Jimmy Carter's 37 Answers on UFOs.

Originally posted by schuyler

Originally posted by RUSSO

Originally posted by JimOberg
Yawn. Just another unverified report until somebody actually takes the trouble to investigate it.

Did that ever happen?

Since >>80-95% of all raw reports turn out to have prosaic explanations, it makes sense to avoid
actually checking VIP reports since they might be solved, and lose their value as publicity.

Isn't that what happened with this case?

I dont know, but I prefer to believe that an elected president knows what he's talking about. Anyway, I prefer to believe what he believes to have seen, than what do you think he saw.

He says he saw a UFO, a light in the sky. He does not embellish the story. He doesn't say he saw an alien craft. He just says he saw a UFO, end of story. It's also worth noting that he filled out his report to NICAP a full four years after the incident. I don't think just because he was elected president that this gives him super-human powers of recall. If it were anyone else we'd be questioning the whole issue.

In any case, it's a light in the sky. It does not increase our understanding about UFOs at all. The sighting was extremely mundane. It was just a light in the sky; that's all.

I'm just curious if you think anybody should actually investigate the report to verify it, if possible.

Or are you worried about what might be found about it?

Reluctance to investigate raw data doesn't strike me as a prudent attitude.

Originally posted by RUSSO
reply to post by schuyler

 

If you want some more info, please see this documentary:

'Out of the Blue - The Movie' presents unexplained cases from around the world, investigates 50 years of official contradictions and denials, and puts forth possible reasons for secrecy. The film also examines scientific theories regarding interstellar travel, and discusses the current movement for official disclosure on the subject of UFO's — a subject that has been considered by most government officials to be unworthy of serious investigation. I think you will enjoy it.

Sure it's enjoyable, if being lied to about "nobody has ever explained the Cooper sighting" makes you feel special and smart. I thought it was positively creepy the way Fox misinformed his own father about that case, for dramatic effect.

Originally posted by RUSSO
reply to post by wasco2

 

NO WAY 10 men deceive themselves that way. Confuse Venus with a UFO is one thing, mistaking Venus with the moon is totally different. And why should I give credit to a debunkers site?

Boy, you like wearing your "I'm Closed-Minded -- nyaa, nyaa, nyaa.." T-shirt, don't you?

Ten men didn't deceive themselves that way -- Carter SAID they did, but when Sheaffer asked around, he found out that NONE of them did.

Originally posted by WideOpenSpace

g. Change brightness? *yes*
h. Change shape? *size*
i. Change color? *yes**

Seemed to move toward us from a distance, stopped -- movedpartially away -- returned, then departed. Bluish at first,then reddish, luminous, not solid.*

19. Did the object(s) rise or fall while in motion? *came close, moved
away-came close then moved away.*

Yeah, right. Typical Venus behaviour.

Actually, yes. Read Hendry's 'UFO Handbook', or any serious study of typical misperceptions.

When proponents keep advertising their utter ignorance of the basics of 'UFO misperception', they discredit themselves and the field. What do you call it? uFOOLogy?

Originally posted by TristanC
He saw this UFO in 1969.

The UFO was most likely a classified yet to be seen stealth aircraft.

I’m sure many were in development at the time, maybe worth checking production dates on Wiki.

You are welcome to perform some original research on this hypothesis, it's always helpful. Please get out there and dig into such stories.

reply to post by WideOpenSpace


LOL!

Debunkers will try to debunk the sun if the media was given enough time to convince them it's a figment of their imagination.

reply to post by JimOberg


A lot of UFO sightings come with warnings to shut up or be shut up. Threatening a former US president would only give him more ground to stand on. Silencing all other witnesses and contradicting the President will only serve to make him look like a fool. I guess that approach worked then.

Originally posted by dodgygeeza
A lot of UFO sightings come with warnings to shut up or be shut up. ]

Do you have even the slightest bit of evidence to back that up? I'm betting you don't.

I've investigated UFOs for over 20 years (and not on the Internet, I mean as in get in the car and interview the witness face to face and tramp over, photograph, and measure the location of the sighting) and never had an actual witness tell me they were threatened.

Originally posted by WideOpenSpace

g. Change brightness? *yes*
h. Change shape? *size*
i. Change color? *yes**

Seemed to move toward us from a distance, stopped -- movedpartially away -- returned, then departed. Bluish at first,then reddish, luminous, not solid.*

19. Did the object(s) rise or fall while in motion? *came close, moved
away-came close then moved away.*

Yeah, right. Typical Venus behaviour.

Typical Venus behaviour

And some folks believe that was Venus.

Originally posted by RUSSO
But some people here on ATS makes me believe there is a ongoing attempt to debunk each UFO thread.

Isn't that kinda the de facto point?

Appreciate the thread, though. I was aware he had some sort of encounter ... but it's kinda cool to actually see his responses.

reply to post by JimOberg

I will certainly try!

reply to post by wasco2

Agreed.
I saw what i believe to be a UFO and at no point was i confronted by anyone after seeing it. I think “MIB” visits may be a thing of the past.

reply to post by wasco2


I'm going to guess that your contacts aren't high ranking military personnel or placed in roles of authority, so that if they started shouting their mouths off about it won't create a huge amount of interest. Social conditioning about aliens and UFOs will serve to make sure that their stories will fall on deaf ears.

Do you understand what I'm saying? Perhaps I should elaborate from now on about the differences between an everyday civilian and military/member of the government.

If you are in personal contact with the former President you'd be in a position to create a problem if you were to lend your personal testimony to a sighting of this kind. However, the best policy in this situation would be to threaten all those people around him and make him look like a fool.

Anyway, it's a theory, no need to get all uppity about it.

Originally posted by dodgygeeza
Anyway, it's a theory, no need to get all uppity about it.

edit on 7-4-2011 by dodgygeeza because: to add

I have no problem with you having a theory. In your original post you phrased it as a statement of fact. A statement I disputed and still do. While none of my investigations involved military I have met a number of witnesses who were military at the time of their sighting and none of them were told to shut up about what they saw.

This link, first:
www.ufoevidence.org...

Cameron argues:

In the end, it is safe to conclude that the object was not Venus, no matter how bad witness testimony might have been. A review of the evidence would show:

- Venus was in the southwestern sky on January 6, 1969, not in the west as claimed by Sheaffer. Carter who had spent watches, while in the Navy doing watches in cruisers and destroyers, as a navigation officer, taking star shots with a sextant, stated the object was in the western sky.
- Carter described the object as being the "size of the moon" or "slightly smaller than the apparent size of the moon." Venus never appears this way.
- Venus at the time was at between 15 and 21 degrees over the horizon at 7:15 p.m. Carter, a trained observer stated the object was 30 degrees above the horizon, or almost double the height of Venus at the time.
- Sheaffer described Venus as "being at it’s brightest" on the date in question. It wasn’t at its brightest. - The witnesses declared that the object disappeared after 10 minutes or at 7:25 p.m. Venus, on the evening in question, was visible in the clear sky till 9:20 p.m. If it had been Venus, it would still have been visible for another 115 minutes after the witnesses claimed it had disappeared in a clear sky. During these 115 minutes the planet Venus would have increased in brightness (not disappeared) as it approached the horizon. Venus does not disappear, and would have been eliminated as a suspect by a grade six astronomy class investigation.

Here is a wiki link about the sighting:
en.wikipedia.org...

There, you see a response by Carter arguing that it wasn't Venus:

...In the interview Carter stated that he did not believe the object was Venus, explaining that he was an amateur astronomer and knew what Venus looked like. He also said that as a scientist he did not believe it was an alien craft and at the time assumed it was probably a military aircraft from a nearby base. However, he said that the object did not make any sound like a helicopter would do. Carter also said that he did not believe that any extraterrestrials have visited Earth. He also stated he knows of no government cover-up of extraterrestrial visits and that the rumors that the CIA refused to give him information about UFOs are not true.

My conclusion is inconclusive. I appear to be seeing two different accounts. And without someone else to corroborate Carter I am left without anyway to defend his testimony. One thing that this case really highlights for me is that many UFO cases are listed as KNOWN only because the sighting was in the general direction of Venus at the time, NOT because the witness described something that resembled Venus. You really have to pick and choose what's valid testimony. I don't trust that. This leads me to believe that it's possible we have listed a UFO as venus but it was not. But since I cannot prove this and it's only a worry, I cannot rely on it. Bottom line, serious investigation only and when you speculate, admit it. Carter is alone on this, sadly.

Then there're those cases that're still listed as UNKNOWN but were widely reported in newspapers as being the planet Venus. There's even one case I just looked at that the Pentagon reported as Venus and/or a local military exercise. This is ridiculous if you read the actual witness testimony. It's like night and day. Venus doesn't hover and move about and shoot off or light up a whole field and change colors and you name it, it doesn't do it! For hte Pentagon to come to that conclusion they had to pick and choose what testimony they wanted and then in the same sentence claim you cannot rely on witness testimony. It's irony taken to the extreme.

This is why for Venus to be overruled as an explanation you need multiple witnesses and an object that moves to other areas of the sky that just cannot be attributed in anyway to Venus. North is not south! Otherwise, as history as shown, the explanation will almost always be Venus.

This also underlines the significance of UNKNOWN cases to me. The airforce investigators, people who worked for project blue book, and various others, they're determined to explain every sighting as something normal just misidentified. The fact that the cases are UNKNOWN proves beyond doubt to me that even these people, the most skeptical of all, were faced with such insurmountable odds that they simply marked it UNKNOWN and buried it amongst the rest. This is a point that cannot be understated since there're many cases reported as KNOWN that are probably examples of overzealous explainers that were pressured to produce results.

I believe in harsh investigation, but there comes a point when you have to choose sides. Unfortunately, if you examine history closely enough, you will see that there's a side that wants to explain it away. Call them overzealous. Call them what you want. Personally, I think they're good to have around because we need them to compensate for the believers who simply want to report that ET was sighted. Then we have people in the middle that just want the truth and get tired of the back and forth going on between the believers and the explainers. At least all of this infighting has produced the UNKNOWN cases. It's worth that much. But no more in my view.

reply to post by jonnywhite


jonnywhite, thank you for a superb example of a constructive reply.

you can come rain on my parade anytime you have the H2O,
because you will improve the final product.

be well, and don't be a stranger, man.

jim O

Originally posted by jonnywhite
In the interview Carter stated that he did not believe the object was Venus, explaining that he was an amateur astronomer and knew what Venus looked like. He also said that as a scientist he did not believe it was an alien craft and at the time assumed it was probably a military aircraft from a nearby base. (no reason given)