Unexplainable UFO Phenomena To Be Scientifically Analyzed In New Project

originally posted by: raytheo

Don't get me wrong I really like fringe science. BUT if one is labeled paranormal researcher al results become kind of tainted...

May have been a different story if quantum physics had been labelled paranormal.

a reply to: Blue Shift

That's a logical fallacy. It assumes the lack of good results is because of the limitations of your equipment and unfound data, not that the hypothesis is incorrect to begin with.

The proposed system hasn't been implemented before so no it isn't a logical fallacy , they intend to use Tech available today to try something new.

Our goal is to exploit this technological convergence by building a large network of automated surveillance stations with sophisticated sensors that will monitor the skies 24/7 looking for aerial anomalies.

This is the old bell that rang when I read the OP report , from the memoirs of Edward J. Ruppelt.

In the late summer of 1949, Cambridge established Project Twinkle to solve the mystery. The project called for establishing three cinetheodolite stations near White Sands, New Mexico. A cinetheodolite is similar to a 35 mm. movie camera except when you take a photograph of an object you also get a photograph of three dials that show the time the photo was taken, the azimuth angle, and the elevation angle of the camera.
If two or more cameras photograph the same object, it is possible to obtain a very accurate measurement of the photographed object's altitude, speed, and size.

Project Twinkle was a bust. Absolutely nothing was photographed. Of the three cameras that were planned for the project, only one was available. This one camera was continually being moved from place to place. If several reports came from a certain area, the camera crew would load up their equipment and move to that area, always arriving too late. Any duck hunter can tell you that this is the wrong tactic; if you want to shoot any ducks pick a good place and stay put, let the ducks come to you.
www.nicap.org...

So any previous attempt at a similar setup was small and half baked , the proposed system has a much larger scope.

originally posted by: gortex
Any duck hunter can tell you that this is the wrong tactic; if you want to shoot any ducks pick a good place and stay put, let the ducks come to you.

So any previous attempt at a similar setup was small and half baked , the proposed system has a much larger scope.

So where would be a "good place" to wait and look for UFOs? My first thought is somewhere isolated where there isn't a lot of commercial airplane traffic. Unfortunately, this would also be exactly where the military would test their secret planes. And once again you run into the same old problem.

a reply to: raytheo

I was addressing what was actually said.

You didn't have to say it.

Think about it Scientific = Ufo's don't exists.

All you're saying here is 'if I don't get the results I want I won't accept it'.

In order to protect your beliefs you say the following:

Do you really think they will change their paradigm view just because of datamining ?

Then you move on to say the following, which confirms my suspicions as to where your beliefs lie:

But , think about it science and occam' s razor fair to say that after more than 70 years of ufo research I'm a bit weary of 'research' regarding the phenomenon.... it's just debunking

This effort in research and data gathering hasn't even begun yet. Judgement has already been passed. You have already begun to protect your beliefs in the event that something contradictory to what you will accept as "truth" is uncovered.

It's really no wonder mainstream scientific research generally refuses to take UFO research seriously. There are countless examples, in this thread alone, of outright rejection of scientific results, BEFORE THEY EVEN HAVE THEM.

It's really quite sad.

Hooray

originally posted by: projectvxn
a reply to: Blue Shift

This is my biggest issue with the UFO community.

They protect their beliefs.

In what is very much a scientific phenomena i.e. potential life elsewhere than earth, or intelligent drones created by a living or now extinct race of actual beings, or any number of other phenomena that we may not even recognize yet as very much earthly or man made, the UFO community will reject any notion of scientific review as they know that if the results challenge what they believe, then it must be a conspiracy.

This is why the UFO community has never actually been taken seriously by mainstream scientific researchers, and likely never will be.

I agree, which is why I think it is important for those who are sincere about studying the UFO phenomenon scientifically to ignore and distance themselves from the majority of the UFO community in order to hold themselves to high standards of scientific rigor. At the same time, because the UFO community is so large and diverse, there may be a significant number of people like yourself who are genuinely interested in serious studies that do not involve simply protecting anyone's beliefs. It may be possible to leverage that subset of the community in order to conduct a high quality monitoring effort.

I like the general approach described in your link, but I feel like it does not fully leverage off-the-shelf technology to maximize the scientific return. I am currently developing software to enable automatic tracking of moving objects using consumer grade telescopes. At the moment it uses a widefield camera attached to the main telescope and the user designates the object to be tracked by acquiring it manually using a joystick. In the future though I plan to expand it to be able to acquire objects through more automated means, including with all-sky cameras similar to those mentioned in your link. Imagine this, instead of a standard SLR camera taking pictures or video of an unidentified aerial phenomenon and collecting spectra, a powerful off-the-shelf GOTO telescope slews to the position detected by the all sky camera and begins tracking it with its own cameras. That would enable the collection of images with high angular resolution in addition to spectra.

Robotic telescopes and all-sky cameras are commonplace in the amateur astronomy community these days. Imagine if we could create a community of amateur observatories that were set into a sky surveillance and monitoring mode when not in active use. When a moving object is detected on the all-sky camera, the telescope is alerted and sent the approximate coordinates of the object. The telescope arrives at the location within seconds and a widefield camera on the telescope picks up the object and begins tracking it with enough precision to place it near the center of the main telescope itself. High resolution imaging and spectra are then collected through the main telescope and archived for later analysis.

Of course the majority of the images recorded would be normal commercial aircraft, but it may also be possible to automatically exclude the positions of most aircraft by tying it to an ADS-B receiver and PlanePlotter software.
www.coaa.co.uk...

Anyway, like I said, I have the software working in terms of getting my telescope to automatically track on objects, but so far it doesn't seem to have generated much interest. It ought to be useful even in its current state for those who want to track and record things they see in the sky with the high angular resolution of a telescope. Right now it's coded in language for communicating with my scope specifically (which uses an old Magellan internal computer system), but I'm planning to port it to two of the most common telescope computer types, Autostar (made by Meade) and Nexstar (made by Celestron). If I can't get any interest though then I don't know how I'm even going to be able to beta test the software since I don't have access to either an Autostar or a Nexstar controlled telescope.

It's really unfortunate; powerful robotic telescopes and powerful compact computers are easy to come by, and a suitable rig can be had for relatively little money these days. I'm certain that with the right software providing automatic control and monitoring, interested amateurs could set up an observing network that could exceed the resolution of the monitoring stations described in your link. Then we could put to bed any notions of a "government coverup" or "infiltration" as excuses to ignore the results. It would be us as a community collectively responsible for collecting the data. Oh well, a man can dream.

Here is a link to an article about the project from Huffington Post.

Leslie Kean, with whom some of you might be familiar (and who is on the board) has a lot of info on this project.

Link to article in The Huffington Post

The project seems to have gotten off to a slow start, due to external and non-related circumstances (or so the story goes) but are now apparently gaining momentum. Link to project website with latest updates

I, for one, think this is a really good idea. No matter what they may end up capturing, or not capturing, it will be another bit of information about this phenomenon.

This is exactly the kind of attention the phenomenon needs if we are ever to make any headway.

BT