by now?!" To me, that certainly feels like where we're headed.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

I've often made that very point about the Fermi Paradox. It seems that part of its significance was hijacked, the best part now diluted.

And I can't speak for the authors of the newer paper(s), but I suppose they felt that the mathematics needed to be updated to account for things we've learned since then. I'm not sure. Regardless, their central point, that we should not be surprised to find ET on our doorstep, was one that needed to be reaffirmed.

a reply to: Scdfa

Those guys have a big rubber stamp with "Swamp Gas" on it, and another with "Venus" and they just plonk it on the top of any report they can't be bothered looking more closely at.

Jim Marrs says it is more like 25% unexplained.

originally posted by: EnPassant
a reply to: Scdfa

Those guys have a big rubber stamp with "Swamp Gas" on it, and another with "Venus" and they just plonk it on the top of any report they can't be bothered looking more closely at.

Exactly. Their statistic that 95% of UFO sightings are explained is a fraudulent statistic.

It was compiled over 30 years ago by a person who admitted that he enjoyed covering up UFO cases for decades.

originally posted by: EnPassant

Those guys have a big rubber stamp with "Swamp Gas" on it, and another with "Venus" and they just plonk it on the top of any report they can't be bothered looking more closely at.

Now you're just being ridiculous. Hynek was referring to some nebulous glows in the boggy area in sight of a dormitory, a small part of an overall 'flap' in progress. The worldwide media misquotation humiliation played a large role in his later pronouncements, as it would for anyone so abused.

And Venus does remain the 'Queen of UFOs', in terms of sparking public misidentifications. That Barnaul airport 2001 "UFO at end of the runway" story I refered to is an excellent example.

originally posted by: Scdfa

originally posted by: EnPassant

a reply to: Scdfa



Those guys have a big rubber stamp with "Swamp Gas" on it, and another with "Venus" and they just plonk it on the top of any report they can't be bothered looking more closely at.

Exactly. Their statistic that 95% of UFO sightings are explained is a fraudulent statistic.



It was compiled over 30 years ago by a person who admitted that he enjoyed covering up UFO cases for decades.

Your criticism would have had a little more credibility if you had spelled Hynek's name correctly.

a reply to: Scdfa
If you had read his book you'd know he said that the Air Force came up with one set of statistics.

After that project ended and he started the Center for UFO studies they re-examined all those cases independently of the Air Force investigations, and came up with independent analyses, where nobody pressured him to say swamp gas.

Canada published some more recent data in July 2014 showing their 25 year average of "unknowns" was 12.63%, but they readily admit many of those cases could probably be explained with more investigation since they classify some cases as "unknown" if a conventional explanation isn't immediately obvious. So while it initially appears to be and is a much larger number than Hynek's 5.8%, the discrepancy isn't as large when you consider the relative amount of investigation, and they said the percent of "unknown" cases has been declining over the last 25 years, getting down to 7.47% in 2012.

p25:

...the percentage of Unknowns relative to the number of cases each year has decreased with time. This percentage was at an all-time high of 23.38 per cent in 1989, but has been as low as 7.47 per cent in 2012. The average percentage during the past 25 years is 13.65 per cent.

This percentage should not be surprising. It is well-known that most UFO sightings have possible or probable explanations, and there are many cases which are classified as having Insufficient Information. A small percentage is easily and definitively explained. The fact that there is a remainder of unexplained cases is not a proof of alien visitation, but simply that some reports cannot be resolved. An analogy is homicides under criminal investigation. Some remain “on the books” without resolution, not because aliens were the murderers, but because the evidence does not point to a specific culprit or cause with enough authority to make a conviction.

Emphasis mine. So whether it's 5.8%, 7.47% or 13.65% you can't conclude that they are alien any more than you can conclude unsolved murders were committed by aliens just because they can't be explained.

originally posted by: JimOberg

originally posted by: Scdfa

originally posted by: EnPassant

a reply to: Scdfa



Those guys have a big rubber stamp with "Swamp Gas" on it, and another with "Venus" and they just plonk it on the top of any report they can't be bothered looking more closely at.

Exactly. Their statistic that 95% of UFO sightings are explained is a fraudulent statistic.



It was compiled over 30 years ago by a person who admitted that he enjoyed covering up UFO cases for decades.

Your criticism would have had a little more credibility if you had spelled Hynek's name correctly.

Not really, Jim. You spell Gordon Cooper's name correctly when you drag his name through the mud, but that doesn't give you any credibility.

originally posted by: Arbitrageur
a reply to: Scdfa
If you had read his book you'd know he said that the Air Force came up with one set of statistics.

After that project ended and he started the Center for UFO studies they re-examined all those cases independently of the Air Force investigations, and came up with independent analyses, where nobody pressured him to say swamp gas.

Canada published some more recent data in July 2014 showing their 25 year average of "unknowns" was 12.63%, but they readily admit many of those cases could probably be explained with more investigation since they classify some cases as "unknown" if a conventional explanation isn't immediately obvious. So while it initially appears to be and is a much larger number than Hynek's 5.8%, the discrepancy isn't as large when you consider the relative amount of investigation, and they said the percent of "unknown" cases has been declining over the last 25 years, getting down to 7.47% in 2012.

p25:

...the percentage of Unknowns relative to the number of cases each year has decreased with time. This percentage was at an all-time high of 23.38 per cent in 1989, but has been as low as 7.47 per cent in 2012. The average percentage during the past 25 years is 13.65 per cent.

This percentage should not be surprising. It is well-known that most UFO sightings have possible or probable explanations, and there are many cases which are classified as having Insufficient Information. A small percentage is easily and definitively explained. The fact that there is a remainder of unexplained cases is not a proof of alien visitation, but simply that some reports cannot be resolved. An analogy is homicides under criminal investigation. Some remain “on the books” without resolution, not because aliens were the murderers, but because the evidence does not point to a specific culprit or cause with enough authority to make a conviction.

Emphasis mine. So whether it's 5.8%, 7.47% or 13.65% you can't conclude that they are alien any more than you can conclude unsolved murders were committed by aliens just because they can't be explained.

Thank you for proving me right, 95% was a load of bull. I knew that statistic wasn't even close to accurate. So do I have your assurance you will stop quoting it?

13.65% unexplained is acceptable, although I find that to be low, I will allow it to be used.

I do applaud your honesty and appreciate the effort you put in to finding a more accurate percentage.

originally posted by: EnPassant
a reply to: Scdfa

Those guys have a big rubber stamp with "Swamp Gas" on it, and another with "Venus" and they just plonk it on the top of any report they can't be bothered looking more closely at.

Jim Marrs says it is more like 25% unexplained.

Thank you En Passant. I tend to agree with Mr. Marrs, 25% sounds a lot more accurate. Marrs really understand the alien situation better than the vast majority of researchers.

You know, it's a good thing I questioned that statistic of "95% solved", otherwise, the deniers would be using it forever. You really have to watch those guys.

originally posted by: Scdfa


I tend to agree with Mr. Marrs, 25% sounds a lot more accurate. Marrs really understand the alien situation better than the vast majority of researchers.

You know, it's a good thing I questioned that statistic of "95% solved", otherwise, the deniers would be using it forever. You really have to watch those guys.

Ha!!!! Come on! You agree with Marrs because it "sounds" right to you but you want to vigorously question a guys name you cant even spell? Do you have a link to his numbers?

Thanks for the insight. I will make sure I stick to the actual 95% number now because, well, it "sounds a lot more accurate". The only question left is if you believe your own nonsense or not. I don't think you do

originally posted by: Scdfa
a reply to: Arbitrageur

They are UFO reports. Over 90% of UFO reports turn out to be misidentifications of some sort upon further investigation, leaving some percentage unexplained.

I hear this statistic tossed around casually by people who try to deny a UFO and alien connection. Sometimes they say it is 95% of UFO cases, in this instance the claim is 90%. And this statistic is often just accepted without being questioned. Well, I have a few questions.

Who came up with it? Based on what lists of sightings? Most sightings go unreported, so you must mean reported sightings?

Reported to who, to the police? Most police wont take a ufo sighting, they tell you to call the airport, or local military, neither of which take ufo sightings either. So what agencies compiled the reports?

And who selected which cases were examined and identified, did one organization or agency examined ALL sightings? Or was it the combined research of various private, or military, or aviation investigative agencies and organizations that determine a sighting "solved"? Was MUFON allowed to participate?

Was this an international effort? Over what period of time was this statistic compiled? Before the internet, the ability to even report a UFO sighting was severely limited, so are these statistics from the 1950s?

To whose satisfaction were these sightings identified? Did the actual witnesses agree with the "official explanation"?

For example, what about the Phoenix triangle? Was that case considered "solved"? Or is it in the 5% of unsolved cases?

You watch, folks.

The closer we look at the statistic that 95% of UFO sightings are solved, the more it will prove to be unsubstantiated.

Like Mark Twain said, "There are three kinds of lies; lies, damned lies, and statistics."

originally posted by: JimOberg

originally posted by: EnPassant

Those guys have a big rubber stamp with "Swamp Gas" on it, and another with "Venus" and they just plonk it on the top of any report they can't be bothered looking more closely at.

Now you're just being ridiculous. Hynek was referring to some nebulous glows in the boggy area in sight of a dormitory, a small part of an overall 'flap' in progress. The worldwide media misquotation humiliation played a large role in his later pronouncements, as it would for anyone so abused.
And Venus does remain the 'Queen of UFOs', in terms of sparking public misidentifications. That Barnaul airport 2001 "UFO at end of the runway" story I refered to is an excellent example.

I was talking about how these people, in general, do their work, not specifically Hynek. The Condon report is an example. It was a joke. Many compelling ufo reports were ignored and sent to a higher authority and Condon made up his mind what the conclusion would be even before the study had begun. How could we possibly trust these people or the results they came up with? Nick Pope recently admitted that he was instructed to degrade the subject by using expressions like 'ufo buff' and so on. If this is the level they are working on they may as well be using the 'Swamp Gas' stamp because they are not doing their job with objectivity. I would not trust any military/government report that gives stats. on knowns/unknowns. How could I possibly trust these people? So, I make jokes about them because that's all they deserve. How can we possibly have a serious discussion about this knavery or its results?