Buzzed By Alien Probe in 1991?

Originally posted by flexy123

Originally posted by NotReallyASecret
NASA and Harvard believe in an alien probe?

I wonder what the "debunkers" will have to say about this.....

(95% of claims in the UFO/Alien field are total BS, so a high level of doubt is 100% and absolutely legitimate)

No, 95% of that is not all BS.... A portion of it is from BS attention seeking losers, a portion of it is mis-identification, and a portion of it is probably due to paranoia and mental instability- Like the classic crazy woman upstairs who's always ranting on about aliens coming in her window to get her. We have all come across people like that (I know I have anyway!).

this post is directly to 'notreallyasecret' and 'logical one'
well done on killing a promising thread with your 2 page arguement

reply to post by Phage


I'm the OP, and I came back to say, that upon rereading the article thoroughly, I was indeed a little quick to jump the gun on my original analysis of it. Again, I appreciate argumentation. It only makes the community stronger. This being said, until we re-encounter the object in 2015/2016, assuming it hasn't been knocked out of its previously observed orbit, we can't be sure as to what it was.

I appreciate the alternative viewpoints. As of now, there is nothing definitive to say that it was either an alien probe or an asteroid. Using technology from 1991, the author believed that he was able to attribute significance to the idea that it was a probe. Again, significance only indicates that something is unlikely to have happened by chance. It does not establish fact (without multiple supporting studies). There is credible evidence that has since been discovered that indicates it may be an asteroid. The orbit is still pretty odd, but that could be due to collision with other objects in space or a variety of other reasons.

I brought this article to our attention because despite the criticisms, it's still impossible to say this WASN'T an alien probe. Even though, as others have already pointed out, the author admits that his bias is that it is a returning anthropomorphic object that had somehow escaped Earth's gravitational pull, the evidence contraindicated this. The best explanation AT THAT TIME was option 3 (alien probe). We won't be able to confirm or deny for a few more years. Thanks for taking the time to read my first thread and adding some meat to it. I, for one, got exactly what I was hoping for: a lively debate about the topic that expanded my understanding. I can see both sides of the argument, but I still think this "encounter," whether artificial or natural, is intriguing and should be stored in the memory banks. Not conclusive proof of ETs but interesting nonetheless.

Originally posted by jcolsto
reply to post by Phage

 

I'm the OP, and I came back to say, that upon rereading the article thoroughly, I was indeed a little quick to jump the gun on my original analysis of it. Again, I appreciate argumentation. It only makes the community stronger. This being said, until we re-encounter the object in 2015/2016, assuming it hasn't been knocked out of its previously observed orbit, we can't be sure as to what it was.

I appreciate the alternative viewpoints. As of now, there is nothing definitive to say that it was either an alien probe or an asteroid. Using technology from 1991, the author believed that he was able to attribute significance to the idea that it was a probe. Again, significance only indicates that something is unlikely to have happened by chance. It does not establish fact (without multiple supporting studies). There is credible evidence that has since been discovered that indicates it may be an asteroid. The orbit is still pretty odd, but that could be due to collision with other objects in space or a variety of other reasons.

I brought this article to our attention because despite the criticisms, it's still impossible to say this WASN'T an alien probe. Even though, as others have already pointed out, the author admits that his bias is that it is a returning anthropomorphic object that had somehow escaped Earth's gravitational pull, the evidence contraindicated this. The best explanation AT THAT TIME was option 3 (alien probe). We won't be able to confirm or deny for a few more years. Thanks for taking the time to read my first thread and adding some meat to it. I, for one, got exactly what I was hoping for: a lively debate about the topic that expanded my understanding. I can see both sides of the argument, but I still think this "encounter," whether artificial or natural, is intriguing and should be stored in the memory banks. Not conclusive proof of ETs but interesting nonetheless.

And justly so.
I loved the article and enjoyed being able to contribute to its enigma.
Long live science and the quest for truth.

Originally posted by Logical one

Originally posted by NotReallyASecret



Extraterrestrials are real. Deal with it.

edit on 30-6-2012 by NotReallyASecret because: (no reason given)

They might be..........but so far no concrete evidence that they have visited Earth........unless you know different.

I think this is pretty acceptable evidence.


vault.fbi.gov...

Guy Hottel
Guy Hottel was a special agent in charge of the FBI's Washington Field Office. The information concerning Mr. Hottel is in regard to a March 22, 1950 memo he sent to the FBI Director concerning flying saucers.

Guy Hottel Part 1 of 1

vault.fbi.gov...

I remember years ago a report in the main stream news of a space object that was thought to be junk but then made a course change in a way junk could not do.

I also find it interesting that after seeing this object and they began looking, they did not notice the earth trojons until 2011. i think it more likely that these objects are also artificial and recently took up positions before and behind the planet.

Originally posted by NotReallyASecret

Originally posted by flexy123
If you think that all "debunkers" and "professional skeptics" have an agenda that they "HAVE TO" debunk *any* such claims you are simply wrong. We are not "getting paid" for belonging to one or the other side, believers or non-believers.

Of course you are not getting paid. You guys do it for free, since many of you are fundamental Christians on this forum.

You're a piece of work, NRAS. Claiming many of the debunkers are fundy Xstians. First off, it doesn't appear anyone is debunking this article per se, rather skeptical people are pointing to the fact that the scientific knowledge has increased since this article from 21 YEARS AGO, and the additional information tends to decrease the ET artifact hypothesis probability, to wit: a lot more near-earth asteroids have been observed, which changes the basis of the researcher's estimated probabilities.

But the fact that you take this article as prima facie evidence of ET UFOs visiting the earth, and then state without any other proof that this is definitely the case just goes to show the intellectual flabbiness of so many of the ET true believers.

To the OP: whatever this object was, this was a great post (will go back and S&F it) and unique in it being a post regarding a refereed scientific paper discussing a possible UFO. It also shows intellectual and emotional maturity on your part to have taken phages words to heart and went back and re-read the article to a better understanding of it, and then posted your follow-up post.

Originally posted by H1ght3chHippie
Very interesting article, even though it is in parts hard to read because it uses a very scientific language and expresses a lot in formulas.

As far as I understand it they discovered an object of about 9-19 meters that came in on a very specific trajectory, approached earth and remained in orbit for a period of months, and it did so periodically .. in the 50ies .. the 70ies .. and then 1991 again.The speed, the trajectory, and mostly the way it reflected light by kind of flickering, made it appear as if it might be either a man made object or an alien space craft, and the mathematically most likely conclusion was that it was alien made because they could exclude the man made object.

Of course that, as the author says as well, does not mean it *IS* an alien space craft, it just says that - based upon incomplete knowledge - it is the most probable option.

Very close, except that the article doesn't say it is "coming in" on a trajectory, but that we are meeting it when our respective orbits periodically allow for that encounter, every 15 or 16 years. by a backward extrapolation of the orbit using the refined orbital elements, they calculated previous close encounters, any of which could have been an "origin" if it is a man-made bit of discarded rocketry in a heliocentric orbit. those encounters, in 1975 and 1958, constrain to just a very few possibilities the man-made objects it could potentially be.

Going roughly by the orbital period, we should have encountered it again in 2008, and the next encounter should be in 2024.

According to the article, the thing that marks the object to be of potentially artificial origin is the fact that it's not in a stable orbit - the orbit will degrade in a matter of not more than a couple thousand years without correction. For it to have such an orbit, it would have to be "recently made" - i.e. the product of the ejecta from a lunar impact, or something like that, which is highly unlikely. Also arguing in favor of artificial origin is the perceive "flashing", as if from specular highlights on a rapidly rotating body. For it to be natural, this would require one "bright" side and one "dark" side, with alternating albedo as it rotates. That's not unknown in nature, but is usually the result of picking up dust on the "leading" face of an object in an orbit. With a rapid rotation that causes an object to flash, it would seem to preclude that explanation - the dust would have been collected on all faces as it rotates, leaving no "bright" side.

The probability of it being man-made is constrained by the relatively low number of potential rockets that could have been it's origin. they are all known, and can be backward-calculated to see if they fall into that orbit. investigations so far show that not to be the case, but there are extenuating circumstances that could potentially change that, such as the possibility that some fuel was left on board, and in being vented, the reaction to the action of the venting could have changed the orbit, bringing it closer into line with the observed orbit of this object.

The fact that both of those probabilities are low is what pushes the probability of an alien origin up. I think it was Sherlock Holmes who said, via Arthur Conan-Doyle, that "when the impossible has been eliminated, then whatever is left, however improbable, must be the fact."

Originally posted by Power_Semi
I think the fatal flaw in his argument is that he concludes it is has a low probability to be a man made rocket section because "Spacewatch would be highly unlikely to have spotted a rocket section."

He comes to this conclusion because there are so few of these, and they're so small, and they are moving so slowly, that spacewatch wouldn't normally have detected it, it was only because someone used the wrong settings that it was observed.

Basically he's saying "there are only maybe 10 of these out there, and we wouldn't normally be looking for them, the chances of observing one of these small number of small objects is low, and so therefore there is little chance it can be one of them."

But that is flawed logic.

What he's doing is trying to inject chance into his scientific conclusions for it not being man made.

But you know, if you got someone to pick a random number between 1 and 10000 and then you tried to guess it - it might be highly unlikely that you'd get it right, but there is still a very definite possibility that you would.

So I would be willing to bet a substantial sum on this not being an alien probe, and instead being either a rocket section (probably) or an asteroid.

Steel himself said at the end of the article that his personal opinion is that it is a rocket section, but that the probabilities as he presented them indicate that the possibility of it being an alien artifact is non-trivial. His entire argument is not that it IS an alien artifact, only that the potential for that is non-trivial.

Originally posted by mirageman
..

Then there was the case in 1989 when the Soviet Phobos 2 probe photographed a huge eliptical shadow on the surface of Mars and a large unknown object as it approached Phobos. All contact was then lost with the probe.
..

OT, but I thought I should add this: Check this article, which contains photos of similar shadows taken by Viking-1 when witnessing a near-eclipse by the moon Phobos on Mars: www.agu.org...
Here's one such example:



Compared to the alleged alien shadow witnessed by Phobos-2:



I found a better rundown here: adsabs.harvard.edu...
"The Viking Lander 1 (VL1) camera system captured three Phobos eclipse events on 20, 24, 28, September 1977. On Earth, one would never see a series of eclipses at one location over such a short time scale. However, on Mars it is possible to see two eclipses in one day at a single location. "

On topic: What a pity the 1991 VG turned out to be more mundane than first suggested by the applaudible open-minded scientist. The reason scientists are so cautious with stuff like this though, is this. Give us a finger, we'll grab an arm And smother his name for the future, with speculations about alien contact.

Still, I'll be curious to follow this objects passing, if nothing else to see what we learned, a case study of a case study.

The same characteristics found in this object have since been observed in other natural/asteroid bodies. Still an interesting read though. Thanks.