NASA STS-114 UFO Footage - Can it be debunked?

Originally posted by JimOberg

Originally posted by zorgon
Tossing this into the mix...

Thanks for the video, Zorgie -- did you notice some of the dots passing in FRONT of the IUS stage as it deployed? Neat trick for giant spaceships many miles away, for sure.

You are right..there are "some" dots that pass in front of the IUS. However, you failed to point out that the video is highlighting the other "dots" appearing from behind the shuttle, and not anything inside the cargo bay.

Originally posted by JimOberg
The object being referred to, as I interpret it and as the astronaut describes its position, is the white line extending from the rudder ('between the rudder and the right OMS pod', he specified -- did you hear those words?), perhaps some sort of insulation strip partially peeled off (hence, of great interest). Can you see that anomalous 'object' in the video when you look there, for it. The dots apparently have nothing to do with it -- are being ignored, as usual.

Amazing...all these things that just magically fall off the shuttle, especially when unusual things are seen in the videos. I am surprised that the shuttle returns to Earth in one piece with all this debris and strips and such falling off of it.

What is that thing made of...paper?

Reminds me of a video where 3 goons of NASA are trying to convince the reporters that "things get knocked off by vibration" when the shuttle opens the bay doors or launches a satellite or works its hydraulic systems.

Really, if stuff is falling apart when the bay doors open, or when a satellite is launched, or when the hydraulics systems are worked, then that shuttle would be grounded due to lack of structural integrity. Perhaps it should be, but what do you expect for a vehicle design thats over 30 years old anyway. Heck, if simply opening the bay doors or launching a satellite or working hydraulic systems shake loose items from the shuttle, I dont want to even try to imagine what is shaken loose from vibrations during launch!



Cheers!!!!

Originally posted by RFBurns

Originally posted by JimOberg

Originally posted by zorgon
Tossing this into the mix...

Thanks for the video, Zorgie -- did you notice some of the dots passing in FRONT of the IUS stage as it deployed? Neat trick for giant spaceships many miles away, for sure.

You are right..there are "some" dots that pass in front of the IUS. However, you failed to point out that the video is highlighting the other "dots" appearing from behind the shuttle, and not anything inside the cargo bay.

How do you know those dots 'come from behind'? They look just like the dots that pass in front of the IUS. What's wrong with the assumption they are of the same nature -- small, and close?

Originally posted by JimOberg
The object being referred to, as I interpret it and as the astronaut describes its position, is the white line extending from the rudder ('between the rudder and the right OMS pod', he specified -- did you hear those words?), perhaps some sort of insulation strip partially peeled off (hence, of great interest). Can you see that anomalous 'object' in the video when you look there, for it. The dots apparently have nothing to do with it -- are being ignored, as usual.

Amazing...all these things that just magically fall off the shuttle, especially when unusual things are seen in the videos. I am surprised that the shuttle returns to Earth in one piece with all this debris and strips and such falling off of it. What is that thing made of...paper?

Mindless mockery is not a valid argumentation technique, except when aimed at a mindless audience. Stuff floats around shuttles -- live with it. Deploying an IUS (a BIG rocket) is a violent event involving pyrobolt detonations and cable guillotine initiations, and stuff floats off, from tile chips to insulation strips (like the 'space snake' Musgrave reported on two of his IUS deploy missions) to insulation blanket clasps -- and operators are interested in what they might be, because on occasion they might be a real clue about something to worry about.

Reminds me of a video where 3 goons of NASA are trying to convince the reporters that "things get knocked off by vibration" when the shuttle opens the bay doors or launches a satellite or works its hydraulic systems.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you get upset when people call you and your friends insulting names, right? Pot, meet kettle. Whoever it was saying something remotely like you seem to remember was speaking truth. These dynamic events are often the cause of visible flurries of stuff.

Really, if stuff is falling apart when the bay doors open, or when a satellite is launched, or when the hydraulics systems are worked, then that shuttle would be grounded due to lack of structural integrity. Perhaps it should be, but what do you expect for a vehicle design thats over 30 years old anyway. Heck, if simply opening the bay doors or launching a satellite or working hydraulic systems shake loose items from the shuttle, I dont want to even try to imagine what is shaken loose from vibrations during launch!

Cheers!!!!

This is what your 'inside contacts' tell you? If they really do work at the positions you claim, they must disagree with your view the shuttle should be grounded -- or they'd have quit or gone public with their safety concerns. I sense a reality-disconnect here.

This is a fundamental conceptual chasm -- you appear to be in gross denial of the true context of spacecraft operations and the stuff they shed on a frequent basis that accompanies them in orbit for short periods before decaying. Your unrealistic assumptions are driving your conclusions.

Originally posted by JimOberg
Mindless mockery is not a valid argumentation technique, except when aimed at a mindless audience.

We are not a mindless audience. We're just enjoying watching you make a mockery of yourself.

Stuff floats around shuttles -- live with it.

Yes, and sometimes that stuff are UFOs, live with it.

Originally posted by Exuberant1

Originally posted by JimOberg
Nazi allusions seem proper to him, if we can judge from the content of his admonitions here.

Predictable.

*Your use of a variant of the Reductio Ad Hitlerum tactic was quite predictable.

I cite Godwin's law: an adage formulated by Mike Godwin in 1990. The law states: "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."

Exubie, you're not getting it. The 'Nazi allusions' were directed against ME by YOUR friends. Didn't you read them?

Things fall off shuttles. Not new information. I was aware of that at the age of ten. Now either show your intelligence , or show your silence.

Originally posted by zorgon
So then you are saying that there really are 'unusual' phenomena out there to be detected? Interesting comment.

I've been saying that for years -- there could be valuable phenomena worthy of study in the 'noise', if only we could filter them out. Why do you keep missing that point?

Originally posted by atsbeliever
You forgot, the skeptics don't have to abide by the same standards they think everyone else should step up to. They just offer an even more outlandish explanation and because they are the 'rational' ones its automatically given to be correct.

So apparently the shuttle flys around with a cloud of ice/loose tiles/particles that can spawn more copies of themselves then fly off in different directions at any given moment. no one seems to be worried about that either.

Just the opposite is true -- skeptics of the 'UFO explanation' have a much harder row to hoe, because they offer explanations which are falsifiable. That is, their 'prosaic hypotheses' can be disproven. And by that I mean refuted by facts, not rejected with the argument all-too-common hereabouts, "My mind can't grasp that idea, therefore it can't be true."

Shuttles do spawn clouds of debris, that usually quickly dissipate and soon burn up -- no long term hazard to space navigation. But because the dots can't be assumed to ALL be harmless little puffballs, operators DO worry about the weirder looking ones and try to get better descriptions, or camera views if available.

This has been "the way it is" since, oh, about 1962. Welcome to the Space Age.

[edit on 14-3-2009 by JimOberg]

I think a key point is being overlooked here.
I had touched on this in one of my initial posts last night and Burns just mentioned it again.
If this is some sort of debris from the shuttle, it must have taken something significant to bust it loose in a manner that would have expelled it AWAY from the shuttle. Otherwise, according to those same inertia laws being thrown around here rather wrecklessly, the object would FOLLOW the shuttle.



To whomever it may concern,

Last night I was having a joke about this whole discussion and I called some folks paid stooges. My bad. I shouldn't have done that and then had the audacity to tell people to stop insulting others. (slaps hand)

Originally posted by Exuberant1
reply to post by RFBurns

 

"Well perhaps you can allocate one of those for this discussion so we can time match that map and a copy of the original footage, also with timestamp, so all of that can be matched up and we can then put the position of the shuttle issue to rest."

Here is the file you need.

This one is different from the others that I sent you.

It has the information that you asked Jim to provide and since I figured that it would not be forthcoming, I decided to locate it and post it.

www.nasa.gov...

* Jim did not post the file, even though it is on on NASA's own website. Which is strange; because if it substantiated his quad-pod of hypotheses he would have already posted it.

Even with all the fall-back positions he has allowed himself, he still would not post information that was readily accessible to him.

As I have said, You will find what you are looking for in this file ;-)

Actually, even though Exubie soiled himself and his argument by not realizing that I had actually posted this already (his laughing mockery of me for NOT doing what I actually had done is sad), he does deserve kudos for original research -- the kind of work badly needed on this subject and so rare, until this current discussion heated up. So attaboy, Exubie. Keep at this line of investigation.

The timeline will show the sunrise/sunset times that RFBurns was demanding proof of. And comparing that to the actual time of the video ought to be adequate proof that it was after sunrise.

This also tells us that RFBurns never looked at this link to the 'Update Package' for the Flight Plan, or didn't understand it if he did -- maybe he should ask his inside contact friends to help explain it. He needs this contextual information to understand the complete illumination situation.

This offered assertion -- the sun had risen recently in this scene -- is subject to falsification (as are all genuine scientific hypotheses) by obtaining the longer video from NASA and seeing if the dot fleet in the background (the purported water dump ice particles) also 'appears' at sunrise. If not, the prosaic hypothesis takes a serious hit. That's the breaks when dealing with reality using real methods.

Originally posted by Jay-in-AR
To whomever it may concern,

Last night I was having a joke about this whole discussion and I called some folks paid stooges. My bad. I shouldn't have done that and then had the audacity to tell people to stop insulting others. (slaps hand)

Well said and, for me, completely acceptable, since I'm the first violator of this ideal, in my own experience, under similar circumstances. Jay, you've just earned yourself a whole LOT of slack from me.

Originally posted by Jay-in-AR
If this is some sort of debris from the shuttle, it must have taken something significant to bust it loose in a manner that would have expelled it AWAY from the shuttle. Otherwise, according to those same inertia laws being thrown around here rather wrecklessly, the object would FOLLOW the shuttle.

Significant shocks -- payload deployments, thruster firings, door openings and other mechanical motions of external equipment (say, a camera's pan/tilt motor) -- do break stuff loose, often but not always with great force. Venting (there are a dozen major vents in the forward and aft sections of the shuttle) can also be initiated manually or automatically. Also, extended thermal exposure in sunlight can also induce shedding of frozen materials such as water or hydrazine. There is no shortage of such causative forces.

Where the public's conceptual chasm seems widest is the notion that this tiny stuff actually 'floats along' at 18,000 mph, drifting by the windows and cameras. Also challenging is the idea that these particles can look weird as they are sunlit at times, or invisible when in full shadow of the shuttle, at other times, only 'appearing' suddenly in mid-screen when they drift out of the shuttle's shadow.

That's why transferring subconscious visual processing algorithms that have been fine tuned for a million generations for earthside illumination conditions, into literally 'unearthly' situations out in space, can prompt false interpretations of what is being perceived. You can get it right if you apply intellect and true 'situational awareness' (knowledge of the actual illumination context) to these scenes, but if you just rely on automatic mental processes ("I know what I see -- it's obvious"), you easily could be misled by no-longer-relevant assumptions.

That's what I think is happening here, but most folks I talk to about this jump to the conclusion I am insulting their intelligence. Just the opposite -- intelligence is the only way to get to 'see' this stuff correctly, instead of using eons-old (but in these cases, obsolete) reflexes.

reply to post by JimOberg


I still don't see it.
I mean, like you said, the shuttle is moving at a very high rate of speed. I think that the energy required to make the object eventually move AWAY from the shuttle would be substantial, to say the least.

But for the sake of the discussion, lets grant that position. I noticed your post a while back talking about the camera angle and direction transition of the object. 2 seconds sounds good. In fact, the thing never comes to a complete rest, but it gets close. It has a 2 second pause before it obviously begins moving in another direction.
So, what of it?
Also, I noticed that towards the very end of the clip, the object has started moving pretty rapidly once again.
All the while those points of light in the background are firmly fixed in the same location except for at one point in time. The camera does a very, very slight sweep to the left (I think).
I don't see any indication that this is caused by any thruster manuevers as the orientation of the lights would NECESSARILY change.

Originally posted by zorgon
Tossing this into the mix...

Yet another new vid *SNIP* amazing,They are all around us as if they either guarding us or keeping us prisoner. Time is running out, NASA knows this and of course so do our governments. How long do we have to wait now.

DOF,Jim, anybody else sticking to the ice particles after seeing and hearing that. I have been listening to the F15 pilots chasing a UFO today from another thread. Anyone elsse noticed how quickly info is spreading all over relating to UFOS I am so excited and extremely worried at the same time.

I know its a little off topic but can SNAKES and other so called 'space creatures' really exist, or do we think the astronaut was playing a joke?

[edit on 14-3-2009 by franspeakfree]

reply to post by JimOberg

by obtaining the longer video from NASA and seeing

Bingo !

more evidence is needed to advocate any hypothesis on either side... imo.

until the full video of the sequences are presented for examination...

nothing conclusive can be accepted...period.




Jim....

make sure you put that factoid in your report before posting it on your website....thanks

Originally posted by Jay-in-AR
I don't see any indication that this is caused by any thruster manuevers as the orientation of the lights would NECESSARILY change.

If you take a look at www.igs.net... with its attitude and attitude rate history for STS-48 during the zig-zag incident, you'll see that the angular rates of drifting in the allowable deadband are very, very small. Extrapolated over the duration of a typical video scene, they add up to a shift that would probably be imperceptible. Do the numbers and see for yourself.

The idea that firing a thruster MUST ('necessarily') change the visible orientation of the field-of-view seems like another holdover of earthside thinking, an unspoken assumption that's reasonable during all day-to-day ordinary activities hereabouts, but possibly not in space. A typical plot of thruster firings and induced rotation rate changes, at the link cited, ought to indicate the idea (it MUST move visibly) doesn't have any weight in space.

You can do the math another way. With the small steering jets -- thrust in the order of 30 pound-force or so, I can get a more accurate number if needed -- firing for one second, out some distance from the center of mass of a 240,000 pound spacecraft, the calculation of induced angular rate is pretty basic high school physics. The result is a tiny change in rotation rate, as shown on the linked data charts.

The change of motion of the particle on 114 could be induced by a thruster firing of 1 or 2 seconds, occurring off to the left, off the screen. There's no reason to expect, or demand as RF does, that a flare be visible from that direction -- flares are sporadic and even when they occur, as posted images here show, are restricted to a region near the plume centerline (or where that flare material bounces off orbiter structure), while effluent expansion occurs in the full hemisphere -- and even a little beyond -- of the thrusters pointing direction. What's needed are thruster firing histories during this period.

And along with thrusters, there are other effluent sources in the tail of the Orbiter such as the flash evaporator (for cooling) and the three auxiliairy hydraulic power units (APUs) that drive the aerosurfaces during atmospheric flight. One of them is nominally turned on briefly during the pre-landing checkout on the day before entry -- the day this video was taken.

These contextual operational data are what is needed to postulate and then validate prosaic explanations. Yet somehow the 'space UFO video' discussions have been going on year after year without any curiosity about obtaining such information, as far as I could tell.

reply to post by JimOberg


I had actually thought about that as I was posting it.

I told myself "I am going to post this and he is going to shoot back that because the points of light in the background are so damned far away the difference I'm expecting could be miniscule".

Oh well. Each has their opinion, I suppose. Considering we still have no idea what that thing is, I can't discredit the ice particle theory. It would be nice to have SOMETHING to guage the distance that the object moved away from the shuttle.
There simply isn't enough information to determine it.

Originally posted by franspeakfree
I know its a little off topic but can SNAKES and other so called 'space creatures' really exist, or do we think the astronaut was playing a joke?

Musgrave likes mind-stretchers, for sure! But he's made clear the
'snakes' he saw on two missions -- both involving deploying the
heavy IUS booster payloads -- are rubbery strips that had
'internal motion' as they floated past the cabin window soon after
payload deployment, but he doesn't see them as anything but funny-looking debris.


Oberg and Musgrave at Cape Canaveral

Originally posted by JimOberg
Actually, even though Exubie soiled himself...

Pretty disgusting.

No matter.

Since this thread is 57 pages in length - and I know for a fact that you post files as evidence simply because you know that hardly anyone here will ever bother read them.... Padding those arguments ;-)

As a consequence, I am forced to choose which files to research and which ones are effectively bogus, insofar as they do not contain the pertinent data which may not be accurately represented in your posts.

Anyone can check the validity and degree to of accuracy in your claims by simply doing a key-words search.

*Members: When Jimbo (or anyone for that matter) posts a file that he alleges substantiates whatever claim he happens to be making, one can use the contents of his post to do a key-word search in the files he represents as containing corroborative data. This makes the searching process much easier, and helps identify the situations where the data may have been misrepresented.

While the quality of the data in the files is rarely suspect and somewhat difficult to investigate, the manner in which they are represented and the claims that they are alleged to support can be investigated - and so should be.

In cases such as the STS-114 sighting, such research and 'vetting' is a prerequisite, which if not done can allow for your investigation to become contaminated. ;-(


Cheers!!!

[edit on 14-3-2009 by Exuberant1]

I suppose it doesnt matter which files are published on this site really, nothing matters, except what your heart tells you.

My heart says NASA knows about extraterrestrial life. Whether Jim does or not is another debate.

Originally posted by Jay-in-AR
Oh well. Each has their opinion, I suppose. Considering we still have no idea what that thing is, I can't discredit the ice particle theory. It would be nice to have SOMETHING to guage the distance that the object moved away from the shuttle.
There simply isn't enough information to determine it.

More information could help select among alternative hypotheses.

Some of us are seeking that information.

Some of us don't want to look for it, or at it, and don't want anyone else to look at it.

The range to 'dots' can be judged, partially and occasionally, by seeing if they pass in front of or behind shuttle structure, or ISS structure, by seeing if they become sunlit simo with the Orbiter, by seeing if they appear to be inside the shuttle's own shadow. On rare occasions, an object of interest can be viewed from different exterior cameras, allowing triangulation. Those sorts of observations give clues to some particle ranges.

I think these clues point to close (and hence small) objects. But the issue remains in debate.

However, we're not all helpless. We can seek and find additional contextual information.

My instinct is that those who seek new information are more confident in their interpretations, than those who refuse to consider new information.



[edit on 14-3-2009 by JimOberg]