Mendel
Senior Member.
It's likely there were other aircraft around that you did not spot because your eye was drawn to the runway, so you noticed the pilot who did the runway overflight.
How Can Highly Trained Military Pilots Possibly Misinterpret Things They See?
- Thread starter Slow Joe
- Start date
MyMatesBrainwashed
Senior Member
a) What does that even mean?
b) What was the ecological footprint of the conference? Is that responsible?
It's from the Sol foundation conference in November 2023. Organized by Garry Nolan. I think it's based on actual belief.
NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
From @Ann K summery in post #160:
Basically, blending science with subjective feelings and experiences to gain new knowledge, with there ultimate goal of mind over matter:
Something Whiteley seems to be into according to her faculty page from University Collage London (bold by me):
So, we have (bold in original):
And I'm guessing Regression practice means this:
As well as Han bang:
From Whiteley's LinkedIn page, she seems to have gotten 2 PhDs in the same field from 2 different institutions, unless there is something about how UK universities are named or affiliated:
That seems right out of the Institute Of Noetic Science (IONS):It discusses experiments suggesting that human intention can affect physical systems, challenging notions of unbiased scientific observation.
https://noetic.org/about/noetic-sciences/Our premise: at the nexus of inner knowing (noetics) and outer investigation (science), we will discover entirely new ways of being and of doing that uplift humanity and advance thriving for all.
Basically, blending science with subjective feelings and experiences to gain new knowledge, with there ultimate goal of mind over matter:
https://noetic.org/science/hypothesis/Our “moonshot” — a multidisciplinary effort to reliably and robustly demonstrate the mind’s influence on a physical system.
Something Whiteley seems to be into according to her faculty page from University Collage London (bold by me):
https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/44848The curiosity about how we can perform in extreme circumstances and exceed our own expectations, lead Iya to learn how to fly, skydive, scuba and freedive among other hobbies; and to practice Martial Arts, Korean Medicine, Family Constellation, Regression practice; and study psychology and computer science – the cross disciplinary area now termed, Human Factors and Cognitive Engineering.
So, we have (bold in original):
Family Constellations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Constellations, also known as Systemic Constellations and Systemic Family Constellations, is a pseudoscientific[1] therapeutic method which draws on elements of family systems therapy, existential phenomenology and Zulu beliefs and attitudes to family.[2]
And I'm guessing Regression practice means this:
Regression therapy
https://www.verywellhealth.com/regressive-hypnosis-therapy-5270347is a form of psychotherapy in which a therapist leads a person to remember events buried in the subconscious. The goal of regression therapy is to bring repressed emotions to a conscious state and then release them. Regression therapy can include hypnosis, a trancelike state in which a person is open to suggestions.
As well as Han bang:
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/hanyak...Han bang, which is the broader umbrella of traditional Korean medicine that incorporates acupuncture, moxibustion, cupping, and herbal remedies. It focuses on balancing the energies of the body and the elements of earth, fire, water, metal, and wood.
From Whiteley's LinkedIn page, she seems to have gotten 2 PhDs in the same field from 2 different institutions, unless there is something about how UK universities are named or affiliated:
Mendel
Senior Member.
Swinburne University is in Melbourne, Australia.
FatPhil
Senior Member.
Personally, I'd happily throw petrol on almost everything they've come up with and set it alight. Which isn't very ecologically responsible. So clearly my input wouldn't be welcome.
Tezcatlipoca
Active Member
I'd tread insanely carefully with this, Russian UAP narratives domestically are starkly different than what exists in foreign information environments, as are documented histories. With a lot of popular stories from over there, if you go to actual Russian sources, the stories are largely different.
Sokolov and his tales possibly rank among this. There's nothing for sure to call him out as a fake, but he exists among a crowd of Russian ufology TV stars that are never actually named or referenced in the wealth of uncovered information about Soviet parascience programs, unlike say Platov and Migulin. They make peripheral appearances like Platov and Sokolovs report on the history of Russian government-affiliated UFO research. What happened there is not entirely like what the US is trying to do. It is important to remember with the USSR, a lot of this research was government-affiliated on the merit of existing at research institutes, which, were almost entirely government controlled in that context, a lot of it wasn't actually directly interacting with the government like say Stolyarovs group (which debatably may not have had direct interactions either, he may have been there independently, tricky sourcing).
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I may need to re-listen to Alex Dietrich's chats with Mick to find quotes, but I could swear that she explained that the reason she supports the efforts of Ryan Graves is in large part because naval aviators like them and their colleagues are specifically not trained observers.
jarlrmai
Senior Member.
The problem is the stated public goal of Ryan Graves and his "Americans for Safe Aerospace" organisation which is to improve air safety, seems to be largely a smokescreen for just being a UFO fan/personality and also to provide a route for him to use pilot sightings reported to his organisation in good faith to further the impression that UAP/UFOs are NHI craft etc.
The Starlink thing is a classic example of this, his organisations dismissal of the Starlink explanation and lack of any real investigation so far seems at odds with the stated goals.
Mendel
Senior Member.
That's the name, but it's not their goal.
Article: Who should get involved with Americans for Safe Aerospace?
Anyone who believes in the mission of Americans for Safe Aerospace and wants to join the fight for transparency about UAP is encouraged to get involved. We welcome everyone, from pilots and aerospace workers, to concerned citizens to scientists and academics and government officials.
This is 100% about "disclosure", ASA is lobbying for that. They exist to push this agenda to politicians.
They do state:
But the implied claim, that unidentified UAP pose a risk ("potential risk", not even a potential danger), is the one they're connecting to disclosure as a rationale, though it's not sound reasoning. Especially if these are foreign assets, secrecy rather than transparency seems the wiser course of action.Article: What is the mission of Americans for Safe Aerospace?
Our mission is to identify what’s in our skies. We are dedicated to raising public awareness and educating policymakers on UAP as a matter of national security, aerospace safety, and scientific inquiry. Identifying domain awareness gaps is critical to U.S. national security. If UAP are foreign assets, we must respond appropriately. If UAP continue to defy conventional explanation — we must invest in scientific research. We support pilots, scientists, and politicians through education, advocacy, and political action.
That UAP claim is bolstered by their UAP guide:
Article: How can I learn more about UAP?
UAP Guide offers a helpful introduction to UAP that has been endorsed by subject matter experts on the topic. UAP Guide covers significant reports and incidents from witnesses in their own words as well as statements from policymakers, military and intelligence officers, academics and journalists.
It's a collection of mostly out-of-context quotes that ought to be easy to debunk if there weren't so many of them.
taurusclover21
Member
Birds are definitely a greater threat to flight safety than are UAP.
JackTReason
Member
It's a well-known fact that pilots have different eyes installed when they get their licenses, which make them immune to the typical failures of human vision. Thus, they never (or rarely) mistake something they see, nor are they confused by perspective. And they have an ability to gauge distance of single lights without other visual reference.
(Where'd I leave that sarcasm emoji?)
I think the notion that pilots (and military pilots in particular) have some superior ability that other humans do not possess comes from idolization. Nothing about being a pilot makes a difference in how your brain interprets visual stimuli. As with anyone and everyone, when we see something, our brain searches through memory to find a similar image in order to compare it to. Oftentimes this results in misidentification.
For example, a recent post on social media showed a close up picture of a hand - palm up - holding a sea urchin with a swimming pool in the immediate background. The caption read something to the effect of, "It took me X-long to figure out this wasn't a curly-haired woman living her best life."
It took me several minutes to figure out what it was, and from the comments I saw many people had to be told what it was. And this was with the prompt that it wasn't what it seemed.
In our brains we are trying to figure out what we see, and without enough information our brains are liable to fashion erroneous conclusions. This happens all the time, and pilots are not gifted with eyes and brains that fix that problem. And the most training can do is alert us to temper our trust in visual stimuli.
(Where'd I leave that sarcasm emoji?)
I think the notion that pilots (and military pilots in particular) have some superior ability that other humans do not possess comes from idolization. Nothing about being a pilot makes a difference in how your brain interprets visual stimuli. As with anyone and everyone, when we see something, our brain searches through memory to find a similar image in order to compare it to. Oftentimes this results in misidentification.
For example, a recent post on social media showed a close up picture of a hand - palm up - holding a sea urchin with a swimming pool in the immediate background. The caption read something to the effect of, "It took me X-long to figure out this wasn't a curly-haired woman living her best life."
It took me several minutes to figure out what it was, and from the comments I saw many people had to be told what it was. And this was with the prompt that it wasn't what it seemed.
In our brains we are trying to figure out what we see, and without enough information our brains are liable to fashion erroneous conclusions. This happens all the time, and pilots are not gifted with eyes and brains that fix that problem. And the most training can do is alert us to temper our trust in visual stimuli.
JMartJr
Senior Member.
Ann K
Senior Member.
Birds, however, don't engender a lot of attention from Congress, and "likes" and money when portrayed in a YouTube video.
taurusclover21
Member
I was hoping to imply that.
jarlrmai
Senior Member.
Scaramanga
Senior Member
Yes, I'd imagine 'trained observers' do get some training, and in relation to 'observing'. And as such very likely are more competent to judge an object.
BUT...I sense that is not really the duplicitous manner in which Nick Pope and others use 'trained observers'. The way Nick Pope uses it ( and he does so in relation to almost any authority figures such as police, or even commercial pilots ) is as if to imply that these people have some sort of special 'observing' powers in general. For example if a police officer had never done fishing and never even seen a fish then he...as a 'trained observer'....would have a better idea what fish it was than even some member of Joe Public who knew about fishing. Nick Pope is granting his 'trained observers' some sort of universal powers.
MyMatesBrainwashed
Senior Member
But we don't have to imagine that pilots get flying training.
Yet pilot error still occurs. Even in the military.
Despite those errors we still trust pilots to fly planes. We still learn how to fly planes from them. We understand that poop happens.
I'm beginning to wonder if that sol foundation video is gaslighting in some form.
Mendel
Senior Member.
You haven't done the work.
Take a decade to spread far and wide that the government knows things about birds they don't want you to know. Question why the DoD employs bird experts. Ask what your tax dollars are being spent on. And be shocked that they're still allowed to endanger mission-critical flights.
And then you can get your own rumor-whistleblower and go to Congress.
(First, though I suggest buying a ranch and getting government funding to observe birds there, an Advanced Avian Watch Special Access Program, if you will. Running it yourself means having certainty that there's a secret government bird program.)
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Duke
Senior Member.
Ann K
Senior Member.
This is not the humor thread.
scombrid
Senior Member.
I was out for my morning workout on the Indian River Lagoon early today in hard dark. I was going 12 kph in my kayak; simply going 5km south to turn around and paddle back for a total 10km paddle. There are a fair number of lights around; houses, cars going across the causeways, flashing channel markers, etc... I'm always on the lookout for vessels even though I've mostly got the place to myself in the early morning. There was a new white light that my brain interpreted as a mast light on a vessel in the ICW channel approaching from the south. Speed would have been around 20 kts. But there were no running lights which seemed odd.
Turns out it was a mooring buoy to which a light had been added. The buoy has been there as long as I've lived here but it wasn't lit. Instead of a vessel moving 20 kts with a mast light several meters above the water it was a stationary light no more than one meter above the water. So my brain was wrong on the distance to the object and the speed of the object by a large margin.
I'm on the water all the time for work and play day and night. Decades at it. Point lights without other contextual information are easy to mistake.
Turns out it was a mooring buoy to which a light had been added. The buoy has been there as long as I've lived here but it wasn't lit. Instead of a vessel moving 20 kts with a mast light several meters above the water it was a stationary light no more than one meter above the water. So my brain was wrong on the distance to the object and the speed of the object by a large margin.
I'm on the water all the time for work and play day and night. Decades at it. Point lights without other contextual information are easy to mistake.
Leekster
Member
As a "highly trained" former F14 fighter pilot I am often flattered yet surprised at the public perception that fighter pilots are somehow super human.
We have a bell curve of skill levels in aviation. Most pilots fall in the middle, a small percentage are amazing and a small percentage just aren't that great.
One thing all fighter pilots have in common is that we are human. We are susceptible to all the same misinterpretation of optical illusions as anyone else.
Yes, we get training and experience in understanding phenomenon that can effect our perception of reality but even the best pilots can be fooled, completely misunderstand what they are being presented with. Sometimes with fatal consequences.
The media often mentions the words, "Navy pilots are 'trained observers'."
After 22 years as a fighter pilot/Naval Aviator I have no idea what they mean by that. There is no observer training course for pilots that I am aware of. The term, while sounding important, is vague at best.
The other concept people need to be aware of is that military equipment is not magic. It has flaws and fails like any other high performance equipment.
Radars often present false targets or the software interprets performance incorrectly assigning wildly incorrect speeds, altitudes or movements. The operator needs to be familiar with their equipment to weed out bugus returns. You can have varying performance between two of the same piece of equipment or a subsystem could be glitching.
My point is, just because a piece of equipment says a target suddenly flew straight up to 80,000ft doesn't mean it actually happened. An operator would normally disregard such performance as a glitch or possible jamming/interference.(sometimes unintentional) interference from other equipment or the atmospherics of the day, including space weather.
taurusclover21
Member
But you're not a USN Top Gun "trained observer," amirite?
Leekster
Member
Concur with this.
As a former fighter pilot, commercial pilot, I was trained at the Naval Aviation Safety School as an accident investigator.
We were taught:
Eye witness testimony is often incorrect even with trained professionals.
"The pilot "trained observer" thing is ridiculous.
Yes, we were trained to recognize threat aircraft, their distance, weapons and energy state. That doesn't mean a pilot can estimate size and speed of a unfamiliar object without any other reference.
Leekster
Member
In aviation we call that "situational awareness". A term we use quite often during a debrief.
Our perception of reality vs actual reality.
Rarely is our situational awareness 100%. We use the comparison of multiple types of sensors and data analysis to constantly update our situational awareness.
In aviation your situational awareness can be the difference between success(survival) or loss.
We also have training on how personal bias can also effect our situational awareness and and subsequent actions/conclusions.
Ann K
Senior Member.
OT: During WWII my uncle's dog, given to him by a friend who had been stationed at heavily-bombed Portsmouth, could distinguish British aircraft from German aircraft by sound alone, and reacted strongly to the latter. His "situational awareness" was trusted to the point that when Goofy whined and headed for the basement, EVERYBODY in their five story building headed for the basement.
Mendel
Senior Member.
that was awareness of a single factor, trained into the dog who had the advantage of superhuman hearing
situational awareness is holistic, it means being aware of possible threats and pissible options you have. E.g. when you're about to land, knowing who's in front of you, who's behind you, how fast they are, what's happening on the runway, what the visibility is, how the wind is going, if there's an emergency being declared, all the while doing the work of preparing your own plane for the landing.
When something happens that doesn't fit the situation, then a pilot must figure out what caused it. E.g. if the indicated air speed drops, normally you'd pitch down to pick up speed, but if the situation is such that the aircraft shouldn't be slowing down, then it's better to check if the instrument is broken.
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