Explained: The Navy UFO Videos

[banditsat12oclock]

It's hardly nitpicking. We know that objects that defy what we know to be true about physics don't exist.

Respectfully, we'd definitely have to agree to disagree on that.

I'm no physicist, and I'm on the fence about aliens being here, but look at it this way: Newtonian mechanics is less than 400 years old, quantum mechanics was discovered just over a century ago, exoplanets weren't even proved until 1992, we still don't know how the universe started, what life, consciousness or reality are, if life even exists elsewhere, if the way we sensorily experience existence is typical and/or complete, what either time or gravity really is, and what 85% of the apparent matter and 68% of the apparent energy in our universe even are. Additionally, we don't even know what technology the US/Russia/China have in their black project inventories.

The unknown unknowns are hence likely to vastly outnumber science's current known unknowns, let alone the known knowns. Assuming, for a nanosecond, that aliens are real and here, a society even 200 years more advanced than our own might look like magicians to us and be capable of astonishing feats. I know that we'd be considered Gods compared to people from 1821.

That said, I've never seen anything myself that's been inexplicable, I've never seen any evidence from anyone else that I would consider to be otherworldly, the total lack of publicly available credible evidence since the Arnold sightings in 1947 is highly likely to be a sign that nothing's going on, and I don't believe a single word that comes out of the mouths of Elizondo, Mellon et al, but I just think we don't know much more than we do know, so a definite judgement is premature.

 

[Mauro]

Respectfully, we'd definitely have to agree to disagree on that.

I'm no physicist, and I'm on the fence about aliens being here, but look at it this way: Newtonian mechanics is less than 400 years old, quantum mechanics was discovered just over a century ago, exoplanets weren't even proved until 1992, we still don't know how the universe started, what life, consciousness or reality are, if life even exists elsewhere, if the way we sensorily experience existence is typical and/or complete, what either time or gravity really is, and what 85% of the apparent matter and 68% of the apparent energy in our universe even are. Additionally, we don't even know what technology the US/Russia/China have in their black project inventories.

The unknown unknowns are hence likely to vastly outnumber science's current known unknowns, let alone the known knowns. Assuming, for a nanosecond, that aliens are real and here, a society even 200 years more advanced than our own might look like magicians to us and be capable of astonishing feats. I know that we'd be considered Gods compared to people from 1821.

I think this is not true at all. There is a thread about this topic: https://www.metabunk.org/threads/navy-ufo-reports-and-the-laws-of-physics.11773/

 

[banditsat12oclock]

I think this is not true at all. There is a thread about this topic: https://www.metabunk.org/threads/navy-ufo-reports-and-the-laws-of-physics.11773/

Fine. We can agree to disagree.

 

[Buckaroo]

'm no physicist, and I'm on the fence about aliens being here, but look at it this way: Newtonian mechanics is less than 400 years old, quantum mechanics was discovered just over a century ago, exoplanets weren't even proved until 1992, we still don't know how the universe started, what life, consciousness or reality are, if life even exists elsewhere, if the way we sensorily experience existence is typical and/or complete, what either time or gravity really is, and what 85% of the apparent matter and 68% of the apparent energy in our universe even are. Additionally, we don't even know what technology the US/Russia/China have in their black project inventories.

The unknown unknowns are hence likely to vastly outnumber science's current known unknowns, let alone the known knowns. Assuming, for a nanosecond, that aliens are real and here, a society even 200 years more advanced than our own might look like magicians to us and be capable of astonishing feats. I know that we'd be considered Gods compared to people from 1821.

Since the thread that Mauro pointed out covers this kind of thing in more depth, I'll just say here that yes, there's much we don't know. But just because we don't know everything, this doesn't mean that we know nothing. There are lots of areas where scientific knowledge is tentative, but there are also areas that we are confident about to the point of certainty. Anything new that we learn must necessarily fit with what we know with certainty to be true about the universe. The history of science over the last few hundred years has borne this principle out.

That said, I've never seen anything myself that's been inexplicable, I've never seen any evidence from anyone else that I would consider to be otherworldly, the total lack of publicly available credible evidence since the Arnold sightings in 1947 is highly likely to be a sign that nothing's going on, and I don't believe a single word that comes out of the mouths of Elizondo, Mellon et al,

On this I'm with you!

 

[banditsat12oclock]

But just because we don't know everything, this doesn't mean that we know nothing. There are lots of areas where scientific knowledge is tentative, but there are also areas that we are confident about to the point of certainty. Anything new that we learn must necessarily fit with what we know with certainty to be true about the universe. The history of science over the last few hundred years has borne this principle out.

I don't dispute that. I really don't. Materialism is true as far as we all know. Granted, 100% accepted.

All I will say is that, I still believe there's a slim yet non-zero chance that as-yet-publicly-unknown processes, well within the rules of science as we know it, might be capable of producing the effects being spoken about. I will admit that I want to believe that they (the 5 observables, for example) are possible. It's just my nature. But look at it this way...

Take something as mundane as water. As it gets cold, it contracts, but when it actually freezes, it expands. That's a curious, unexpected property of matter (to me it is, anyway). Likewise, hot water can, sometimes, freeze faster than cold water. Again, that's unexpected and somewhat counterintuitive, and no one realised it until the 1960s.

Now look at, say, superconductivity. It causes levitation effects, affected liquids can bore through solids by apparently traversing the gaps between the atoms, and so on. Is it possible, therefore, that there's been discovered an esoteric effect, totally within our understanding of the known laws, which permits hypersonic acceleration, transmedium travel, anti-gravity effects, and so on? No one, publicly, knows for certain. The answer, more than likely, I grant you, is no. I just believe (again, because I want to believe), that it might be yes.

 

[fartchitect]

I don't dispute that. I really don't. Materialism is true as far as we all know. Granted, 100% accepted.

All I will say is that, I still believe there's a slim yet non-zero chance that as-yet-publicly-unknown processes, well within the rules of science as we know it, might be capable of producing the effects being spoken about. I will admit that I want to believe that they (the 5 observables, for example) are possible. It's just my nature. But look at it this way...

Take something as mundane as water. As it gets cold, it contracts, but when it actually freezes, it expands. That's a curious, unexpected property of matter (to me it is, anyway). Likewise, hot water can, sometimes, freeze faster than cold water. Again, that's unexpected and somewhat counterintuitive, and no one realised it until the 1960s.

Now look at, say, superconductivity. It causes levitation effects, affected liquids can bore through solids by apparently traversing the gaps between the atoms, and so on. Is it possible, therefore, that there's been discovered an esoteric effect, totally within our understanding of the known laws, which permits hypersonic acceleration, transmedium travel, anti-gravity effects, and so on? No one, publicly, knows for certain. The answer, more than likely, I grant you, is no. I just believe (again, because I want to believe), that it might be yes.

To add to your statement, I just want to say that funding within the scientific community is a big issue. I'm sure most experimentalists would agree. Too much time and money spent on potential "findings" that have poor replicability or on theories that are impossible to prove because they have no tangible predictions (cough "string theory" cough).

There are so many interesting theories to experimentally explore (like a Mach Effect Thruster, or J. Woodward's MEGA drive). I was reading an article written by Woodward a couple of years ago and I was suprised by the rudimentary resources he had as his disposal.

So yeah, I want to belive too, I'm a little kid inside, but the data we have so far regarding UAP's is weak.

 

[AmberRobot]

Is it possible, therefore, that there's been discovered an esoteric effect, totally within our understanding of the known laws, which permits hypersonic acceleration, transmedium travel, anti-gravity effects, and so on? No one, publicly, knows for certain. The answer, more than likely, I grant you, is no. I just believe (again, because I want to believe), that it might be yes.

And if those effects are ever scientifically observed then they will be worthy of study.

 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Anything new that we learn must necessarily fit with what we know with certainty to be true about the universe. The history of science over the last few hundred years has borne this principle out.

Tell that to a bushman viewing a main battle tank...He might come up with a linguistic description that fit with his science, but it would be very far from accurate.

If we're dealing with interstellar or interdimensional travellers, that's about where we'd stand...Kubrick made that point rather well, I thought.

TBH as I've said before I'm firmly of the opinion that if we were under observation by entities from elsewhere (in galactic terms) then we would never know, unless they wanted us to.

The late Iain M Banks' novella 'State of the Art' is probably the most plausible (& amusing) contact scenario that I've read yet.

 

[FatPhil]

Tell that to a bushman viewing a main battle tank...He might come up with a linguistic description that fit with his science, but it would be very far from accurate.

You are implying that our knowledge of the laws of physics governing things from the scales 10^15 times smaller than us to scales 10^25 times larger than us is somehow equivalent to that of the bushman (or even the fictional ape). I disagree with that assertion. We're capable of landing delicate microelectronics on other planets, and communicating with interstellar probes that are leaving the sun's gravitational pull in real time as far as relativity and bandwidth permits. Can you ask your nearest bushman or ape why they aren't doing those things, please, if you think their answer would be enlightening? Ask them about the recent muon g-2 findings whilst you're there, science needs all the help it can get.

 

[banditsat12oclock]

You are implying that our knowledge of the laws of physics governing things from the scales 10^15 times smaller than us to scales 10^25 times larger than us is somehow equivalent to that of the bushman (or even the fictional ape).

St. Squarehead can, of course, answer for himself, but I don't think he is implying that tbh.

I think it's more of a philosophical divergence, which is ultimately moot because everyone can have their own interpretation. But put simply, science seems to rest on the idea that everything is knowable. People who believe that and who take comfort in the knowledge that we can see things 10^15 times smaller than us and 10^25 times larger than us, land delicate microelectronics on other planets, etc., are, perhaps rightly, sceptical of claims of the existence of supposed forces and beings and realms which don't fit into that construct. To them, therefore, aliens are woo - nothing but 21st-century versions of 19th-century fairies, medieval dragons, and ancient gods.

Others dispute that (in my reading of it). Such people feel that as much as we do know, it's arguably impossible for us to ever know if we can know everything, hence the door remains ajar for interdimensional entities and the like which might sit outside our current framework of understanding, however complete and secure it may appear. In other words, are we, to some extent, in a large, complicated, apparently coherent yet ultimately incomplete version of reality, akin to the prisoners in Plato's Cave?

I appreciate that people can argue that the latter viewpoint fails the standard scientific falsifiability test, and that it's all Sagan's dragons in his garage, but it's really what one accepts as the truth of the nature of reality that's at issue.

That, I think, might well be the difference, which is also summed up here in a comment on the idea of multiverses:

For a start, how is the existence of the other universes to be tested? To be sure, all cosmologists accept that there are some regions of the universe that lie beyond the reach of our telescopes, but somewhere on the slippery slope between that and the idea that there is an infinite number of universes, credibility reaches a limit. As one slips down that slope, more and more must be accepted on faith, and less and less is open to scientific verification. Extreme multiverse explanations are therefore reminiscent of theological discussions. Indeed, invoking an infinity of unseen universes to explain the unusual features of the one we do see is just as ad hoc as invoking an unseen Creator. The multiverse theory may be dressed up in scientific language, but in essence, it requires the same leap of faith.
— Paul Davies, The New York Times, "A Brief History of the Multiverse"

The key issue is whether there are real, genuine truths out there about the nature of reality (for example, let's say that right now infinite multiverses do exist and aliens are coming from there to here to watch us), but which for whatever reason might be forever beyond our reach, understanding or measurement. I seriously doubt it myself as I'm a cynic and a sceptic at heart on many such matters, but I concede that certainity about the totality of knowledge is, in practical terms, impossible, though on the flipside I don't accept whatsoever that that means we should throw in the towel and suddenly go back to believing in superstitions, witches, and that any effect one experiences can have been brought about by any cause one cares to imagine.

 

[LilWabbit]

Again, both of your (@banditsat12oclock and @FatPhil) positions are mutually reconcilable to some extent.

There are two subtle issues here which can be easily confused with one other:

(1) All of us know that we will never know everything while able to know an ever-increasing amount of things.

(2) Many of us also strongly intuit that reality is ultimately greater than our comprehension, and the part that is greater is by definition unknowable.

Science, humanities, observation and exploration deal with the former quest – the ever-increasing acquisition of knowledge about the reality. (Science, by the way, is not based on the idea that everything is knowable). Philosophy and religion, in their purest, rarest and unadulterated form, I argue, deal with the latter – the acknowledgement of our ignorance, smallness and humility before that which is utterly unknowable. This, by the way, has nothing to do with aliens, astral beings, nor conventional anthropomorphic notions of God or gods. But it can be described as a kind of a theology, also known as negative or apophatic theology – the acknowledgement that something beyond all humanly conceivable categories nothing-less-than 'exists' (while even 'existence' remains a humanly conceivable predicate).

Put in logical terms, if there is something that is greater than our capacity to know, then it's by definition unknowable. The idea that a superior existence cannot be understood by an inferior one is based on the law of identity (for all a: a = a).

A reformulation of the law is that nothing is greater nor lesser than it is. The mind of man is only as great as it is. If the human mind -- defined as the human capacity to know and understand -- can know and understand something greater than itself, then the human capacity to know and understand would be greater than the human capacity to know and understand, which violates the law of identity. A mind of any given being can't therefore know and understand anything more sophisticated than itself. At best it could know "of" such a thing. Its existence.

Now, here's the epistemological problem with interdimensional beings or aliens with superior intelligence. They don't qualify as unknowable. Whatever is describable using our known linguistic categories and predicates, such as 'beings', 'spacecrafts', 'physical appearances', 'movements', 'lights', 'intelligence', 'dimensions', is knowable at least to the extent of these categories. If we are to accept these known categories in our description of aliens, it would be intellectually dishonest not to accept, by the same token, the known physical laws governing the mentioned categories. And yet whenever any piece of sketchy evidence on aliens is questioned for violating known laws of physics, we move the goal posts by claiming they're actually beyond the categories of known physics. If so, let's then stop, from the outset, referring to these beings using known physical categories. Yet, all of science fiction uses known physical categories.

Whereas something that is actually beyond all humanly conceivable intellectual categories, linguistic descriptions and predicates can never be even approached intellectually.

To qualify as totally unknowable is to be something which even our most profound philosophical or scientific concepts – be it time-space, singularity, quantity, infinity, energy, mass, law, force, dimension, power, heat, light, motion, consciousness and even the idea of existence itself – cannot describe. If such a thing exists, it would be more aptly characterized as 'divine' than as 'aliens' or 'interdimensional beings'. And we would just have to humbly acknowledge that we will never be able to see, know or understand it.

Apologies again for philosophizing, but it seemed relevant to what was being discussed.

 

[Buckaroo]

Tell that to a bushman viewing a main battle tank...He might come up with a linguistic description that fit with his science, but it would be very far from accurate.

I don't think you're giving the Bushman enough credit. This hypothetical bushman, despite having an incomplete knowledge of the way the Universe works, nevertheless is in possession of a corpus of facts about the world that we could all agree are true. There is nothing about a tank that would necessarily contradict any of this knowledge, though it's likely to fill in some gaps. Remember, the Antikythera mechanism was created by people who didn't know the facts of modern astronomy, yet what we know today about astronomy doesn't contradict the knowledge that produced it - after all, that's how we deduced its function. And if we were to travel back in time with an iPhone, I suspect that the builders of the mechanism would recognize it as a more sophisticated version of their device, and not magic.

 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Do you think he would know to avoid the muzzle blast (or the exhaust, or looking into the lasers etc. etc.)?

He could learn, but it would hurt.

 

[Buckaroo]

Do you think he would know to avoid the muzzle blast (or the exhaust, or looking into the lasers etc. etc.)?

He could learn, but it would hurt.

I don't see what that has to do with the subject at hand. The opposite of "possession of complete information" is not "magical thinking."

 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

How else might he (or the witnesses to his sudden and dramatic demise) explain what he experienced?

"The great dragon turtle barked fire and when the smoke cleared he was gone!"

 

[Buckaroo]

How else might he (or the witnesses to his sudden and dramatic demise) explain what he experienced?

The great dragon turtle barked fire and when the smoke cleared he was gone!

You're making a common unwarranted assumption about the sophistication of cultures which don't possess advanced technology.

 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

"He looked into the eye of the beast and was struck blind!"

I'm afraid I must disagree...You & I are both members of a culture in which 'main battle tank' is a concept.

Our bushman friend just isn't...He has absolutely no frame of reference for what he sees.

 

[Buckaroo]

Our bushman friend just isn't...He has absolutely no frame of reference for what he sees.

The bushman understands structures, because he builds shelters. He understands flame, because he makes fire. He understands wheels, because he creates carts and rolls logs. He understands metal, because he creates axes and spear tips out of iron. He has a frame of reference for each component of a tank. There's no reason he wouldn't be able to synthesize from these concepts a more-or-less accurate idea of a tank, once he sees one. To insist otherwise is chauvinism.

 

[Mendel]

"He looked into the eye of the beast and was struck blind!"

I'm afraid I must disagree...You & I are both members of a culture in which 'main battle tank' is a concept.

Our bushman friend just isn't...He has absolutely no frame of reference for what he sees.

He will understand that a battle tank is a big heavy beast that can go deceptively fast in open terrain, and that it can hurl projectiles at range at anything it sees. The bushman will soon figure out that he needs to stay under cover, and to try and trap it in a really big pit, or a swamp.

 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

The first two observations are valid, but error begins to creep in with the word 'Beast'.

The original question was whether or not our Bushman would be able to accurately comprehend & describe a MBT...Your comment only supports my contention that he would not.

Were a third party to receive the Bushman's account of his encounter, once again any interpretation would depend entirely upon the perspective of that third party...If they were from a society familiar with MBTs and were perhaps aware that such things had been operating in the area recently, they might have a good chance of figuring out what our Bushman is attempting to describe. But if they are another Bushman...

PS - I'm assuming a fleeting encounter with a tank doing tank stuff...Not one sitting there to have its wheels counted or its skin poked and prodded.

PPS - Cargo Cults give us an inkling of how this actually goes down, even after we try to explain what is really going on:

PPPS - The image top left in the collage above really tickles me...Because I suspect that if we really do have any visitors from elsewhere lurking hereabouts, that's more or less exactly what The SETI Project would look like to them.

 

[Mendel]

The original question was whether or not our Bushman would be able to accurately comprehend & describe a MBT...Your comment only supports my contention that he would not.

well it depends on how many experiments he'd be allowed to run on it
if you allowed him close he'd see it was a kind of metal jug

 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Sorry, ammended my post above...Kind of addressing that.

I was thinking of an image from WWII when I made the MBT post, showing a rather confused looking tribal fellow with a bow & arrows watching a M3 Grant drive past (deep in the jungles of Burma IIRC)...That was the type of encouner I had in mind.

 

[LilWabbit]

The first two observations are valid, but error begins to creep in with the word 'Beast'.

The original question was whether or not our Bushman would be able to accurately comprehend & describe a MBT...Your comment only supports my contention that he would not.

As I recall, the original argument propounded by @Buckaroo was:

Anything new that we learn must necessarily fit with what we know with certainty to be true about the universe. The history of science over the last few hundred years has borne this principle out.

Psychologically, of course, certainty is a fickle little thing for we, as humans, are infamous for feeling certain about truth and bunkum alike. But if I'm not mistaken, Buckaroo was referring philosophically to 'scientific knowledge' -- reality-corresponding knowledge -- and the certainty that derives from such knowledge. Within the philosophical discipline of epistemology such knowledge is defined in terms of the correspondence theory of truth. In other words, real knowledge (as opposed to false knowledge or imagination) is the interface between our cognition (capacity to know) and reality (existence as it is).

Thusly defined, whatever the 'caveman' (opting for a more appropriate term since the Bushmen, or more precisely the San peoples, are an extant and famously short-statured culture in Namibia) "knows with certainty to be true about the universe", will inevitably be consistent with both familiar and unfamiliar facts he learns about the main battle tank. (Btw, to digress a little, the American M1A2 Abrams is an impressive beast of a main battle tank but the German Leopard 2A7 is way cooler, purely specs and performance wise). Truth is always consistent with truth. One aspect of reality is always logically consistent with another aspect of reality. Both are true at once, and not to the exclusion of the other.

The caveman will probably study and poke around the Leopard 2A7 for days and months in awe, testing even various objects and substances against it. It will whet his appetite for knowledge and get his inquisitive and intellectual juices flowing. He will quickly understand that the 2A7 is extremely hard, smooth-surfaced, non-living, stationary, consisting of both round shapes and rectangular shapes, having a front and a back, et cetera. He may even hypothesize that it is possibly capable of motion.

What will, with certainty, be challenged, is any and all fiction attached by the caveman to the tank -- say, it being a "beast" or "a sleeping male god" made up of "smooth indestructible stone", whose "penis" is "ever-erect". (Mine is bigger than yours, but no match to a Rheinmetall turret.)

In other words, true knowledge, which science is concerned with, is an ever-improving approximation of reality. Its success owes to the fact that it has been able to cumulatively build on, and refine upon, earlier true knowledge, ever since the days of the caveman, and to refute testable fiction. Unfalsifiable truth as well as fiction (fundamental ideas discussed in the realm of philosophical ontology) are of course scientifically irrefutable as well as unverifiable.

Hence, it is highly unlikely that a genuine encounter with an alien craft would question any of the scientific verities that have for years, decades or centuries remained consistently successful in producing a wealth of successful predictions about the observable universe. At best, it would serve to refine them further.

 

[FatPhil]

He will understand that a battle tank is a big heavy beast that can go deceptively fast in open terrain, and that it can hurl projectiles at range at anything it sees. The bushman will soon figure out that he needs to stay under cover, and to try and trap it in a really big pit, or a swamp.

Agreed. I think the understanding of what a tank does doesn't require any great leaps of knowlege, if any. Whether the projectile is described as being "thrown" or "spat" in the native tongue would be irrelevant, the message that would be communicated in so describing it would be the same, and would be accurate enough to communicate why the beast should be feared. And what's wrong in calling the whole thing a "beast", we do that too to all kinds of vehicles, that's not a demonstration of lack of understanding, it's contextualising, it shows some understanding of the properties something has. The "what" part isn't outside the realms of comprehensibility at all. The *how* part, however, may be completely different matter.

Which is why I don't think this diversion is a particularly good analogy, as with many UAPs we're being asked to hypothesise fantastic "what"s as well as "how"s.

 

[JMartJr]

To avoid misconception, the big dish at upper left is not an example of a Cargo Cult construction ... it is from a straw-sculpture contest sponsored by Snugbury's iceceam in the UK in 2007.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Holmes Chapel based Lovell telescope based at Jodrell Bank an anniversary straw sculpture was built to commemorate it.
The 45ft structure known as Dish of the Day weighed over 6 tonnes.

https://www.cheshire-live.co.uk/new...s/snugburys-seven-straw-wonders-blew-16581638

Another one, from 2013, seemed a bit relevant to a UFO thread...

 

[Mendel]

Agreed. I think the understanding of what a tank does doesn't require any great leaps of knowlege, if any. Whether the projectile is described as being "thrown" or "spat" in the native tongue would be irrelevant, the message that would be communicated in so describing it would be the same, and would be accurate enough to communicate why the beast should be feared. And what's wrong in calling the whole thing a "beast", we do that too to all kinds of vehicles, that's not a demonstration of lack of understanding, it's contextualising, it shows some understanding of the properties something has. The "what" part isn't outside the realms of comprehensibility at all. The *how* part, however, may be completely different matter.

It's kind of a bad question in that it leaves open what constitutes "understanding". If you define that as "could get it going again if it broke down", you'd probably find out that >90% of humanity today doesn't understand tanks, which are a centuries-old technology (and the same goes for cars and computers). If you donb't clearly define what "understanding" is, you can always claim that the bushman is deficient in it, without exposing modern man.

What we can try to judge is whether someone sorts an object into the correct pre-existing category based on what they observe, depending on the categories they start out with. WIth UAPs, you could sort them into balloon/airplane/astrononomical/extraterrestrial/don't know, and if you know what it actually is, then that either demonstrates understanding or a lack of it.
I think the bushman would figure out that the battle tank (as a system) is controlled by something that is alive, but it is not human, and hence "beast" would be a good category that demonstrates understanding. It's an interesting question of whether they would figure out that there must be humans controlling it?

 

[FatPhil]

It's kind of a bad question in that it leaves open what constitutes "understanding". If you define that as "could get it going again if it broke down", you'd probably find out that >90% of humanity today doesn't understand tanks, which are a centuries-old technology (and the same goes for cars and computers). If you donb't clearly define what "understanding" is, you can always claim that the bushman is deficient in it, without exposing modern man.

Kinda irrelevant. I said "some understanding", not "technical understanding, complete with a maintenance diploma, and proof of training on the subsequent models designed for and deployed to desert regions". You're heading down your own diversions here that don't aid this particular discussion.

What we can try to judge is whether someone sorts an object into the correct pre-existing category based on what they observe, depending on the categories they start out with. WIth UAPs, you could sort them into balloon/airplane/astrononomical/extraterrestrial/don't know,

I disagree. There is no pre-existing "extraterrestrial" category, that's just "don't know".

and if you know what it actually is, then that either demonstrates understanding or a lack of it.

Nope. Understanding is not a binary predicate.

I think the bushman would figure out that the battle tank (as a system) is controlled by something that is alive, but it is not human, and hence "beast" would be a good category that demonstrates understanding. It's an interesting question of whether they would figure out that there must be humans controlling it?

Would that be the important property that needed to be resolved? After you've worked out the type of threat it offers, say projectile and crushing, I'd think the next thing you'd want to work out is what its inputs are - what can it see, can you use cover, natural or artificial, for avoidance. To be honest, whether it was a human, a robot, or a little green man, controlling the thing, or whether it was autonomous, would be quite far down the list of questions I'd ask.

 

[Tomer]

Apologies for derailing the conversation, but I had a thought and this seemed the best place to put it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the ATFLIR pod can switch from IR to TV yes? So all these explanations can be put to bed if the pilots, at any point decided to switch to TV mode and say either 'yes that is a jet in the distance, silly me' or 'that's an unidentified flying object'.

So did they do this? Would we know from the videos available if they switched to TV mode during? Are the videos merely a live recording of what's going on in the ATFLIR or is it possible to release just the IR mode? Do both modes record at the same time?

I don't know any of this but it seems like a relevant bunch of questions.

 

[jarlrmai]

Apologies for derailing the conversation, but I had a thought and this seemed the best place to put it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the ATFLIR pod can switch from IR to TV yes? So all these explanations can be put to bed if the pilots, at any point decided to switch to TV mode and say either 'yes that is a jet in the distance, silly me' or 'that's an unidentified flying object'.

So did they do this? Would we know from the videos available if they switched to TV mode during? Are the videos merely a live recording of what's going on in the ATFLIR or is it possible to release just the IR mode? Do both modes record at the same time?

I don't know any of this but it seems like a relevant bunch of questions.

The FLIR video does switch to TV mode but the video is very blurry and the camera appears out of focus so it's just a blob.

So it seems IR and TV are not independently captured to video its whatever the pilot/WSO chose at the time that ends up on tape.

In most of the videos in IR mode the object is very very distant/small and the camera is zoomed in as much or near as much as it can go at some points, meaning TV mode might not have shown much other than a dot also distant hot objects will glare and actually appear larger/brighter than in the optical view because the IR energy is much greater as its being directly generated and pointed directly at the camera by the jet engine, rather than just being reflected sunlight.

It's possible TV mode was used later on in GIMBAL or GO FAST but either didn't show much or we just never got to see that part.

 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

To avoid misconception, the big dish at upper left is not an example of a Cargo Cult construction ... it is from a straw-sculpture contest sponsored by Snugbury's iceceam in the UK in 2007.

Gutted!

The hay-bales should have been a clue TBH.

PS - Regarding our Bushman/Caveman, the late Iain M Banks, once again, potentially offers insight:

Outside Context Problem

"An Outside Context Problem was the sort of thing most civilisations encountered just once, and which they tended to encounter rather in the same way a sentence encountered a full stop."
— Iain M. Banks, Excession

 

[Tomer]

The FLIR video does switch to TV mode but the video is very blurry and the camera appears out of focus so it's just a blob.

So it seems IR and TV are not independently captured to video its whatever the pilot/WSO chose at the time that ends up on tape.

In most of the videos in IR mode the object is very very distant/small and the camera is zoomed in as much or near as much as it can go at some points, meaning TV mode might not have shown much other than a dot also distant hot objects will glare and actually appear larger/brighter than in the optical view because the IR energy is much greater as its being directly generated and pointed directly at the camera by the jet engine, rather than just being reflected sunlight.

It's possible TV mode was used later on in GIMBAL or GO FAST but either didn't show much or we just never got to see that part.

Very interesting, thank you. So I suppose this gets to the point in the report, that these vehicles aren't best equipped for indentifying UAP.

 

[jarlrmai]

Very interesting, thank you. So I suppose this gets to the point in the report, that these vehicles aren't best equipped for indentifying UAP.

Well there in lies the expanding low information zone, you get a camera that can see 4 times as far and all of a sudden it's obvious it's a plane or a balloon and it never gets reported anywhere like the current ones that are 4 times closer.

But all of a sudden balloons and planes that you never even saw before because they were 4 times further away are now UAPs..

 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Presumably F-35s will soon be providing us with crystal clear images of these 'UAPs' captured by their DAAs?

 

[FatPhil]

Well there in lies the expanding low information zone, you get a camera that can see 4 times as far and all of a sudden it's obvious it's a plane or a balloon and it never gets reported anywhere like the current ones that are 4 times closer.

But all of a sudden balloons and planes that you never even saw before because they were 4 times further away are now UAPs..

This does seem to form a testable hypothesis. If we're now getting IAPs where we used to be getting UAPs in the past with inferior sensors, then those UAPs were almost certainly mundane all along. And there's no intrinsic scale property to APs, so no reason not to extrapolate to the hypothesis that the UAPs with current sensor technology won't likewise be phased out, and be considered retroactively mundane, by future sensor technologies.

Unless you throw out Ockham and propose that those pesky aliens know exactly what, and where, our sensor tech is, and are deliberately skirting round the edges of it so that they will be seen, but without letting us see the green of their eyes. And ensuring that our balloon and drone technology advances just at the right pace to keep up with their latest designs, of course.

 

[Tomer]

Well there in lies the expanding low information zone, you get a camera that can see 4 times as far and all of a sudden it's obvious it's a plane or a balloon and it never gets reported anywhere like the current ones that are 4 times closer.

But all of a sudden balloons and planes that you never even saw before because th

ey were 4 times further away are now U

Well there in lies the expanding low information zone, you get a camera that can see 4 times as far and all of a sudden it's obvious it's a plane or a balloon and it never gets reported anywhere like the current ones that are 4 times closer.

But all of a sudden balloons and planes that you never even saw before because they were 4 times further away are now UAPs..

Yeah I don't quite buy this idea that it's all just chasing distant engine glares and balloons, it relies far too much on the navy being entirely incompetent, which candidly I think far too many in this forum enjoy on a personal level.

I think it also sidesteps the admission of the report that these things are captured on multiple sensors and appear to be physical objects occasionally showing extraordinary capabilities. What we really need is that data, if it exists. Otherwise I think we're at a dead end.

 

[jarlrmai]

This does seem to form a testable hypothesis. If we're now getting IAPs where we used to be getting UAPs in the past with inferior sensors, then those UAPs were almost certainly mundane all along. And there's no intrinsic scale property to APs, so no reason not to extrapolate to the hypothesis that the UAPs with current sensor technology won't likewise be phased out, and be considered retroactively mundane, by future sensor technologies.

Unless you throw out Ockham and propose that those pesky aliens know exactly what, and where, our sensor tech is, and are deliberately skirting round the edges of it so that they will be seen, but without letting us see the green of their eyes. And ensuring that our balloon and drone technology advances just at the right pace to keep up with their latest designs, of course.

That requires them to have been and continue to be ranging, recording and reporting everything that they see mundane or not, it's the collection bias of "only stuff we don't know what it is" that gets reported that leaves everything as UAP.

 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

What we really need is that data, if it exists. Otherwise I think we're at a dead end.

Are your military in the habit of making data from combat aircraft available to Joe Public...Most tend not to for some reason.

My comment about F-35s above was meant to be ironic...Even the functional properties of the sensors gathering any such data would be classified way beyond any public 'Need to Know', for glaringly obvious reasons.

Maybe Elon Musk could buy up some surplus MiG.25RBS and a few tanker & AWACS aircraft and kit them out just for the job?

I suspect that even he might balk at the cost, once the estimates landed on his desk!

PS - Anyone else reminded of this:

 

[Mendel]

. To be honest, whether it was a human, a robot, or a little green man, controlling the thing, or whether it was autonomous, would be quite far down the list of questions I'd ask.

If it's human, you can communicate or reason with it. Quite an important distinction.

 

[FatPhil]

If it's human, you can communicate or reason with it. Quite an important distinction.

I believe you've made both alpha and beta errors there.

 

[banditsat12oclock]

Apropos this conversation, this document might be of interest:

https://www.3af.fr/global/gene/link.php?doc_id=4375&fg=1

It's a French Sigma 2 publication. One of the "conclusions" is:

Do known Laws explain everything? It seems that some cases are beyond known science
and may prompt research into extensions of known laws or lead to other discoveries,
confirming alternative theories, now qualified as speculative.