Comprehensive UAP Hypothesis

[LilWabbit]

Based on all the valuable Metabunk efforts so far, here is an attempt to put together a Comprehensive UAP Hypothesis (statements 1 through 7) followed by 3 observable theory-predictions (statement 8). The hypothesis has been further refined based on very valuable comments in the forums and there was a suggestion for a separate thread on the topic. Please feel free to criticize and refine the hypothesis further.
​

Comprehensive UAP Hypothesis​

(1) All UAP evidence acquired from the DoD by the UAPTF (and its predecessor the AATIP) portrays phenomena that were initially genuinely unidentified by the military staff observing and reporting them.

(2) From this body of evidence, UAP footage, radar data and other physical records represent evidence that best lends itself to reliable scientific scrutiny, while not dismissing first person accounts.

(3) However, the low information content of these physical records render them far too open to speculation, poor for scientific verification and ultimately unimpressive as evidence. That UFO theorization invariably concerns itself with low-information-content evidence is to be expected from any exercise requiring speculative latitude.

(4) Some of the observed UAP actually feature classified US military capabilities (e.g. prototype drones and drone swarms). A large number of the incidents portray generally known phenomena (e.g. planes and weather balloons) in an optically deceptive manner. Yet some portray rival technological capabilities. Unpublicized physical records (e.g. wind speed readings) inconsistent with any of the foregoing explanations may accompany a small number of incidents. Without access to such records, however, there is no way to verify such inconsistency.

(5) File names such as GIMBAL and FLIR suggest the DoD had already entertained the explanation of a likely optical illusion for the phenomena shown in some of the footage. The DoD is obviously also aware of its classified capabilities featured in other records.

(6) AATIP (and its direct successor the UAPTF) is a contracted entity loosely under Pentagon whose existence owes to political pressure from the Congress aligned with the UFO curiosities of certain DoD personnel. The entity does not owe its origins to DoD's official national security priorities.​

• From the perspective of DoD core functions, the creation and operation of the AATIP (and its direct successor the UAPTF) remains a fringe exercise in compliance with congressional assignment and prompted by the merging of several political agendas within the Congress.​
• These agendas include a genuine interest in alien technology (e.g. Reid/Bigelow), concern for rival nation military capabilities (e.g. Rubio), as well as winning over an alien-believing demographic of voters in the name of public interest (congressmen across the aisle).​
• DoD is unlikely to express objections if such a fringe entity secures funding from outside its core budget, concerns itself with unclassified data, and strengthens Pentagon's public relations with the Congress and the general public.​
• However, the DoD core organization is characteristically hesitant to share classified information on military capabilities with its contracted entities, especially with unclassified ones like the AATIP/UAPTF which are perceived fringe, political and ideological.​

(7) A politically motivated and unclassified fringe exercise under the Pentagon poses some information security challenges within the DoD and has produced certain unintended consequences.​

• The DoD, on one hand, must provide UAPTF/AATIP with unclassified material to work on. On the other, it must ensure the low information content and inconclusivity of any unclassified physical record of UAP submitted by DoD staff which, unbeknownst to the staff, features classified capabilities (e.g. the USS Omaha radar footage as possibly one such record).​
• Any low-information-content footage acquired by DoD staff (e.g. a USS Omaha crew-member) of a classified military capability specifically designed for tactical deception (e.g. a type of drone swarm), would somewhat safely qualify as unclassified footage for the UAPTF to work with.​
• Reconnaissance, surveillance and intelligence are part and parcel of DoD's core functions in almost every military discipline. Developing these functions to quicker and better identify potential airborne threats is a core area of constant improvement. These core military functions do not rely on a separate modestly funded and unclassified fringe entity in the Pentagon that is demonstrably limited in its capacity to identify UAP.​
• Despite its limited capacity and limited access to classified data, since UAPTF/AATIP is known to exist under the Pentagon, it is often the go-to source sought and quoted by senior officials (both legislative and executive) and media outlets in their public communications on UAP. This has resulted in confusing public statements in which leaked UAP footage, convincingly explained as optical illusion by other sources, is presented as 'Pentagon-confirmed evidence of objects behaving in physics-defying ways.'​

(8) Three Observable Predictions from the Hypothesis:

8.1 All unclassified "UAP" footage released by the DoD will continue to be grainy, fuzzy and low in information content.

8.2 The DoD will continue to officially acknowledge that at least some of the released footage portray unidentified aerial phenomena. Such an acknowledgement does not logically imply that (1) all the UAP footage so defined is actually unidentified by Pentagon, nor point to (2) the Pentagon's deficit of plausible non-alien explanations to any of the footage.

8.3. As long as UAPTF/AATIP exists as an entity under the Pentagon, its current and former members' interpretations on UAP incidents will continue to be sought and quoted by many senior officials and media outlets as authoritative Pentagon positions. Some of these positions will continue to stand in contradiction to other more convincing explanations from other expert sources, including within Pentagon.

P.S. An official Pentagon denial of classified US military capabilities featuring in UAP footage would make sense in both scenarios; (1) such capabilities actually featuring in the footage or (2) not.

 

[Mick West]

Sounds about right

 

[JMartJr]

I'd quibble on point one, and in my mind change "all" to "many." Some folks are honest, some are not, and some working in high-pressure high-stakes jobs are prone to let off steam through pranking each other and the like. While i don't KNOW that anybody generating initial reports were dishonest, or messing their comrades about with prank claims (especially during the sort of UFO flaps that seem to have occurred around a couple of carriers generating the initial three vids) I can't discount the possibility that some reports of unidentified were in fact identified by those reporting them -- possibly accounting for the way several vids chop off just as you might hope to learn more.

 

[Domzh]

What stands out to me is the fact how incredibly easy the GOFAST and TRIANGLE videos are to explain (not the star ID thing Mick did, thats quite impressive).

I just cant imagine how a group of high military officials and "finest engineers" can look at these footages, can talk to the witnesses involved, can read log files and reports and actually conclude it's either highly advanced black projects or ET.

Especially when we have a seemingly obvious case of EM warfare as in the 2015/17 incidents.

I just cant imagine how higher Navy officials cant know about San Clemente Island or EM warfare. Thats borderline impossible.

Whenever I hear "high military officials" I think of Lou Elizondo and maybe one or two cherry picked eye witnesses.

Whenever I hear "scientists and engineers" I cant help myself but assume it must be Bigelows folk who did such research for AATIP. The same "scientists" that Bigelow claimed have found proof for channeling, mediums, ghosts and ghouls..

Its puzzling how all "leaked" footage is from
Navy origin and seems very well selected and cut.

I can see how these footages and quotes of "officials" can persuade the senate and your regular Joe who has other priorities in life than to do research about this stuff.

You could spin a shit ton of conspiracy theories about the "why" and "who" but this leads nowhere.

Next is Lou announcing his run for public office. How convenient he showed up on TV every day for months now, becoming the face that stands for "fighting government cover ups and lack of seriousness in national security topics".

 

[LilWabbit]

What stands out to me is the fact how incredibly easy the GOFAST and TRIANGLE videos are to explain (not the star ID thing Mick did, thats quite impressive).

Mick's star ID is a classic confirmation of a theory-prediction (i.e. "the background pyramids are bokeh artifacts of stars") which was preceded by the main hypothesis (i.e. "the footage features bokeh artifacts of known phenomena") which Mick employed initially to explain the airplane. He confirmed the prediction by using publicly available data on star alignments at a specified time, place and angle. This is classic scientific methodology (i.e. the so-called 'hypothetico-deductive method') used even in theoretical physics. Owing to Mick's scrupulous mini-research, the bokeh-hypothesis for the TRIANGLE video can be considered pretty much scientifically proven and thereby the 'aerial' phenomena in the footage conclusively 'identified' (IAP).

This relates to a broader dilemma when attempting to bring scientific rigour into the investigation of UAP:

i. If by "unidentified" is meant "scientifically unverified", then the DoD's internally satisfactory explanations of UAP as optical illusions (say, with respect to the GIMBAL and FLIR videos) would still not qualify as "identified". Scientifically unverified means that none of the mutually competing hypotheses consistent with the same observed/recorded aerial phenomena have yet been confirmed by a satisfactory number of rigorous and observable theory-predictions. (Using the hypothetico-deductive method of physical sciences and maintaining the highest industry standards of verification). The lack of access to classified information coupled with the low information content of most UAP records makes theory-prediction extremely difficult.

ii. If the epistemological standard of "identified" is lowered to signify a hypothesis providing a satisfactory account for the UAP for operational military purposes, then a more agile and less rigorous process is sufficient for acquiring 'reasonable' confidence in the hypothesis. For all military operational purposes these two videos are, effectively, satisfactorily "identified" as optical illusions of weather balloons or planes. Unlike in the academia, agile processes are of particular importance in operational entities, especially in the military.

Obviously the number of UAP incidents reported by the Pentagon depends greatly on how rigorous a standard for "identification" is being used. The more rigorous (read: scientific) the standard of AP identification, the more UAP filed, reported and indefinitely unsolved.​

 

[gtoffo]

And the Pilots? Are they all just insane or lying or dumb?

Also remember: the Pentagon "technically" can't lie to the US public. It would be against the law. And the only reason we will see this report is because during classified briefings to congress committees overseeing them the Pentagon was unable to provide an explanation for what they were observing.

Basically their boss asked them what it was and they didn't know. The boss wasn't pleased and tasked them to find out.

The coordinated conspiracy you are proposing is improbable in my opinion.

But it's either what you are saying or:

Comprehensive UAP Hypothesis B
The Pentagon has data on some stuff they can't identify. When they fail an identification they discard and ignore the data. Congress is not happy about it and told them to figure it out. They don't know what it is and fear it could be an adversary. They are reticent to release data for fear of compromising their methods and systems or informing the enemy.

 

[Mick West]

And the Pilots? Are they all just insane or lying or dumb?

Or did they just make some rare mistakes?

 

[Harabeck]

And the Pilots? Are they all just insane or lying or dumb?

Or just mistaken. Being wrong does not require malicious intent or mental deficiency. We're only human.

Also remember: the Pentagon "technically" can't lie to the US public. It would be against the law.

Is that true? Honest question, I'm not actually aware of any law to that effect. In fact, it seems like they lie pretty regularly.

 

[LilWabbit]

Or just mistaken. Being wrong does not require malicious intent or mental deficiency. We're only human.

Is that true? Honest question, I'm not actually aware of any law to that effect. In fact, it seems like they lie pretty regularly.

Very regularly. Both, under the protection of the Law and in violation of the Law.

https://impeachableoffenses.net/national-security-lies/

Two citations from the above article on 'National Security Lies' by Law Professor Floyd R. Gibson:

"The President or other high-ranking Executive Branch official may authorize a known false or materially misleading national security statement if he or she determines such an action is necessary to support identifiable foreign policy objectives of the United States and is important to the national security of the United States."

"Typically, we would not expect the Executive Branch to make false or misleading statements without having been prompted to do so, as silence would obviously accomplish the goal of keeping the existence of such programs from being known by the public. However, when an Executive Branch official finds themselves publicly questioned in a way in which either a truthful response or, critically, a refusal to answer will reveal the secret program, a false or misleading answer may be the only way that the official can continue to conceal the existence of the program."

As to the claim that the thread starter proposed "an organized conspiracy", an actual perusal of the opening post would lead to the opposite conclusion. The Comprehensive UAP Hypothesis merely explains the somewhat disorganized dynamic resulting from the interplay within the complexity that is the Executive Branch, the complexity that is the DoD, and between these entities and the Congress, the media, the public, various political interests and the UFO believers strewn about across the board.

 

[folly4]

And the Pilots? Are they all just insane or lying or dumb?

Also remember: the Pentagon "technically" can't lie to the US public. It would be against the law. And the only reason we will see this report is because during classified briefings to congress committees overseeing them the Pentagon was unable to provide an explanation for what they were observing.

Basically their boss asked them what it was and they didn't know. The boss wasn't pleased and tasked them to find out.

The coordinated conspiracy you are proposing is improbable in my opinion.

But it's either what you are saying or:

Comprehensive UAP Hypothesis B
The Pentagon has data on some stuff they can't identify. When they fail an identification they discard and ignore the data. Congress is not happy about it and told them to figure it out. They don't know what it is and fear it could be an adversary. They are reticent to release data for fear of compromising their methods and systems or informing the enemy.

I'm speculating, and I share your skepticism about a government conspiracy (and I like your more succinct hypothesis), but I do think @LilWabbit might be on to something in noting the language games that are potentially being played here.

"Unidentified" can be a slippery term. Look at the DoD statement on FLIR, Gimbal & GoFast...

The Department of Defense has authorized the release of three unclassified Navy videos, one taken in November 2004 and the other two in January 2015, which have been circulating in the public domain after unauthorized releases in 2007 and 2017. The U.S. Navy previously acknowledged that these videos circulating in the public domain were indeed Navy videos. After a thorough review, the department has determined that the authorized release of these unclassified videos does not reveal any sensitive capabilities or systems, and does not impinge on any subsequent investigations of military air space incursions by unidentified aerial phenomena. DOD is releasing the videos in order to clear up any misconceptions by the public on whether or not the footage that has been circulating was real, or whether or not there is more to the videos. The aerial phenomena observed in the videos remain characterized as "unidentified." The released videos can be found at the Naval Air Systems Command FOIA Reading Room: https://www.navair.navy.mil/foia/documents.

Identification, I think, can be said to occur in degrees, and even then it can be subjective.

If I suspect GoFast is a balloon (I do) with some arbitrarily-assigned probability of, say, 85%, would the aerial phenomena observed in the GoFast remain characterized as "unidentified"?

At what threshold of certainty might I conclude GoFast was a balloon? Would I need to know what kind of balloon? If I conclude it's a weather balloon with "high confidence" (whatever that means to me), is that sufficient? Or do I need to know the model #? Or, even still, the serial number of that unique asset?

When do I know? When is it "identified"?

And who decides if my claim to knowledge is sufficient for the purposes of the whole organization? Were there committee meetings at DoD about whether GoFast was indeed a balloon? "Okay, everyone who thinks it's a balloon, raise your hand? Okay, 1, 2...3 total. How many for giant cold seagull? No one. Okay, how about aliens?"

I feel like, if they wanted to, the government could get away with a definition of "unidentified" for any phenomena they deemed to be less than 100% fully known and understood by every single person ever. Reciprocally, they could limit the definition of "identified" to be such a high knowledge bar that it might never be reached.

 

[gtoffo]

Or just mistaken. Being wrong does not require malicious intent or mental deficiency. We're only human.

Is that true? Honest question, I'm not actually aware of any law to that effect. In fact, it seems like they lie pretty regularly.

Absolutely. But in a case such as the Nimitz encounter you have 4 (+1) reputable, expert observers that all agree they clearly saw something out of the ordinary from 2 different points of view.

With radar tracks backing their observations.

That's one hell of a rare mistake. Although it is certainly possible.

In any case: the fact such an extreme event was not THOROUGHLY investigated at the time is an intelligence failure of colossal proportions. Taboos and dogmas are the enemy of knowledge and science.

 

[jarlrmai]

Absolutely. But in a case such as the Nimitz encounter you have 4 (+1) reputable, expert observers that all agree they clearly saw something out of the ordinary from 2 different points of view.

With radar tracks backing their observations.

That's one hell of a rare mistake. Although it is certainly possible.

In any case: the fact such an extreme event was not THOROUGHLY investigated at the time is an intelligence failure of colossal proportions. Taboos and dogmas are the enemy of knowledge and science.

This is where totally independent witnesses can be more accurate than witnesses who are collaborating, they start with an initial error and then make further wrong assumptions based on the communication of that initial flawed assumption. The issue compounds itself.

 

[Mauro]

Absolutely. But in a case such as the Nimitz encounter you have 4 (+1) reputable, expert observers that all agree they clearly saw something out of the ordinary from 2 different points of view.

With radar tracks backing their observations.
That's one hell of a rare mistake. Although it is certainly possible.

The absolute probability of a group of events does not matter much in itself: what matters is the relative probability of different explanations. Ie.: if the probability of having 5 witnesses making a mistake, plus a radar track 'backing' their observations is, say, one in one billion, it would yet be a more probable explanation than aliens if the probability of 'aliens' is, say, one in one trillion.

I really hate to quote myself, but if you want you could check my last post in the Rambles/"Can the Minot AFB sigthing be debunked" thread: that's even a better case than the Nimitz encounters for an UFO believer, because there were much more than 5 witnesses of many visual sightings, we also have a radar track (with pictures!), we have UHF radios stopping and then resuming working and on top of that we even have a physical break-in through security fences. A very improbable sequence of events if it was due to mundane factors, but I argument (within my limited skills) mundane factors are still much, much more probable than 'aliens'.

 

[Domzh]

Absolutely. But in a case such as the Nimitz encounter you have 4 (+1) reputable, expert observers that all agree they clearly saw something out of the ordinary from 2 different points of view.

With radar tracks backing their observations.

- Afaik we only had ONE eye witness testimony for 17 years who saw the tic tac
- Kurth didnt see a tic tac but was on site at the same time
- Dietrich didnt say nothing until recently, said herself she was a junior, anxious and was at 20-25k feet. She framed her testimony by stating her memory could be flawed and then described the incident with the exact same words as her commanding officer, Fravor
- Fravor himself is contradicted in the AATIP report by his co-pilot (who saw "something" but described the behavior totally different to Fravor)

I still say the biggest possibility is Fravor misidentified Kurth as the Tic Tac due to no sensors, optical illusion and primed expectations.

i have even found a phenomenon that can transform a fighter jet in a temporary tic tac:

Post in thread 'Hypothesis: Fravor's Tic Tac was Kurth's FA18'
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/hypothesis-fravors-tic-tac-was-kurths-fa18.11776/post-250802

 

[LorentzHall]

i have even found a phenomenon that can transform a fighter jet in a temporary tic tac:

No you didn't, you discovered vapor cones, which last for a fraction of a second and don't look solid.

 

[gtoffo]

The absolute probability of a group of events does not matter much in itself: what matters is the relative probability of different explanations. Ie.: if the probability of having 5 witnesses making a mistake, plus a radar track 'backing' their observations is, say, one in one billion, it would yet be a more probable explanation than aliens if the probability of 'aliens' is, say, one in one trillion.

What is the probability of aliens probes in our solar system?

Given the Drake Equation and what we now about physics today I'd say pretty high without any exotic propulsion etc. More or less probable than the Nimitz Case being a colossal and concurrent string of epic fails by people, technology and organisations?

I really hate to quote myself, but if you want you could check my last post in the Rambles/"Can the Minot AFB sigthing be debunked" thread: that's even a better case than the Nimitz encounters for an UFO believer, because there were much more than 5 witnesses of many visual sightings, we also have a radar track (with pictures!), we have UHF radios stopping and then resuming working and on top of that we even have a physical break-in through security fences. A very improbable sequence of events if it was due to mundane factors, but I argument (within my limited skills) mundane factors are still much, much more probable than 'aliens'.

See comment above. You seem to believe that the probability of alien tech visiting our solar system is zero. What do you base that off?

 

[LorentzHall]

UAP cases are not a dichotomy between "nothing extraordinary happened" and extraterrestrial probes.

There could be an explanation, as yet unknown, that is neither of those.

 

[DavidB66]

One point against 'alien visits' that isn't often mentioned is the lack of evidence for non-human landings on the moon. If even a small fraction of alleged alien visits to the earth are genuine, the aliens seem to have a great curiosity about events on earth. So what could be more natural for the curious aliens than to set up observation posts on the moon, from which they could observe the earth at their leisure? Yet the surface of the moon, undisturbed for millennia, shows no traces of any visits other than those by humans.

 

[LorentzHall]

Yet the surface of the moon, undisturbed for millennia, shows no traces of any visits other than those by humans.

This just touches on the total absurdity & pointlessness of trying to prove or disprove ET.

Do you really think they couldn't hide themselves if they wanted to?

And why would they need to be on the Moon in the first place? Why not just "cloaked" in Earth orbit?

Not to mention, we've explored only a tiny fraction of the lunar surface.

 

[DavidB66]

This just touches on the total absurdity & pointlessness of trying to prove or disprove ET.

Do you really think they couldn't hide themselves if they wanted to?

And why would they need to be on the Moon in the first place? Why not just "cloaked" in Earth orbit?

Not to mention, we've explored only a tiny fraction of the lunar surface.

On your last point, lunar orbiters have observed and photographed most of the lunar surface, some of it in high resolution - at least good enough to show the traces of human landings. No indications of non-human landings have been found. Unless of course the mysterious 'they' are hiding the evidence!

If aliens have the desire and ability to hide themselves, why do people keep seeing them? If they are trying to hide themselves, they are making a very poor job of it. If on the other hand they aren't trying to hide themselves, which seems more consistent with the UFO reports, why don't they go the whole hog and land in a highly public place, like in the old sci-fi films?

 

[LorentzHall]

lunar orbiters have observed and photographed most of the lunar surface, some of it in high resolution

The majority of the LRO data is 100-meter resolution. ie. a pixel per football field.

If aliens have the desire and ability to hide themselves, why do people keep seeing them?

Who says people keep seeing them? I see no evidence of anyone seeing ET.

But again: this is an absurd & pointless area of speculation because the possibilities are infinite and untestable. It's like the simulation hypothesis.

There could be multiple, or even many, ET civilizations visiting. Or perhaps ET are individuals, not civilizations.

Or perhaps they try to stay hidden but sometimes their technology temporarily fails (perfection seems unlikely).

Or perhaps they reveal themselves in carefully controlled tests, similar to when zoologists study nature.

Again: pointless speculation.

 

[Alphadunk]

There's actually a great deal we still don't know about the moon. We definitely haven't studied the surface in enough detail to confidently assert there is zero evidence of alien landings.

One of the moon's many mysteries and, no, I don't think TLP are aliens or anything like that. It's still an interesting phenomenon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transient_lunar_phenomenon

 

[LilWabbit]

What is the probability of aliens probes in our solar system?

Given the Drake Equation and what we now about physics today I'd say pretty high without any exotic propulsion etc. More or less probable than the Nimitz Case being a colossal and concurrent string of epic fails by people, technology and organisations?

See comment above. You seem to believe that the probability of alien tech visiting our solar system is zero. What do you base that off?

Both the Drake Equation, and the Fermi Paradox that critiques it, are highly speculative. You are treating the former as an established scientific principle because it supports your hypothesis. Not because it is a reliable rule. Neither should the skeptic become enamoured by the Fermi Paradox. Neither are hard science.

Given the vast number of known variables as well as an n number of unknown variables to consider for such a calculation, there is no scientifically viable mathematical model to produce a reliable probability value for alien communication or visitation.

Strictly from the perspective of the hypothetico-deductive model of science, variously employed in physical sciences, the winning hypothesis is the one with the greatest explanatory power. The hypothesis with the greatest explanatory power is the one with the most and the best test outcomes (observable theory-predictions). Even one negative test outcome falsifies the hypothesis as it currently stands, and takes the scientist back to the drawing board.

For decades, the data (UAP records, anecdotes) has consistently remained too sketchy to lend itself to proper scientific scrutiny. Scientifically speaking, for the most part, UFO evidence is just poor evidence and insufficient for a rigorous inference of test outcomes. In other words, it is not informative enough for definitive conclusions. However:

(1) The decades-long consistency of UAP evidence being invariably low in information content;

(2) The consistent trend of meticulous evidenciary dissection (e.g. Mick's video analysis triangulated with sound calculations and other available evidence) demystifying the seeming strangeness of publicly available UAP evidence, especially with the increased public access to a wealth of supportive data available at the click of a button;

(3) The consistency of angry outbursts and personal antipathy towards those that are successful in said demystification (previous statement);

Are compatible with the generic conclusion:

(4) The alien hypothesis, for many, is a belief that precedes evidence, looks for whatever evidenciary support it can get, and thrives in the low information zone in the absence of scientifically compelling evidence.

Now, if all sides to the argument wish to be pedantically scientific and objective (unbiased), we must also accept that there is currently no sound mathematical model that can reliably demonstrate that undetected alien visitations are unlikely. But the 3 factual statements above pertaining to available UAP evidence cast serious doubt on the hypothesis that such visitations, if they have occurred, have been detected.

 

[LilWabbit]

The OP in a nutshell.

Most people mistake the current UAP ruckus for an essentially scientific or a military dilemma that has come to light owing to recent leaks. But it is actually just another example of the inherent vulnerability of representative democracies to powerful political lobbies consisting of relatively few individuals.

 

[Mauro]

See comment above. You seem to believe that the probability of alien tech visiting our solar system is zero. What do you base that off?

Indeed, I think the prior probability of aliens visiting us is infinitesimally low, and with very good reasons. Too off-topic to discuss here, though (it's also a 'broader theory' according to Metabunk's policy).

 

[Zerth]

The OP in a nutshell.

Most people mistake the current UAP ruckus for an essentially scientific or a military dilemma that has come to light owing to recent leaks. But it is actually just another example of the inherent vulnerability of representative democracies to powerful political lobbies consisting of relatively few individuals.

Prefacing this that I subscribe to your theory.

That said, isn't it still worth investigating these things? Unfortunately we're dealing with Bigelow and his associates, but from the perspective of national security or actually just simple scientific inquiry pertaining to studying atmospheric phenomena; I think there's some potential.

 

[JMartJr]

That said, isn't it still worth investigating these things?

FWIW --I'd say Step One there would be to establish whether there are things to study. My sense is that we are still at that stage, with the tentative conclusion so far being that the answer is "no." With some cases where there is so little data there is little to learn (including whether the object observed is something mundane), and in other cases there is more data and it indicates that what is observed is mundane phenomena viewed/filmed under conditions that make the object harder to identify quickly. This might change, of course, but to date there is no strong reason to believe such a study would have a subject.

 

[Mick West]

FWIW --I'd say Step One there would be to establish whether there are things to study.

Very much so. There's a rush to "we are past arguing about if these things are real," when we really are not. The data available is ambiguous.

 

[Alphadunk]

That's pretty much where I'm at as well. Even if there is nothing physical to study I think it's still worth getting to the bottom of why, and how, Naval personnel and their data gathering sensors are repeatedly misinterpreting data. Making mistakes obviously introduces vulnerability to a military.

There's too much evidence at this point to say the "phenomenon" itself isn't real. It's a real thing and has been talked about within the Navy for several decades at this point. The latest article from The Debrief is a bit of a deep dive and has some tangents but the comments from former Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus are well worth a read.

Taken aback by his cheerful candor that UFOs had been a topic of conversation while he was Secretary of the Navy, I asked Mabus if sightings of UAP or unknown aerial objects was actually something occuring far more frequently than the public realizes.

"I would say, yes and no," professed Mabus. "In fact there are more sightings or encounters than people realize. But they are ones that were easily explainable. For example, people might see a long flash or something and record it. Come to find out it was a missile launch or test in the area, that for whatever reason hadn't been announced. Now, there's a difference between that and the stuff that's been released by the military lately."

Mabus explained on occasion there were incidents involving highly trained military observers or sophisticated intelligence and surveillance technologies that were much harder to pin down. "Like these incidents with the U.S. Navy pilots. They are very familiar with everything going on in the area they're operating in and are familiar with the technology. These were very hard to explain."

Given that known events like the 2015 "Roosevelt Encounters" (See Part II: Interlopers Over the Atlantic) occurred while he was in command of the Navy, I asked Mabus could it be likely that some of these mysterious events involved top-secret U.S. technology. "A couple of things. Number one, no," Mabus said with a sincere and hearty laugh. "Number two, do you really think we could keep stuff like that secret?"

https://thedebrief.org/devices-of-unknown-origin-part-iii-mr-secretary-we-dont-know/

 

[LilWabbit]

Prefacing this that I subscribe to your theory.

That said, isn't it still worth investigating these things?

That's assuming they aren't. The DoD is constantly investing large sums of money in improving its intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities. But this ISR capability of the DoD does not equate to, nor rely on, the AATIP/UAPTF.

I am personally somewhat convinced that from the DoD perspective they see little need to establish a separate centralized public entity to study the "UAP". "UAP" is already a misnomer (I'm actually impressed that the newly-released report recognizes this) as it implies some coherent category of phenomena that can be approached in a centralized manner (basically Eric Weinstein's idea), by lumping the best multi-disciplinary assortment of brains into the same room with a bag of peanuts and an expensive espresso machine.

We must remember that yesterday's UAP are today's mundane sensor data, and today's UAP are tomorrow's mundane sensor data. As long as even the most advanced sensors available aren't all-perceiving (i.e. they never are), their capability has boundaries. The sensor-data acquired at the boundary of any ISR capability will always be low in its information content. It would be absurd to put in place a prestigious scientific-government-industrial institute for investigating perennial sensory fuzz.

 

[Mendel]

That said, isn't it still worth investigating these things? Unfortunately we're dealing with Bigelow and his associates, but from the perspective of national security or actually just simple scientific inquiry pertaining to studying atmospheric phenomena; I think there's some potential.

Potential for what?
Scientists don't tend to investigate where there is little evidence; experiments are designed to yield the maximum amount of evidence possible.

If your evidence is garbage, your conclusions will be garbage as well. You have the "potential" to find out "it could be aliens, Russians, a party balloon, or weather", how is that helping?

We never had any case with enough evidence to say "it's aliens", and I don't know of any case where it was proved to be a foreign power. If foreign technology caused UFO sightings in the 1960s and 70s, wouldn't we have learned of it by now?

If you'd like to discover foreign technological capabilities, investing in espionage seems more effective than investing in ufology. Even if you'd like to find out how extraterrestrial superior technology works, investing in ufology seems inferior to investing in our own research.

 

[Mendel]

1) All UAP evidence acquired from the DoD by the UAPTF (and its predecessor the AATIP) portrays phenomena that were initially genuinely unidentified by the military staff observing and reporting them.

That assumption probably needs to be modified. I expect if a soldier sees something that they can't identify, there's an attempt made to identify it, before it gets reported. (The latest letter seems to allow two weeks for this.) That process ensures that almost all of the easily identifyable UAP sightings never get reported to the UAPTF.

Because of this selection process, the UAPTF inevitably operates in the low information zone.

One of the visions that the current report hints at could involve feeding all radar data worldwide into a processing AI in real-time and scrambling fighter jets to chase down any anomaly as it occurs. After many false alarms, the system would improve and there would be fewer false alarms.
Would there ever be a "real alarm"? Who knows.
How much would it cost? Better think big.

 

[LilWabbit]

That assumption probably needs to be modified. I expect if a soldier sees something that they can't identify, there's an attempt made to identify it, before it gets reported. (The latest letter seems to allow two weeks for this.) That process ensures that almost all of the easily identifyable UAP sightings never get reported to the UAPTF.

Because of this selection process, the UAPTF inevitably operates in the low information zone.

One of the visions that the current report hints at could involve feeding all radar data worldwide into a processing AI in real-time and scrambling fighter jets to chase down any anomaly as it occurs. After many false alarms, the system would improve and there would be fewer false alarms.
Would there ever be a "real alarm"? Who knows.
How much would it cost? Better think big.

Hmm. Good points. I guess in most cases, and in compliance with proper protocol, there would be an internal attempt to identify UAP before submitting anything to the UAPTF.

However, given (1) the fringe nature and political/ideological origins of the AATIP/UAPTF, and (2) that there's a percentage of UFO faithfuls scattered within the DoD rank-and-file, Lacatski/Elizondo may have been proactively securing UAP reports directly from the observers way too early in the identification process, and also from fellow-believers / new believers within the ranks. Likewise, some DoD staff may think their reports are stigmatized and ridiculed (an unfortunate fact and a legitimate fear even if their "evidence" be genuinely poor), and hence some may bypass protocol and submit reports directly to the AATIP/UAPTF. The AATIP/UAPTF is technically part of the Pentagon after all.

The directive of "two weeks" may have very well been issued to overcome some of these issues.

 

[flarkey]

I am personally somewhat convinced that from the DoD perspective they see little need to establish a separate centralized public entity to study the "UAP". "UAP" is already a misnomer (I'm actually impressed that the newly-released report recognizes this) as it implies some coherent category of phenomena that can be approached in a centralized manner (basically Eric Weinstein's idea), by lumping the best multi-disciplinary assortment of brains into the same room with a bag of peanuts and an expensive espresso machine.

The 'U' in UAP irritates me, particularly when people group 'unidentified' things together in order to try and explain them. How can we compare and explain two or more things that havent even been shown shown to even be in the same class of object, let alone be the same thing? This is like trying to work out how three 'craft' in a video manage to hover, with one being a balloon, one being a hummingbird and the other being a helicopter. Either these thhes things are 'something' or 'separate things', but they cant all be the 'same thing'.

And after listening to Mick's recent conversation with Jason Colavito, it was interesting to hear the evolution of the term 'object' into 'phenomenon'. It seems to have been steered that way by Vallee and Bigalow's desire to conflate the 'nuts and bolts ailen spaceship' theory with another 'spiritual interdimensional non-tangeable conciousness' theory, as illustrated by the involvment of NIDS and the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies in the UFO investigation timeline. The ambiguity that they and other belivers/experiencers/enthusiasts employ when they try to solve these 'mysteries' is really telling.

 

[Alphadunk]

Scientists don't tend to investigate where there is little evidence; experiments are designed to yield the maximum amount of evidence possible.

Perhaps in a general sense this is true but for niche topics it certainly is not. How much evidence do we have of rhinos on Java right now? There are people studying that. How much real evidence did we have pertaining to the supposed sighting of an ivory-billed woodpecker a few years ago? Scientists were keen to study that when it came up. How much evidence do we have of ball lightning? We know it exists but there is literally only one verified video of the phenomenon. There are a whole host of things in the world we acknowledge as existing yet have very little in the way of tangible evidence to point to. Ironically, niche topics like this can sometimes attract more funding than more mundane topics that have been studied to death already.

 

[Mendel]

How much evidence do we have of rhinos on Java right now? There are people studying that.

This is off topic, but if you can show me a UAP picture this detailed, I'll agree it's worth studying.

Article:

Source: https://rhinos.org/about-rhinos/rhino-species/javan-rhino/

 

[Woolery]

And after listening to Mick's recent conversation with Jason Colavito, it was interesting to hear the evolution of the term 'object' into 'phenomenon'. It seems to have been steered that way by Vallee and Bigalow's desire to conflate the 'nuts and bolts ailen spaceship' theory with another 'spiritual interdimensional non-tangeable conciousness' theory, as illustrated by the involvment of NIDS and the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies in the UFO investigation timeline.

Spiritual weirdness aside, I thought 'phenomenon' was just a broader, more accurate term as it included atmospheric and purely optical explanations. 'Object' makes assumptions about the solidity/validity of the sighting. I would question whether the loss of the word 'object' wasn't a blow to the UFO community.

From my experience on UFO forums, the true believers opt for UFO over UAP as UFO still carries more fantastic connotations.

 

[flarkey]

Spiritual weirdness aside, I thought 'phenomenon' was just a broader, more accurate term as it included atmospheric and purely optical explanations. 'Object' makes assumptions about the solidity/validity of the sighting. I would question whether the loss of the word 'object' wasn't a blow to the UFO community.

Yeah, me too - until I listened to the interview. I agree that your use of the word is technically correct - but when we hear the asssociations with Skinwalker Ranch , CE-5 and 'experiencers' I think the word 'phenomenon' has had its meaning broadened to include all sorts of spiritualism, mysticism and woo.

 

[Alphadunk]

This is off topic, but if you can show me a UAP picture this detailed, I'll agree it's worth studying.

Article:

View attachment 45592

Source: https://rhinos.org/about-rhinos/rhino-species/javan-rhino/

That photo wasn't taken in the wild. That's the point I was making. We know the rhinos are there yet humans basically never see them. We're only able to track their presence and population through camera traps and focused study. It's within the realm of possibility, scientifically speaking, that UAP may represent something similar. It could a be a natural phenomenon, albeit exceedingly rare.

 

[Mendel]

We know the rhinos are there yet humans basically never see them. We're only able to track their presence and population through camera traps and focused study.

Article:

These were some of the experiences I recalled back in 1986 from five years of observation (1979 to 1983) of the reactions of Javan rhinos to direct encounters with humans, from a total of 29 incidents.

Source: https://news.mongabay.com/2019/03/encounters-with-the-javan-rhino-commentary/

The body of evidence that Javan Rhinos exist is much greater quantitatively and qualitatively than it is for unknown technology UFOs, and always has been; the same goes for the other examples you have cited. (We can go into the details of that in the chitchat forum.)

They're worth studying and tracking because we know they're real.

That photo wasn't taken in the wild.

I'm pretty sure it was, because there aren't any Javan Rhinos in captivity, and Stephen Belcher is a wildlife photographer. (His website is at http://www.stephenbelcher.net/gallery.asp?cat=145 .)
If you're making up your own facts, I'm going to stop discussing with you.