French National Assembly to host UAP seminar with true believers

[Todd Feinman]

Unfortunately, you still can't do a lot even with reliable witness testimony and corroboration, or triangulation with those cases. Especially if the contact was fleeting.
I got a good look at what I saw and intentionally tried to focus on it so I could remember it well. If you can paint a portrait, you bet you are a good observer.

Paid off, because when I later discovered corroborating sightings, their description of the objects was almost verbatim, especially with regards to the quality of the light from the objects. And parallax be damned; I watched a capsule-shaped object fly off into space in front of me. We don't have anything like it, I'm sure.

But what are you going to do with that information? You can't prove that it was "aliens" just anomalous. That is the situation with just using hard science to understand cases. What if it is far more intelligent than you are? Then you're screwed.

I do know of a former scientist who claims to have been burned by one at close range and was later interviewed by a group from the military or government who paid her a visit. Might be dead now, had cancer. Anyway, she had visible damage and skin growths later. That's something you could analyze.

 

[JMartJr]

We have good photos, the fact that you are stating that we have none makes me think you already categorized that none exists, and as I'm not here to convince you, I'll not enter a debate on cases with photographic proof, and I'll let you to your opinion that none is good.

What might be useful would be for you to select what you consider the single best example of such a picture and start a thread for it. You would not need to enter discussion/debate there unless you wanted to, but it would be useful for us to know what you are referring to. It might also be useful to you and to us to see what folks here make of it.

For my part, I know of no such good photographic evidence. I know of a number of "too far away or blurry to tell what it is" photos and videos, and a number of what I am satisfied are hoaxes. If you know of such photos and/or videos, I'd be thrilled to know about them. I'd be very pleased and excited to know that we are not alone in the Universe, and are being visited by somebody else. I just see no evidence to support that. It would be the most wonderful event in my lifetime if such evidence could be supplied. So I sincerely hope you or somebody, someday, will provide such evidence.

 

[Andreas]

This is correct, but if I look at the sky and see a plane, and recognize it as such, by its shape, movement, color, noise, light pattern, whatever.
What are the chances that what I'm seeing is actually a blimp?

When you say you see a plane and "recognize it as such," that's already an interpretation of what you're seeing. Perhaps you're right, perhaps you're wrong. Without independent corroborating evidence, it's impossible to know. We know for a fact that people sometimes report seeing giant, mysterious drones hovering directly overhead. They describe the sound, shape, and movements in great detail. They're honest, completely convinced, and willing to give interviews on the evening news. But when we later see video footage of the object, it often turns out to be nothing more than a distant airliner on approach, with its landing lights on, miles away.

I've studied countless UFO cases in which witnesses described intricate details of alien craft, extraordinary maneuvers, and even beings looking out through windows. Yet many of these cases have ultimately been explained by entirely mundane objects such as commercial blimps, airplanes, or even Venus. In other words, we know that honest witnesses make mistakes, and we know that even detailed, sincere testimony can be completely wrong. That's why I don't regard the testimony of a single witness, no matter how sincere or detailed, as evidence that an extraordinary event actually occurred.

 

[Fritzkquzerk]

When you say you see a plane and "recognize it as such," that's already an interpretation of what you're seeing. Perhaps you're right, perhaps you're wrong. Without independent corroborating evidence, it's impossible to know. We know for a fact that people sometimes report seeing giant, mysterious drones hovering directly overhead. They describe the sound, shape, and movements in great detail. They're honest, completely convinced, and willing to give interviews on the evening news. But when we later see video footage of the object, it often turns out to be nothing more than a distant airliner on approach, with its landing lights on, miles away.

I've studied countless UFO cases in which witnesses described intricate details of alien craft, extraordinary maneuvers, and even beings looking out through windows. Yet many of these cases have ultimately been explained by entirely mundane objects such as commercial blimps, airplanes, or even Venus. In other words, we know that honest witnesses make mistakes, and we know that even detailed, sincere testimony can be completely wrong. That's why I don't regard the testimony of a single witness, no matter how sincere or detailed, as evidence that an extraordinary event actually occurred.

That's why multiple witness UFO sightings can be actually misidentification, expectation, hysteria, hoaxes, but still have (in my opinion) to be considered at least different from the average Joe seeing a bright object in the sky and screaming "aliens".
There are different kinds of witnesses and witness reports.
I think AARO is not wrong when its directors talk about anomalous or hard cases, but then you have security secrecy and there's no data to actually work on.
We've been through 3 releases of the Pentagon and while we cannot identify every single object in those videos, they are grainy and fuzzy dots.
I really dislike the presidential narrative of "letting people make up their own mind personally" on the subject, and "transparency".
That's really bad, here a fuzzy dot, think it's a bird or an alien? Yeah, we know how things like this turns out, everybody sees whatever they want in those files and the people who actually do the analysis on the available data do not see any reason to conclude that there is anything really extraordinary there.

@Baptiste Fr, I think many people here as well as anywhere else are tired of great claims always without any hard data to work on.
Can you really blame the skeptics that much?

 

[Todd Feinman]

I just had lunch with my Dad. I love him, but he is the kind of skeptic I dislike the most. I've tried describing my experiences to him, but he doesn't really listen. I don't think he's heard a word I've said, and always tries to change the conversation. Intellectually disappointing, actually. He's happy to avail himself of my knowledge when we go to museums, etc. but he's incapable of having a conversation about UFOs. Math guy, now retired attorney. His friends and my friends' parents growing up were all math professors. And the kids of those professors act just like him.
I think UFO witnesses are wasting their time trying to sway skeptics. The gulf is just too big. Better scientists argue with each other as is happening now.

 

[JMartJr]

I just had lunch with my Dad (step). I love him, but he is the kind of skeptic I dislike the most. I've tried describing my experiences to him, but he doesn't really listen. I don't think he's heard a word I've said, and always tries to change the conversation. Intellectually disappointing, actually. He's happy to avail himself of my knowledge when we go to museums, etc. but he's incapable of having a conversation about UFOs. Math guy, now retired attorney. His friends and my friends' parents growing up were all math professors. And the kids of those professors act just like him.
I think UFO witnesses are wasting their time trying to sway skeptics. The gulf is just too big. Better scientists argue with each other as is happening now.

I can sympathize -- there are a few topics where I just have to decide not to talk about that with a few of the folks that I care for a lot. I suspect many of us have had that experience. It's frustrating, sometimes, but I value the relationships with the people, more than the opportunity to discuss this or that topic.

 

[Andreas]

That's why multiple witness UFO sightings can be actually misidentification, expectation, hysteria, hoaxes, but still have (in my opinion) to be considered at least different from the average Joe seeing a bright object in the sky and screaming "aliens".
There are different kinds of witnesses and witness reports.

Yes, indeed. Multiple witnesses can be interviewed separately, and hopefully before they've had much opportunity to discuss the case with one another. Again, the main point isn't to determine whether someone is lying, but to see whether different witnesses interpreted the same situation differently. Unfortunately, cases involving multiple witnesses to something truly anomalous—such as a nuts-and-bolts craft in broad daylight—are rare. And when the witnesses know each other, it becomes difficult to distinguish between what they actually experienced themselves and what they only think they experienced because another witness mentioned it. Finally, I think it's dangerous to place too much weight on a witness's profession or background. "Trained observers"—scientists, police officers, military personnel—are equipped with the same human brain as everyone else. They're just as susceptible to interpreting ambiguous stimuli, filling in gaps, reconstructing memories, and incorporating information they later heard from others without realizing it.

 

[flarkey]

I think UFO witnesses are wasting their time trying to sway skeptics. The gulf is just too big. Better scientists argue with each other as is happening now.

I kind of agree. Witnesses are wasting their time without sharing evidence - skeptics tend to become convinced that a claim is true whenever they are shown evidence that supports the claim. People can claim anything, and using words to describe something visually unusual is very difficult and open to interpretation. But the problem is - some experiences happen without producing evidence, so the claims are all we have. And no matter how much evidence we gather for future 'ufo incidents' it wont help to explain those in the past.

 

[Todd Feinman]

I think you can have corroborating witness testimony, and analyze shapes reported, places seen, etc. —as has been done before, but at the end of the day, what absolute conclusions can one draw from that? If visual evidence comes forward that would at least convince skeptics that something unusual is being seen, then we can talk about intelligence control, but without tangible evidence that can be tested by everybody, it remains out of grasp.

 

[Harabeck]

"Trained observers"—scientists, police officers, military personnel—are equipped with the same human brain as everyone else. They're just as susceptible to interpreting ambiguous stimuli, filling in gaps, reconstructing memories, and incorporating information they later heard from others without realizing it.

"Trained observers" is a problematic phrase, and we should probably avoid it. It's almost entirely a rhetorical device put forward by UFO enthusiasts. Some very small number of scientists might be a trained observer of their particular object of study. There might be a tiny number of military personnel trained to observe things like people hiding in terrain.

As far as I'm aware, there's no training course that would help you identify a UFO visually.

The "trained observer" myth often comes in relation to pilots, and we have threads on that:
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/the-highly-trained-expert-fallacy-counterexamples.11308/

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/ho...-possibly-misinterpret-things-they-see.13341/

 

[Fritzkquzerk]

"Trained observers" is a problematic phrase, and we should probably avoid it. It's almost entirely a rhetorical device put forward by UFO enthusiasts. Some very small number of scientists might be a trained observer of their particular object of study. There might be a tiny number of military personnel trained to observe things like people hiding in terrain.

As far as I'm aware, there's no training course that would help you identify a UFO visually.

The "trained observer" myth often comes in relation to pilots, and we have threads on that:
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/the-highly-trained-expert-fallacy-counterexamples.11308/

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/ho...-possibly-misinterpret-things-they-see.13341/

Yeah, I see that expression as UFO propaganda.
I believe there are accurate witnesses and inaccurate witnesses, but it doesn't just depend on "training".
Also, a trained pilot is trained to be a pilot, not so much to identify apparent Instantaneous accelerations.

 

[JMartJr]

Multiple witnesses can be interviewed separately, and hopefully before they've had much opportunity to discuss the case with one another. Again, the main point isn't to determine whether someone is lying, but to see whether different witnesses interpreted the same situation differently.

An issue seldom addressed is that this interview process will usually leave out witnesses who saw the same thing and interpreted it as "Oh look, an airplane" and forgot about it because it was not interesting

 

[JMartJr]

As far as I'm aware, there's no training course that would help you identify a UFO visually.

To be fair, there IS training that might help one identify a specific sort of thing in the air that might otherwise go unidentified. Some military folks will, as part of their training, learn to recognize incoming aircraft or drones or missiles more readily than I can. Astronomers might be more familiar with the different ways meteors can appear, and recognize them where I might not. Police in some areas may be more aware of what smuggling drones and balloons look like than I am, due to training and experience.

Frequenters of this site might be more "self trained" to recognize when they are observing satellite flares, or even insects caught on video than is the average person.

And I might be less likely to be fooled by an unusual kite, or one with LEDs -- or even Chines sky lanterns, from the experience of flying a lot of them over the years.

But I'd agree that the "just generally trained to observe stuff" meme is a myth.

When I have a minute, it might be worth collecting some cases where the object was subsequently identified, cases where police, technical folks, scientists, pilots and the like failed to identify stuff which they reported as a UFO. There are numerous such cases, and a counter-example is a great way to refute an erroneous argument, so having a handy list of such cases could be useful.

Will have to be after the 4th, between now and then I'm a pressed for time!

 

[Andreas]

An issue seldom addressed is that this interview process will usually leave out witnesses who saw the same thing and interpreted it as "Oh look, an airplane" and forgot about it because it was not interesting

Exactly. We see this all the time. In criminal investigations, everyone who was at a specific location at a certain time must be interviewed, regardless of whether they believe they have anything important to say. This almost never happens when UFO reports are investigated. Someone might say, "Nah, I didn't see anything unusual at all. Just the old lighthouse blinking and a helicopter passing by, but no UFO." That kind of information could obviously be extremely valuable. But it often gets filtered out when investigators focus only on people who believe they witnessed something extraordinary. Sure, twenty people might have seen strange lights in the sky, but at the same time, hundreds of others might have seen airplanes dropping flares. Yet the latter group is unlikely to contact a news station or a UFO organization.

 

[Fritzkquzerk]

To be fair, there IS training that might help one identify a specific sort of thing in the air that might otherwise go unidentified. Some military folks will, as part of their training, learn to recognize incoming aircraft or drones or missiles more readily than I can. Astronomers might be more familiar with the different ways meteors can appear, and recognize them where I might not. Police in some areas may be more aware of what smuggling drones and balloons look like than I am, due to training and experience.

Frequenters of this site might be more "self trained" to recognize when they are observing satellite flares, or even insects caught on video than is the average person.

And I might be less likely to be fooled by an unusual kite, or one with LEDs -- or even Chines sky lanterns, from the experience of flying a lot of them over the years.

But I'd agree that the "just generally trained to observe stuff" meme is a myth.

When I have a minute, it might be worth collecting some cases where the object was subsequently identified, cases where police, technical folks, scientists, pilots and the like failed to identify stuff which they reported as a UFO. There are numerous such cases, and a counter-example is a great way to refute an erroneous argument, so having a handy list of such cases could be useful.

Will have to be after the 4th, between now and then I'm a pressed for time!

I think one can be trained to look at UFOs and be able to identify some banal and rarer weirder looking phenomena.
For example, being able to distinguish:

- airplanes
- blimps
- drones
- gliders
- helicopters
- satellites, iridium flares, tumbling satellites
- The ISS
- Planets
- Stars
- shooting stars
- meteors
- comets
- starlink trains
- Chinese lanterns
- weird effects from landing lights and clouds
- weird clouds, lenticular, punch hole clouds
- airplanes in formation
- military airplanes with weird stealth shapes
- BALLOONS (the UFO buffs kryptonite)
- parachutes / hang gliders / paragliders
- rockets
- missiles (for those unfortunate enough to experience them daily)

won't make you perfect, as an observer, but a bit more trained than someone who sees starlink and thinks it's a cigar shaped spaceship with windows.

For clarity:
I didn't include camera artifacts, I was only specifying the most common things you can spot with your naked eyes.

A team of skeptical unbiased scientists and good observers would be able to do a good job with UFOs, not so much what's happening with Avi lately.

 

[jarlrmai]

Interestingly I am a trained bird observer yet when I say things are gulls over on the Reddit UFO page no-one accepts my trained observer credentials..

 

[Fritzkquzerk]

Interestingly I am a trained bird observer yet when I say things are gulls over on the Reddit UFO page no-one accepts my trained observer credentials..

Jeez I forgot to mention "living flying things" in my previous list!

Edit:
I think I'm a good bird observer, not trained.
I can't recognize 5000 species, but if it has wings and feathers, I can point to it and say "bird!".

 

[jarlrmai]

Jeez I forgot to mention "living flying things" in my previous list!

Edit:
I think I'm a good bird observer, not trained.
I can't recognize 5000 species, but if it has wings and feathers, I can point to it and say "bird!".

What if it is too far away to see those details?

I can tell some birds from behaviour at beyond visual ID range at least to genus and in the UK to species by elimination (we only have one Kestrel for instance) so if it's hovering it's a kestrel unless the wind is quite high and then it might be a common buzzard.

I can recognise say a Stonechat by it's behaviour even though it's just a dot on a stick in a field.

Then there is a calls I know most common calls, although Great Tits seem to have many more than I know.

 

[Fritzkquzerk]

What if it is too far away to see those details?

I can tell some birds from behaviour at beyond visual ID range at least to genus and in the UK to species by elimination (we only have one Kestrel for instance) so if it's hovering it's a kestrel unless the wind is quite high and then it might be a common buzzard.

I can recognise say a Stonechat by it's behaviour even though it's just a dot on a stick in a field.

Then there is a calls I know most common calls, although Great Tits seem to have many more than I know.

No bird has fooled me so far, with my naked eye.
They can still appear weird in grainy videos, but that's a different matter.
I sure can see a bird in the distance and not recognize the features, but you can still see its behaviour, you can do a rough estimate on what it could be, enough to not think of a flying saucer, or a sentient orb, or a tic tac.

 

[NorCal Dave]

"Trained observers" is a problematic phrase, and we should probably avoid it. It's almost entirely a rhetorical device put forward by UFO enthusiasts.

I don't see it going away. As Mr. @Baptiste Fr has made clear, there is a huge emphasis on witness testimony in UFO research, likely because that is the most compelling. There's a few questionable radar hits here and there, some claims of health issues or radiation, often long after the fact, bits of junk and industrial waste passed off as flying saucer parts and lot's of blurry photos. Nevermind the straight up hoaxes and frauds. In the end, it's all about the stories witnesses tell, so it's important to maintain that some witnesses are "trained observers" or really good at looking at stuff.

I think most, if not all of us here reject the false tricotomy often put forth by the UFO community that witnesses are either: Telling reliable and truthfully accounts of their experiences, or they're delusional/crazy or their outright lying. No. There is a huge range of possibilities beyond these narrow confines, but as they witness testimony is so important to the existence of UFO (and by existence I think we all mean NHI, or aliens) it must fit into the first category unless and until proven to fit one of the other two.

 

[Fritzkquzerk]

What if it is too far away to see those details?

I can tell some birds from behaviour at beyond visual ID range at least to genus and in the UK to species by elimination (we only have one Kestrel for instance) so if it's hovering it's a kestrel unless the wind is quite high and then it might be a common buzzard.

I can recognise say a Stonechat by it's behaviour even though it's just a dot on a stick in a field.

Then there is a calls I know most common calls, although Great Tits seem to have many more than I know.

If I were to see (or wrongfully perceive) a big metallic disc hovering above my head, I won't scream "aliens" but I wouldn't think "well, there's many birds I don't know".
I'd rather think I had some kind of visual glitch caused by something else entirely, or else.
Just being totally honest, I wouldn't ask people to believe me if I couldn't take a picture at the thing.
I have no doubt that I've never seen something like that.
Some people described this phenomenon, there are some supposed old photos of saucers, but yeah, my point is I wasn't there, I don't know and there's no way to actually verify the exact things people actually saw in these old cases.
Now, excluding hoaxes, I agree that there are people who describe incredible stuff while having misidentified a bird or a balloon, but is that always the case for every "genuine" (meaning excluding the possible liars) sighting?

Edit:
It's a rhetorical question, the answer I think is "there's no precise / "hard science" way to tell or verify that".

I think this is where the disagreement lies.