Skinwalker Ranch Helicopter Bottle Drop Experiment

[Mick West]

Fugal shares the opinion of being open with the data. In contrast, it's interesting to see how what he said then, two years ago, appears now—being unwilling to share even relatively small text files. However, I think Fugal's being honest, or at least genuinely believes he has convincing evidence, even though most of us can see that the evidence is pretty poor.

The "relatively small text files" here are what I've been trying to get out of Fugal for a couple of months. Worth a separate thread when I do the actual analysis, but basically, they did an experiment dropping bottles with GPS trackers out of a helicopter over the wormhole (!) and then claimed the results showed the bottles bouncing off something.

You can see there does not seem to be a real bounce there from the TV shots, but the actual data would make it very clear.

An abridged version of this segment is found here:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eKphnaGW9g


Here's the end result

The Yellow line is just the helicopter. The blue line is one bottle track, with (expected) altitude errors initially separating it from the yellow (vertically), then the toss-out and descent.

I've asked Brandon if he'll release the data (around 1MB in two NMEA formatted text files) he has not refused, but has not released them either. What I would do with that data is put it into Sitrec make a 3D visualization simular to the above, but animated, with graphs for velocity and acceleration which would show any "bounce" or unusual invisible force (other than the wind)

Brandon does seem to be a true believer, as do most of the cast of the show. I think @sgreenstreet agrees with this.

 

[Mick West]

Their gps responses were obviously unreliable in that clip, firstly sending no signals back to the ground team, and then showing incorrect positions from the couple they managed to retrieve manually.

They only retrieved one orange bottle. These were four of those that had GPS recorders in them. The rest, the yellow bottles, seem to be dummies. This was not made clear in the show.

So really, it all comes down to a single GPS track (the blue one), with the helicopter track being a useful reference - so you can see where it is thrown out.

 

[Mick West]

The "relatively small text files" here are what I've been trying to get out of Fugal for a couple of months. Worth a separate thread when I do the actual analysis, but basically, they did an experiment dropping bottles with GPS trackers out of a helicopter over the wormhole (!) and then claimed the results showed the bottles bouncing off something.

I've started a poll on this on Twitter:

Source: https://twitter.com/MickWest/status/1649860293928030213


Maybe if I get 1,000 votes, he'll release the data.

 

[FatPhil]

Their gps responses were obviously unreliable in that clip, firstly sending no signals back to the ground team, and then showing incorrect positions from the couple they managed to retrieve manually.

I wonder if error bars (balls, in this case) would give any insights into the accuracy of their readings. Those blue dots look all precise, but precision without accuracy is 99.74912% pointless, captain.

Also, why did we only see tracks from 2 of the receivers - are they cherry picking. Everything about that clip said "amateurish and credulous" to me, they were LARPing scientists. The terminology he was using wasn't even scientific; and when it was superficially scientific, it wasn't scientifically accurate (they weren't getting "energy" readings, for example).

 

[Ann K]

Concerning the GPS drop from the helicopter:

Also, why did we only see tracks from 2 of the receivers - are they cherry picking.

From post number 17:

They only retrieved one orange bottle. These were four of those that had GPS recorders in them. The rest, the yellow bottles, seem to be dummies. This was not made clear in the show.

That would explain why they seemed to gloss over the results from their yellow bottle. But I think it asks more questions than it answers. Why dummy bottles in the first place? If so, why a different color? Why did they not get their expected signal to the ground, which (if it had been successful) would have made physically collecting the bottles unnecessary? And most importantly, DID they only recover the two, or did they just show us the one with the strangest responses? We only have their word for it. But if the yellow ones were indeed dummies, that strongly suggests to me an intent to deceive.

 

[MapperGuy]

I've started a poll on this on Twitter:

Source: https://twitter.com/MickWest/status/1649860293928030213


Maybe if I get 1,000 votes, he'll release the data.

One of the beautiful things about experiments is you can do them multiple times! Offer to help them repeat the experiment perhaps? Or just challenge them to do it again?

One of the hallmarks of "true believers" is they will do an experiment, get the results they were seeking, then defend the results of that particular trial until their final breath. Do it over? Why? They already have the results they were seeking!

One of the fundamental aspects of real science is repeating experiments multiple times and comparing the results. How do the results differ across multiple trials, by how much do they differ, what sources of error can you sometimes detect, all sorts of benefits can be had by repeating experiments. People who are unwilling to repeat experiments, or who withhold information so that others can't repeat the experiment themselves, are displaying a lack of faith in their own results.