Phoenix Lights

[Scaramanga]

Yes. But it was based on ignoring a plausible theory and actual evidence, so the premise was false

No....again you miss the point. The issue I referred to is not the evidence but the attitude. Which was one of ' the witnesses cannot have seen XYZ....because XYZ doesn't exist '. The point being that dismissal of some other XYZ is then similarly used in other cases to dismiss what witnesses claim to have seen. It is essentially a straw man approach. Look for the least likely explanation for an event.....dismiss that...and then claim that because that is dismissed the witnesses must all be unreliable, mistaken, etc, etc.

I don't like this 'top down' approach to mysteries. I much prefer...and I think it far more scientific...to do a 'bottom up' approach of asking did the witnesses actually see what they claim, before I even begin to look at explanations. Much as I very much doubt that bigfoot exists, arguing that 'the witness cannot have seen a bigfoot because bigfoot don't exist' is really getting the cart before the horse.

 

[Eburacum]

The best attitude to this sort of case is to assume that the witnesses are all broadly correct in their descriptions. It is their interpretation which is likely to be wrong. In this case, the many witnesses report a wide range of different observations; and this almost certainly rules out a single, large, rigid aircraft of any kind. Explanations which involve a formation of separate elements have much more explanatory power, and we know that there was one such formation in the sky on that night.

 

[JMartJr]

did the witnesses actually see what they claim

That is, was and ever shall be unknowable, in the absence of actual supporting evidence that can be analyzed and measured.

That's why I freakin' HATE "eyewitness based" cases and claims. It's like punching fog, there is ultimately nothing to work with.

 

[Mendel]

No....again you miss the point.

I understand your point. It simply does not address what I wrote, for reasons already detailed.

 

[Mauro]

No....again you miss the point. The issue I referred to is not the evidence but the attitude. Which was one of ' the witnesses cannot have seen XYZ....because XYZ doesn't exist '.

But there's no issue at all: you cannot discount the priors.

1. Would you believe a person telling you he saw a BMW car?
2. Would you believe a person telling you he saw a leprechaun riding a rabbit?

The point being that dismissal of some other XYZ is then similarly used in other cases to dismiss what witnesses claim to have seen. It is essentially a straw man approach.

Every dismissal of some other XYZ adds to the priors against the existence of XYZ: there's nothing strange here, it's just logic. Every black pebble extracted from a bag decreases the probability of extracting a red one for the first time. Nor it has anything to do with a straw man.

 

[John J.]

More common accurate perceptions generate fewer reports. Thus a bias toward belief in a mysterious event.

I've got a sneaking suspicion (which I've made absolutely no effort to research) that misperceptions are far more common than we realise, it's just that most of them are inconsequential or mundane and we don't have any reason to double-check or remember them.
Only high-strangeness or high saliency misperceptions catch our attention, and most times most people realise that they were mistaken.

 

[John J.]

Would you believe a person telling you he saw a BMW car?

Not if he was a leprechaun riding a rabbit.
I'd assume it was a misperception.

 

[deirdre]

Not if he was a leprechaun riding a rabbit.

or me.
i'm notoriously hopeless at IDing cars. Even if i look at the little hood marker, i'll likely call it another car an hour later.

 

[Ann K]

I've got a sneaking suspicion (which I've made absolutely no effort to research) that misperceptions are far more common than we realise, it's just that most of them are inconsequential or mundane and we don't have any reason to double-check or remember them.
Only high-strangeness or high saliency misperceptions catch our attention, and most times most people realise that they were mistaken.

Anecdote: There's a road near me that has a large brown mailbox with a smaller white mailbox beside it, and the strong illusion it gives is that of a Hereford cow about to step out of the shrubbery into the road. I've seen it for years, and know perfectly well what it is (and it's suburbia, not ranchland; there are no cattle in that neighborhood at all), yet the illusion gives me a start every time I drive that way. It's not "strange" to me any more, yet it continues to capture my attention, every single time.

 

[Mendel]

1. Would you believe a person telling you he saw a BMW car?
2. Would you believe a person telling you he saw a leprechaun riding a rabbit?

I wouldn't believe the BMW if it was important. Witnesses in crime cases have been known to even get the color of vehicles wrong, so I'd need more information than that to be certain. I would believe the witness saw a car (or motorcycle).

If I could ascertain that the person who made the second report was sound of mind (not intoxicated or overly fatigued etc.—that is also implied for the other witness) at the times of the observation and the report, then I'd assume they saw something that could be approximately described like that: perhaps a small green-clad jockey riding a horse fitted with oversize costume bunny ears and tail, riding at galop (i.e. in large bounds).

I have no reason to accept either testimony at face value.

 

[Mendel]

then I'd assume they saw something that could be approximately described like that

or that what they saw was not literal, e.g. this 100-year-old postcard.

 

[Scaramanga]

But there's no issue at all: you cannot discount the priors.

1. Would you believe a person telling you he saw a BMW car?
2. Would you believe a person telling you he saw a leprechaun riding a rabbit?

No....this is precisely the line of reasoning I find fallacious.

One is conflating what the witness 'saw' or claims to have seen, with what was actually there, and then using an inverse 'logic' to argue they can't have seen what they 'saw'. That is precisely why I brought up the French Academy of Sciences case, though it is maybe not a perfect analogy....because they were telling witnesses they can't have seen rocks fall from the sky because rocks can't fall from the sky. Thus they were telling witnesses ' you didn't see what you saw'.

In your case, the witness who saw the BMW might have been having a hallucination, and the witness who saw the leprechaun riding a rabbit might have seen a puppet hoax or kids dressed up. My point is that you cannot simply dismiss what a witness says they saw simply because ONE interpretation of what they saw is impossible.

Thus, if a witness says they saw something covering 40 degrees of the sky, you cannot just dismiss it with 'aliens aren't real therefore they can't have seen that'. I prefer to take the approach of ' lets assume the witness did see what they claim.....what plausible explanation can we find' rather than dismissing what the witness saw.

 

[JMartJr]

Thus, if a witness says they saw something covering 40 degrees of the sky, you cannot just dismiss it with 'aliens aren't real therefore they can't have seen that'. I prefer to take the approach of ' lets assume the witness did see what they claim.....what plausible explanation can we find' rather than dismissing what the witness saw.

Fair enough, as an approach. Would you agree that taking into account the overall reliability of eye witnesses, and whether, for example, witnesses really do often over-estimate the angular size of objects in the sky, such as the example of the moon as mentioned above, would possibly provide a plausible explanation in whole or in part? To my mind, taking that sort of information into account is not "just dismissing" what the witnesses say they saw, it is trying to evaluate the accuracy of their testimony.

Looked at from another angle, in this particular instance, should the testimony of a witness with the best view, through a telescope, seeing a flight of airplanes be granted the same assumption that he did see what he claims? Especially when the extremely limited supporting evidence that we have (for the first incident, the triangle of lights), I'm thinking of the Proctor Video, see Post #87, tends to support that witness to the extent that it shows the lights were not fixed in relation to one another and so were not affixed to a single large object.

 

[Scaramanga]

Fair enough, as an approach. Would you agree that taking into account the overall reliability of eye witnesses, and whether, for example, witnesses really do often over-estimate the angular size of objects in the sky, such as the example of the moon as mentioned above, would possibly provide a plausible explanation in whole or in part?

I think there are really two separate factors...

1) The witness estimate of the angular size of the object
2) The witness estimate of the 'actual' size of the object

Yes, the witness can clearly get both wrong, but I'd argue that (2) is where the real unreliability arises even if the witness gets (1) correct. Thus a witness may genuinely see a phenomenon 30 degrees across, but he may estimate it as a mile up and several thousand feet across...when it may only be 100 feet up and 30 feet across.

As far as (1) is concerned, the inaccuracy of estimates of angular size is really a question of degree. I just don't think someone is going to mis-perceive something 5 or 10 degrees across as filling half the sky. The problem with the Phoenix lights is that we often don't know whether comments about 'enormous' are (1) or (2)....though we do have a few witnesses who describe very large angular size.

 

[Eburacum]

If the 8:00 phenomenon was caused by a flight of separate aircraft, (as seems likely) then the wide range of estimates of angular size could be caused by at least two factors.
1/ the witness may not have seen, or noticed, all the different aircraft involved, so they may have only counted the width of a subset of the formation. This may explain the small angular size reported by Mitch Stanley and others.
2/ The formation may not have been consistent in its disposition, and some aircraft may have been flying further away from the others so were not easily spotted. The pilots involved in this event did not ever state that they were deliberately flying in echelon, so the triangular shape may just have been a coincidental alignment. Since there were eight aircraft in total, we can suppose that any witness seeing less than eight did not see the whole formation.

We can't really accept any estimates by witnesses of the actual size of the object at face value, although if Mitch Stanley was correct in his observation, it seems likely that these were planes at several tens of thousands of feet.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

Sure...but there's a huge difference between something 5 degrees across and something large enough for a witness to say ' you could hold a newspaper open and it would not cover it '. Numerous witnesses described the object as 'massive', 'enormous', ' big enough to fit all 40 of our B52s on the wing of ' ( from the James Fox documentary ), etc.

Could we have the source of this estimate? By source I mean, where was it first published?

I'd like to see the original witness statement... not a paraphrase.

What is the witness name, and witness location? Time?

 

[Todd Feinman]

Could we have the source of this estimate? By source I mean, where was it first published?

I'd like to see the original witness statement... not a paraphrase.

What is the witness name, and witness location? Time?

Here is the statement from the witness describing the size of the object as not being able to be blocked out with an open newspaper:

Source: https://youtu.be/tGMGOdKOPKk?t=177

Reports of the size of the Stephensville object were similar.

'

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

This documentary has no credibility. That's the answer to why this angular size estimate is such an outlier. C'mon.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

These witness testimony scenes are recycled from an earlier (2003) Fox thing called Out of the Blue.

Cued to the introduction of UFO Investigator Michael Tanner comes in:

Narrator: As reported, multiple [?] UFOs were sighted throughout the Phoenix basin. [?] Numerous eyewitnesses were already outside looking up into the night sky to catch a glimpse of the Hale-Bopp comet. Michael Tanner is part of a team of investigators who received roughly 800 reports from eyewitnesses regarding the Phoenix incident.

Tanner: Between 8:15 and 8:45 we had enormous craft at varying altitudes come right through the center of the valley of Phoenix led by a formation of orbs that were clearly visible through most of the state.

Just from what he says here Tanner is clearly not credible.

Were these witnesses selected from the "roughly 800 reports from eyewitnesses"?

I need to know a lot more about these reports.

 

[Scaramanga]

This documentary has no credibility

Why is Mitch Stanley credible yet half a dozen witnesses stating in their own words that the object was 'enormous' aren't ? Why is it that witnesses are 'notoriously unreliable'....as is the gist of many comments here....yet every word of Mitch Stanley and one or two others is treated as gospel truth ? It just seems to me the same standards are not being applied across the board.

 

[Scaramanga]

Were these witnesses selected from the "roughly 800 reports from eyewitnesses"?

I need to know a lot more about these reports.

There are more witnesses in a documentary by Lynne Kitei. Of course, I'd expect James Fox and Lynne Kitei to select the 'best' witnesses in terms of massive size and so on....so we really have very little on what the other 780 or so witnesses saw.

The Phoenix lights has to be one of the most badly documented UFO mass sightings there is.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

Why is Mitch Stanley credible yet half a dozen witnesses stating in their own words that the object was 'enormous' aren't ? Why is it that witnesses are 'notoriously unreliable'....as is the gist of many comments here....yet every word of Mitch Stanley and one or two others is treated as gospel truth ? It just seems to me the same standards are not being applied across the board.

Hold on a minute. What we don't know...
-Are these actors pretending to be witnesses and this is all scripted malarkey?
-Are these witnesses whose story has grown more dramatic over the years? That's known to happen, you know... even when telling a funny family story. (My Aunts told me funny family stories, then my Dad came in as the voice of reason and undramatized and corrected the details... and the stories got more mundane and less entertaining. He was the oldest sibling, btw.)
-Are these the few outlier witnesses who are really bad at observing and reporting? Is someone cherry picking the most dramatic stories... with the stories getting more dramatic as time passes?

We don't know any of that.

Just two things that may cause our memories about an event to change over time:

-The misinformation effect occurs when a person's recall of episodic memories becomes less accurate because of post-event information. The misinformation effect is an example of retroactive interference which occurs when information presented later interferes with the ability to retain previously encoded information.

-Social influence is the process by which an individual's attitudes, beliefs or behavior are modified by the presence or action of others. Four areas of social influence are conformity, compliance and obedience, and minority influence.
Internalisation
Publicly changing behavior to fit in with the group while also agreeing with them privately. An internal (private) and external (public) change of behavior. This is the deepest level of conformity where the beliefs of the group become part of the individual's own belief system.

-Does telling the story to a TV crew doing a Doc on UFOs influence the behavior of the witness? Is there a bias to tell a more dramatic story?
-How many previous times has the witness told the story to an audience who will reward the witness with good vibes and approval?
-Does the earliest version of the story match up with the most recent story? Could we track the changes over time if we had a record of all the times the story has been told?




Allan Hendry collected first hand reports from witnesses who were reporting what they had just seen. Sometimes he got reports when the object was still in the sky. He also didn't cherry pick which reports to include or exclude.

Just for one thing, Mitch Stanley's report is more credible because we know where it came from.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

I've found a video - Michael Tanner Skywatch International UFO Conference

There are at least two witnesses telling their stories, but I don't have time to get to this today.

 

[Scaramanga]

Hold on a minute. What we don't know...
-Are these actors pretending to be witnesses and this is all scripted malarkey?
-Are these witnesses whose story has grown more dramatic over the years? That's known to happen, you know... even when telling a funny family story. (My Aunts told me funny family stories, then my Dad came in as the voice of reason and undramatized and corrected the details... and the stories got more mundane and less entertaining. He was the oldest sibling, btw.)
-Are these the few outlier witnesses who are really bad at observing and reporting? Is someone cherry picking the most dramatic stories... with the stories getting more dramatic as time passes?

We don't know any of that.

Well, I'd be very wary of creating any kind of a narrative out of what we don't know.

I'd also be very careful at differentiating between what witnesses claim they visually saw, and their interpretation of what they saw. Stanton Friedman's famous 'best ever UFOs' Yukon UFO case in 1996 showed that most witnesses do actually give a pretty good rendition of what they visually saw....even if their interpretation of it was a UFO and not the Russian satellite re-entry that it almost certainly actually was. The Skeptical Enquirer 'busts' the UFO story

https://skepticalinquirer.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2012/09/p22.pdf

The Phoenix sighting has never really been busted in similar manner. If I recall correctly, the Yukon case had 23 witnesses, and out of those there was one that was clearly over-embellished ( where it was claimed the UFO hovered 1000 feet right over the car ) but most reported...even if mis-identified...pretty much what they saw. But one would have to construe massive over-embellishment for the Phoenix case to have so many reports of a visually 'massive' object.

I was one of the people who originally pointed out that the infamous Japan Airlines UFO incident in Alaska in 1986 was first seen in the exact direction of a conjunction of Jupiter and Mars on the horizon ( which anyone can confirm in Stellarium ). However, that still does not explain all the claimed characteristics, and it is all too easy to just say ' ah....see...it was all just Jupiter and Mars...case closed '. Likewise with the Rendlesham Forest case.....a lighthouse on the horizon explains some of the features but just ignores others.

To me there's a few cases like this that have never really been satisfactorily explained. I don't think any of them were aliens ( I don't think there are any aliens ) , but I do think we've too easily and readily jumped at lighthouses, etc.

 

[Eburacum]

Why is Mitch Stanley credible yet half a dozen witnesses stating in their own words that the object was 'enormous' aren't ?

My suggestion is that Stanley's statement is just as reliable as the others, when it comes to angular size. Since there were apparently eight planes in this formation, and Stanley only reported five, then the larger estimates of angular size can easily be explained by assuming that other witnesses saw a different subset of the total.

There are two witnesses that have somewhat more significance in this case; Mitch Stanley, because he managed to identify the objects as planes, and Terry Proctor, because he managed to film the formation (or at least part of it; five planes out of the eight in both cases). I have pointed out repeatedly that Stanley's evidence is consistent with Proctor's and includes a similar number of planes at a similar angular size; but since there were eight planes up there, the other witnesses who reported a much larger angular size can also be correct.

However any estimates of height need to be treated with extreme skepticism, except Stanley's, since he is the only witness who observed the individual planes.

 

[Eburacum]

The Phoenix sighting has never really been busted in similar manner.

I'm fairly sure that both events (the 8:00 event and the 10:00 event) have now successfully been 'busted'. Planes and flares.

 

[Scaramanga]

However any estimates of height need to be treated with extreme skepticism, except Stanley's, since he is the only witness who observed the individual planes.

Well, no...if witnesses are unreliable then witnesses are unreliable. All witnesses make claims. By what standard does the claims of one witness outweigh the claims of dozens of others in reliability ? Sure, I can understand that you have personally chosen to accept Stanley as the more reliable....but I don't see any a priori reason to do so.

Of course, people try to have these things both ways. On the one hand we have claims that Stanley was an amateur astronomer so ought to know what he was seeing. But we equally have the knock down of the 'trained observer'....as with the tic tac UFO...where we then get the 'even trained observers can be fooled' riposte. In which case why couldn't they be in this case.

 

[Eburacum]

Sure, I can understand that you have personally chosen to accept Stanley as the more reliable....but I don't see any a priori reason to do so.

No, you totally misunderstand why Stanley's observation is more reliable as a way of estimating the height. Stanley was the only observer who positively identified the formation as small, distant planes, thereby ruling out the estimates of height at one or two thousand feet.

I assume that all of the observations are equally valid. However, none of the statements are any use at all for establishing the actual height, except Stanley's observation.

Perhaps the Proctor film is also useful, since it seems entirely consistent with Stanley's observation - five objects a few degrees across in total, which move with respect to each other (thereby demonstrating that this was not a single, large, solid object).

But the Stanley observation gives us a good clue as to the nature of this event - in order to dispute the validity of Stanley's observation, we need to suppose one of several things -
perhaps these 'planes' were actually small drones flying at 1000 feet altitude;
or perhaps the planes were a different, unrelated event, possibly at a different time
or perhaps Stanley was hallucinating or lying.

So the evidence is not conclusive, but if we give all the observations an equal amount of credibility (except perhaps the large number of 'I saw it too' statements made much later, such as the statement by Fyfe Symington, which seems very likely to be either mistaken or an outright lie), then Stanley's observation is the most valuable for establishing the height.