Major UFO experiences are specific to the observer

[LilWabbit]

In the last 6 weeks or so of my mother's life, she started seeing things. One day I took her and her dog up to the lake, and when I came back from walking Jackie, she matter-of-factly told me there had been a Viking ship on the lake. I can confidently attest that despite being an avid fan of Tucker Carlson, she was "not crazy" in any way. However, she had been in and out of consciousness for a week in the hospital, so, her body was in a new place physiologically.

Later, she had more disturbing visions — of menacing children and adults getting in her face, and things in the air which she would swat away. Like the major UFO experiences, these things were not merely in her visual field but embedded in reality: She could turn her chair away from the menacing people and they would turn along with the rest of her surroundings.

I did some reading to try to figure out what was happening. The description of the visions matched Charles Bonnet syndrome quite well, except that syndrome happens to people who are losing their eyesight, and she wasn't. Nevertheless, Bonnet syndrome hallucinations (which are purely visual) may be related to the major UFO experience, which typically occurs not only when it's dark but also when looking up at the sky, where our usual visual cues of shape and depth are absent. Perhaps some people are prone to brief episodes of the syndrome or a related phenomenon, under just the right circumstances. (Importantly, the Bonnet syndrome visions, like my mother's, are persistent and repetitive, where a major UFO experience is a rare or singular event.)

I wonder what percentage of major UFO experiences happen when someone is staring at the night sky? Are there cases where someone is going about their normal evening but sees something out a window and rushes outside, to find a giant triangle hovering above?

I think it's important to distinguish between:

(1) The regular functions and malfunctions of brain processes in the occipital lobe responsible for visual perception (which factor in all the different visual perceptions discussed on this thread that do not have a 'real world' counterpart);

(2) The power of human imagination which is further socially fuelled by received cultural fiction and mythology;

Together these two factors form a powerful duo that almost automatically fills information gaps with all manner of falsity whilst genuinely feeling like real observations.

Without mindful, rational and critical thought processes we can all fall for these. And indeed we probably do all the time.

 

[John J.]

By the way, how is this off topic?

In fairness, I might have miscalled that, and it's not for me to judge anyway- my apologies, DaveG.

 

[Edward Current]

By the way, how is this off topic? Is this thread only trying to establish how UFO sightings are "specific to the observer," meaning all in their heads, with no counterarguments?

Actually I'd love to see some counterarguments. But saying that advanced aliens would do X to avoid cameras is speculative motivated reasoning, which I referenced in the OP.

So, let's get into this.
• What are some arguments for why "specific to the observer" isn't the least complicated explanation for major UFO experiences?
• Least-complicated explanations aren't always correct, so do we have good evidence for the complications, e.g., additional agents?
• What makes the experiencer so certain that they witnessed an object-in-reality, as opposed to other avenues for that experience and memory?
• How in play or out of play are LilWabbit's 4 psychological factors?
• Without relying on unfalsifiable ad hoc hypotheses, what are some ideas for why an individual sighting of an object-in-reality over downtown L.A. doesn't end up being a mass sighting event?
• Can we maybe get really outside the box on this issue, and ask if there can be an objective reality of matter and energy embedded in spacetime without every observer agreeing on that reality? Is there any theoretical backing for this? (Someone recently told me to look into the double slit experiment. Yeah no, that wouldn't be it.)

Also pinging @Todd Feinman, since he disagreed with the OP.

 

[Ann K]

Also pinging @Todd Feinman, since he disagreed with the OP.

He went through the first half of the comments on here either disagreeing or laughing (inappropriately) at every one, but offering no insight of his own. I'd disregard him.

 

[NorCal Dave]

• Without relying on unfalsifiable ad hoc hypotheses, what are some ideas for why an individual sighting of an object-in-reality over downtown L.A. doesn't end up being a mass sighting event?

I think there a number of possibilities.

1. Hoax. Not saying the guy in LA was hoaxing, but hoaxing is defiantly a part of UFOlogy, for any number of reasons. And hoaxes can be broken into multiple types from straight up model on a string in front of a camera to just an over-exaggeration of a real event for a better story. In his book Psychic Blues, magician and pseudo-psychic Marc Edwards describes calling into Coast-to-Coast AM pretending to be a trucker that is watching a UFO, just for fun. Some are semi-sincere, and others are looking for money, fame, clicks or just want to feel important. If there was nothing there, there would be no mass sighting.
2. Honest misunderstanding. Some people just don't understand what they saw. Starlink satellites is a good example. People see it, don't know what it is and report it as such. I think this group is most open to an explanation once it's shown to them. If most people understood what they were seeing, no mass sighting.
3. Willful misunderstanding. For various reasons, these people engage in cognitive dissonance. We all do at times, part of trying to think critically is recognizing that, but some chose not to. These can include the brothers from the 3rd Phase of the Moon on YouTube that likely know what they're seeing and promoting is not what they claim, but their identity and living are tied up in UFOs, so any light in the sky is an alien unless proven otherwise. And even then, it may still be an alien. On the other extreme, there are many stories of the late Betty Hill seeing UFOs and aliens any time there was a light in the sky, be it planes, stars or street lights. Being abducted by aliens is who she was and what made her famous. But none of these people are going to be involved in a mass sighting, they're just telling themselves what they see is aliens, regardless of what others say.
4. Non-real experience. By this I mean not just a misunderstanding of what someone saw, like a Starlink chain, but they are convinced of or have a convincing memory of something that didn't really happen. Pareidolia, experiences during sleep paralysis, a "floater" in one's eye, possible temporary hallucinations, or just an altered state of being from something like stress and lake of sleep can all create the conditions for a strange experience.
5. Psychological issues. Obviously individuals with things like schizophrenia or other conditions may have visions and experiences, but I don't think that's who were talking about here.

These few ideas are not strict silos, there is a lot of floating between them. At what point does someone's willful misunderstanding become a full on hoax? How many times does someone honestly mistakes a Starlink chain for UFOs after having it explained to them start to engage in cognitive dissonance?

 

[DaveG]

Let's hear about your observation, and what you agree with and disagree with in the premise of this thread. I'm glad you're here to provide a first-hand perspective on the matter.

No, I'd rather not turn this thread into my sighting. And Flarkey has already provided a brief outline of what I saw.

 

[DaveG]

So, let's get into this.
• What are some arguments for why "specific to the observer" isn't the least complicated explanation for major UFO experiences?

Well, there are often multiple witnesses who report the same descriptions and behavior. In military encounters, we also have radar and sensor data to support the witnesses descriptions, and the witnesses themselves are generally highly qualified. In many cases there have been ground traces, imprints, radiation, etc.

What makes the experiencer so certain that they witnessed an object-in-reality, as opposed to other avenues for that experience and memory?

Speaking from my personal experience, I would say my familiarity with objects in the sky both day and night comes from having used binoculars, telescopes, and cameras for well over thirty years. Familiarity with what birds look like at night (living next to a lake and watching migratory birds). Observing police planes and helicopters fly over often without lights; familiarity with satellite flares and tumbling satellite flashes; having tracked satellites over multiple nights; identifying reconnaissance satellites; and defunct geostationary satellites flashing. Many Starlink passes, often anticipating their next launch. Familiarity with meteors and fireballs. Understanding the autokenetic effect and how it has tricked my brain on a couple occasions into thinking a stationary object was moving when it wasn't.

 

[Mendel]

Well, there are often multiple witnesses who report the same descriptions and behavior. In military encounters, we also have radar and sensor data to support the witnesses descriptions,

I know no instance of military radar data being released, do you? All we have is witness memories of radar data.

and the witnesses themselves are generally highly qualified.

NOBODY is qualified in UFO recognition, and it is very unlikely a witness is qualified in UAP recognition.

In many cases there have been ground traces, imprints, radiation, etc.

At least half of these seem to be hoaxes.

That said, "saw a fleck of light on the IR" does not qualify as a "major UFO experience" in the sense of the OP.

 

[Mauro]

This article has recently been re-posted on the skeptics.org website: https://www.skeptic.org.uk/2023/06/from-the-archives-galileos-doughnuts-the-day-i-saw-a-ghost/. It's about a 'ghost dog', not an UFO, but it may be relevant to the contets of this threads. I have excerpted the most relevant points:

...

 

[Jeffrey Orling]

I am thinking now that virtually everyone has a smart phone and can take pics and vids with no hassle... we should be seeing more "weird" content including UFOs or whatever they are called these days. And one can expect these oddities to be captured by multiple people from different locations/angles.

Are we seeing more and more reliable videos and stills?

 

[flarkey]

Are we seeing more and more reliable videos and stills?

There are more videos but they are just as unreliable as ever. In fact, the metadata that usually comes with videos, along with the archives of plane flights, ship movements, and astronomical events makes many of the videos explicable. The remaining videos that show possibly 'anomalous' events are usually the ones without the metadata. (they are in the LIZ - low information zone)

 

[JMartJr]

There are more videos but they are just as unreliable as ever.

Agree with the second point, but I'm curious about the first. HAS there been an uptick in videos (or photos), or are they merely more easily spread around via YouTube and the like?

 

[Scaramanga]

After talking for a short while with someone who believes strongly in non-human intelligence on Earth, it often comes out that the person has had a life-changing experience witnessing something extraordinary. The object(s) described and the experience typically fits a pattern:
1. It often has a "TR-3B" description of a black triangle with lights, or some other triangular thing, occupying a significant portion of the sky, the experiencer getting a good look at it
2. It appears and leaves suddenly (rather than for example slowly advancing from the horizon)
3. The experience often happens at nighttime
4. The phenomenon is visual only — the "craft" and its flight are silent
5. The experiencer is too stunned and in awe to think of getting a picture or video, or it happened too fast, it was before cell phones, etc.
6. Sometimes the experiencer is in a small group (2 or 3 people) who share the experience and report seeing the same thing
7. Critically, no independent observers report seeing such an object
8. Critically, no land- or space-based device captures images or other evidence of such an object

In talking to these people, I am moved by their stories. The experience forever changes the way they see the world. However, except in rare cases, they are convinced that the thing they saw was real — it was a feature of objective reality, and would have been available to all observers at that time and place ("I know what I saw").

Additionally, there seems to be a strong distinction between this kind of up-close, astonishing experience and more generic sightings. The latter can happen at any time of day, and the object is always small or far away (SFA) and in the low-information zone (LIZ), and nothing prevents the witness from getting a picture. This tweet exemplifies the distinction:
View attachment 60165
Unfortunately these categories are often conflated, to where an "up close" experiencer is much more likely to believe that a SFA object in the LIZ is extraordinary, and they become intensely interested in the more mysterious cases like Gimbal.

These experiences affect people deeply, yet they are often brushed off by skeptics, including myself not long ago. I can empathize with experiencers' visceral reaction against the ECREE standard of skepticism: Experiencers have their own extraordinary evidence, and being disbelieved by others, having that personal evidence rejected, is not their problem.

To me it seems rather obvious what is going on. The least complication explanation, as well as the one with the greatest explanatory power, is that these experiences are unique to the experiencers. They are purely neuro-chemical in nature — they are not happening "out there," material or energetic objects perceived by the eyes and transmitted to the brain in the way that we see the Moon or lightning, but rather, they initiate in the brain. Perhaps there is a natural pharmacology involved, such as DMT or a related chemical (DMT occurs naturally in the body in small amounts). In the case of "my friend saw it, too," sociological factors such as peer pressure and the power of suggestion are at play — most dramatically, in the Ariel School sighting.

Now, you have to be careful approaching an experiencer with this hypothesis. In addition to "I know what I saw," the near-universal reaction is, "I'm not crazy" and "I wasn't hallucinating." A guy recently told me that he and his lady friend were on a rooftop in downtown Los Angeles and witnessed a giant UFO hovering over the city. He showed me a clip of his call in to Coast To Coast AM, imploring other people in L.A. at the time to come forward. And he got downright angry when I suggested it was anything other than an object in the sky at some altitude. It must be disturbing that such a life-changing experience cannot be corroborated by independent observers or devices.

I often bring up the Chelyabinsk meteor: Here was a once-in-a-century event, captured by enough dashcams from various angles, with enough clarity, to calculate the meteor's trajectory through the atmosphere to precision. But, how many giant-thing-in-the-sky experiences have individuals had over the years and decades? Not one of them has been corroborated by a single dashcam, cell phone, Ring camera, traffic camera, etc., etc.

You would think such questions would make an experiencer reconsider their conviction. Instead, it only cues heavily motivated reasoning.

We all want to believe that our perceptions and memories are an accurate reflection of objective reality. But the brain is a biological mess — extraordinarily complex, unpredictably unreliable and unreliably unpredictable, and subject to innumerable influences, both internal and external. It disturbs people that their perceptions and memories could be anything other than objective and accurate — something that can be seen in the popularity of social controversies such as the "Mandela effect" and "The Dress."

What's the best way to approach experiencers with this hypothesis? Are there illustrative examples that can help create a bridge to a common understanding? My go-to is usually an optical illusion, wherein I ask if they see yellow in this image:
View attachment 60166
...but it is a long way from a routine optical illusion to a giant life-changing triangle in the sky (they know what they saw).

This seems like a ripe topic for neuroscience research, and maybe it already is. But it's not like you can put someone having a UFO experience in an MRI.

Personally I've become sick and tired of the entire 'I know what I saw' trope.

And here is a supreme example of just exactly why. Yet another Las Vegas 'UFO. This one is SO obviously the Moon ( which I point out in the comments ) that it just defies belief that anyone could possibly think or believe that it was anything else. I give up. Humans are just not worth being visited by aliens if they are so clueless that they cannot even recognise the Moon in the sky !

( First video is at around 2.36.....second one, showing the exact same effect a month earlier ( what a surprise ), is around 4.44 )


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OXvqIjw1mw

 

[Scaramanga]

I think it's important to distinguish between:

(1) The regular functions and malfunctions of brain processes in the occipital lobe responsible for visual perception (which factor in all the different visual perceptions discussed on this thread that do not have a 'real world' counterpart);

(2) The power of human imagination which is further socially fuelled by received cultural fiction and mythology;

Together these two factors form a powerful duo that almost automatically fills information gaps with all manner of falsity whilst genuinely feeling like real observations.

Without mindful, rational and critical thought processes we can all fall for these. And indeed we probably do all the time.

I'm always mindful, despite my current skepticism of UFOs, that one of the MOD files on UFOs is my own report from January 31st 1977 ( which I cannot seem to track down ). To this day, I have never found a satisfactory explanation for it.....a spherical iridescent object hanging there in the brightening ( and cloudless, at the time ) pre-dawn sky, about half the apparent diameter of the Moon. It 'dissolved' away over about half an hour.

I don't now think it was aliens...probably some very rare atmospheric phenomenon. But I would love to get hold of the original MOD file to see whether my memory after 50 years corresponds with what I reported at the time. And contrary to what most might suspect, I think any 'embellishment' of the object was at the time...and my actual memory 50 years later is less dramatic. But has my becoming a skeptic in the intervening years led to a more accurate memory ?

 

[tinkertailor]

Without relying on unfalsifiable ad hoc hypotheses, what are some ideas for why an individual sighting of an object-in-reality over downtown L.A. doesn't end up being a mass sighting event?

NorCal Dave has, as always, given a great and detailed explanation, and I am going to expand on them and suggest some more concrete examples based on my experience living in LA:

1: There are a lot of very weird planes flying around the skies here, and most people do not seem to care. I've seen B-52s, Spitfires, and every imaginable kind of weird private airplane. I see Bell 47 helicopters regularly. There's oodles or airports here and plenty of rich weird people to fly expensive weird planes. The Goodyear blimp haunts the skies for any imaginable vaguely celebratory event. There's aerospace companies and military bases all over. Despite this, lifelong Angelinos do not seem to care. If I was less skeptical, I could see thinking that one of these was a UFO, and I could see why most Angelinos wouldn't notice.

2: Take point one ("Weird stuff flies over LA a lot and only some seem to care") and add a bit of earnest UFO belief, unfamiliarity with flying objects, and maybe a bit of a tendency for conspiracy belief, and you get some people who see something commonplace and ascribe something else to it. Case in point: someone in my neighborhood once posted on our NextDoor that there was a huge UFO over LA. It was rainy that day, snd she reported a huge thing hovering silently over the city. Someone pointed out that the Goodyear blimp was in the area at that time and is a large silent hovering thing, but the experiencer denied that it could have been a blimp; she knew what the blimp looked like and this was different. To the experiencer, it was a huge thing hovering over the city and how could no one else see it? To the majority of nonbelieving Angelinos, it was a Tuesday and some event was happening so our blimp had to be there, rain or shine. It looked dark against the city-illuminated sky, so it looked more foreign to this experiencer, and her UFO belief filled in the rest.

 

[Eburacum]

To this day, I have never found a satisfactory explanation for it.....a spherical iridescent object hanging there in the brightening ( and cloudless, at the time ) pre-dawn sky, about half the apparent diameter of the Moon. It 'dissolved' away over about half an hour.

Sounds a bit like a fuel dump of some sort. Was it stationary, or moving slowly across the sky?

 

[Scaramanga]

Sounds a bit like a fuel dump of some sort. Was it stationary, or moving slowly across the sky?

It was stationary, I think...hard to be precise as I had a 3 mile walk to work in those days. It was due south at 40 degrees elevation, and the sun was about to rise in the south east about 20 mins later. But yes, could have been a high level fuel dump....though I would not expect fuel to form a perfect spherical shape, but it would certainly be iridescent ( a bit like looking at a CD, with all the odd colours ) in the sunlight that would have reached that high up before the sun rose.

When I wrote to Nick Pope to ask if he could help me get hold of the original MOD file ( which there must be as I got the official MOD letter back then ) he did not seem the slightest bit interested. To this day, I still have no idea which file it is in. All I recall is the date was January 31st 1977 and the time was around 7.20 AM....near Tunbridge Wells in Kent, England. Very striking object...not faint but very distinct. Stellarium tells me there was nothing in the sky in that region. But fuel dump is one plausible thing.

 

[Edward Current]

a spherical iridescent object hanging there in the brightening ( and cloudless, at the time ) pre-dawn sky, about half the apparent diameter of the Moon. It 'dissolved' away over about half an hour.

Maybe a noctilucent cloud or nacreous cloud?

 

[Scaramanga]

Maybe a noctilucent cloud or nacreous cloud?

I've seen both of those ( have been an amateur astronomer for over 50 years ) and I doubt it was that. Noctilucent clouds generally appear right over where the sun has set or is rising, and cover a wide arc. This was one small object in an otherwise totally clear southern sky. Nacreous clouds are generally lenticular in shape. Could be some rare halo effect...but if so its one I've never heard of. I doubt scientists have yet worked out every conceivable angle of ice crystals that could form some very rare effect.

 

[Todd Feinman]

Actually I'd love to see some counterarguments. But saying that advanced aliens would do X to avoid cameras is speculative motivated reasoning, which I referenced in the OP.

So, let's get into this.
• What are some arguments for why "specific to the observer" isn't the least complicated explanation for major UFO experiences?
• Least-complicated explanations aren't always correct, so do we have good evidence for the complications, e.g., additional agents?
• What makes the experiencer so certain that they witnessed an object-in-reality, as opposed to other avenues for that experience and memory?
• How in play or out of play are LilWabbit's 4 psychological factors?
• Without relying on unfalsifiable ad hoc hypotheses, what are some ideas for why an individual sighting of an object-in-reality over downtown L.A. doesn't end up being a mass sighting event?
• Can we maybe get really outside the box on this issue, and ask if there can be an objective reality of matter and energy embedded in spacetime without every observer agreeing on that reality? Is there any theoretical backing for this? (Someone recently told me to look into the double slit experiment. Yeah no, that wouldn't be it.)

Also pinging @Todd Feinman, since he disagreed with the OP.

They are external to the observer. There are mass sightings / encounters and cases with corroborative evidence, groups of peope have observed them through binoculars and telescopes and theodolites at relatively close range. They are tracked on radar and later seen by intercepting pilots. They have been observed at missile testing sites by five separate observation stations. Hallucinations from endogenous chemicals or neurological glitches or from ingested drugs doesn't explain them. I've seen them myself. They are external objects.

 

[Ann K]

Case in point: someone in my neighborhood once posted on our NextDoor that there was a huge UFO over LA. It was rainy that day, snd she reported a huge thing hovering silently over the city. Someone pointed out that the Goodyear blimp was in the area at that time and is a large silent hovering thing, but the experiencer denied that it could have been a blimp; she knew what the blimp looked like and this was different.

I've lived for half a century halfway between Akron and Cleveland, directly on the Goodyear blimp flight path, and my son once came dashing in to say "There's a ...there's a ...I don't know WHAT it is!" in his defense, he was about six years old at the time. In the past we have also had Sea World balloons that look like Shamu.

But they've been replacing the old two-engine blimps with three-engine dirigibles which are longer and thinner, so we may see more people saying "This wasn't the blimp; it looks different and it sounds different."

 

[Ann K]

Sounds a bit like a fuel dump of some sort. Was it stationary, or moving slowly across the sky?

I've seen a daytime fuel dump, easily distinguished by the high index of refraction of jet fuel. The resultant iridescent-but-yellowish cloud lingered without much spreading in the calm air.

 

[Edward Current]

They are external to the observer. There are mass sightings / encounters and cases with corroborative evidence, groups of peope have observed them through binoculars and telescopes and theodolites at relatively close range.

What's the most compelling case of a large and/or low-altitude UFO witnessed by multiple independent parties with corroborative evidence? I'm talking about major sightings that leave people astonished and permanently affected, not merely unidentifiable things in the sky.

 

[Todd Feinman]

What's the most compelling case of a large and/or low-altitude UFO witnessed by multiple independent parties with corroborative evidence? I'm talking about major sightings that leave people astonished and permanently affected, not merely unidentifiable things in the sky.

That is a good question! Many of these cases are still being debated --like the Farmington event of 1950:
https://www.ufoinsight.com/ufos/sightings/new-mexico-ufo-armada-case
There is also the 1954 event in Tuscany:
https://www.ufoinsight.com/ufos/sightings/new-mexico-ufo-armada-case
I suppose the Lubbock Lights ( plovers?!) might qualify. There are others. After my experience in 2010, I spent a number of year scouring every newspaper database that I could get access to, and snipped many articles. They can be seen here, and you folks would love to read them as they span most of the history of the phenomenon, and you might have fun trying to unravel their mysteries! My own first experience with UFOs has remarkable corroborating evidence --which I discovered years afterward.

 

[Edward Current]

That is a good question! Many of these cases are still being debated --like the Farmington event of 1950:
https://www.ufoinsight.com/ufos/sightings/new-mexico-ufo-armada-case
There is also the 1954 event in Tuscany:

Those are sightings with a lot of witness accounts. They remind me of the Belgium UFO wave of 1989. But I don't see any evidence corroborating anything extraordinary, other than the stories.

Hallucinations from endogenous chemicals or neurological glitches or from ingested drugs doesn't explain them.

I'm looking for evidence to that effect. To me, the fact that there's a fair-to-large number of up-close, astonishing experiences — thousands, surely — without really good independent corroboration of at least some of them, constitutes evidence in the other direction. What I mean is clear phone/dashcam/security imagery, satellite or other aerial imagery, ATC radar, witnesses interviewed independently with no knowledge of each other. We can get these for every other object in the sky, but not for the astonishing "experience" encounters, it seems.

It's easy to forget that anywhere there are people, there are cameras rolling constantly. In September 2001, well before cell phones, a documentary crew on the streets of New York were rolling and happened to capture footage of Flight 11 impacting the North Tower. Today....

Regardless of the explanation, the experiences, by all accounts (literally), are extraordinary. But we have to do better than, "People can see them, but they must be avoiding cameras just enough to never be photographed well, and also they must have anti-ATC radar technology and stuff, in addition to their silent appear-and-disappear technology."

 

[John J.]

That is a good question! Many of these cases are still being debated --like the Farmington event of 1950:
https://www.ufoinsight.com/ufos/sightings/new-mexico-ufo-armada-case

O.K., Farmington:

From the referred-to article (on ufoinsight.com)

However, over a three-day period in 1950 in Farmington, New Mexico, in broad daylight, no less, over a thousand residents of the area witnessed instead, a fleet of "flying saucers" – anywhere from 200 to 500 in total – hovering and maneuvering in the skies above them.

(My emphasis).

And no-one had a camera? After the second day, no-one had a camera ready?
No major news agencies had despatched a reporter and/or cameraman? Not even a New Mexico state paper or radio station?
Who counted the 1000+witnesses? Where is the corpus of their statements? And why didn't more people see the UFOs- you'd think it's the sort of thing where you'd call to your neighbours, work colleagues, classmates etc. to come and have a look.

Were there any statements from local police, respected doctors, teachers or clergy?- And (considering the small size of the town then- and examples of responses to UFO reports at that time) did any out-of-town police or military investigators attend?
I assume there were telephones- or at least a telegraph office.
Even if the estimated number of UFOs seen was inadvertently exaggerated, let's say by a factor of 5, we have a minimum of 40 UFOs hanging around for 3 days, perhaps more than the local Sherriff might reasonably be asked to deal with if they landed.

The author of the article, Marcus Lowth, lists six witnesses. It isn't clear when their testimony was first recorded, but some are clearly speaking many years after the event:

1. Marlo Webb, speaking 66 years after the event at the age of 90. Garage employee, saw 15-20 objects in formation.
(We shouldn't make the mistake of assuming that all elderly people have poor recall).

2. Clayton Boddy, worked for the Farmington Times newspaper. Maybe he had a part in this headline
(from the linked-to article), after all, a newspaper for a town of 5,000 people is unlikely to have a large staff:

Note one of the other stories, "Newsman Writes Letter To Flying Saucer Pilot".
UFOs were clearly a concern for the people of Farmington- or at least some of the staff at the local paper.
-I managed to find a slightly larger copy of the same image, though annoyingly it's still difficult to read much of the text;
please click to enlarge

You might think the frontpage would be dominated by witness accounts.
The second paragraph starts,

Three persons called the Daily Times offices to report [seeing? sighting?] strange objects in the [air?]...

(My emphasis).

It makes me think of the possible role played by journalist (and Loch Ness water bailiff) Alex Campbell in the reporting of the Loch Ness monster. Regarding the first "modern" sighting,

Mrs Mackay's sighting was reported in the Inverness Courier on 2 May 1933 by Alex Campbell, the water bailiff for Loch Ness and a part-time journalist.

"Loch Ness Monster: Is Nessie just a tourist conspiracy?", BBC Scotland, Emma Ailes, 14/04/2013 link, BBC website, here.
Fortean Times 431 (May 2023) has an article that convincingly links Alex Campbell to several Loch Ness monster sightings and (embellished) press reports. Unfortunately I've lost my copy!

Mr Boddy

...would estimate the objects were at an altitude of 15,000 feet, although he couldn't estimate their speed or size

I'm not sure how you get a naked-eye estimate of altitude when you cannot estimate speed or size.

Moments later there appeared what seemed to be about 500 of them!

Er... wow.

3. Edward Brooks – a former B-29-tail-gunner.

"The very maneuvering [sic] of the things couldn't be that of modern aircraft!"

Date of account not given.

4. John Bloomfield

...would estimate the objects were traveling around "10 times faster" than modern jet planes. He would elaborate on how they "came at each other head-on" only to avoid each other at the last moment.

The fastest jet planes of the day, US North American F-86A Sabres, could fly at some 670 mph
(Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_F-86_Sabre), 670 x 10 = 6700 mph (Mach 8.74, about 3x faster than a 5.56mm round leaving a rifle barrel).
Two aircraft flying toward each other at this speed would have a convergence speed of Mach 17.48.

We don't know how Mr Bloomfield came to his estimates.

5. Virgil Riggs, then aged 8, would

...witness the objects from outside the Aztec Elementary School – at least on the first two days. He would state over 60 years later at a MUFON presentation in New Mexico that:

All these square-looking formations (appeared) in the sky. They were made up of dots, and the dots would shift from one formation to another. The first day there were a few. The second day there were too many to count, and the third day there were maybe 30 or 40![2]

Riggs would elaborate that on the second day the objects were across the sky "from horizon to horizon". He would further describe this scene as looking like a "quilt pattern of double-six dominos".

(a) I could be wrong, but I'm guessing Aztec Elementary School is in Aztec, New Mexico, 11.5 miles (18.5 km) from Farmington.
(b) No other witness accounts from Aztec are mentioned.
(c) Aztec is the Aztec of the 1948 flying saucer crash hoax
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztec,_New_Mexico_crashed_saucer_hoax,
which might have fuelled the imagination of a small local boy at that time!
(d)

Riggs would elaborate that on the second day the objects were across the sky "from horizon to horizon"

(from the linked-to article on ufoinsight.com). (There's 432 "UFOs" in the illustration).
.
So an 8 year old sees the sky "...full of bright UFOs", "from horizon to horizon" during a schoolday.
But doesn't bring it to the attention of teachers and no-one else in the town of Aztec notices, as far as we know.
This is not credible. It was never credible.

(e) Whether in Aztec or Farmington, hundreds of bright UFOs, from horizon to horizon, might reasonably be expected to get the attention of pretty much everybody. Even if at low altitude, say a few hundred feet, they would be visible for miles around.
We might expect people to take it seriously- some might even panic- but no, they carry on with their work.
Again, no-one photographs this extraordinary- almost apocalyptic- scene. No-one 'phones or telegraphs the USAF, New Mexico state police or politicians in Santa Fe (or Washington D.C.) as far as we know.
The streets are not filled with townspeople, all surveying the heavens, wondering what this momentous sight might herald.

This is by far the most extraordinary claim about Farmington- except it doesn't happen in Farmington and is uncorroborated.
If people at a MUFON convention believe Mr Riggs, that's up to them. It's a fun story.

6. Harold Thatcher.

He would claim that if the anomalous objects were a B-29 plane, it would've been "2,000 feet in the air. And traveling more than 1,000 miles per hour". He would further state:

I'm not a professional engineer. But I have engineers working under me and I know how to work out rough triangulation on an object!

Indeed, those speeds and the maneuvers [sic] that were made at them were unthinkable for conventional aircraft.

(a) The estimated speeds are much less than those estimated by (4) John Bloomfield. One or both must be significantly in error.

(b) A speed of 1000 mph would be unobtainable by conventional aircraft at that time, but not unthinkable for experimental aircraft. America's premier jet fighter of the time (F-86 Sabre, referred to above) could reach 670 mph.
Chuck Yeager's Bell X-1 broke the sound barrier in 1947, the X-1 could reach over 890 mph. In 1953 the X-1A reached 1620 mph.
The V-2 rockets of 1944 and 1945 had a maximum speed of 3580 mph and a terminal velocity of 1790 mph.
The possibility of >1000mph flight would have been well-known to anyone with any interest in aircraft in 1950.

(c)

I'm not a professional engineer. But I have engineers working under me...

"...and therefore I'm as competent as they are" is truly awful logic, and condescending. I wonder what they thought of him.

(d) Thatcher's quotes in the cited article don't make any reference to manoeuvring.

What do we end up with?

-Accounts of a small group of people seeing a number of lights in the sky, flying in formation (Webb), or individuals reporting lights manoeuvring (Brooks) or even engaging in hypersonic aerobatics (Bloomfield).
The objects fly at 15,000ft but no estimate of speed (Boddy), over 6000 mph (Bloomfield), 2000ft altitude and 1000mph (Thatcher).

-A local journalist, whose newspaper seems to have some interest in UFOs (I'm guessing "Newsman Writes Letter To Flying Saucer Pilot" was an odd story for a local paper to run then, as it would be now). His newspaper reports,

Crafts Seen By Hudreds [sic]

(Front cover, Farmington Daily Times, Saturday 18 March 1950) and that three people have called in to tell him.
He claims he saw around 500 craft. Maybe for his modesty, the newspaper he works for doesn't appear to report this.

-And a man recounting that, as an 8 year old, apparently at school in a nearby town, he also saw hundreds of bright UFOs, from horizon to horizon. But no-one else in the town noticed, it seems.

And no indication that the people of Farmington (or Aztec) did anything other than carry on with their normal lives throughout these three days and afterwards.

 

[gabelewis]

They are external to the observer. There are mass sightings / encounters and cases with corroborative evidence, groups of peope have observed them through binoculars and telescopes and theodolites at relatively close range. They are tracked on radar and later seen by intercepting pilots. They have been observed at missile testing sites by five separate observation stations. Hallucinations from endogenous chemicals or neurological glitches or from ingested drugs doesn't explain them. I've seen them myself. They are external objects.

I read your sighting report. Other than finding corroborating details in other witness accounts - what makes you completely 100% rule out something non-physical occurring?

You mentioned in your story that you were under a great deal of stress going into the incident, and a doubly so after. You even got shingles as a stress response. One thing that happened to me on a similar high stress night drive involved speed-trap drones. (this was 2006.) For the first few hours of the drive I was panicking - and eventually I caught a glimpse of a wing.

I had no clue this kind of tech even existed. I've had other experiences of compounding stress leading me to suspect something other worldly, and I think I may just be lucky to have received sufficient confirmation of prosaic explanations.

Returning to your story: interestingly - the existence of a nearby UFO fest (the same day!) would also leave me wondering if I'd just misidentified something normal-ish. Did you ever check with the fest promoters?
(I found this Google Groups post that I think is a schedule of events w/contact info, if it's interesting or useful to you: https://groups.google.com/g/nwsfs-announcements/c/fntKAD9hqcg?pli=1)

In anycase I don't mean to attack your story or credibility - mostly I'd like insight into the thought process that makes you so confident. Again, excluding external corroboration, as I personally would not trust myself not to cherry pick that stuff. I feel like I may or may not have taken a similar path to you under the same circumstances but I'd love to know more.

 

[Eburacum]

What do we end up with?

-Accounts of a small group of people seeing a number of lights in the sky, flying in formation (Webb), or individuals reporting lights manoeuvring (Brooks) or even engaging in hypersonic aerobatics (Bloomfield).

The most convincing explanation that I've seen is that the people of Farmington were observing sunlit cottonwood seeds coming from the local trees, an explanation given by the local sheriff (which is probably correct). The associated photo has no provenance (or provenience) and is probably a fake or misattribution.

 

[Mendel]

A local journalist, whose newspaper seems to have some interest in UFOs

... but who isn't able to get one of the photographers working for the newspaper to take a picture of something in the sky visible from all over town for 3 days, a picture that would've gone national easily and made a good amount of money.

I know that "absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence", but come on!

 

[jplaza]

It was stationary, I think...hard to be precise as I had a 3 mile walk to work in those days. It was due south at 40 degrees elevation, and the sun was about to rise in the south east about 20 mins later. But yes, could have been a high level fuel dump....though I would not expect fuel to form a perfect spherical shape, but it would certainly be iridescent ( a bit like looking at a CD, with all the odd colours ) in the sunlight that would have reached that high up before the sun rose.

When I wrote to Nick Pope to ask if he could help me get hold of the original MOD file ( which there must be as I got the official MOD letter back then ) he did not seem the slightest bit interested. To this day, I still have no idea which file it is in. All I recall is the date was January 31st 1977 and the time was around 7.20 AM....near Tunbridge Wells in Kent, England. Very striking object...not faint but very distinct. Stellarium tells me there was nothing in the sky in that region. But fuel dump is one plausible thing.

A high altitude balloon still in the dark, but lit by sun just below the horizon? Then as the sun rises and the dark goes away, there's less contrast to see the object and seems to fade.

 

[Mendel]

A high altitude balloon still in the dark, but lit by sun just below the horizon? Then as the sun rises and the dark goes away, there's less contrast to see the object and seems to fade.

Given the balloon was south and the sun southeast, shouldn't that balloon have looked like a quarter-to-half moon? with much in shadow, so not perfectly round?

 

[Ann K]

Given the balloon was south and the sun southeast, shouldn't that balloon have looked like a quarter-to-half moon? with much in shadow, so not perfectly round?

Not if the balloon is transparent (or nearly so), I'd think. Here's one mostly back-lit, with minimal shadowing.

 

[NorCal Dave]

O.K., Farmington:

Nice work John! I came across the Farmington UFOs while looking into the Trinty and Aztec UFO crashes. Just taking those 3 New Mexico cases illustrates this ongoing problem in UFOlogy of "the sum exceeding the parts". Once again, the idea is to throw out case after case and arrive at the conclusion that "there must be something to all of this".

But when each case is examined thoroughly and on its own merits, they are revealed to be mere shadows of the claims. 100s of sightings in Farmington became 3 very different reports, maybe from the timeframe of the event and a few 40-60 year old recollections.

The Aztec UFO crash was debunked 2 years after it came out back in the '50s. Writing by a columnist for the entertainment industry trade publication Varity, it came from an attempt sell doodelbugs that contained alien meta-materials from a supposedly crashed saucer.

The Trinty UFO crash, MUFON's current poster case, is the rambling and changing stories of 3 guys told 60 years after the fact. The only piece of evidence is a "handle" that one of the witnesses claims to have removed from inside the crashed saucer with a crowbar when he was 8 years old. The "handle", made from terrestrial aluminum, is undoubtedly part of water pumping windmill, common in the area.

AND YET, in UFOlogy thinking: a hoax + a few differing testimonials + some 40–60-year-old recollections + a piece from a water pump = compelling evidence that there is at least something strange going on out there.

It also creates this problem right here. Too deal with the constant litany of various claims being tossed out as the bases on which the phenomenon is predicated, we end up veering off topic. A bit.

 

[Todd Feinman]

I read your sighting report. Other than finding corroborating details in other witness accounts - what makes you completely 100% rule out something non-physical occurring?

You mentioned in your story that you were under a great deal of stress going into the incident, and a doubly so after. You even got shingles as a stress response. One thing that happened to me on a similar high stress night drive involved speed-trap drones. (this was 2006.) For the first few hours of the drive I was panicking - and eventually I caught a glimpse of a wing.

I had no clue this kind of tech even existed. I've had other experiences of compounding stress leading me to suspect something other worldly, and I think I may just be lucky to have received sufficient confirmation of prosaic explanations.

Returning to your story: interestingly - the existence of a nearby UFO fest (the same day!) would also leave me wondering if I'd just misidentified something normal-ish. Did you ever check with the fest promoters?
(I found this Google Groups post that I think is a schedule of events w/contact info, if it's interesting or useful to you: https://groups.google.com/g/nwsfs-announcements/c/fntKAD9hqcg?pli=1)

In anycase I don't mean to attack your story or credibility - mostly I'd like insight into the thought process that makes you so confident. Again, excluding external corroboration, as I personally would not trust myself not to cherry pick that stuff. I feel like I may or may not have taken a similar path to you under the same circumstances but I'd love to know more.

Hi Gabelwis,
I wasn't under a ton of stress right before the incident, but stressed during and after as you mention; I've never been alone on the stretch of I-5 for more than a moment, and certainly had not seen UFOs there before. As I was driving, and looked away from them and forward to gradually get away, I passed a copse of trees. The UFOs were stationary at that place in the sky, when I moved my head, they did not follow. When they reappeared in front of me on I-5 (still no cars), they were in the formation seen by Leroy Chiao from the ISS and in Nevada decades before. There is no firework or laser light show or balloons that could have accomplished what I was seeing. Also, as the crow flies, they were south of McMinnville --from the direction of the Trent farm --not over McMinnville. Also the corroborating sightings that occurred in one case with a group of people outside of Roseburg at night was seen by many people. And the truck driver had the same "hallucination" just further south a bit later --with all of our descriptions of the type of light emitted being very similar. I believe they were real unknowns, and not a hallucination.

The Farmington event had more than a couple of witnesses --the officer being the observer who suggested the cotton balls...
https://www.daily-times.com/story/n...illed-skies-above-farmington-1950/5073795002/

There are pics from the stadium event from Florence, preserved in the photo of the paper.
The photo of one of the Florence objects Exactly matches a photo taken by an officer two decades later:

On left: Police officer's photo of UFO, taken in WI in 1978, just flipped horizontally:
Police officer observes and photographs disc in Colfax, Wisconsin

On Right: Photo of one of the objects over the stadium in Florence, taken in 1954:
The day UFOs stopped play

Freaking Identical.


View attachment 12246 View attachment 12247
Click to expand...

These are great pics of the same object or exactly same type of object taken over a decade apart by different people.

 

[Edward Current]

Just taking those 3 New Mexico cases illustrates this ongoing problem in UFOlogy of "the sum exceeding the parts". Once again, the idea is to throw out case after case and arrive at the conclusion that "there must be something to all of this".

Someone on Twitter had a great expression: "Ten cups of weak coffee do not make a pot of strong coffee." (From a NYT article on the ivory-billed woodpecker.)

Bringing this back to the topic, I really don't think seeds flying through the air and whatnot constitutes a major UFO experience. It might be life-changing if you're surrounded by people screaming that they're being attacked by alien spaceships, but that's not what the OP is referring to. I'm talking about giant hovering things, black triangles/circles, speeding off at fantastic speeds or disappearing, being semitransparent, warping the background of stars or clouds, etc. From what I can gather, such things have been witnessed on thousands of occasions.

Do we have one major, big and/or close, astonishing sighting of something extraordinary in the sky, that is corroborated by either recorded evidence or truly independent witness accounts in the area describing the same thing, both appearance and behavior?

If not, what's the best explanation other than the premise of this thread?

 

[Scaramanga]

A high altitude balloon still in the dark, but lit by sun just below the horizon? Then as the sun rises and the dark goes away, there's less contrast to see the object and seems to fade.

Something that was visually half the diameter of the Moon can't really be said to be 'high altitude'. I think I have my maths right, in that an object lets say 46 feet across would be half a degree wide at a mile distance, and a quarter degree ( i.e half the moon ) at 2 miles. Which is 10,000 feet or so distance. Throw in some trigonometry....as the object was at 40 degree or so angle....and we get an altitude of around 7,000 feet. I don't know how big these balloons actually are, but the point is that a balloon appearing that big in the sky is not going to be way up in the stratosphere. And....we have the additional and greater problem of what is such a balloon doing at 7,000 feet right over the flight path from Gatwick to the continent at the height of the early morning flight commute.

 

[jplaza]

Something that was visually half the diameter of the Moon can't really be said to be 'high altitude'. I think I have my maths right, in that an object lets say 46 feet across would be half a degree wide at a mile distance, and a quarter degree ( i.e half the moon ) at 2 miles. Which is 10,000 feet or so distance. Throw in some trigonometry....as the object was at 40 degree or so angle....and we get an altitude of around 7,000 feet. I don't know how big these balloons actually are, but the point is that a balloon appearing that big in the sky is not going to be way up in the stratosphere. And....we have the additional and greater problem of what is such a balloon doing at 7,000 feet right over the flight path from Gatwick to the continent at the height of the early morning flight commute.

The way you say it dissapeared made me think about something lit by the sun, then fading with the sunrise as contrast decreases. A high altitude balloon (~tens/a hundred thousand of feet) was the first thing that came up to my mind. But feel free to discard it.

 

[Duke]

It was stationary, I think...hard to be precise as I had a 3 mile walk to work in those days. It was due south at 40 degrees elevation, and the sun was about to rise in the south east about 20 mins later. But yes, could have been a high level fuel dump....though I would not expect fuel to form a perfect spherical shape, but it would certainly be iridescent ( a bit like looking at a CD, with all the odd colours ) in the sunlight that would have reached that high up before the sun rose.

"Iridescent" reminded me of something I read/heard years ago about atmospheric scientists firing chemical releasing sounding rockets into the atmosphere for some research project. I specifically remember the released chemicals produced an iridescent, multicolored "cloud" (best term I can come up with) that slowly dissipated over time.

This would have been in the early 70s, but I don't recall who did the launching or from where. Maybe NASA and/or NOAA?

 

[gabelewis]

Hi Gabelwis,
I wasn't under a ton of stress right before the incident, but stressed during and after as you mention; I've never been alone on the stretch of I-5 for more than a moment, and certainly had not seen UFOs there before. As I was driving, and looked away from them and forward to gradually get away, I passed a copse of trees. The UFOs were stationary at that place in the sky, when I moved my head, they did not follow. When they reappeared in front of me on I-5 (still no cars), they were in the formation seen by Leroy Chiao from the ISS and in Nevada decades before. There is no firework or laser light show or balloons that could have accomplished what I was seeing. Also, as the crow flies, they were south of McMinnville --from the direction of the Trent farm --not over McMinnville. Also the corroborating sightings that occurred in one case with a group of people outside of Roseburg at night was seen by many people. And the truck driver had the same "hallucination" just further south a bit later --with all of our descriptions of the type of light emitted being very similar. I believe they were real unknowns, and not a hallucination.

The Farmington event had more than a couple of witnesses --the officer being the observer who suggested the cotton balls...
https://www.daily-times.com/story/n...illed-skies-above-farmington-1950/5073795002/

There are pics from the stadium event from Florence, preserved in the photo of the paper.
The photo of one of the Florence objects Exactly matches a photo taken by an officer two decades later:

View attachment 60257View attachment 60258

These are great pics of the same object or exactly same type of object taken over a decade apart by different people.

Thank you! I appreciate this response very much. I assumed you were stressed on your drive since you mentioned your father was being treated for cancer. That sort of stress would absolutely permeate every aspect of my life subconsciously (my mother also received cancer treatment when I was young. She's all good now.)

I did post some studies in a different post that receive a laugh-react from you (no hard feelings at all) - that point to several environmental and internal pathways that can generate hallucination or hallucinatory symptoms. Some of these factors are super common, others less so.

I probably would not rule out a temporary hallucination if the same thing happened to me, but it didn't happen to me, and I could just as easily be in your shoes. I respect your view on the incident and doubly appreciate you for sharing.

 

[JMartJr]

"Iridescent" reminded me of something I read/heard years ago about atmospheric scientists firing chemical releasing sounding rockets into the atmosphere for some research project. I specifically remember the released chemicals produced an iridescent, multicolored "cloud" (best term I can come up with) that slowly dissipated over time.

I recall being in the car with my dad when I was a kid and seeing one of these:

Barium is used to study the motion of both ions and neutrals in space. A fraction of a barium cloud ionizes quickly when exposed to sunlight and has a purple-red color. Its motions can be used to track the motion of the charged particles in the ionosphere. The remainder of the barium release is neutral, having a different color, and can be used to track the motion of the neutral particles in the upper atmosphere. A small quantity of strontium or lithium is sometimes added to the barium mixture to enhance the neutral barium emissions, making it easier to track the neutral cloud. Since the observer must be in darkness while the barium cloud is in sunlight, the technique is limited to local time observations near sunset or sunrise.

Source: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sounding-rockets/tracers/metals.html

Sounds like what you describe.