How Can Highly Trained Military Pilots Possibly Misinterpret Things They See?

[tobigtofool]

Either 1) The pilot(s) saw a UAP of size A, at position B at speed C, which they instead, because of human error, estimated to have size X, located at position Y at speed Z. They failed to engage the UAP because of this mistake. The described behaviour of the UAP, if it had been at XYZ, was beyond the capacity of any known aircraft, but if it was at ABC, the behaviour as described is plausible due to parallax and the pilots' own movements. This explanation fits the facts and makes one assumption: the pilot(s) made an error when estimating the position, size and speed of the UAP.

Fravor

"We look down, we see a white disturbance in the water, like something's under the surface, and the waves are breaking over, but we see next to it, and it's flying around, and it's this little white Tic Tac, and it's moving around — left, right, forward, back, just random,"

The object didn't display the rotor wash typical of a helicopter or jet wash from a plane, he said.

The planes flew lower to investigate the object, which started to mirror their movements before disappearing, Fravor said. "As we start to cut across, it rapidly accelerates, climbs past our altitude and disappears," Fravor recalled.

"When it started to near us, as we started to descend towards it coming up, it was flying in the elongated way, so it's [like] a Tic Tac, with the roundish end going in the forward direction ... I don't know what it is. I don't know what I saw. I just know it was really impressive, really fast, and I would like to fly it," he said.

The disturbance in the water also vanished with object, he remembered.

None of that to me sounds like anything anyone would be able to create in their mind because they misunderstood what they were looking at due to parallax.

So I think it was option 2, that they must have been looking at something real but I don't think it was an alien thing either.

 

[Mendel]

The idea that in a situation that you wouldn't be able to determine the characteristics of the object you are circling, is not realistic in my experience.

The problem is that when Fravor misjudged the size, he implicitly misjudges the distance, so that he's not actually circling the object; but because he thinks he is, he's experiencing parallax (the actual tictac vs the center of his "circle"), which creates the impression of motion he reported.

Similarly, the "shot up" happens because Fravor is diving, creating a vertical parallax; that's why you haven't experienced it yourself.

So I think it was option 2, that they must have been looking at something real but I don't think it was an alien thing either.

Thankfully the human mind endures contradictions. Humans cannot break the laws of physics, so if Fravor saw human craft breaking the laws of physics, that is a contradiction.

Nobody doubts Fravor saw "something real", we just think it's not what he thought it was.

 

[Nemon]

I would like to take this opportunity to point out once again that this visualization, provided the data has been used or interpreted correctly, which some of the experts present here can certainly say something about or have already said elsewhere, speaks a completely different language than what one might otherwise imagine for Fravor's perspective on the process during his intercept:

Source: https://youtu.be/SgGbbYxxyCI?si=yCKO42UD601MeX4u


The image that everyone has in mind of the Nimitz Incident, on the other hand, was shaped by this; in the recreated sequences, the encounter is staged much more dramatically, and the title image alone, with the fighter jet and TicTac at sea level above the troubled water, condenses the scene impressively - but inaccurately.


Source: https://youtu.be/PRgoisHRmUE

 

[tobigtofool]

I would like to take this opportunity to point out once again that this visualization, provided the data has been used or interpreted correctly, which some of the experts present here can certainly say something about or have already said elsewhere, speaks a completely different language than what one might otherwise imagine for Fravor's perspective on the process during his intercept:

Was that all he saw or was there more visual contact? I wish that sim showed what they were looking at before and for how long, I dont know the details but that sim was great.

Im gonna recreate that in DCS

 

[Nemon]

Was that all he saw or was there more visual contact? I wish that sim showed what they were looking at before and for how long

I would have liked to see who of the pilots said when they saw exactly what - and how these statements have changed over time - as slides overlays to illustrate the differences. But I have never done this work, nor has anyone else, as far as I know. Although this general issue has already been discussed in earlier threads.

 

[tobigtofool]

I would have liked to see who of the pilots said when they saw exactly what - and how these statements have changed over time

Yeah when you look at the visualization it is so much less sensational than the way its spoken about. The visualization by no means looks like anything out of this world to me ,and could easily be the behavior of a quad copter drone.

It makes me wonder if we're missing the forest for the trees, trying to say this was either a hallucination triggered by a balloon, or an alien.

It could very easily be some kind of military drone IMO, and id honestly believe that more than the pilot was confused about the behavior of a balloon.

It's quite often that top secret projects are revealed to have been top secret projects when its time for them to stop being top secret projects.

So I think there is a greater chance that pilots are not misinterpreting what they see but instead actually saw a drone and it wasn't doing anything a drone couldn't do, but to a pilot in 2017 it would look wacky and alien.

This is speculation on my part, but its based on the same type of speculation we are suggesting fraver misunderstood what he saw. And there are historical precedents that show we do get glimpses of top secret aircraft before they are unveiled. So I hope this post remains, it's a realistic possibility IMO

Despite occasional leaks and glimpses, the stealthy aircraft would not appear in the open for almost 10 years.

https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/history-of-stealth-from-out-of-the-shadows/#:~:text=Stealth was developed and fielded,2 was in November 1988

 

[Ann K]

It makes me wonder if we're missing the forest for the trees, trying to say this was either a hallucination triggered by a balloon, or an alien.

It could very easily be some kind of military drone IMO, and id honestly believe that more than the pilot was confused about the behavior of a balloon.

I'd like to think that none of us would suggest it to be a hallucination or an alien. But as for your postulated drone, I'm not sure how one would differentiate between a pilot confused by a drone and a pilot confused by a balloon. "Pilot confused by a misinterpretation of the size, is therefore unable to accurately assess the speed or distance" covers both of these.

 

[tobigtofool]

I'd like to think that none of us would suggest it to be a hallucination or an alien. But as for your postulated drone, I'm not sure how one would differentiate between a pilot confused by a drone and a pilot confused by a balloon. "Pilot confused by a misinterpretation of the size, is therefore unable to accurately assess the speed or distance" covers both of these.

Not exactly, a drone behaves like fraver describes the UAP did, especially when viewing that simmulation, so hes mot misinterpreting anything.

The balloon/parallax theory suggests he is and has to explain why it's moving when he looks at it, it changes height when he approaches it, and then zips away when they meet. Source: https://youtu.be/SgGbbYxxyCI?si=yCKO42UD601MeX4u

But a drone could do all those things, so what he saw could likely be no misinterpretation if it were indeed some kind of military drone test.

Maybe they have some combination of these two that theyre working on, its not that implausible.

Sphere drone
Source: https://youtu.be/ndRxU1wRIYM
Big racing drone
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIi_vuzmOSY

I think there is plenty of precedent, so I dont think military pilots are misinterpreting what they see with a lot of these UAP sightings, especially around the Nimitz encounter.
https://amuedge.com/beyond-ufos-what-are-navy-pilots-seeing-in-the-skies/

 

[Landru]

Not exactly, a drone behaves like fraver describes the UAP did, especially when viewing that simmulation, so hes mot misinterpreting anything.

The balloon/parallax theory suggests he is and has to explain why it's moving when he looks at it, it changes height when he approaches it, and then zips away when they meet. Source: https://youtu.be/SgGbbYxxyCI?si=yCKO42UD601MeX4u

But a drone could do all those things, so what he saw could likely be no misinterpretation if it were indeed some kind of military drone test.

Maybe they have some combination of these two that theyre working on, its not that implausible.

Sphere drone
Source: https://youtu.be/ndRxU1wRIYM
Big racing drone

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIi_vuzmOSY

I think there is plenty of precedent, so I dont think military pilots are misinterpreting what they see with a lot of these UAP sightings, especially around the Nimitz encounter.
https://amuedge.com/beyond-ufos-what-are-navy-pilots-seeing-in-the-skies/

What are you alluding to in these links? Quote the relevant passage and supply the links. If it is a video provide a time stamp.

 

[tobigtofool]

What are you alluding to in these links? Quote the relevant passage and supply the links. If it is a video provide a time stamp.

Link 1/1a providing a source for the statment about the behavior of the UAP.

Link 2 I suggested that there are such thing as large agile drones and sphereical shaped ones so one that looks like a tictac could exist

link 3 is a source for my statement about goverment black ops and is about how the U.S. Air Force and the Pentagon have a long and storied history of performing disinformation campaigns, often using the deep pop culture roots of UFOs to hide advances in aerospace technology.

A report by the New York Times in 1997 shows that the CIA and the Air Force promoted UFOs to cover up sightings of their U2 and SR-71 spy planes.

So there is reason to believe that a lot of these military pilot sightings are accurate, not misinterpretations, and they witnessed exactly what they saw because nothing fraver describes having seen is out of the ordinary for a drone.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

Fraver

"We look down, we see a white disturbance in the water, like something's under the surface, and the waves are breaking over, but we see next to it, and it's flying around, and it's this little white Tic Tac, and it's moving around — left, right, forward, back, just random,"

The object didn't display the rotor wash typical of a helicopter or jet wash from a plane, he said.

The planes flew lower to investigate the object, which started to mirror their movements before disappearing, Fravor said. "As we start to cut across, it rapidly accelerates, climbs past our altitude and disappears," Fravor recalled.

"When it started to near us, as we started to descend towards it coming up, it was flying in the elongated way, so it's [like] a Tic Tac, with the roundish end going in the forward direction ... I don't know what it is. I don't know what I saw. I just know it was really impressive, really fast, and I would like to fly it," he said.

The disturbance in the water also vanished with object, he remembered.

None of that to me sounds like anything anyone would be able to create in their mind because they misunderstood what they were looking at due to parallax.

So I think it was option 2, that they must have been looking at something real but I don't think it was an alien thing either.

Personal incredulity? Again?

Personally I'm incredulous at your persistence.

 

[tobigtofool]

Personal incredulity? Again?

Personally I'm incredulous at your persistence.

What makes saying he misunderstood the parallax any different?

 

[Landru]

Link 1/1a providing a source for the statment about the behavior of the UAP.

Link 2 I suggested that there are such thing as large agile drones and sphereical shaped ones so one that looks like a tictac could exist

link 3 is a source for my statement about goverment black ops and is about how the U.S. Air Force and the Pentagon have a long and storied history of performing disinformation campaigns, often using the deep pop culture roots of UFOs to hide advances in aerospace technology.

So there is reason to believe that a lot of these military pilot sightings are accurate, not misinterpretations, and they witnessed exactly what they saw because nothing fraver describes having seen is out of the ordinary for a drone.

Last warning. Do not paraphrase. Quote.

 

[Calter]

I'm no drone nor secret project expert, but I imagine if you are testing your secret drone, you would not do so in the middle of the ocean nor where you have planes flying around. If anything goes wrong, chances are you are never going to get that drone back, so probably best to just fly it under controlled conditions where you can at least recover the wreckage and where it doesn't risk running into a jet. It also would need a pretty strong range for a small drone.

I'm also not sure a drone could do what was described to have happened, it would be a pretty impressive climb (plus a risky maneuver by the operator).

Personally, I'd be more interested in seeing a simulation in which the object is actually relatively static (so not suddenly ascending very quickly) and see if a plane spiraling down around it can show a similar situation. The object going up as the plane goes down could be the object being always at the same height and the pilot being surprised that the object is getting closer faster than he thinks it should (and he concludes the object must be going up as he goes down instead of the object just being closer)

Also, this is a complete throw in the dark and I don't know if this has ever been discussed, but is it possible for some sort of weak waterspout to be forming on that area, which caused the disturbance in the water and spiraled some object upwards? I'm no meteorologist so I don't even know if such events happen or if the conditions were there for it to happen, but that's what came to my mind when trying to think of a situation that could fit with the description of the erratic movements and the disturbance in the water without the pilots being mistaken.

 

[Tezcatlipoca]

Link 1/1a providing a source for the statment about the behavior of the UAP.

Link 2 I suggested that there are such thing as large agile drones and sphereical shaped ones so one that looks like a tictac could exist

link 3 is a source for my statement about goverment black ops and is about how the U.S. Air Force and the Pentagon have a long and storied history of performing disinformation campaigns, often using the deep pop culture roots of UFOs to hide advances in aerospace technology.

A report by the New York Times in 1997 shows that the CIA and the Air Force promoted UFOs to cover up sightings of their U2 and SR-71 spy planes.

So there is reason to believe that a lot of these military pilot sightings are accurate, not misinterpretations, and they witnessed exactly what they saw because nothing fraver describes having seen is out of the ordinary for a drone.

Chiming in here on the "disinformation campaigns" part as this is relatively inaccurate. "Campaign" and "program" have very specific uses when speaking about these fields, and if say, you send in a question and get a response from some PA shop that says "No, it's an unidentified flying object" - this is not a disinformation campaign, but rather a piece of disinformation.

There have been exactly 2 documented cases of actual campaigns and/or programs being used in this regard, and the first is the supposed Bennewitz case (fair debate that this was not ordered to conduct), and the second surrounding Roswell due to the Mogul balloon program.

When you hear about other events happening, these are largely isolated cases part of something entirely different and do not constitute an influence campaign or program.

 

[Mendel]

I'm no drone nor secret project expert, but I imagine if you are testing your secret drone, you would not do so in the middle of the ocean nor where you have planes flying around.

It's always good not to rely on incredulity, that can easily lead people down rabbit holes. Compare:

https://www.military.com/daily-news...s-use-mq-9-drone-island-hopping-missions.html
This article from April: "The Air Force Is Testing Ways to Use the MQ-9 Drone in Island-Hopping Missions" refers to drone sorties from San Clemente Island.

Generally, this thread is about pilots; we have threads about Fravor's Tic-Tac, e.g.
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/how-big-is-a-tic-tac-scale-models-of-the-nimitz-incident.9829/
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/nimitz-tic-tac-fravor-dietrich-encounter-missile-hypothesis.11838/
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/hypothesis-fravors-tic-tac-was-kurths-fa18.11776/
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/hypothesis-fravors-tic-tac-was-bullet-125.12711/
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/we...iddle-of-a-test-of-radar-spoofing-tech.11733/
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/a-tear-in-the-sky-nimitz-tic-tac-catalina-ufo-documentary.12367/
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/2004-uss-nimitz-tic-tac-ufo-flir-footage-flir1.9190/

 

[Nemon]

Generally, this thread is about pilots; we have threads about Fravor's Tic-Tac, e.g.

You are absolutely right - but it must be recognised that it is very difficult to keep track of what was discussed where in these core topics. But I would just like to make a brief comment on the Fravor/Nimitz case. In the eyes of the true believers, his report in itself is of course an ufological revelation, but what makes the whole case so astonishing is that this object was allegedly in Kevin Day's area of responsibility on the radar and thus a radar location led precisely to the real intercept. In addition, there are the well-known statements about the flight altitude and the alleged jump of the object in the radar system and then its integration into the original formation, which led to the pursuit by Chad Underwood.

It's not just about what Fravor and the pilots saw. What is intriguing here is the complexity. Although I don't think it's quite as puzzling anymore as I found it was originally: it could possibly be resolved and traced back to a strategic spoof that was part of the manoeuvre - or to a mistake in the new system. Or even a concatenation of several circumstances that led to this intriguing overall picture by a great coincidence - and all we are missing is the key.

 

[Alexandria Nick]

I'm no drone nor secret project expert, but I imagine if you are testing your secret drone, you would not do so in the middle of the ocean nor where you have planes flying around. If anything goes wrong, chances are you are never going to get that drone back, so probably best to just fly it under controlled conditions where you can at least recover the wreckage and where it doesn't risk running into a jet. It also would need a pretty strong range for a small drone.

What you're identifying as bugs are actually features. Out over the ocean, there's way less to crash into, vastly fewer observers, and recovery is (almost counter-intuitively) easier for you and somewhat more difficult for others. "Planes flying around" isn't a major concern. There's other test ranges in places like Yorktown or Pax River that are smack dab in the middle of the busy skies of the Chesapeake Bay.

To narrow Mendel's post down to three sentences: several of the sightings discussed in this overall "Navy sees UAPs" flap are in or near the Point Mugu Sea Range. It isn't unusual that you'd test an unpublished drone there. That's exactly where you'd expect the Navy, Air Force, or a contractor to be testing an unpublished drone.

 

[John J.]

Here is gun camera footage of an A-10 attacking friendly vehicles, because the pilot thought the orange identification panels on top of the vehicle, who's only purpose is literally to mark the vehicle as friendly, as orange rockets.

This occurred on March 28 2003, during the invasion of Iraq. 2 A-10s, callsigns POPOV 35 and 36, of 190th Fighter Squadron USAF (ANG).

3db points out that pilots can make major identification errors, even when it is literally a matter of life and death.
Fortunately this is rare, but everyone makes mistakes- even pilots and surgeons.

I have a similar file to 3db's A-10 footage;

Below, a transcript edited to only include speech directly relevant to the identification of targets by the pilots
(the video above has subtitles, so you can check for accuracy / context).

US forces had air supremacy, so outlying units, including those of non-US origin, used bright orange panels as visible identifiers for aircrew.
The A-10 crew had already engaged ground targets during this flight. Flying a combat jet must be physically and mentally demanding; flying in combat has the additional stress of possible violent death or capture and its consequences.
It should be remembered that the pilots were not aware of friendly forces in the area, and asked for clarification.
Timings (time into recording) are approximate:

0:30 POPOV36: Hey, I got a four ship [four ground vehicles]. Looks like we got orange panels on them though.
0:55 POPOV35: [Not MANILA HOTEL] I see multiple reveted vehicles.
1:00 POPOV35: Some look like flatbed trucks and others are green vehicles. Can't make out the type. Looks like they may be ZIL 157s.
2:20 POPOV36: They look like they have orange panels on though.
2:40 POPOV36: They've got something orange on top of them.
2:56 POPOV35: They look like flatbed trucks.
3:22 POPOV36: I think they're rocket launchers.
3:45 POPOV36: OK, well they got orange rockets on them.
3:48 POPOV35: Orange rockets?
POPOV36: Yeah, I think so.
4:06 POPOV36: I think killing these damn rocket launchers, it would be great.
4:56 POPOV36: OK, do you see the orange things on top of them?
5:17 POPOV35: It looks like they are exactly what we're talking about.
5:28 POPOV36: All right, we got rocket launchers, it looks like.

(05:40 POPOV flight engages vehicles with 30mm cannon)

6:10 POPOV 36: That's what you think they are, right?
6:12 POPOV 35: It looks like it to me, and I got my goggles on them now.
6:56 POPOV 36: Is that what you think they are?
7:06 POPOV 35: It doesn't look friendly.

(7:18 POPOV flight re-engages ground vehicles)

7:31 LIGHTENING34: POPOV. Be advised that... ...you have friendly armour in the area. Yellow, small armoured tanks.
7:44 POPOV35: Ahh shit.

Note that POPOV36 sees the orange air identification panels, but fails to process what they mean.
At about 1 minute into the recording, POPOV36 tentatively identifies the vehicles as ZIL 157 trucks.
Not just military trucks- a specific type of military truck.

POPOV36 then goes on to apparently convince himself, and POPOV35, that what he had twice described as "orange panels", a friendly forces identifier, are in fact orange rockets, and attacks the vehicles on this basis.

The vehicles were actually light armour, two Scimitar and two Spartan CVRTs (Combat Vehicle Reconnaissance, Tracked), correctly displaying orange combat identification panels.
Objectively, they don't look like flatbed trucks, and US forces in 2003 Iraq used trucks far more similar in appearance to ZIL 157s than CVRTs are,

The M35 series was used by the United States in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Wikipedia article, "M35 series 2½-ton 6×6 cargo truck",
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M35_series_2½-ton_6×6_cargo_truck.

Below, two rocket launchers based on the ZIL 157- a Soviet BM-13 ("Katyusha") carrier without rockets, and a Czech Warsaw Pact 130mm system.

IIRC I've seen pictures of USSR / Russian missiles on parades with red-painted nosecones, but it would seem foolish to deploy brightly-coloured weapons on the battlefield (especially when the enemy has air supremacy).

We will never know what POPOV35 and POPOV36 perceived when they observed the four vehicles, what, in that specific time and place, they thought they saw.
I have no real doubt that their communications and descriptions were anything other than completely honest.
POPOV36 was convinced he was seeing Iraqi trucks, and hazarded an opinion about what specific type they were, which seems absurd in retrospect. Somehow, the pilots failed to understand that the orange panels they could see- which turned from "panels" to "rockets"- were specifically there to be seen by US / friendly pilots, just as they had been briefed.

None of us can know what David Fravor saw, or thought he saw.
If a similar object, behaving as Fravor described, is convincingly caught on film, or better yet retrieved or "unveiled", then perhaps we'll know, but I'm not holding my breath.
There is no reason to doubt Fravor's competency as a pilot at the time of the Tic-Tac sighting, and there's no reason to doubt his honesty. But pilots do misperceive things, just like everyone else does from time to time, and this might apply to Fravor's sighting without impugning his honesty, intelligence or professionalism.

 

[tobigtofool]

My only question about that @JohnJ is, did they or did they not see actual targets in the correct positions?

I offer no challenge to friendly fire being a regular occurrence, but the fact that you can make out a target to make the friendly fire happen indicates they were not fooled by parallax.

Military pilots being fooled by parallax into thinking an object is moving in a way that it shouldn't is what I challenge, especially an airborne object.

(Fravor being the only example I can think of that the going debunk is he misperceived what he saw as a result of parallax into thinking he saw a UAP - which is why he is brought up in this thread)

I don't know of any other pilot reported sightings that fit that description.

 

[Mendel]

I offer no challenge to friendly fire being a regular occurrence, but the fact that you can make out a target to make the friendly fire happen indicates they were not fooled by parallax.

No, these "Highly Trained Military Pilots" whom we are told are trained observers were fooled by bright orange panels they had been briefed on.

It's so much easier to be fooled by parallax than by bright orange panels, wouldn't you agree?

(Remember also, the topic of this thread is not exclusively Fravor.)

 

[MyMatesBrainwashed]

It's so much easier to be fooled by parallax

Could you go as far to say it's impossible not to be fooled by parallax?

Like those static images that move. I know it's static, I can't stop it moving.

Aren't we just discussing an optical illusion?

 

[steveb2014]

How in the world can pilots not know what parallax is? Aren't pilots trained to fly by instruments alone because their eyes cannot tell the difference between the sky and sea in some weather conditions?

Our brains function from the top down, Our brains are actually prediction engines what will happen. our brains produce schemas that we compare incoming stimuli to using Bayesian inference where the stimuli will be assimilated along with the persons prior beliefs and become a posterior belief. Or memories are fallible. A simple thing called priming can produce false memories. If you measure are variance of perception from person to person the difference are huge. Also priming can affect anyone so the argument of someone hallucinating UFO's is possible.

 

[Mendel]

Could you go as far to say it's impossible not to be fooled by parallax?

Parallax happens every time a moving observer sees objects at different distances. Most of the time, we're not fooled by parallax, because we have a reasonably accurate mental model of the scene. Compare the examples in https://www.metabunk.org/threads/al...o-teleportation-videos-hoax.13104/post-299535 .

Our brain gets in trouble when its model of the scene is incomplete: particularly with aircraft, optical clues to the position of the aircraft are often missing. Compare https://www.metabunk.org/threads/help-to-debunk-737-flies-backward.12208/ .

If Fravor was focused on the disturbance in the water, and then spotted the TicTac as it moved close to it in his field of view, his brain would have put it at close to the water distance-wise as well, even though there was no way to tell. (Similar as looking at the TMZ "jellyfish" footage and feeling it must be fairly close to the ground.) With that spatial mis-cue, the door to parallax error is wide open, because when we get the distance wrong, the only way the object can behave the way it looks like is if it's moving. When our mental model of the distances is correct, static objects feel static even though they're not static in the picture we see.

So in a sense, the core of this "optical illusion" is a false impression of the distance, which then creates an unavoidable motion illusion due to the parallax effect.

 

[JMartJr]

... I imagine if you are testing your secret drone, you would not do so in the middle of the ocean nor where you have planes flying around.

There seems to be a drone airstrip on San Clemente Island, as was mentioned in another thread (HERE).

I am not convinced a drone sighting was all or part of what Fravor saw, though it might well have been (I'm of the opinion that, given the mutability of human memory and the unreliability human perception and interpretation of what is perceived, the accuracy of his testimony is not knowable, honest though he may be, and so what he saw is not knowable), but some sorts of drones have been operating in that area. Note that this would not be limited to quad-copters and the like, nor to aircraft flown from San Clemente Island -- picture below shows navy target drones being carried into a training mission from Point Mugu, about 50 miles north of the island.

Image Source: Screen grabbed to include caption from: https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/exploration-and-innovation/unmanned-aerial-vehicles.html

 

[MyMatesBrainwashed]

So in a sense, the core of this "optical illusion" is a false impression of the distance, which then creates an unavoidable motion illusion due to the parallax effect.

"Unavoidable" sounds pretty close to my impossible.

The point is, just cos you know about parallax doesn't mean your brain won't get tricked by it given the conditions that trick it.

You can't train that out of anyone.

 

[Mendel]

"Unavoidable" sounds pretty close to my impossible.

The point is, just cos you know about parallax doesn't mean your brain won't get tricked by it given the conditions that trick it.

You can't train that out of anyone.

Yes. But I wanted to clearly state that it is only unavoidable when we perceive the distance quite wrong. Parallax works perfectly fine when we have the right impression of where everything is.

And you can obviously disregard your impression ("what your eyes tell you") and work everything out analytically. (Similar to how pilots are trained to fly by instruments when in doubt.) Though in a surprising situation which doesn't last long, that's going to be difficult.

 

[MyMatesBrainwashed]

A more interesting question then is how can highly trained military pilots NOT possibly misinterpret things?

Are they divine?

Does thinking they can't misinterpret things make them nervous of being held at such regard or does it feed their ego?

I will add that I imagine that highly trained military pilots correctly identify many, many, many more things than they misinterpret.

 

[Mick West]

I will add that I imagine that highly trained military pilots correctly identify many, many, many more things than they misinterpret.

And there's the rub. The best UFO events seem to involve situtations that, if prosaic, would be rare, even unlikely.

I think there's an XKCD comic that fits here. There's billions of observations. A small percentage of them pass some series of unfortunate events (misperception, mistakes, coincidences) and that pops out the other end are those one in a million cases, maky like Favors, that become legendary.

Amazing and improbable things are inevitable.

 

[Todd Feinman]

I think a lot of ordinary folks have had amazing UFO experiences, and a number of them in situations where there is little ambiguity --they are up close, etc. In the course of my explorations after my experiences, I have met a number of them. They may not have taken a picture or have physical evidence to prove it, but I believe they still had the experiences. Just because someone is in the military, a top gun, etc. doesn't necessarily give their experiences more credence or importance than others' experiences (some of which are amazing and very improbable). I've seen a Tic Tac, and had another UFO experience, later corroborated, and no one cares. UFOlogy has become just a sea of loud people trying to be experts --many of them have never even seen a UFO. I'm as good an observer as many pilots; I have had years of life drawing and painting experience.

 

[Mendel]

They may not have taken a picture or have physical evidence to prove it, but I believe they still had the experiences.

The occasional hoax notwithstanding, most experiences are real.
We do disagree on what caused the experience.
Compare: https://www.metabunk.org/threads/a-fun-story-about-helicopters-and-the-ufo-thought-process.13321/

no one cares. UFOlogy has become just a sea of loud people trying to be experts --many of them have never even seen a UFO. I'm as good an observer as many pilots; I have had years of life drawing and painting experience.

Parts of "UFOlogy" are trying to get recognized by the US government, and in order to be taken seriously, they're trying to present themselves as scientific and credible. That means they're trying to distance themselves from the "UFO in my backyard" folks and push people with military credentials, because that's a bonus in US politics.

I maintain that nobody, "UFO expert" or layperson, has ever seen a genuine extraterrestrial craft, and for that reason, "UFO experts" can't exist in the sense that experts in other fields do. As you have noted, "UFO expert" denotes anyone who can talk about UFOs.

 

[JMartJr]

They may not have taken a picture or have physical evidence to prove it, but I believe they still had the experiences.

But when it comes to analyzing evidence, their stories are almost useless. Some number of people make up stories for fun or profit (not just about UFOs, obviously!) Some people are scrupulously honest but make mistakes in observations. Some people (most, or all) have memories of extraordinary experiences which morph over time, becoming embellished in different ways and diverge from reality. Since UFOs are part of the cultural landscape, some folks will be excited about the prospect of seeing a "real UFO" and interpret something strange to them as being a tic tac, or flying saucer, or mysterious orb, or whatever the then-current popular UFO descriptor-meme is. And some people may in fact see exactly what they report, having observed it accurately. Trained military pilots might fall into any of those categories, since they are as human as the rest of us.

The difficulty is, there is no good way to tell which sort of story we're hearing. I can't see any way to reliably separate the noise from the signal, if any.

IF there is really something to all this -- if there are in fact "real UFOs," for want of a better term -- that will not be proven by stories. If there is something real there, the hard evidence would be captured at some point. We won't have to rely on deciding which stories are real and which are, for various reasons, not. But so far we get Low Information Zone pics, or vids that are supposed to show flying pyramid UFOs that are just stars when analyzed, or "the best orb photo ever" that just shows a butterfly.*

To my mind, we are well past the point where, if there was "something there" we'd have better evidence. The field remains interesting to me on the off chance that, even if we have not had "real UFO's" up until now, that might change tomorrow, and if so real evidence might come to us. That would be great -- but unless/until it happens, the whole topic has, for me, just become a chance to work out the puzzle of "what is this new UFO pic really showing, let's find the exact balloon if we can or the exact metal object tossed in the air."

Not trying to dictate to anybody else what they should think, just expounding (at too-great length probably) on what I think, and why I think it.


*Pyramids are just stars: Here, post of short video whowing pyramid UAP positions match exactly with stars visible at the time. The whole thread is long but good.
Best Orb Ever is a butterfly: Here. Butterfly proposed first in post #25.

 

[Todd Feinman]

But when it comes to analyzing evidence, their stories are almost useless. Some number of people make up stories for fun or profit (not just about UFOs, obviously!) Some people are scrupulously honest but make mistakes in observations. Some people (most, or all) have memories of extraordinary experiences which morph over time, becoming embellished in different ways and diverge from reality. Since UFOs are part of the cultural landscape, some folks will be excited about the prospect of seeing a "real UFO" and interpret something strange to them as being a tic tac, or flying saucer, or mysterious orb, or whatever the then-current popular UFO descriptor-meme is. And some people may in fact see exactly what they report, having observed it accurately. Trained military pilots might fall into any of those categories, since they are as human as the rest of us.

The difficulty is, there is no good way to tell which sort of story we're hearing. I can't see any way to reliably separate the noise from the signal, if any.

IF there is really something to all this -- if there are in fact "real UFOs," for want of a better term -- that will not be proven by stories. If there is something real there, the hard evidence would be captured at some point. We won't have to rely on deciding which stories are real and which are, for various reasons, not. But so far we get Low Information Zone pics, or vids that are supposed to show flying pyramid UFOs that are just stars when analyzed, or "the best orb photo ever" that just shows a butterfly.*

To my mind, we are well past the point where, if there was "something there" we'd have better evidence. The field remains interesting to me on the off chance that, even if we have not had "real UFO's" up until now, that might change tomorrow, and if so real evidence might come to us. That would be great -- but unless/until it happens, the whole topic has, for me, just become a chance to work out the puzzle of "what is this new UFO pic really showing, let's find the exact balloon if we can or the exact metal object tossed in the air."

Not trying to dictate to anybody else what they should think, just expounding (at too-great length probably) on what I think, and why I think it.


*Pyramids are just stars: Here, post of short video whowing pyramid UAP positions match exactly with stars visible at the time. The whole thread is long but good.
Best Orb Ever is a butterfly: Here. Butterfly proposed first in post #25.

I generally agree with what you are saying, and folks who really have seen UFOs --and not just taken a picture of a bee or seen Starlink satellites or a distant plane, etc., are as equally frustrated as skeptics are by the wacky nonsense, deliberate hoaxes and ignorant pundits. That is why you folks are so useful; you separate the nonsense and hoaxes from the signal. Most of the material that is debunked here I wouldn't give a second glance to, but others do buy into nonsensical hoaxes and the garbage grudgingly released by the military or leaked to the public, which you all have rightly debunked.

Hard science will always finish last --if it finishes at all; usually it just hangs around the finish line for a very, very long time; it is useful in cases where there is strong circumstantial evidence in order to seal the deal, but hard evidence isn't always forthcoming. But many require "extraordinary evidence" for claims of nonhuman tech etc. --as is totally understandable for those who haven't had their own unambiguous experiences. It just might be a long time coming, especially if the government and military are not going to be helpful, and if the phenomenon is far more advanced. But don't give up!

 

[FatPhil]

Our brains function from the top down, Our brains are actually prediction engines what will happen. our brains produce schemas that we compare incoming stimuli to using Bayesian inference where the stimuli will be assimilated along with the persons prior beliefs and become a posterior belief. Or memories are fallible. A simple thing called priming can produce false memories. If you measure are variance of perception from person to person the difference are huge. Also priming can affect anyone so the argument of someone hallucinating UFO's is possible.

Yup, our brains take shortcuts and make approximations and follow heuristics all the time. And our inputs are only as accurate, precise, or even timely, as it's necessary for them to be for our survival. Our foveal vision is terrible compared to that of a bird of prey, and our peripheral vision is terrible compared to our foveal vision. And both are slow to be processed compared with the abilities of our nearest neighbours, the chimps (e.g. the blinked number sequence test). What's amazing about human capabilities is how we're able, for most situations we encounter, to do so much with so little.

 

[FatPhil]

And there's the rub. The best UFO events seem to involve situtations that, if prosaic, would be rare, even unlikely.

I think there's an XKCD comic that fits here. There's billions of observations. A small percentage of them pass some series of unfortunate events (misperception, mistakes, coincidences) and that pops out the other end are those one in a million cases, maky like Favors, that become legendary.

Amazing and improbable things are inevitable.

And the only things that are reported. (Classic Survivorship Bias)

 

[Todd Feinman]

I never jumped to "aliens" when I had my first experience. I thought of mundane explanations first; reflection, fighter jets in formation, etc.
I'm familiar with the brain's construction of "reality" à la Daniel Dennett etc. I had a good look during both experiences.

 

[Ann K]

I never jumped to "aliens" when I had my first experience. I thought of mundane explanations first; reflection, fighter jets in formation, etc.
I'm familiar with the brain's construction of "reality" à la Daniel Dennett etc. I had a good look during both experiences.

And yet your experiences are YOUR experiences, and there isn't a lot (either verifying or debunking) that other people can do with experiences that they didn't share themselves. Anecdotes are not sufficient for even a dedicated researcher to explain. It's hard enough to do any analysis with a simple photo, especially if there are no accurate times, dates, or directions given. That's not meant to be dismissive of the stories; it's just a brute fact.

 

[Todd Feinman]

And yet your experiences are YOUR experiences, and there isn't a lot (either verifying or debunking) that other people can do with experiences that they didn't share themselves. Anecdotes are not sufficient for even a dedicated researcher to explain. It's hard enough to do any analysis with a simple photo, especially if there are no accurate times, dates, or directions given. That's not meant to be dismissive of the stories; it's just a brute fact.

I totally agree, and you are right --there isn't much to go on. In my case, I didn't see until fairly recently that there were two other corroborative sightings of the same objects (same description, almost verbatim regarding the quality of the luminosity of the five objects) these occurred within weeks of my experience and just a bit further south (where I saw the objects go).

It also turns out that objects with the identical description and formation were seen in the 50's flying overhead in Nevada, and Leroy Chiao's later sighting from the ISS also matches the objects (which he said "flew by him in space" iirc). Leroy later said he could have seen "fishing boats" --I don't buy it.

Then there are the almost farcical coincidences which stretch believability around my first experience, regarding the Trent photos, etc., as you will see if you look into my sighting.

The encounters I had were so bizarre and unlikely that it is almost hard for me to believe that they happened! It makes me think that UFOs are far stranger than nuts and bolts objects.

When I saw a Tic Tac object (2013, iirc), I believe I hadn't yet heard about the Navy Tic Tac sightings, and I likened the object to a luminous "capsule" --like a gelatin capsule. That object moved incredibly fast --out into space, until it disappeared.

 

[John J.]

I offer no challenge to friendly fire being a regular occurrence, but the fact that you can make out a target to make the friendly fire happen indicates they were not fooled by parallax.

Military pilots being fooled by parallax into thinking an object is moving in a way that it shouldn't is what I challenge, especially an airborne object.

You're right of course that any mistakes made by the POPOV callsigns were not due to mis-judging parallax.
But it's an example of pilots misinterpreting what they were seeing to a serious extent, and possibly not processing some of what they could see (the orange air identification panels), even though the pilots were on the type of mission they had been trained for (close air support / ground attack) and would have been briefed beforehand.

I think your point about experienced pilots being better at assessing parallax effects, from the viewpoint of their aircraft, than the average non-pilot is persuasive (to me anyway!) I'm pretty good at estimating distances on the ground, but stick me in the back seat of a Strike Eagle and I'd be happy if I could maintain a trajectory between me and the empty milk bottle clasped between my trembling knees. I don't think I'd be able to rapidly give useful estimates of the speed and distance of other aircraft.

In the absence of checkable evidence from his sighting (e.g. camera footage) Fravor's report remains that, a verbal report. He might be accurately recounting a sighting of an objectively real object with the characteristics that he describes, which leaves us with questions about what it is- drones / UAVs are popular explanations at the moment, just as secret jet fighters were in the 40's / 50's, or airships in the late 1800s.
But a featureless object without visible means of propulsion, pulling tight manoeuvres at high speed suggests (to me) not a UAV. Others wonder if it is a UAV with technology unknown to us, which it would be important to investigate; unfortunately the Tic-Tac incident doesn't give anyone much to go on. (Has anyone raised ball lightning yet? )

Just like anyone else, pilots do sometimes make errors, right across the spectrum of operations. On any given day I'd guess that Fravor would be better at estimating the relative size and speed of an aerial object and have a better intuitive grasp of parallax than the vast majority of people, but that doesn't rule out misperceptions or errors in calculation.

Though not really a similar case, think of the loss of Capt. Thomas Mantell in 1948. A decorated WW2 flyer, he climbed to pursue a UFO (probably a Skyhook balloon) in a P-51 Mustang without the oxygen equipment for high altitude flight, despite warnings from his wingman, who didn't follow. Mantell must have known- or at least must have been taught- that this would be profoundly dangerous, but he proceeded anyway.

...the Army later determined that once Mantell passed 25,000 feet (7,600 m) he blacked out from lack of oxygen and his plane began spiralling back towards the ground.

Wikipedia, "Mantell UFO incident", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantell_UFO_incident
(I don't know why the Army was involved, the USAAF became the USAF in 1947. Maybe it was some administrative overhang from the earlier set-up. )

 

[Alexandria Nick]

(I don't know why the Army was involved, the USAAF became the USAF in 1947. Maybe it was some administrative overhang from the earlier set-up. )

He was in the Kentucky Air National Guard. In those days, the ANG was not considered professional and functioned more as a flying club to keep reservists qualified as pilots more than training combat pilots. As Guard units, they weren't in the USAF chain of command when not Federalized for deployment. The specific squadron was based at an Army Airfield at Fort Knox, rather than an Air Force Base. I'd think the Army was involved because of this relationship between the KY ANG and the Army via Godman Army Airfield.

Additionally: when going back and reading some of the Mantell incident, the tower at Godman was directing the aircraft towards the target, so the Army may have taken the primary investigative role as the key party in the event.