Eighty Years of Pilot UFO sightings.

Originally posted by Clickfoot
However, a pilot IS going to be able to identify other aircraft, very accurately, unless they are very damn far away.

Thaks for the thoughtful reply, Clickfoot. In this case, don't you see that your argument is one being made 'from sincerity', without actually performing the kind of large-numbers analysis Hynek did? How do you know how far away something is -- it's only by making assumptions about its identity and hence expected angular size.

By comparison, Haines's approach, and again he made this clear, was not to question the validity of any of the reports, but to accept all reports as genuine and see if there were interesting statistical patterns. This is also a reasonable analysis plan, as long as the results are not over-intepreted.

The point is, though, Jim, most of these reported sightings were not very far away at all. You know as well as I do that pilots have to have perfect eyesight. They're going to be identifiable.

Originally posted by JimOberg
it's only by making assumptions about its identity and hence expected angular size.

I think you might find radar gives a pretty good indication.

But you still didn't answer the question

[edit on 21-8-2009 by Clickfoot]

Originally posted by Clickfoot
You never did answer Kandinskys question, and I'd also be interested in your answer, if you would be so kind:

Originally posted by Kandinsky
Have there been any reported incidents since 1980 that you have interpreted as 'unidentified' or 'anomalous?'

Thanks for the reminder, this stuff can get lost in the dust cloud of fast-moving debates.

My model of how "UFO reports" are generated has no problem with some reports not being identified as to actual prosaic cause. It should be the expected outcome -- as it is with murders, missing persons, aircraft accidents, and lost socks. Life's like that.

As to unexplained cases being proof of the existence of a non-prosaic cause, there's the heart of the matter. It's an "argument from inability", not an argument based on direct evidence. There are specific kinds of positive evidence, for example, for ET contact, that I have listed on my home page, and there have been some teasers along those lines. It's worth watching, and watching MORE carefully then the lamentable chronicle to date.

But I really WOULD like to know what caused the Cash-Landrum stories and the JAL pilot's account over Alaska, for example. But NOT knowing something is no excuse for jumping to actually KNOWING something else.



[edit on 21-8-2009 by JimOberg]

reply to post by JimOberg


For the most part Jim, I would agree with that sentiment...

However, in certain cases you CAN prove a negative.

For Example, in the BOLA case, we know (after 60+ years have elapsed, and all of Earth's then 'Top Secret' technology is now identified in the public forum) that there were zero aircraft (made by humans) that could perform in the manner documented over Los Angeles by the Army, identified and confirmed on radar, and reported on with pictoral and video data in newspapers across the Globe...

If such a (human-made) craft did exist, it likely would have been employed in WW2, at the very least in a classified capacity, and would now be standard textbook material in our modern classrooms.

When cases like that present themselves, Occam's Razor my friend is still in effect.

What's the simplest solution?

In my view, having researched astrophysics enough to begin to fathom the potential for life outside of Earth, the simplest solution (once ALL terrestrial solutions have been exhausted) then becomes Intelligent Beings from Another World, one of the myriad worlds around the millions of stars we know (from the weight of the universe, and the gravitational displacement around stars) exist.

Surely, if you are the same Jim Oberg who corresponds for MSNBC, and has worked for NASA, you must also realize this?

I've also heard a theory (from Nohup, a friend at ATS) that it could be Time Travelers. While not the simplest solution in my view (because time travel into the past has yet to be demonstrated, so the evidence for it isn't there no matter how good the math looks...) this solution could be correct.

I'd like to hear your take on how Occam's Razor would apply to a case like the Battle of Los Angeles? What exactly do you think the simplest explanation of that event would be? And Why?

I realize that this was more of a 'Army Ground Personnel/Radar Sighting' than a 'Pilot Sighting', however the case is very relevant in the overall conversation as to what we 'know', and to excise such an important event from that conversation in my view would be detrimental.

Thanks very much for your time in considering my questions.

-WFA

Originally posted by Clickfoot
The point is, though, Jim, most of these reported sightings were not very far away at all. You know as well as I do that pilots have to have perfect eyesight. They're going to be identifiable.

I think you are again making a statement of faith based on your assumptions. Get a little more living under your belt and see if those assumptions still hold. You will realize that you don't see with your eyes, you see with your brain... and IT sees based on its data base of 'most survival-prone interpretations'. We're evolved from people who thought that way -- those who didn't left no descendants.

I provided several specific examples in my link about pilots grossly misinterpreting range and motion of unfamiliar lights -- it's not adequate to dismiss those examples as 'just the stupid ones', you have to try to understand my argument (and Hynek's) that a tendency to such trained misinterpretations made pilot's SAFER and MORE likely to survive to reach retirement. It made them very much more safe to fly with, too -- just, it didn't make them good 'UFO observers'.

Originally posted by JimOberg
it's only by making assumptions about its identity and hence expected angular size.

I think you might find radar gives a pretty good indication.

...which would be relevant, if the pilots involved in sudden surprising visual stimuli processing were flying in AWACS planes. No smart-aleck jab intended -- the utility of ground radar in assisting pilots in identifying lights of unknown range is really limited, case after case indicates.

Another 'classic' I draw your attention to on my home page is the Soviet-era 'Minsk airliner case' (1984 -- very likely actually a missile launching hundreds of miles away.

And it's not reasonable to argue that "they can't ALL be misperceptions", purely on a statistical basis, since it is exactly those sorts of reports that Hynek and Haines collected. They were preselected from a family of reports that was going to be at least heavily skewed -- if not entirely composed of -- normal misperceptions. So yes, they ALL could indeed be of that nature.

Originally posted by Clickfoot
..most of these reported sightings were not very far away at all. You know as well as I do that pilots have to have perfect eyesight. They're going to be identifiable.

Clickfoot,thats quite a good point- many Police officers have also submitted some quite bizarre witness testimony down the years:

“It was approximately 50 feet in length. There were portholes on the side but there were no visible signs of propulsion. The ship appeared to be metallic and gave off a bright glow. There was a low whirring sound coming from it.”
Police Constable Brian Earnshaw - Bacup, Lancashire,October 1969
Two other uniformed officers, PC Colin Donahoe and Malcolm Reader also witnessed the object from a different location.






“There was an eerie, greenish-grey glow in the sky. Then I picked out an object about thirty feet long and built up in three sections with the top looking like a dustbin lid. It gave off a high pitched whine. I was paralysed. I just couldn’t believe it.”
Police Constable Colin Perks - Wilmslow, Cheshire,March 1966






"The light would throb with an increased intensity prior to each change of colour and hover in the sky for some time and then dart and cover large distances, doing a number of right-angled turns at high speed".
Senior Constable Andrew Luhrs -Gladstone,Southern Australia,May 22, 1996






"I happened to look up and there was that UFO right above the cornfield, it was just hovering right up above the power lines. -i t was just like the ones you see on TV.
Then it took off like a bullet, just tremendously fast -if I live to be 100, I'll never forget it,"
Henrico County Sheriff A.D. "Toby" Mathews Richmond , Virginia, United States August 9, 1966






"At first I though we were seeing a ship on fire on the horizon towards Ilfracombe. But then it rose out of the water like a blood-red sun, a good deal larger than a full-sized harvest moon.It remained at sea level, then suddenly took off at a fantastic speed towards the Atlantic."
Chief-Inspector Reginald Jones, of "D" Division, Glamorgan Police - object also witnessed by another officer,09-01-1957.






"It was cigar shaped and yellow in colour.It travelled along slowly for a few seconds, then shot off into the night at a fantastic speed. We didn’t know what it was, nor had we ever seen anything like it but many reports have been made at the police station of strange lights and objects".
Police Constable William Bryne -Banbury, Oxfordshire.
Object also witnessed by Police Constable Perry Jackson.






"It was a giant plate of light. It lit up the whole horizon with a glare. It was flying low over the landscape and appeared to be spinning"
Police Constable Eric Pinnock - Warminster, Wiltshire,30/11/65






"I know I'm not crazy .. I've always said I didn't believe in this stuff,I don't know what I saw, but I know I saw something . . It's just hard to describe what happened. It looked like an evening star or something,but it kept getting brighter and bigger.
I heard a whirring noise—like a blender . . Like it was straining, when you first put ice in it—and then the UFO started coming closer.
The thing came right over the car,It came right to us, like it was being piloted - the thing just hovered over us, about 20 or 30 feet up, for more than a minute.
There was light coming out from little windows and light changed colors several times, from soft blue to red to green and other colors. It didn't spin or anything. It just hovered around there -then the thing just picked up and took off, north west, toward Satartia."
Madison County Sheriff's Deputy Kenneth Creel - Flora, Mississippi, United States,February 10, 1977
Object also witnessed by Highway Patrolman Louis Younger.






“I saw something in the sky that I didn't know what it was,it was over Highway Two about fifteen hundred feet, a large, lighted ball about six feet in diameter. It was going toward the beach very slowly.I was in the parking lot of the Hilton when they called me from the police department.They told me to go to the beach because a great many people were watching this object.
When I got there, the object was already hovering over the water about two or three miles off the beach. There were about five hundred people watching. There are about four public housing areas right there and all the people from the housing areas were there. I saw one light coming down but when I got to the beach I noticed there were two objects in the water, not together but about a mile away from each other. They were hovering over the water, right about at the water level.
It was pretty high, like an orange-yellow light. I don't know exactly the size. As it came down it got larger. It was pretty good sized.
The police got many, many phone calls, all night. We called the Coast Guard but they didn’t come. They said it wasn't an emergency.
I think they were mystery objects. I was impressed by what I saw.There were many other officers who saw this."
Mayagüez Police Lieutenant Cesar Grácia -1977, Mayaquez, Puerto Rico - on witnessing two Large Glowing UFOs Enter & Emerge from Ocean.






"It was a real big triangular object,completely engulfed in a bright yellow light ... It seemed to be at an altitude of about 500 feet above the ground, over property belonging to Camp García. I calculated the altitude based on the height of some trees in the area. What intrigued me the most was that the thing was suspended right over the area where the US Navy has an airstrip or runway for their planes to land and take off ... And that it was an unidentified flying object.
There were no military exercises at the time, so what was that object, that triangle of light, doing there over the runway? Thinking that I was observing something I shouldn’t be seeing, I left the site at once. But from that moment on, I realized something very strange is taking place on the land controlled by the US Navy.
This has happened on many occasions, sometimes between 9 and 11 PM, and sometimes around 2 or 3 in the morning.They come out from the sea at a spot right in the middle of Punta Arenas and Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in Ceiba".
Wilfredo Feliciano- Director of the Vieques Municipal Police Department,Puerto Rico.






"We made several attempts to follow it, or I should say get closer to it, but the object seemed aware of us and we were more successful remaining motionless and allow it to approach us, which it did on several occasions.Each time the object neared us, we experienced radio interference.
The object was shaped like a football, the edges, or I should say outside of the object were clear to us...the glow was emitted by the object, was not a reflection of other lights".
California Highway Patrol Officer Charles A. Carson - California, United States, August 13, 1960.
Object also witnessed by Police Officer Stanley Scott






"The bulk of the object was plainly visible at this time and appeared to be triangular shaped with a bright purple light on the left end and the smaller, less bright, blue light on the right end. The bulk of the object appeared to be dark gray in color with no other distinguishing features. It appeared to be about 200 feet wide and 40-50 feet thick in the middle, tapering off toward both ends. There was no noise or any trail. The bright purple light illuminated the ground directly underneath it and the area in front of it, including the highway and the interior of our patrol car.
After arriving at approximately its original position,it went straight up in the air and disappeared at 25-30 degrees above the horizon."
Deputy Sheriff Bob Goode Damon, Texas, United States September 3, 1965
Object also witnessed by Chief Deputy Billy McCoy






"I always look behind me so no one can come up behind me. And when I looked in this wooded area behind us, I saw this thing. At this time it was coming up...to about tree top level. I'd say about one hundred feet. it started moving toward us.... As it came over the trees, I looked at Barney and he was still watching the car...and he didn't say nothing and the thing kept getting brighter and the area started to get light...I told him to look over his shoulder, and he did.
He just stood there with his mouth open for a minute, as bright as it was, and he looked down. And I started looking down and I looked at my hands and my clothes weren't burning or anything, when it stopped right over on top of us.The only thing, the only sound in the whole area was a hum...like a transformer being loaded or an overloaded transformer when it changes....
.... it went PSSSSSHHEW, straight up; and I mean when it went up, friend, it didn't play no games; it went straight up."
Deputy Sheriff Dale Spaur Portage County,Ohio,April 17, 1966
Also witnessed by Deputy Wilbur Neff.






"This object came at us from the west. At first it looked like a red hot piece of coal about the size of a quarter held at arm's length. In a matter of seconds it was as large as a ruler held at arm's length. That is when it came to a complete stop.
"The shape of the object was distinct. The body of the object was solid bright red and it gave off a pulsating red glow completely around the object. The object hovered a few seconds, then made a left turn and again hovered for a few seconds, then went straight up like a shot. We watched it until it completely faded beyond the stars."
Patrolman LeRoy A. Arboreen - Dunellen, New Jersey, United States December 20, 1958
Object also witnessed by Patrolman B. Talada

Link

Cheers

[edit on 02/10/08 by karl 12]

reply to post by WitnessFromAfar


WFA, good post -there are two relevant quotes below about the abuse of Occam´s razor and people just lazily shoehorning in cynical preconceptions:

"I propose that true skepticism is called for today: neither the gullible acceptance of true belief nor the closed-minded rejection of the scoffer masquerading as the skeptic.
One should be skeptical of both the believers and the scoffers. The negative claims of pseudo-skeptics who offer facile explanations must themselves be subject to criticism. If a competent witness reports having seen something tens of degrees of arc in size (as happens) and the scoffer -- who of course was not there -- offers Venus or a high altitude weather balloon as an explanation, the requirement of extraordinary proof for an extraordinary claim falls on the proffered negative claim as well. That kind of approach is also pseudo-science. Moreover just being a scientist confers neither necessary expertise nor sufficient knowledge.
Any scientist who has not read a few serious books and articles presenting actual UFO evidence should out of intellectual honesty refrain from making scientific pronouncements. To look at the evidence and go away unconvinced is one thing. To not look at the evidence and be convinced against it nonetheless is another. That is not science."

Bernard Haisch, Astrophysicist.






"UFO debunkers do not understand Occam's Razor, and they abuse it regularly. They think they understand it, but they don't.
What it means is that when several hypotheses of varying complexity can explain a set of observations with equal ability, the first one to be tested should be the one that invokes the fewest number of uncorroborated assumptions. If this simplest hypothesis is proven incorrect, the next simplest is chosen, and so forth.
But the skeptics forget two parts: the part regarding the test of the simpler hypotheses, and the part regarding explaining all of the observations. What a debunker will do is mutilate and butcher
the observations until it can be "explained" by one of the simpler hypotheses, which is the inverse of the proper approach".

Brian Zeiler

[edit on 02/10/08 by karl 12]

These are the links I referred to above:

Minsk Airliner case
www.msnbc.msn.com... and a longer version here:
www.jamesoberg.com...

The pilot perceptual problems are discussed here with examples:
www.zipworld.com.au...

Originally posted by karl 12

Originally posted by Clickfoot
..most of these reported sightings were not very far away at all. You know as well as I do that pilots have to have perfect eyesight. They're going to be identifiable.

Clickfoot,thats quite a good point- many Police officers have also submitted some quite bizarre witness testimony down the years.

Have any of these cases actually been investigated by experienced people seeking prosaic explanations? Please provide links to such results. Without such work, I'd argue that such raw reports are worthless as evidence.



[edit on 21-8-2009 by JimOberg]

Originally posted by karl 12
reply to post by WitnessFromAfar

 

WFA,good post -theres two good quotes here about the abuse of Occam´s razor and people just lazily shoehorning in cynical preconceptions:

...
Brian Zeiler

Cheers.

Who is he and why should his personal smears have any evidentiary value?

Is this your approach -- pick a position, and then find other people who agree with you to 'prove' you're right?

Hasn't that been what the UFO 'debate' has degenerated to for decades? Are you happy about where this approach has led?

Originally posted by JimOberg

Originally posted by karl 12
reply to post by WitnessFromAfar

 

WFA,good post -theres two good quotes here about the abuse of Occam´s razor and people just lazily shoehorning in cynical preconceptions:

...
Brian Zeiler

Cheers.

Who is he and why should his personal smears have any evidentiary value?

Is this your approach -- pick a position, and then find other people who agree with you to 'prove' you're right?

Hasn't that been what the UFO 'debate' has degenerated to for decades? Are you happy about where this approach has led?

Jim, I'm a bit confused by this statement? Perhaps I'm reading your words improperly?

I'm certainly not here to smear anyone. I just wanted to ask your opinion on the BOLA case, as it pertains to the argument you were making earlier on this page...

Would you mind addressing my question directly?

Thanks.

-WFA

Originally posted by WitnessFromAfar
I just wanted to ask your opinion on the BOLA case, as it pertains to the argument you were making earlier on this page...

Would you mind addressing my question directly?

If you mean the 1942 LA events, I really don't have anything to add.

Anyone want to discuss my link to the 'typical pilot misperception' essay?

reply to post by JimOberg
There's a new thread that discusses the inaccuracy of pilot sightings. It's fairly interesting stuff.

The Oldfield UFO Film

I've got a few questions about the link you posted, but it's late. I'll post another time.

Originally posted by JimOberg
Anyone want to discuss my link to the 'typical pilot misperception' essay?

It's foggy at best, the bad start doesn't help.

Case Studies In Pilot Misperceptions Of "UFOs"
Pilots could be counted on to perceive familiar objects -- aircraft and ground structures -- very well, Hynek continued, but added a caveat: "Thus it might surprise us that a pilot had trouble identifying other aircraft."

Well, which is it?

Case Studies In Pilot Misperceptions Of "UFOs"
He found that the best class of witnesses had a 50% misperception rate, but that pilots had a much higher rate: 88% for military pilots, 89% for commercial pilots. the worst of all categories listed.

The very simple and logical explanation for that is the pilots provided more detailed accounts of the witnessed phenomenon which made it possible for an explanation to be determined. That would make them better witnesses not poorer ones.

[edit on 23-8-2009 by fls13]

Originally posted by fls13
The very simple and logical explanation for that is the pilots provided more detailed accounts of the witnessed phenomenon which made it possible for an explanation to be determined. That would make them better witnesses not poorer ones.

This is a thoughtful post, needs some cogitating. Thanks!

This notion stresses a little-recognized issue that the collection of reports that we look at has been already subconsciously pre-sorted, and understanding these sorting criteria may be critical to evaluating the nature of the 'unsolved residue'. Worth thinking about.

I'm really confused here Jim, yes, the BOLA Case is the LA Event in February of 1942. Seriously? You have nothing more to add?

Originally posted by JimOberg
But I really WOULD like to know what caused the Cash-Landrum stories and the JAL pilot's account over Alaska, for example. But NOT knowing something is no excuse for jumping to actually KNOWING something else.
[edit on 21-8-2009 by JimOberg]

In your above quote, that's where I'm having the issue here... You say that you WOULD like to know, yet you absolutely refuse to consider a hypothesis?

Jim, surely you are aware, in Science what we do is make guesses, called Hypotheses. These are educated guesses as to the possible outcome of a mystery. We then test these Hypotheses against the available evidence in order to determine their possibility of being correct, and hold these hypotheses against others to find the most reasonable theories...

So, if I'm reading you correctly, it's like you're saying "I want to know the answer to this question, but I'm not willing to consider all of the possibilities."

You state that "NOT knowing something is no excuse for jumping to actually KNOWING something else."

Well Jim, for many serious scientists, there isn't really a 'Jump' at all. You see when you've exhausted the terrestrial possibilities, what does Occam's Razor suggest is the NEXT simplest solution?

Seriously, I'd like your answer to that question, without avoidance or indirect dodging.

What (in your view) is the next simplest solution once all Terrestrial possibilities have been excluded?

There are those of us out here that will seriously examine every prosaic/terrestrial explanation to an event, and hold that theory against the available evidence. I'm one of those researchers.

In the BOLA Case, the first link in my sig line, I've done just that. Using the Scientific Method, I've tested every conventional aircraft (made by man in 1942) against the radar tracking data. Nothing we had then (even in test flight status/top secret status) could move that quickly. Many others have rechecked my math.

The radar returns came directly from the US Army (before the establishment of the Air Force). Multiple ground sightings confirmed these readings, both from military personnel, the public at large, and newspaper reporters. The object was filmed and photographed. 1400+ Shells (from 50 Caliber AA-Guns) were fired at the object for over half an hour (nothing we made, especially not a balloon could withstand such a pounding and still fly off.) The object hovered over Culver City for an extended period of time, during bombardment (VTOL flight had yet to be mastered by humans, even balloons have drift, and fall under fire...)

So seriously Jim, I'd appreciate it if you would extend to my question a bit more respect, as it is asked in a very serious manner, and you claim to be an authority in this area...

After the terrestrial explanations have been exhausted, what would Occam's Razor suggest to be the next simplest solution? Please answer with your best theory, so that I may subject the Hypothesis to the available evidence in the case, thereby drawing a scientific conclusion.

If you really just don't have a theory, I'll continue to support the Extra-Terrestrially Built/Flown Craft theory, and I'll kindly ask you not to challenge that with 'tactics', but with Science.

What I'm looking for here Jim, is if you don't think it's ET in those cases, what is YOUR theory? And how does YOUR theory stand up to the available evidence.

Thank you very much for considering these arguments.

-WFA

Originally posted by JimOberg
Get a little more living under your belt

I've got quite enough of that

Originally posted by JimOberg
I provided several specific examples in my link about pilots grossly misinterpreting range and motion of unfamiliar lights

Aha. Lights. But, we're not talking about lights. I agree with you that lights are difficult. Daytime sightings are far more difficult to explain.

Thanks for your posts Jim, I'm finding this thread interesting.

Interesting pilot report from 'The TRUE Report on flying Saucers' - published 1967:

Over Akron: 'I Thought It Was Going To Ram Us!'


[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/16061ae578f0.gif[/atsimg]

On two consecutive nights, July 4-5, 1961, while flying in the Cleveland-Akron area, Ernest Stadvec encountered strangely maneuvering lights which he could not identify. A World War II bomber pilot, he now owns a flying service in Akron, Ohio.
"I have been flying since 1942 both day and night," he stated, "and currently own a flying business that requires us to fly day or night in all types of weather. Over the years I have seen many falling stars and other phenomena associated with atmospheric conditions as well.
What we saw was not an astronomical or meteorological phenomenon."

On the first night, over northwest Akron, Stadvec and two passengers spotted a brilliant green and white light apparently suspended to the right of the plane, about 10:15 p.m.

"The object we saw dived at us on a collision course to the extent that I actually called out to my passengers that the object was going to ram us," Stadvec said. "After the object came at us it reversed course and climbed rapidly into a clear night sky."

And he continued: "This happened again the next night (about the same time) when the object flashed up from in front of us and again climbed into a clear sky. In both instances, the object climbed at tremendous speeds, leveled off and dissappeared to the northwest."

On the second night about the time of the sighting, radar at Cleveland Hopkins airport detected a meteor-like object, which flared up on the screen and faded out within a few minutes.

Link

[edit on 02/10/08 by karl 12]

Originally posted by JimOberg
Anyone want to discuss my link to the 'typical pilot misperception' essay?

As discussed in this thread, instead of dealing in vague generalizations, why not attempt to address specific incidents?

As for electromagnetic effects ,I'd be interested to hear any opinions you may have as to the nature of the objects involved in these incidents:

The Coyne incident, Mansfield, Ohio, 1973


The 1976 Tehran, F-4 Phantom Chases UFO Case


The RB-47 UFO Encounter | 1957

Cheers.

[edit on 02/10/08 by karl 12]