French National Assembly to host UAP seminar with true believers

[Leekster]

I don't know what the career of that pilot was, but, for what I know, most civilian pilots are ex-military.

In the USA most commercial pilots are not ex-military. After Vietnam larger percentage commercial airline pilots in the US were former military. With the post cold war draw down and massive retirements the percentage of airline pilots that are former military has dropped significantly. I have read it's around 30% now. I would have to do some research to get exact numbers but it's definitely not a majority these days.

 

[Andreas]

Michael Shermer said in a recent video on UAPs that Kenneth Arnold saw geese.
It's possible, but how does he know? Was he there as well with Kenneth?
I don't see how any other stance other than "there is nothing to look at" is seen as "suspicious".
No alien spacecraft does not mean "everything pretty explained without any problem".

Obviously, it's impossible to tell exactly what Arnold saw. It could have been alien spacecraft, it could have been geese, or he could have made it all up. But what we do know is that there's no evidence of strange crescent-shaped craft flying past Mount Rainier that day. Explaining eyewitness accounts scientifically is impossible without supporting evidence because we don't know what we're supposed to explain, if anything. When it comes to UFO stories, the important thing, to me, is determining whether something constitutes evidence of anything extraordinary or not.

To me, there are two different types of UFOs: the LIZ UFO and the high-information UFO. A LIZ UFO is something that remains unidentified because of a lack of data, while a high-information UFO is something deemed anomalous despite the existence of scientifically testable evidence, for which no mundane explanation exists. The problem is that we have a lot of LIZ UFOs, but not a single high-information UFO. In light of this, the "there's nothing to look at" hypothesis seems like the obvious null hypothesis.

 

[Mauro]

I agree with this, I just don't see how this shows that every time a pilot describes something that seems to be weird (excluding liars), then I have to assume he surely misidentified whatever he was looking at.

Yet again, then I will stop.

I have a big bag with marbles. You pull one out and you see it's black. Then another one, and it's black. Then another, and another, and another... and they are all black. Which colour would you bet the next marble will be?


Or a similar one.

I have a big bag with say 10000 marbles. I propose you this game: you pay me 1$ to draw a marble, if it's black I keep the dollar, if it's red I pay you half a million dollars. Let's say you agree and start drawing marbles. How many dollars will you give me before it starts dawning in your mind that all the marbles in the bag are black?

 

[Fritzkquzerk]

Obviously, it's impossible to tell exactly what Arnold saw. It could have been alien spacecraft, it could have been geese, or he could have made it all up. But what we do know is that there's no evidence of strange crescent-shaped craft flying past Mount Rainier that day. Explaining eyewitness accounts scientifically is impossible without supporting evidence because we don't know what we're supposed to explain, if anything. When it comes to UFO stories, the important thing, to me, is determining whether something constitutes evidence of anything extraordinary or not.

To me, there are two different types of UFOs: the LIZ UFO and the high-information UFO. A LIZ UFO is something that remains unidentified because of a lack of data, while a high-information UFO is something deemed anomalous despite the existence of scientifically testable evidence, for which no mundane explanation exists. The problem is that we have a lot of LIZ UFOs, but not a single high-information UFO. In light of this, the "there's nothing to look at" hypothesis seems like the obvious null hypothesis.

The null hypothesis is fine, and it's the default hypothesis for anyone who takes this seriously.
I just don't get how you can be so certain that there are no cases at all worth looking at.
That's all I'm saying.
I have no idea on what Arnold or Fravor really saw, I wasn't there, assuming "aliens" without evidence is pointless.
But since these are not the only cases, I'd be more careful than simply say it's all 100% errors without any exceptions.
@Mauro I understand your analogy, in that case I would assume all of them are most likely black without saying I'm 100% certain that red marbles do not exist, and that it would be nice to empty the bag to be even more certain.

 

[Eburacum]

Michael Shermer said in a recent video on UAPs that Kenneth Arnold saw geese.
It's possible, but how does he know? Was he there as well with Kenneth?

Well, no; that is just a supposition on his part. I expect that if Shermer had been in the cockpit with Arnold he would have probably reported the same subjective experience, or maybe one with a few minor differences; this is common for cases with multiple witnesses. All this means is that the multiple witnesses have probably been subject to the same error or set of errors.

To determine if Arnold's sighting were geese, or pelicans, or experimental aircraft, or extradimensionals, Shermer would need to occupy a completely different vantage point, probably one much closer to the phenomenon, at a distance where the nature of the phenomenon would be unmistakeable. This is obviously impossible, so the great unsolved cases will remain unsolved for lack of reliable information.

 

[Ian Ridpath]

Michael Shermer said in a recent video on UAPs that Kenneth Arnold saw geese.

Actually the explanation put forward by my colleague James Easton many years ago was that he saw pelicans, and it made good sense. So either Shermer mis-remembered what Easton said, or you mis-remembered what Shermer said.

 

[jarlrmai]

I always find it grimly interesting that Kevin Day (of tictact fame) was onboard during one of the most tragic events of US military mis id's when the US Navy shot down an Iranian airliner.

 

[Mauro]

@Mauro I understand your analogy, in that case I would assume all of them are most likely black without saying I'm 100% certain that red marbles do not exist, and that it would be nice to empty the bag to be even more certain.

Not sure which of the two examples you are referring to, but if it's the second it would be expecially nice for me, with a net gain of 10000$

 

[Fritzkquzerk]

Not sure which of the two examples you are referring to, but if it's the second it would be expecially nice for me, with a net gain of 10000$

Let's say this.
If I drew 99 black marbles out of a bag of 100, I still would not be confident enough to say there's surely no differently colored marble left inside.
I'd have to empty the bag to be 100% sure.
I wouldn't bet any money on it, unfortunately for you, but I still would not say I'm certain that there are no red marbles in your bag.
Now, if I had 10 people saying they saw a red marble in your bag once, I'd be even more curious to empty it.
Not that this applies that well to UFO reports in general, I'd just be careful saying "no red marbles there just based on probability".

Regarding Arnold, @Ian Ridpath.
I'm sure Shermer said "geese" in that video, but since I already know the pelican theory about it, he surely misremembered Easton's conclusion.

 

[RobertBillyBob]

If I drew 99 black marbles out of a bag of 100, I still would not be confident enough to say there's surely no differently colored marble left inside.

Would having no proof non-black marbles exist change that? How much would you be willing to invest to check if the one millionth marble was any other color after still lacking any proof non-black marbles exist?

 

[flarkey]

Where this bag of 100 marbles analogy falls down is that after the 99th black marble is drawn, we shouldn't be calculating the odds of the 100th one being a different colour marble. We should be calculating the odds of it not being a marble at all. Perhaps the odds of it being something that we've never seen before such as a crocoduck?

 

[Ann K]

I just don't get how you can be so certain that there are no cases at all worth looking at.
That's all I'm saying.

IF all you have is a story, and we know that many stories are unreliable,
THEN how do we know which of the stories has any truth to it?

There's nothing to tell us which tales have any truth to them, and which do not. Even if we assume they're all telling us exactly what they THINK they saw, we have no way to separate the accurate recollections from the imagined ones. Yes, I think we can discard any that require something to break the law of physics, but that still leaves a lot of unverified and unverifiable accounts. You insist that there's a possibility that there's some good info in there, but others think we run the risk of diluting any good information we might have with mistaken identities. To an investigator, untrue conclusions may be indistinguishable from unverifiable conclusions.

 

[John J.]

I don't see how any of this proves there cannot be pilots who are accurate in their descriptions and see stuff that eludes our current known categories.

I don't think it's unreasonable to think that pilots/ other aircrew might be able to give accurate descriptions of a previously unknown/ undescribed type of flying/ airborne object. Must have happened quite a few times in WW2, maybe a few times since, where the reported sighting of a new type of foreign aircraft was later confirmed beyond doubt.
In principle, this might apply to a hypothetical alien craft or some other visible exotic phenomena.

But there is no convincing testable evidence for the presence of alien spacecraft visiting Earth (or, at present, alien life of any sort anywhere) or for any sort of phenomenon which, seen clearly, might reasonably be mistaken as alien spacecraft visiting Earth (or something similarly exotic).
There is irrefutable evidence that just like other people, pilots sometimes make misidentifications or errors of judgement.
Unlike first sightings of foreign aircraft, no sightings of UFOs by pilots have ever later been confirmed to be anything exotic*; this is true of all UFO cases.

I'd guess most combat jets, maritime patrol aircraft, attack helicopters etc. carry cameras of some description, but we haven't seen much evidence from these (exceptions include FLIR-1, GIMBAL, discussed elsewhere). This might indicate that either reported sightings by aircrew are fleeting, or not supported by photographic evidence gathered at the time, in which case we hear no more about them: we don't get to see evidence of aircrew UFO sightings that are shown to be mistaken, evidence that aircrew can be prone to misidentifications/ perceptual errors/ over-interpretation just like everyone else.

I don't think there's anything wrong with @Fritzkquzerk's proposal, that aircrew might be able to accurately describe something novel that they encounter. But there's very little evidence that there are exotic craft/ strange phenomena that might be mistaken for exotic craft for aircrew to describe. Anecdotal accounts remain anecdotal accounts, no matter who they're from.


*U-2 pilot Ronald Williams might have observed a meteorological sprite in 1973, 16 years before their existence was demonstrated beyond doubt. But this wasn't a UFO report- and sprites were shown to exist within 16 years, and have been photographed and filmed thousands of times since (post #79, When Ball Lightning Isn't Ball Lightning thread). We're 79 years on from Kenneth Arnold's sighting, 78 from Mantell, 74 from (very ambiguous) sightings by F-94 pilots during the "Washington invasion", 50 years from Iranian F-4s pursuing a UFO, 22 years from FLIR-1 and Tic Tac, 11 years from GIMBAL. But we still have no real evidence of extraterrestrial life or artefacts of any sort.
UFOs have been visible from, but just beyond the reach of, P-51s, F-94s, F-4s, F/A-18s (and often their cameras).

In terms of non-ET explanations for UFOs, we're also 26 years on from the UK's frankly awful Project Condign report, which mentioned reports from aircrew ("Unexpected Encounters by Aircraft" and elsewhere), Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Condign) and its light-bending "Buoyant Plasma Formations". It was conducted by the section of DI55 that was responsible for the MoD's "UFO desk" up to that time, but perhaps not coincidentally not for long after. The report assumed that the Belgian black triangles were accurate-ish reports, and came up with what might be considered a pseudoscientific explanation. On page 1 it has a prominent photo of a Belgian triangle, labelled

An example UAP formation of the triangle type

...it's the hoax photo admitted to by Patrick Maréchal in 2011, Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_UFO_wave. Some Condign pages, including the photo, are viewable via Internet Archive here https://dn760105.eu.archive.org/0/items/condign-vol-2-1-258/uap_vol1_pgs1to13_ch1_text.pdf. IIRC Condign was referred to by Baptiste Friscourt in one of the Dossier OVNI videos, but can't find it right now.

 

[Todd Feinman]

IF all you have is a story, and we know that many stories are unreliable,
THEN how do we know which of the stories has any truth to it?

There's nothing to tell us which tales have any truth to them, and which do not. Even if we assume they're all telling us exactly what they THINK they saw, we have no way to separate the accurate recollections from the imagined ones. Yes, I think we can discard any that require something to break the law of physics, but that still leaves a lot of unverified and unverifiable accounts. You insist that there's a possibility that there's some good info in there, but others think we run the risk of diluting any good information we might have with mistaken identities. To an investigator, untrue conclusions may be indistinguishable from unverifiable conclusions.

That seems like a perfectly honest assessment of the situation. All you have is witness testimony in most situations. You can hope for testable physical evidence to become available. It is possible to categorize witness descriptions by shape, etc. and that has been done. Solving the endless dots people are constantly saying are aliens, is good too.

 

[Fritzkquzerk]

Where this bag of 100 marbles analogy falls down is that after the 99th black marble is drawn, we shouldn't be calculating the odds of the 100th one being a different colour marble. We should be calculating the odds of it not being a marble at all. Perhaps the odds of it being something that we've never seen before such as a crocoduck?

Would having no proof non-black marbles exist change that? How much would you be willing to invest to check if the one millionth marble was any other color after still lacking any proof non-black marbles exist?

Were these the premises of the analogy?
Or the analogy by virtue of being an analogy is not a perfect comparison?

 

[Fritzkquzerk]

My basic idea is that a lack of data in unexplained cases is precisely where scientific curiosity should begin, rather than a reason for dismissal. It is understandable that many prefer to dismiss these cases because the alternative is often framed as "aliens", for which there is no proof. However, the lack of evidence for an exotic theory shouldn't kill our curiosity about the observations themselves.
Furthermore, there is no need to hypothesize anything "woo" or paranormal to point out that prosaic explanations simply do not account well for every single case. If a report doesn't fit into our existing categories, whether known aircraft, plasma, or something else, the most objective approach is to leave it open, rather than assuming it must be a misidentification. To truly understand what is in the bag, every data point matters, even the unresolved ones.

 

[JMartJr]

This happens with many cases, any eyewitness testimony alone is scientifically useless for drawing conclusions.

Agreed!

I agree with this, I just don't see how this shows that every time a pilot describes something that seems to be weird (excluding liars), then I have to assume he surely misidentified whatever he was looking at.

Nor do I. I do think that I have to acknowledge that error is possible, and that since we know human error occurs and don;t know if aliens or time travelers or being from other dimensions, human error is more likely, even if unproven.

I'm not drawing any conclusion on NHI/Aliens/Chinese antigravity, I just think it's safe to suspend judgement on some unresolved cases.

I take that to mean to not reach a conclusion -- I'd agree with that, But I'd continue to apply judgement -- in my judgement, the more likely explanation is more likely, even if not proven.

Michael Shermer said in a recent video on UAPs that Kenneth Arnold saw geese.
It's possible, but how does he know? Was he there as well with Kenneth?

Just as a side-note, I have a little model of the crescent shaped "flying saucer" Arnold reported, so have paid some attention to that case. There is an interestingly diverse array of proposed explanations for what he saw (geese, raindrops on the windshield, meteors (!) and others, none of them seem very likely. But all of which are at least vaguely long-shot possible. We'll never know which one is correct. And "aliens" has been proposed as an explanation -- for various reasons I don't think that is possible, but I could be wrong about that!

Whatever it was, to my way of thinking the explanations based on things known to exist are more probable than those based on things not known to exist, even if we'll never know which one was what he actually saw.

I don't see how any other stance other than "there is nothing to look at" is seen as "suspicious".
No alien spacecraft does not mean "everything pretty explained without any problem."

Yep, some things will never be explained. Which is not evidence of something extraordinary at all, if I understand your posts correctly I thing you'd agree, but I won't speak for you! ^_^


EDIT TO ADD:

@Fritzquzerk posted while I was typing,
"My basic idea is that a lack of data in unexplained cases is precisely where scientific curiosity should begin, rather than a reason for dismissal."
I don't see how that is possible -- there is, definitionally, a lack of data to analyze!

 

[FatPhil]

I refer the honorable lady to the analysis of your interlocutor I presented in posts #171 and #172.

Thumbs down? Awwww - do it again...

 

[Mauro]

Let's say this.
If I drew 99 black marbles out of a bag of 100, I still would not be confident enough to say there's surely no differently colored marble left inside.

Hint: the probability the next marble will not be black is 1/(99+2) = 1 in 101. After 1000 marbles it'll be about 1/1000, after 10K marbles about 1/10000 and so on. It's called Rule of succession, or Laplace's rule.

I'd have to empty the bag to be 100% sure.

Of course, but you should rationally expect, after 99 black marbles, to have just one chance in 101 to find a different one.

I wouldn't bet any money on it, unfortunately for you,

Which is a pity

but I still would not say I'm certain that there are no red marbles in your bag.
Now, if I had 10 people saying they saw a red marble in your bag once, I'd be even more curious to empty it.

Ah, are you really sure you wouldn't bet any money? I just met some guys who remember well that they saw red marbles in my bag. More than one red marble, actually.

Now, more seriously.

Not that this applies that well to UFO reports in general, I'd just be careful saying "no red marbles there just based on probability".

A black marble is a 'report about an UFO which turned out to be something mundane'. A red marble is a 'report about an UFO which turned out to be really an UFO'. The marbles remaining in the bag are 'reports about an UFO which are impossible to classify due to lack of data'.

Up to these days there have been a lot of 'reports about UFOs which turned out to be something mundane'. I don't know the number, I'd guess from some thousands to the tens of thousands. And there have been exactly zero 'reports about an UFO which turned out to really be an UFO'.

Now that you know Laplace's rule of succession you can calculate the probability that one of the unidentifiable reports is actually something not mundane: from one in some thousand to one in some tens of thousand (if you don't like my numbers, use yours) just based on this evidence alone. Don't give up your hopes for this, but don't expect anything better. And everytime another UFO report turns out to be mundane you should revise your probability downwards: 1/1000, 1/1001, 1/1002....

And if you now factor in all the rest of the evidence we have (in particular the extreme physical difficulty of achieving the means of a meaningful interstellar travel, but also the lack of any signs of a technological civilization everywhere we've been able to look) you might understand why we skeptics are so skeptic... I fear that if I bet with you one trillion $ against one cent on the next identified UFO report to be real or mundane I'm offering you a bet terribly lopsided in my favor. You should not accept it.

 

[Andreas]

To truly understand what is in the bag, every data point matters

Well, the problem is that there are often no data points to study—just stories. If there were verifiable data, there would be no real need to believe or disbelieve what people claim they've seen.

 

[Fritzkquzerk]

Hint: the probability the next marble will not be black is 1/(99+2) = 1 in 101. After 1000 marbles it'll be about 1/1000, after 10K marbles about 1/10000 and so on. It's called Rule of succession, or Laplace's rule.


Of course, but you should rationally expect, after 99 black marbles, to have just one chance in 101 to find a different one.


Which is a pity


Ah, are you really sure you wouldn't bet any money? I just met some guys who remember well that they saw red marbles in my bag. More than one red marble, actually.

Now, more seriously.

A black marble is a 'report about an UFO which turned out to be something mundane'. A red marble is a 'report about an UFO which turned out to be really an UFO'. The marbles remaining in the bag are 'reports about an UFO which are impossible to classify due to lack of data'.

Up to these days there have been a lot of 'reports about UFOs which turned out to be something mundane'. I don't know the number, I'd guess from some thousands to the tens of thousands. And there have been exactly zero 'reports about an UFO which turned out to really be an UFO'.

Now that you know Laplace's rule of succession you can calculate the probability that one of the unidentifiable reports is actually something not mundane: from one in some thousand to one in some tens of thousand (if you don't like my numbers, use yours) just based on this evidence alone. Don't give up your hopes for this, but don't expect anything better. And everytime another UFO report turns out to be mundane you should revise your probability downwards: 1/1000, 1/1001, 1/1002....

And if you now factor in all the rest of the evidence we have (in particular the extreme physical difficulty of achieving the means of a meaningful interstellar travel, but also the lack of any signs of a technological civilization everywhere we've been able to look) you might understand why we skeptics are so skeptic... I fear that if I bet with you one trillion $ against one cent on the next identified UFO report to be real or mundane I'm offering you a bet terribly lopsided in my favor. You should not accept it.

You're falling trap to the false dichotomy of aliens vs. Nothing again.
Also, reports of red marbles from pilots are not going away, whether we like it or not.
I think people who are investigating this in a serious manner are not wasting time.
I guess we'll just agree to disagree at this point.

Well, the problem is that there are often no data points to study—just stories. If there were verifiable data, there would be no real need to believe or disbelieve what people claim they've seen.

Yes, this is for the "is there a UAP phenomenon to study?" thread.
Some people think about creating some systems to detect aerial anomalies, some other people think this is pointless.

 

[NoParty]

I just don't see how this shows that every time a pilot describes something that seems to be weird (excluding liars), then I have to assume he surely misidentified whatever he was looking at.

No, nothing sure about it. It's just the most likely explanation...until that elusive "quality evidence" some day arrives.
You're kind of (unintentionally, I trust) setting up an unhelpful straw man, here.

I just don't get how you can be so certain that there are no cases at all worth looking at.

Ummmm...you know that you're on the Metabunk site, right?
Where people look up the most minute details--over hundreds & hundreds of posts--about incidents that are
often ridiculous on their face. Folks here "look at" a million things...often putting in far more effort than the
occasional hoaxer, or person that wants people to believe that the blurry, distant image they captured,
is actually profoundly important.

 

[FatPhil]

No, nothing sure about it. It's just the most likely explanation...until that elusive "quality evidence" some day arrives.
You're kind of (unintentionally, I trust) setting up an unhelpful straw man, here.

Why the trust? Genuinely - why? A black marble is a post from your interlocutor in bad faith...

 

[Andreas]

Yes, this is for the "is there a UAP phenomenon to study?" thread.
Some people think about creating some systems to detect aerial anomalies, some other people think this is pointless.

Some people set out to find Bigfoot because many people claim to have seen a large, hairy creature sneaking around in the forest. Real scientists generally don't, though, because we have no good reason to believe such a creature exists. And I don't think we should spend money studying Bigfoot because people claim to have seen her.

When it comes to identifying things in the sky, a great deal of effort is already devoted to doing so. It's important for both air safety and national security. We need to become better at identifying birds, balloons, and drones, and millions of dollars are spent on improving those capabilities. Being skeptical of sensational claims made by pilots isn't the same thing as saying it's "pointless" to identify aerial anomalies. But this has nothing to do with trusting pilots' testimony when they claim things that can't be verified beyond stories and rumors.

 

[Nourali]

The first part is here.

UAP Seminar – Research on UAPs: History and Contemporary Issues – Round Table #1

The introduction too :

Research into Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena: Beyond Fantasy – Introduction

It's in French. If I have time, and if the automatic translation isn't good enough, I may write my own translation or provide a better and more detailed summary.

 

[RobertBillyBob]

Some quotes from Dini's presentation :

We are clearly dealing with physical phenomena, physical phenomena you can observe and record.

one of the characteristics, beside the extraordinary accelerations observed in several cases, is objects changing forms

There are some objects we can't explain leading to interesting questions about the physical laws they obey and their interaction with their surroundings.

Are they craft of X or Y origin? Maybe chinese, maybe russian? This is what americans are wondering. Maybe they come from elsewhere*, but in this case; what are the physical principles making them move?

*the original french implies extraterrestrial origin

Two years ago we analyse bark samples that were irradiated by a UAP [...] We concluded it was irradiated by a very high level of energy, around 600MW which is the energy produced by a nuclear power plant

He is talking about the Vallee/sigma2 paper on Haynesville https://www.3af.fr/global/gene/link...-aerial-phenomenon-new-physical-data.pdf&fg=1

 

[Don Kielty]

Actually the explanation put forward by my colleague James Easton many years ago was that he saw pelicans, and it made good sense. So either Shermer mis-remembered what Easton said, or you mis-remembered what Shermer said.

I think the flock of birds explanation is the most likely in Kenneth Arnold's case - whether geese or pelicans. This opinion has only been strengthened by the recently released batch of UAP evidence from the US, which turns out to be mostly birds.
It's crazy to think that this misidentification would lead to the subsequent near 80 year modern day UFO/UAP flap!

 

[Mauro]

You're falling trap to the false dichotomy of aliens vs. Nothing again.

I used 'aliens' tout court just to simplify. Add in to the mix any non-mundane cause you prefer, from human-made physics-defying crafts to psychic projections or Matrix glitches (both in the same general ballpark with aliens for what concerns prior probabilities, give or take some 10EXP9 from the odds) to supernatural entities (but here we go to a wholly different ballpark of even greater improbability). It won't change much.

So we agree to disagree, that's okay . I hope we will come to agree in the future, maybe because visting aliens have been confirmed and I'll agree with you, or maybe because you'll revise a little your epistemology (the method you use to determine if something is believable or not) and then you'll agree with me (in which case I hope this thread had some utility). Cheers!

 

[RobertBillyBob]

Second part

Here a quick summary for each participant :

1 - Courtade (GEIPAN director) : presented GEIPAN, its history and current work

2 - Courtaban (CAPCODA, Air and Space Force) :

• The better the radars get, the smaller and slower the object they can detect. Air force have to send fighters to visually ID objects they can't ID remotely. They have to do this more often than before because radars are better. What they see is mostly migratory birds and balloons. He jokes about Disneyland Paris being a big source of balloons.
• No unexplained case with anomalous flight characteristics have been detected to his knowledge. Cases that remains unexplained are mostly because weather was too bad to send fighters.

3 - Moyal (Air and Space Force): presented a case where CAPCODA helped GEIPAN. It was a military exercise, which combined with parallax seemed weird to the witnesses

4 - Munsch (GEIPAN field investigator): explained how GEIPAN filed investigators work. They are volunteers working with GEIPAN in their spare time to help explain cases.

5 - Vaillant (UAP Check):

• argued for
  • better sensor networks
  • a scientific committee à la Avi Loeb
  • less classifying and closing of cases by the army
  • a European Union level UAP protocol / GEIPAN equivalent
  • the various UAP databases around the world to be unified
• says there is innovation potential behind UAPs
• use Golfech Nuclear Power Plant case : https://www.cnes-geipan.fr/fr/cas/2010-10-02663 as an example of UAP behind a potential threat

 

[RobertBillyBob]

5 - Vaillant (UAP Check):

• argued for
  • better sensor networks
  • a scientific committee à la Avi Loeb
  • less classifying and closing of cases by the army
  • a European Union level UAP protocol / GEIPAN equivalent
  • the various UAP databases around the world to be unified
• says there is innovation potential behind UAPs
• use Golfech Nuclear Power Plant case : https://www.cnes-geipan.fr/fr/cas/2010-10-02663 as an example of UAP behind a potential threat

I know I'm very biased against the guy, but I felt like he's trying to get people to fund UAP study because he hopes to be part of it.

 

[John J.]

Some quotes from Dini's presentation :

Two years ago we analyse bark samples that were irradiated by a UAP [...] We concluded it was irradiated by a very high level of energy, around 600MW which is the energy produced by a nuclear power plant...

He is talking about the Vallee/sigma2 paper on Haynesville https://www.3af.fr/global/gene/link...-aerial-phenomenon-new-physical-data.pdf&fg=1

Dini says "irradiated by a very high level of energy", a more objective description might be "pieces of bark charred by something".
The energy levels he/ his co-authors calculate is entirely dependent on taking the claimant's story as accurate, that a bright, hot mysterious source in the centre of a clearing charred surrounding trees. Without starting a fire.
Despite referrals in the paper to apparently substantial on-site investigations involving Edward Condon and Jacques Vallee not long after the incident, there is a curious lack of photographic evidence from that time showing what the authors describe (trees surrounding the clearing being charred on the side facing it). Presumably the ground of the clearing was scorched; again little if any photographic evidence.
The possibility of trees being charred by a fire in the clearing is not considered. Trees can be charred by fires of mundane origin.
Or (assuming that there were a number of charred trees) they might have been individually damaged, one at a time, by a more local source.

The authors claim the sample was collected by the claimant (a professor of nuclear physics) and was found to be contaminated with caesium-137.
Supposedly it was received by (co-author) Jacques Vallee from an unidentified (why?) "US atomic facility".
For all we know, Vallee mailed the sample to "the facility" requesting tests, they declined and posted them back again.
There is no evidence of a radiological clean-up ever being conducted at the site, or that the authors (or earlier investigators) ever suggested this to relevant authorities; caesium-137 distributed as fallout spreads in the environment as its compounds are highly soluble (Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesium-137), accidental exposure to caesium-137 has led to a number of deaths.
The levels of Cs 137 found in the samples might have been low, but what if other areas of the clearing/ forest were more heavily contaminated?

It reminds me of Lt Col Halt's supposed detection of raised radiation levels re. Rendlesham Forest; in UFO investigations (claimed) radiation/ radionuclides are evidence of something extraordinary, but not sufficient grounds to involve agencies that might want to protect public health or investigate pilfering/ unauthorised use of radioactive materials. Some of those agencies are well-equipped, except in the humor department.

At no point do the authors consider a hoax (or even a misidentification). The authors are at best extremely trusting, and completely uncritical, of the original claim. They do not realistically consider any alternative hypothesis. Some other concerns in post #17. Not a good paper IMHO.

Luc Dini is participating in the French National Assembly seminars on UAP, he is the chair of 3AF's UAP interest group SIGMA2, one of that group's webpages implies he's a member of GEIPAN (https://www.3af.fr/en/news/estimate...fied-aerial-phenomenon-new-physical-data-2466), yet in the 2025 paper he and his co-authors don't test a hypothesis, they make calculations and draw conclusions based on anecdotal evidence. The original claim is unquestioned, they are credulous.
Their one apparently new finding based on physical evidence, the Cs 137, doesn't appear to register with them as something they should advise appropriate authorities about. I don't feel the paper represents good science, and the authors don't document any responsible actions taken after their claimed finding of a dangerous isotope.

 

[Mauro]

Some quotes from Dini's presentation :

Two years ago we analyse bark samples that were irradiated by a UAP [...] We concluded it was irradiated by a very high level of energy, around 600MW which is the energy produced by a nuclear power plant

And yet another one who speaks of energy then uses units of power... yesterday I walked a long way, about 20 kilograms.

 

[RobertBillyBob]

And yet another one who speaks of energy then uses units of power... yesterday I walked a long way, about 20 kilograms.

I had to check if that was from my translation : he uses both "energie" (energy) and "puissance" (power) when speaking, "haut niveau d'énergie > 600MW " (high energy level > 600MW) is written on his slide.

 

[Mauro]

I had to check if that was from my translation : he uses both "energie" (energy) and "puissance" (power) when speaking, "haut niveau d'énergie > 600MW " (high energy level > 600MW) is written on his slide.

One wonders if he even knows they are two different things...

 

[Ann K]

And yet another one who speaks of energy then uses units of power... yesterday I walked a long way, about 20 kilograms.

I'm used to that in colloquial speech: "How far is it to Akron?" "Oh, about half an hour". But in a scientific presentation it's strange. It sounds as if he wants to speak "sciency" words to impress an uncritical audience.

 

[RobertBillyBob]

I'm used to that in colloquial speech: "How far is it to Akron?" "Oh, about half an hour". But in a scientific presentation it's strange. It sounds as if he wants to speak "sciency" words to impress an uncritical audience.

It's not really a scientific presentation, it's aimed at lay people and lawmakers.

 

[Mauro]

It's not really a scientific presentation, it's aimed at lay people and lawmakers.

It does not matter. If one knows something of physics he'll always avoid confusing the units of measurement: it's simply... an embarassing thing to do. But if one has a only a colloquial understanding of what energy and power are, he will not care. Yeah, one should avoid putting things he does not understand in a presentation, but it's all fluff anyway.