French National Assembly to host UAP seminar with true believers

[Leekster]

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

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

 

[Andreas]

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

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

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

 

[Mauro]

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

Yet again, then I will stop.

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


Or a similar one.

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

 

[Fritzkquzerk]

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

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

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

 

[Eburacum]

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

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

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