French National Assembly to host UAP seminar with true believers

[Eburacum]

That's how active radar works

By cherrypicking? I doubt that very much.

 

[Baptiste Fr]

Good point, we can't know about photos/ videos of UFOs that aren't made public. Perhaps many exist.
But photos/ videos we don't know about aren't evidence (although they may become evidence if revealed later).


The Gendarmerie? (Many English-speakers are familiar with the term, but some incorrectly use it as a word for French police generally).

Oh, but they are, in a trial, the public doesn't see most of the evidence collected, but it exists. You even have presumption of evidence, forbidding you to destroy any data that can be relevant, without even knowing if it exists, just on the potentialité of its existence

You could argue in favor of anything using those arguments, even things that are mutually exclusive.

That's why they are in a paragraph explaining them

 

[Baptiste Fr]

By cherrypicking? I doubt that very much.

If you want to accuse them of cherry picking, please address your critics to a report and send them to the SCU, I'd be really interested to read their response

 

[Nourali]

I see many opinions and few facts, critics can be directly forwarded to the SCU, they are very open to dialogue. I would advise to assemble the remarks in a report first, for ease of communication, I'm not sure forum posts or webpages are the most efficient way of communicating.

Edit: regarding your "remark", please try to take a picture of a bird mid flight next time you see one, but take a 15 seconds delay to simulate the shock of witnesses trying to understand what they see, and a 5 seconds delay to simulate the actual time of finding your phone while in a state of panic, and remember, it was 2008 phones. Then factor in peer pressure, do you really want to be exposed as someone who has the picture of a UFO, considering that whatever the quality of the picture you took some will always call you a hoaxer, and your job will surely be affected as you'll become "the guy that photographed a UFO". The best pictures of UFOs I've authentified and seen were sent by private citizens whom I verified the identity and they didn't want their pictures to go public, because many people are very agressive regarding that subject, an agressiveness and an irony, it seems to me, that shows through your message.

I would also add that, in most explained GEIPAN cases (meaning cases where we know there was a something and not a hoax or a hallucination) there is no video at all. And when there is one, the quality is often poor.

Videos also come with their own problems: they need reliable authentication, sufficient quality, and enough contextual information to determine whether the object is genuinely anomalous. Good recording devices are more common today, but they are still not always available at the right moment. For example, I have a good phone with a 30x zoom and decent video quality, but if I saw a UFO this week, I probably couldn't film it properly because my phone needs repair. At best, I might get a x3 portrait-mode photo. Good luck proving from that alone that it was not just a balloon or a weird drone.

There are indeed many practical reasons why getting an authenticated video good enough to prove that an object is truly anomalous is much harder than people assume.

 

[Nourali]

Yes; they both cherrypick from 2.5 million data points to find 187 'significant' returns, even though those returns are described as weak. We need better evidence than that.

That's how active radar works

Our thread on Stephenville is here
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/stephenville-texas-ufo-2008.13446/page-2#post-371988
There were several F16 planes flying around on that night; one likely explanation is that the witnesses saw some, or several of these planes at various times and moving in various directions.

Even if one wants to dispute the radar tracks selected by the MUFON/SCU study as evidence for a truly anomalous object, the study still matters for another reason. It provides a detailed comparison between the witness reports, the timing, the directions of observation, and the known military and civilian aircraft in the area. On that basis, several key sightings do not fit with F-16s, flares, commercial aircraft, or other conventional explanations.

 

[Nourali]

If I saw a strange light in the sky that I could not identify, I would surely bring my phone up and film it right away, I'd post it here or anywhere and have it full analyzed.
Problem is, nothing I ever saw was weird enough.
If I were to see something VERY weird, would I do the same thing? I don't know, if I'm in shock and awe, maybe there are chances I would't think about it?
This doesn't disprove the fact that it's "very convenient" that the best UFO cases have almost always little to no photo evidence substantiating the weirdest claims.
But I think it's something to be considered.

Yep, same thing for me. When I see something in the sky, my first assumption is that it's prosaic, even if I still watch it for a bit to understand what I'm actually seeing. So if it suddenly started doing something very weird, there's a good chance I wouldn't be ready to record it in time.

 

[Mauro]

That's how active radar works

No, that's how noise works. Radar pareidolia.

 

[Mauro]

No photos of video that we know of, you can't deduce a truth from a lack of information.

But this can be said of anything. For example, no photos or videos of fairies that we know of, what can you deduce from that? Is this fact evidence for or against the existence of fairies?

 

[Mauro]

There are indeed many practical reasons why getting an authenticated video good enough to prove that an object is truly anomalous is much harder than people assume.

In your opinion, does this fully explain why we don't have authentic good videos of truly anomalous objects?

 

[Todd Feinman]

Yep, same thing for me. When I see something in the sky, my first assumption is that it's prosaic, even if I still watch it for a bit to understand what I'm actually seeing. So if it suddenly started doing something very weird, there's a good chance I wouldn't be ready to record it in time.

You also don't want to turn away from it lest you miss something. A form of fascination.
Many sightings can happen quickly; long enough to get a good look in some cases, but also not long enough to deal with a camera in some cases.

 

[Nourali]

In your opinion, does this fully explain why we don't have authentic good videos of truly anomalous objects?

In my opinion, yes. But that is only my opinion, and I can't know for sure.

There may already be good UFO videos online, but the web is full of garbage, hoaxes, misidentifications, and videos with no context. Some potentially interesting cases may simply be unnoticed or poorly documented.

For example, I made a thread about an alleged flying saucer video from Moldova. We don't have enough information to conclude anything, but it shows that interesting videos may exist without being widely known.

However, if nothing stronger appears in the coming decades, it will become much harder to argue that we were just unlucky. At that point, the lack of solid evidence would become a stronger argument against the reality of UFOs.

For now, I still think that argument is weak.

 

[Baptiste Fr]

But this can be said of anything. For example, no photos or videos of fairies that we know of, what can you deduce from that? Is this fact evidence for or against the existence of fairies?

Are you trying rhetorics on me? I said the lack of evidence isn't the proof of absence, not that it was a proof of existence

 

[Baptiste Fr]

In my opinion, yes. But that is only my opinion, and I can't know for sure.

There may already be good UFO videos online, but the web is full of garbage, hoaxes, misidentifications, and videos with no context. Some potentially interesting cases may simply be unnoticed or poorly documented.

For example, I made a thread about an alleged flying saucer video from Moldova. We don't have enough information to conclude anything, but it shows that interesting videos may exist without being widely known.

However, if nothing stronger appears in the coming decades, it will become much harder to argue that we were just unlucky. At that point, the lack of solid evidence would become a stronger argument against the reality of UFOs.

For now, I still think that argument is weak.

I would add that this isn't a time definite problem. Even if the probability is low tomorrow, contact may happen in the future, the further the more likely. So examining possible contacts day by day is still a necessity, as it's what future is made of. And if it becomes proven that contact happened, then it doesn't cancel the fact that other future different contacts are likely.

 

[NorCal Dave]

Even if one wants to dispute the radar tracks selected by the MUFON/SCU study as evidence for a truly anomalous object, the study still matters for another reason.

No. This is the standard UFO response when a flaw is pointed out.

And I'm not discussing the Stephnville case particularly, just using it as the example. The investigators claimed that 2 likely unrelated radar returns that normally would have been dismissed, where evidence of an accelerating UFO. This identification was based on 4 witnesses, all 30+ miles away, seeing differently described lights in the sky at a particular time in a particular direction. 2 of the witnesses were actively driving at dusk/night, so their sightings are glimpses while driving along. At least 1 witness gave 3 different times for his sighting, thus the investigators chose the claimed time that accorded with radar tracks they were trying to connect. Again, circular reasoning.

When this is pointed out, it is hand waved away and replaced with another claim:

It provides a detailed comparison between the witness reports, the timing, the directions of observation, and the known military and civilian aircraft in the area. On that basis, several key sightings do not fit with F-16s, flares, commercial aircraft, or other conventional explanations.

Whether "several key sightings do not fit" with various prosaic explanations does not make the pieced together radar track evidence. Without the supposed radar evidence, that case is fairly straight forward. There were several sorties of F16 going to and from the nearby MOD, where some dropped very bright flares. The report only contains 8 witness accounts, so I'm not sure which ones are considered "key". All but Steve Allen's just describe lights in the sky, with some even commenting that they looked like flares. Others are from 30+ miles away and looking in a completely different direction.

It's a constant moving of the goal post. UFO investigators offer "proof" of a UFO being tracked by radar. When flaws in that proof are pointed out, it's onto a new claim. As for some of the "key sightings" not having conventional explanations, maybe it's because the sightings are flawed. As Mr. Babtiste pointed out above:

Facts are facts, furthermore when you have corroborative statements. We had a perfect example in Italy, a rocket made a catastrophic reentry. Some saw a meteor, some saw a cigar shaped UFO, some saw a rocket reentry. But they all saw something similar, and the event was real. It's just normal for the human mind to interpret data, and it has been extensively studied in psychology,

This is why witness testimony, particularly about vague things like lights in the sky, is often unreliable. People see things and interpret them in their own way. What a witness says they saw, and more importantly what they say they remembered seeing, which may very different from the actual event, can be a starting point for an investigation, but offers little in the way of evidence for aliens or their aliens spacecraft buzzing around.

 

[NoParty]

"I didn't find any worthy, so all are bad, so I'll be the white knight proving that all are bad" but in doing so witnesses that are hesitant to show their proof don't want to be ashamed; specifically on a topic that is considered shamefull (you are crazy or delusional).

Of course, you realize that I said no such thing. Or even remotely close. It's not a good look putting words in someone's mouth.

Surely, even if your premise ("...witnesses are hesitant to show their proof..." were true 95% of the time
(and I definitely don't think that that's anywhere near correct, but, for the sake of argument)
than 5% of thousands of claims would be a lot! I wrote "solid photographic & video evidence literally never happens"
because I am aware of zero...but surely you can point to 10 (but I'll settle for one!) truly solid video or photo.

 

[JMartJr]

That's how active radar works

And how radar "angels" work, right? ("Angels" being classic slang for spurious returns, I have no idea if it is still current usage.)

 

[purpleivan]

There have been some comments in this thread that have suggested that for various reasons, such as fear of ridicule, or of missing something happening when attempting to taking a photo/video, may be the reason for clearer recordings of anomalous thing in the sky, are not to be found. However, there are numerous examples of other kinds of highly unusual or shocking events, that people record and share online, on an almost daily basic. Examples of these would be videos and photos of people committing serious criminal acts (including murder), aircraft crashes and attacks on people by wild animals. Events, that in the moment, would likely be just as emotionally shocking (or even more so) as the sighting of an unusual object in the sky. There are a significant number of people who post videos of various subject matter, that are either shocking in their content, for which they may face ridicule, or anger, but that doesn't prevent them doing so.

The argument that people may be too caught up in the moment, or not wanting to miss anything, to take photos or videos, seems spurious to me, for a number of reasons. Firstly, people aren't fumbling around with a distracting, dedicated camera, perhaps having to take it out of a case, or make settings changes. Instead they would be most likely to use a phone camera. This is something that most people would be able to be take out a pocket without looking away from what is being observed. Once in hand, a large proportion of the population would be proficient enough in their phone's use, to be able to take photos or videos quickly, with just 2 or 3 taps on a screen, requiring just a brief of glance or two at the screen.

Additionally, this argument seems to assume that what is seen is so unusual, that the viewer would not risk taking their eyes off it, even for a moment. But that seems to leave a huge gulf between these incredible "can't miss a moment" objects, that go unrecorded and the more mundane "dots in the sky", that are the vast majority or recordings that we see. Where are the clear recordings of anomalies that are genuinely strange, but not so strange, or so close, as to elicit that kind of "can't miss a moment" response. Further, it seems unreasonable to assume that all people would react in the same way in this kind of situation. As in the case of known shocking events (airliner crashes, murders and animal attacks), some people would never record such a thing, while others would be more comfortable with it, some even feeling compelled to.

 

[Todd Feinman]

Well, in my case I was driving the first time and my new phone was in my glove compartment; I hadn't taken a picture with it yet. I don't know if I would have taken a picture if it was handy, as I don't know what would have happened if I did. Seeing something really strange, your mind wants to find a mundane explanation but can't. Wanting to see something strange and taking a picture of a plane, your mind will want to see aliens.
The second time with the capsule-shaped object, I didn't even have my phone on me, it was in the house.
You do have people who want to see aliens taking pictures of every light they see, creating a lot of noise. The number of real experiences is quite small.

 

[John J.]

But photos/ videos we don't know about aren't evidence (although they may become evidence if revealed later).

Oh, but they are, in a trial, the public doesn't see most of the evidence collected, but it exists.

I don't see how that analogy works.
If someone has photos/ video of (e/g.) a UFO, and doesn't share it, that material can't inform the opinion of others. It is not evidence for us.
It is only evidence in the narrow sense that it is a record for the owner. But if others saw it, they might have a different view of what is shown.
Evidence that cannot be examined is not evidence.

In legal proceedings, evidence is known to the people who collected and reviewed it, e.g. police and relevant legal professionals.
We have to be a bit careful about different legal systems, but in most Common Law jurisdictions a jury should not convict on the basis of evidence that has not been presented in court. Much potential evidence collected in connection with a criminal investigation might not be used in a prosecution, but by definition evidence used to secure a conviction has to have been submitted in court. The jurors are told not to seek information from elsewhere.

 

[FatPhil]

I see many opinions and few facts, critics can be directly forwarded to the SCU, they are very open to dialogue. I would advise to assemble the remarks in a report first, for ease of communication, I'm not sure forum posts or webpages are the most efficient way of communicating.

Edit: regarding your "remark", please try to take a picture of a bird mid flight next time you see one, but take a 15 seconds delay to simulate the shock of witnesses trying to understand what they see, and a 5 seconds delay to simulate the actual time of finding your phone while in a state of panic, and remember, it was 2008 phones. Then factor in peer pressure, do you really want to be exposed as someone who has the picture of a UFO, considering that whatever the quality of the picture you took some will always call you a hoaxer, and your job will surely be affected as you'll become "the guy that photographed a UFO". The best pictures of UFOs I've authentified and seen were sent by private citizens whom I verified the identity and they didn't want their pictures to go public, because many people are very agressive regarding that subject, an agressiveness and an irony, it seems to me, that shows through your message.

If I saw something I thought was genuinely interesting, I know that on a phone from the late 2000s I'd have a photo taken within under 5 seconds. I know this, because I saw a very interestingly-illuminated cloud structure between two buildings as I was walking down the road the other evening, and my phone is from 2009, and it took under 5 seconds to get the phone out from my pocket, switch it into phone mode, wait for it to focus, and finally take the photo - not much slower than the time it took you to read that. I think you underestimate how long 20 seconds is.

I also know that if it was genuinely intersting, and unexplained, I'd want an explanation - the person coming up with a mundane explanation for it would be doing me a favour. And if there was no mundane explanation, then I would know that any and all claims that it was a hoax were blunt arrows, there could be *no* evidence presented to support such a claim because no such evidence exists, as it wasn't a hoax. Empty claims with no evidence can be dismissed no matter who makes them. The psychology you are describing sounds more like a pathology to me, or something done by someone do does actually have something to hide.

 

[NoParty]

...my phone is from 2009, and it took under 5 seconds to get the phone out from my pocket, switch it into phone mode, wait for it to focus, and finally take the photo...

That's the most interesting (to me) thing in this thread! I've always wanted to see one of those Dutch East India Company phones!

 

[Baptiste Fr]

No. This is the standard UFO response when a flaw is pointed out.

And I'm not discussing the Stephnville case particularly, just using it as the example. The investigators claimed that 2 likely unrelated radar returns that normally would have been dismissed, where evidence of an accelerating UFO. This identification was based on 4 witnesses, all 30+ miles away, seeing differently described lights in the sky at a particular time in a particular direction. 2 of the witnesses were actively driving at dusk/night, so their sightings are glimpses while driving along. At least 1 witness gave 3 different times for his sighting, thus the investigators chose the claimed time that accorded with radar tracks they were trying to connect. Again, circular reasoning.

When this is pointed out, it is hand waved away and replaced with another claim:


Whether "several key sightings do not fit" with various prosaic explanations does not make the pieced together radar track evidence. Without the supposed radar evidence, that case is fairly straight forward. There were several sorties of F16 going to and from the nearby MOD, where some dropped very bright flares. The report only contains 8 witness accounts, so I'm not sure which ones are considered "key". All but Steve Allen's just describe lights in the sky, with some even commenting that they looked like flares. Others are from 30+ miles away and looking in a completely different direction.

It's a constant moving of the goal post. UFO investigators offer "proof" of a UFO being tracked by radar. When flaws in that proof are pointed out, it's onto a new claim. As for some of the "key sightings" not having conventional explanations, maybe it's because the sightings are flawed. As Mr. Babtiste pointed out above:



This is why witness testimony, particularly about vague things like lights in the sky, is often unreliable. People see things and interpret them in their own way. What a witness says they saw, and more importantly what they say they remembered seeing, which may very different from the actual event, can be a starting point for an investigation, but offers little in the way of evidence for aliens or their aliens spacecraft buzzing around.

If you feel so strongly about Stephenville, please edit your critics in a report, and send them to the SCU, I'm sure they will be very glad to anwser any question.

For the last part, you are missing the point, once the witness bias is known, you can cancel it out in the analysis with specific questions differencing what was seen and what was thought using language analysis.

 

[Baptiste Fr]

Of course, you realize that I said no such thing. Or even remotely close. It's not a good look putting words in someone's mouth.

Surely, even if your premise ("...witnesses are hesitant to show their proof..." were true 95% of the time
(and I definitely don't think that that's anywhere near correct, but, for the sake of argument)
than 5% of thousands of claims would be a lot! I wrote "solid photographic & video evidence literally never happens"
because I am aware of zero...but surely you can point to 10 (but I'll settle for one!) truly solid video or photo.

As I did many times in my post, I added text inclusions to simplify the point of view as seen by an interlocutor. I'm sure you understood it was not a direct quote, interesting that you are trying to accuse me of misquoting you.

In the canadian report 4% of witnesses reported their sighting to a non governmental organization, for an overall 9% of reporting among witnesses. And then you have to factor in those that what their report to be made public, which is even lower.

I'm not here to convince you but to answer any questions. You can do your own research looking for reliable anomalous video.

 

[Baptiste Fr]

If I saw something I thought was genuinely interesting, I know that on a phone from the late 2000s I'd have a photo taken within under 5 seconds. I know this, because I saw a very interestingly-illuminated cloud structure between two buildings as I was walking down the road the other evening, and my phone is from 2009, and it took under 5 seconds to get the phone out from my pocket, switch it into phone mode, wait for it to focus, and finally take the photo - not much slower than the time it took you to read that. I think you underestimate how long 20 seconds is.

I also know that if it was genuinely intersting, and unexplained, I'd want an explanation - the person coming up with a mundane explanation for it would be doing me a favour. And if there was no mundane explanation, then I would know that any and all claims that it was a hoax were blunt arrows, there could be *no* evidence presented to support such a claim because no such evidence exists, as it wasn't a hoax. Empty claims with no evidence can be dismissed no matter who makes them. The psychology you are describing sounds more like a pathology to me, or something done by someone do does actually have something to hide.

I'm glad that you have such a self confidence, really, but what I explained comes from dozens of witness reports. But you ask a real question, I could run an analysis in a sub selection of data to check the average time of a witness taking a picture, and factor in the anomalousness of the case to see if there is a correlation, but I fear i would have to consider witnesses that spent the whole time looking at the object and realizing they didn't took the picture at the end, so I think it will be longer than 20 secs. I'm noting the idea on the side, it's a good one for a paper, thank you.

 

[Baptiste Fr]

I don't see how that analogy works.
If someone has photos/ video of (e/g.) a UFO, and doesn't share it, that material can't inform the opinion of others. It is not evidence for us.
It is only evidence in the narrow sense that it is a record for the owner. But if others saw it, they might have a different view of what is shown.
Evidence that cannot be examined is not evidence.

In legal proceedings, evidence is known to the people who collected and reviewed it, e.g. police and relevant legal professionals.
We have to be a bit careful about different legal systems, but in most Common Law jurisdictions a jury should not convict on the basis of evidence that has not been presented in court. Much potential evidence collected in connection with a criminal investigation might not be used in a prosecution, but by definition evidence used to secure a conviction has to have been submitted in court. The jurors are told not to seek information from elsewhere.

Yes, but the public doesn't have the same access to evidence than the jury. But society accepts that the judicial system acted lawfully, even if each member of the society didn't have access to the evidence himself to make his own opinion. For protecting private information, most of the evidence is kept away from the public, and the public accepts it. It is evidence nonetheless.

 

[Baptiste Fr]

Well, in my case I was driving the first time and my new phone was in my glove compartment; I hadn't taken a picture with it yet. I don't know if I would have taken a picture if it was handy, as I don't know what would have happened if I did. Seeing something really strange, your mind wants to find a mundane explanation but can't. Wanting to see something strange and taking a picture of a plane, your mind will want to see aliens.
The second time with the capsule-shaped object, I didn't even have my phone on me, it was in the house.
You do have people who want to see aliens taking pictures of every light they see, creating a lot of noise. The number of real experiences is quite small.

Yes, but we don't see it as noise, but as social indicator of the prevalence of the idea in the population, so even false positives and misintepretations can be used in meta analyses

 

[Eburacum]

If you feel so strongly about Stephenville, please edit your critics in a report, and send them to the SCU, I'm sure they will be very glad to anwser any question.

Since the SCU report is merely a derivative rehash of the MUFON report, and makes exactly the same mistakes, then this would be fairly pointless.