Mendel
Senior Member.
magic, magic, magic and magic, not an explanation
Tim Phillips lends credence to the existence of anomalous black triangle UFOs
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JMartJr
Senior Member.
I suppose "magic," by that or any other name, would be an explanation if they would first prove whatever it is they are claiming exists, then prove that it has something to do with the phenomena being observed! But they are skipping two steps, at least.
Edward Current
Senior Member.
Let's be clear — there's no inter-dimensional or other-dimensional. There's no evidence that other dimesions exist, except in mathematical models. As for inter-dimensional, what is that? Between the known dimensions of space? It's just made-up words.
If people are going to posit other dimensions or things between dimensions, why stop at dimensions? Perhaps there exist inaccessible planes of existence called flooflabs. UFOs are from other floofabs, you see. I just discovered an explanation!
If people are going to posit other dimensions or things between dimensions, why stop at dimensions? Perhaps there exist inaccessible planes of existence called flooflabs. UFOs are from other floofabs, you see. I just discovered an explanation!
NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
Agreed. It's not so much moving the goal posts, as a natural reaction to the continued lack of evidence presented since the middle of the 20th century. As early as the '50s, Donald Keyhoe was claiming UFOs were real tangible craft, the government knew about it and would soon disclose this information. 75 years later we still have no physical evidence of UFOs, despite claims about a few bits of junk, disclosure is just around the corner and most evidence is still blurry photos/videos, maybe some radar data and various witness accounts that rarely align with each other. The "best" evidence is often government/military insiders passing on second and third hand stories.
The continued claim is that real physical UFOs have been crashing since Roswell (1947), or even earlier according to people Grusch, Vallee and Davis. Grusch has even talked about possible recoveries from the Roosevelt administration, as in Teddy (1901-1909). Some reports put the number of crashed UFOs in US possession at 20. And yet, not once has any UFO crashed were people can go and see it, photograph it, collect parts from it and just walk around it. It's always in some remote area and the military always beats everyone to the scene. Or the MiBs come along and squash the story. It's just inconceivable.
So, eventually this has to be explained. Things like the MiBs are created that threaten and control the narrative. The meeting with Eisenhower and the aliens is proposed to show how the government and the aliens are cooperating. Eventually the ideas from writings by people like Richard Shaver and John Keel that blend UFOs with other paranormal begin to be incorporated. I think Keel is especially influential, even if it's unknown. He's known more for The Mothman which spawned a 2002 movie and resulting festival, but his actual book, The Mothman Prophecies from the late '60s blended paranormal, MiBs, time-travel, prophecy and UFOs. UFOs were no longer just physical crafts one can touch and see, they're part of a cosmic joke perpetrated by inter-time, inter-dimensional intelligence from beyond our understanding according to Keel.
In more recent times, prominent UFO writer George Knapp would also lean into this in his Skinwalker Ranch books, where UFOs are but one bit of the phenomenon that also includes ghosts, cryptids, Psy and other "high strangeness". The recent UFO conference, Contact in the Desert, was easily 50% or more psychics, mediums, healers and others.
Really, in this modern UFO/paranormal world, there is no need for physics-defying technology or a new understanding of gravity. The UFOs are just an expression of a phenomenon that is not part of our physical world. They don't need technology to bend space-time as they're beyond space-time.
Mendel
Senior Member.
They're magic.
To recap. Tim Printy wrote an article claiming to debunk the Belgium wave, in where he claimed Prof Auguste Meessen debunked the radar evidence. Prof Auguste Meessen ironically disputed most of the radar evidence while advancing his own plasma based explanation for UFOs. Meessen seems to think that UFOs are ET vehicles, and wants to explain how they work within the laws of physics, including how the aliens survive the acceleration, and how the vehicles move at high speeds without making sound. He proposes the whole craft is surrounded by plasma, (electrically charged air molecules), as part of a technology that can displace air and generate propulsion using high intensity magnetic fields (with the hull of the craft being a superconductor) without causing sound.
https://www.meessen.net/AMeessen/UFO_Pulsed_EM_Propulsion_of_Unconventional_Flying_Objects.pdf
Looking at Meessen's other papers, it seems his research covers a wide range of speculative theory, like quantized spacetime, ball lightning, cold fusion, resonance based treatment of disease, dark matter, even apparitions.
I'm not trying to attack Meessen's credibility, but he isn't afraid to speculate. We can rationally take his theory on what explains the radar anomalies as speculative as well, especially in a paper that is not peer reviewed.
Regarding plasma and black triangle UFOs, all we can say is people report these big glowing circles of light, that in some cases, change colors. It's not a stretched to consider the light being emitted might come from a plasma, as part of some unknown technology. Didn't even Kirkpatrick mention ionic propulsion (plasma based) technology?
Maybe plasma based propulsion can work on a lighter than air craft moving slowly and explain no sound. But no known ionic/plasma based propulsion can replicate the high acceleration that people report, or to my knowledge the lack of sound or heat when moving at high speed.
We're sill left at the situation where many of the black triangle UFOs people are reporting, cannot be explained with known technology, and witnesses have been reporting these UFOs since the 60s. None of us know the answer at this point, we can only make different hypothesis. The fact Tim Phillips claims they have "a little bit of everything" evidence, pointing to black triangle UFOs being a technology we can't replicate is significant, and should compel us to take unconventional hypotheses more seriously.
https://www.meessen.net/AMeessen/UFO_Pulsed_EM_Propulsion_of_Unconventional_Flying_Objects.pdf
Looking at Meessen's other papers, it seems his research covers a wide range of speculative theory, like quantized spacetime, ball lightning, cold fusion, resonance based treatment of disease, dark matter, even apparitions.
I'm not trying to attack Meessen's credibility, but he isn't afraid to speculate. We can rationally take his theory on what explains the radar anomalies as speculative as well, especially in a paper that is not peer reviewed.
Regarding plasma and black triangle UFOs, all we can say is people report these big glowing circles of light, that in some cases, change colors. It's not a stretched to consider the light being emitted might come from a plasma, as part of some unknown technology. Didn't even Kirkpatrick mention ionic propulsion (plasma based) technology?
Maybe plasma based propulsion can work on a lighter than air craft moving slowly and explain no sound. But no known ionic/plasma based propulsion can replicate the high acceleration that people report, or to my knowledge the lack of sound or heat when moving at high speed.
We're sill left at the situation where many of the black triangle UFOs people are reporting, cannot be explained with known technology, and witnesses have been reporting these UFOs since the 60s. None of us know the answer at this point, we can only make different hypothesis. The fact Tim Phillips claims they have "a little bit of everything" evidence, pointing to black triangle UFOs being a technology we can't replicate is significant, and should compel us to take unconventional hypotheses more seriously.
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Mauro
Senior Member.
But, to recap, can easily be explained by misperception and confabulation (with the added bonus that none of those defies physics).
Hypothetically.
Mauro
Senior Member.
Everything is hypothetical, noone can say to hold the absolute truth. But there are hypotheticals which are probable, while at the opposite other hypotheticals are improbable or even absurd.
But the evidence doesn't support your hypothesis.
John J.
Senior Member.
-But there's a conspicuous absence of this useful technology in the real world several years later.
The Burton website is distinctly low-key and short on information, not least on how to buy or hire the 3D display system, or any filmed examples of its use. No-one is named on the website.
There is this section:
(From Burton website, http://www.burton-jp.com/en/index.htm; NB my browser says website is not secure).
I'm not a physicist or engineer, but does a laser beam have a focal point distant from the device itself? (Genuine question).
The Burton information states that a single laser beam is focussed on a specific point in the air, ionizing it and making a glowing point. The focal point can be rapidly moved, allowing the generation of multiple "glow-points" in the air.
There is no indication of the energy requirements or the approximate temperature that the air molecules need to reach to create the glowing plasma. Heated gases generate pressure and will disperse if unconfined (I think), so the Burton laser must deliver significant energy very rapidly.
My (limited and possibly incorrect) understanding is that a laser beam is a coherent beam of light. Why doesn't the Burton rig ionize the air between it and the glow-point?
Perhaps it's something to do with collimation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collimated_beam.
The ability to deliver enough energy to make air fluoresce in multiple locations in a very short space of time from a single portable laser might be of interest to the defence industry/ military.
The (notably still) images of the Burton display system in use are strangely unconvincing
(I've slightly cropped the images and altered format to save space):
They are all also examples of problems that don't need a solution: Highways maintenance crews might find it easier to put up beacons and road signs, even perhaps a big programable LED sign, than a power-hungry laser display system.
It is probably better for pedestrians and drivers to look at the road/ crossing point ahead, and the traffic lights/ crossing indicator, than at the sky.
Burton has had over a decade to give us lots of exciting filmed examples of their 3D display system.
TBH I'm sceptical about Burton's claims (though of course could be wrong).
Mendel
Senior Member.
Yes, it's a stretch.
Not only is there zero evidence that it is plasma,
there is also zero evidence that this is possible with plasma.
The laser 3D demonstrations are a) bright, b) loud, c) require a big laser.
See https://www.metabunk.org/threads/plasma-laser-hologram-as-a-possible-ufo-sighting-explanation.11527/
There is no plasma that lives on its own.
Ann K
Senior Member.
Correction: "Have not been explained to laymen with known technology", and "None of us outside those with expertise in the matter know the answer at this point".
You don't know what other people know at this point. Neither do I, but I know darn well that someone who is openly discussing the matter in public is not the kind of person to whom tactical secrets are usually disclosed.
Ann K
Senior Member.
Quite simply, you do not know what "evidence" there is. You, and the UFOlogists you quote, are still working from a position of not knowing technical details, because they are not disseminated as general knowledge. We are not privy to things which might be held secret for good reasons.
Eburacum
Senior Member.
Certainly I'd like to see this 'little bit of everything' evidence. But it doesn't sound very different from what we've got now.
Over and over again people report giant, slow-moving triangles; but no photos or films have surfaced (apart from a number of examples with relatively straightforward mundane explanations, like the Phoenix lights, and the 29 Palms photos, and a bunch of fakes).
The ionic drones Kirkpatrick mentioned are useful, but that specific kind of technology doesn't seem capable of explaining black triangle UFOs.
But there are plasma based propulsion concepts that, in theory, could be useful in our atmosphere for high performance vehicles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetohydrodynamic_drive#Aircraft_propulsion
Kyle Ferriter
Senior Member.
What is an example of an established fact about one specific black triangle UFO that lacks a plausible concrete explanation, and therefore needs new theory in order to explain?
You can use the everyone is mistaken or lying hypothetical as a candidate explanation for anything. And you can choose to interpret examples of people making mistakes and lying as evidence supporting that in every case. But it's a vacuous explanation that presumptuously hand waves away all of the conflicting information of potential value for hypothesis formation.
If we eventually get answers, I predict that in retrospect, a lot people will reconsider their previous subjective estimations of improbabilities and absurdities, and realize their epistemological methods were lacking. That's just my prediction though.
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Mauro
Senior Member.
But there's no conflicting information. All the evidence we have on the 'giant physics-defying (magical) black triangles' is easily explained by misperception and confabulation (and of course also lies, hoaxes and other mundane psychological causes could be in the act, but I wanted to keep the list short): there's nothing else left to explain.
Fin
Senior Member
My "artists impression" is based on multiple reports and well known graphical reconstructions that have been around for well over a decade (probably two) already. Its not a commentary on the accuracy of the witness reports.
Artists do visualizations of stories. That's all I'm doing.
I hear your concerns but I'm just not responsible for the fallibility of other people's memories of things that happened over 26 years ago that might be affected by watching my (unlisted) clearly labelled "artists impression". I'm just animating interesting stories. Think of it as an artist illustrating mythology, if that helps.
Should documentaries not animate ANY paranormal witness accounts just in case it affects the witnesses memories at a later date? Seems silly. Not my concern.
This artists impression below was from a TV show made in 1997. There have been several others.
Mine is primarily based on Tim Ley's description but also incorporates other details from other descriptions. The rippling skin is based on my own 2008 sighting. The lights hitting the floor were not described by any Phoenix witness. I added them purely to give a better idea of how far away the tip of the far wing is (1 mile). Again, mine is just an artists impression with plenty of dramatic license. Nothing more.
Early CGI animation @0:46: "Animation based on graphics by Tim Ley"
Source: https://youtu.be/b6igqXbpxJs?t=46
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Easily is doing the heavy lifting here. The intuition you have about how easy it is, is being implicitly converted to a subjectively estimated prior probability. There is a lot more work to do than that, to get truly well justified prior probability estimations. There is a lot of information we have to examine, and it is difficult to evaluate, and it is by no means easy to estimate the prior probabilities.
Mauro
Senior Member.
The 29 Palms flares case shows how easy it is. I'm amazed you instead find it easier to believe in magical unknown technology from outer space.
NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
Some highlights from the mentioned article (bold by me):
External Quote:
External Quote:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetohydrodynamic_drive#Aircraft_propulsionExternal Quote:
So, even for MHD used as an assist to traditional propulsion, is difficult. Assuming the problem of a capable power source could be solved, and it hasn't, one can "imagine" a solely MHD powered atmospheric aircraft. Note, with some absurdity, it sounds like a useful MHD powered aircraft would almost be a flying saucer, although it sounds like it would fly in a vertical position. When flying it would operate like a helicopter "sucking the air downward" like the rotors, which sounds like a lot of air moving and not exactly silent.
It sound like the first problem is a sufficient portable energy source to maintain the required ionization. Then one can proceed to attempting an actual MHD aircraft.
The everyone can be mistaken or lying, and anything beyond our understanding is magic and therefore can't exist, epistemological framework has failed us repeatedly throughout history.
Eburacum
Senior Member.
I appreciate what you are doing; I've made the occasional graphic reconstruction myself (though not up to your standard); and there are several other CGI artists on this forum who are very good. But we all need to be aware that a graphic reconstruction can overpower the actual memories of those concerned. Memory is hard enough to pin down as it is.
Eburacum
Senior Member.
Well, quite. That is why photographic and video evidence is a useful source of evidence that can be analysed with some confidence, whereas eyewitness testimonies remain unreliable.
If Phillips has some good photographic evidence that can be examined in detail that would be very interesting. Verbal reports are less easy to analyse, unfortunately.
Mauro
Senior Member.
You have put together a true proposition ('everyone can be mistaken or lying') with a false one ('anything beyond our understanding is magic', whoever said that, lol?) to derive an obviously false conclusion ('anything beyond our understanding can't exist') to create a fake epistemology which then you correctly dispatch. Not much useful, to say the best, but fun.
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I don't know what to believe. My point of view is heavily informed by my own experience anyways, so it is hard to find common ground in terms of what I should believe. But, even throwing out my own experience, we have lots of high quality multiple observer accounts, that are hard to dismiss or explain without assuming quite extreme qualitative differences in what they reported vs what they actually saw. In some cases, the qualitative difference isn't so far from something mundane, especially when its just slow moving triangles of the kind that commonly turn out to be satellites, flocks of geese, planes or flairs. Other cases, where people witness something close up that hovers and suddenly accelerates, are harder to explain.
Eburacum
Senior Member.
Quite a few of those concepts use an external laser based on the ground to illuminate the underneath of a disk-shaped craft, turning the air underneath the disk into plasma and producing lift that way. The laser would need to be incredibly bright, and the area of plasma under the vessel would be unbearably brilliant to look at.
At least this method does nor require an unfeasibly powerful source of energy inside the craft itself (the craft would function more like a kite held aloft by an energetic beam, rather than by the wind).
It is not the case we have no evidence. It is the case we have insufficient evidence to form confident conclusions. The epistemological shortcomings I am talking about are to do with evaluating the evidence we do have, and estimating the priors, in order to weight the different hypotheses that we have, then ruling some out that shouldn't be, or asserting too much confidence in others. I believe that some are apriori ruling out (or assigning so little probability that it should be ignored) the actual reality of what is going on. I am fine with not knowing the answer yet, as I have no choice, but don't want to confidently rule out what actually ends up being the truth.
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Fin
Senior Member
Thanks and I do appreciate where you're coming from. I just think its not my concern as an animator/illustrator, nor should it be. While I understand that visuals can influence perception, I'm not responsible for how an illustration might shape someone's evolving memory. My goal with the majority of my animations is to honour the story, not reinterpret or verify it. The Phoenix Lights animation was a rare exception where I took dramatic license & which I primarily did for fun and practise. Shortly after publishing it & receiving criticism from believers and sceptics due to its inaccuracy, I promptly made it "unlisted" so as not to cause confusion.
Mauro
Senior Member.
But you showed none.
Same thing about the existence of leprechauns (why does it always ends in leprechauns? I guess I love the name). Can you exclude leprechauns exist? They could even travel in giant black triangular ships at times.
You're free to believe whatever pleases you. When you have the necessary evidence, you can come back here and I shall re-evaluate my opinion on the actual reality of what is going on. You worry too much about priors: cheer up, even the most dismal prior can be overcome by sufficient evidence, you only need that.
John J.
Senior Member.
Which might suggest they're not technological artefacts. We have no testable, convincing evidence of their objective existence.
Adamski's Venusian Scout Ships couldn't be explained by known technology. Like the triangles, there were multiple witnesses. Unlike the triangles, we have clear photos. But we now know they were faked.
Many reported UFOs in the following years resembled the Adamski prototype.
We know that the "best" photo of a black triangle from the November 1989- April 1990 Belgian flap (Wikipedia, Belgian UFO wave) was a hoax,
VRT NWS (national Flemish broadcaster, Belgium, 27 July 2011 https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2011/07/27/belgian_ufo_picturewasreallyaforgery-1-1075881/External Quote:
The Wikipedia article names the hoaxer,
The photograph was influential. It features on the first numbered page of the UK Ministry of Defence's Unidentified Aerial Phenomena in the UK Air Defence Region, the 400-page result of Project Condign (Wikipedia), which is viewable via the Black Vault website.External Quote:
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Quick notes on Project Condign, skip to below next horizontal line if not interested,
it concluded that black triangles and other UAP might be caused by (naturally formed) areas of "buoyant plasma". The blackness is caused by refraction of light; as with some other claims and suppositions in the report, no convincing scientific evidence for this is presented.
Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_CondignExternal Quote:
There are some indications that the authors- or possibly author- were not scientists familiar with atmospheric phenomena, which must seriously impact how their startling conclusions are viewed; as early as page 7 we have this awkward wording
Awkward, because the mesosphere and ionosphere are included in the term "atmosphere". We might charitably think the author(s) meant "...in the atmosphere, in the mesosphere and ionosphere" but we'd be wrong; the authors discuss the risks of aircraft collisions with buoyant plasmas, advising fighters shouldn't pull hard manoeuvres in attempts to intercept them and, though risk might be low, pilots should try to keep the UAP aft if spotted. However, the Mesosphere is far above the operating altitudes of jet fighters and airliners. There is no indication, AFAIK, that the report's air safety advice was forwarded to pilots or otherwise acted upon.External Quote:
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Conventional zoology, environmental science and palaeontology- and those who have explored the relevant habitats- cannot explain Nessie, Bigfoot, the Yeti etc. This doesn't mean that honest, sensible people haven't reported seeing these creatures, but it might suggest that their experiences are not caused by the existence of Scottish plesiosaurs, or huge North American primates.
The Miracle of Fátima, 1917, in which the Sun was said to "dance" in the sky, was witnessed by many hundreds of people, probably thousands,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun
In the circumstances surrounding the event, we can be sure many of the witnesses were "ordinary", decent people perhaps representative of the local population. But not all present saw the phenomenon.
Wikipedia, as above.External Quote:
Post- Kenneth Arnold's 24 June 1947 sighting, there have been thousands of reports (and occasional photos) of flying discs, sometimes described as having speed, manoeuvrability and acceleration that cannot be explained with known technology - our archetypal flying saucers.
The description of a flying disc appears to have its origins in a reporter's misunderstanding of Kenneth Arnold's description- yet it was followed by others claiming to see flying discs:
External Quote:
External Quote:
Wikipedia, Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting; source of the other quotes used here.
Note the "craft" has a distinct front and rear.External Quote:
Arnold later posed with this artist's impression, which might be taken as a form of endorsement. Perhaps this is of the crescent-shaped object that he said was with 8 other objects (as drawn in his sketch for USAAF, above). As far as I'm aware, Arnold didn't describe seeing any surface details on the objects in his early descriptions.External Quote:
External Quote:
Yet strangely, not long after Arnold's sighting- and the press use of the term flying disc- lots of people reported seeing flying discs. Not craft of the shape reported by Arnold.External Quote:
Experiences of strange phenomena seem to have a certain zeitgeist about them- not just UFOs / UAP, but ghosts and poltergeists, cryptids, crop circles, claims of telepathy, ESP etc.
(There's a thread here, How have descriptions of UAPs changed over the years?)
We might see similar influences in (e.g.) the experiences of people experiencing sleep paralysis or under the influence of DMT.
We can't escape our cultural milieu. Our knowledge, beliefs and perceptions are influenced by our environment, and we know our perceptions, and recall, of events can be fallible (or at least different to what is objectively "out there").
I think this might, in part, explain many honestly-recounted experiences of anomalous phenomena.
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John J.
Senior Member.
Ah, I was speaking with tongue in cheek as it were. I'll remove that bit of my post.
What about the
...and the rest?External Quote:
JMartJr
Senior Member.
I suggest you pick the best one you can think of, and start a thread for it. Other cases of "high quality multiple observer accounts" that have been mentioned by others in this thread (29 Palms, Phoenix Lights) have been shown to have been based on misunderstandings and misperceptions of mundane things like flares. But if you have a good one, put it out there and let's discuss it -- I can't really do much to evaluate lots of claimed cases that are not named.
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This is precisely the kind of epistemological shortcomings I am talking about. Are we really going to argue that it is a rational position to assign an equal probability that leprechauns are real and anomalously performing UFOs (or even ET craft visiting Earth) are real, after examining what information we have to base our position on?
It makes sense as a means to prioritizing your effort to put up a hard threshold, and use broad strokes heuristics. But that's not going to be the optimal way to analyze a given particular topic. When it comes to UFOs, there are rational arguments for allocating a reasonably high amount of effort.
I already admitted we don't have conclusive evidence. But I think we have sufficient evidence to take it seriously, and not dismiss it.
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