Todd Feinman
Senior Member
That's where dangerous adversarial tech would start to show; in the LIZ. So even skeptics should want to have a careful watch. I think Dave was just suggesting not looking for aliens in particular, as he's a skeptic.
War.gov/UFO - Department of War Releases UAP Files - 2026 Release 1
- Thread starter Mick West
- Start date
Fritzkquzerk
Active Member
I don't look for aliens.
Todd Feinman
Senior Member
Fritzkquzerk
Active Member
I'm more scared of humans gotta be honest here!
No matter how much better sensors get there will always be things just beyond their range.
The solution is more sensor locations.
If your sensor can identify out to three miles, and I build an identical sensor five and a half miles away, then there is complete coverage over a span of eleven and a half miles.
With the bonus that for an object just outside the identify range of your sensor, but within the range of mine, we now know what that particular object looks like to your sensor when it is just outside of the identify range of your sensor.
That doesn't mean that everything just outside the range of your sensor that looks like that is one of those specific objects, but it does make it a possibility.
A single observation site allows the 'orb summoners' to claim success. But if half the group where located twenty miles away in the direction they claimed the orbs were that group would also see those summoned orbs in the same direction in the sky, as would another group twenty miles further away again. Eventually the distance to the orbs becomes implausible.
Todd Feinman
Senior Member
You should be! Like a cancer on the planet. We know better.
Ann K
Senior Member.
I get that, but implicit in your criticism is the assumption that governmental employees are not already doing that. We do not know that, but in the many years (and many administrations) of study, they've either
(1) found diddly-squat in the way of mysterious objects, or
(2) discovered things that might affect national security, and which prudence requires they keep secret from the general public.
That's what the government aims for too, using the methods of science. Because of the possibility of scenario (2), above, the general public simply does not have a right to know everything.
Look in the mirror.
Ann K
Senior Member.
@Andreas
You might find this interesting.
https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/investigating-ufos-a-conversation-with-swedens-clas-svahn/
You might find this interesting.
https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/investigating-ufos-a-conversation-with-swedens-clas-svahn/
Fritzkquzerk
Active Member
I get it, you're uninterested, I'm not. I'm not going to fight over this.
Since when is curiosity a belief system?
Gary C
Senior Member.
If the volume of the [hemi] sphere being observed is defined by the probability of a positive ID out to range R, shouldn't LIZ scale roughly as the surface of the that space making it a square function? Granted it might have a definable thickness although maybe not.
NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
I guess to some extent, I think it is. One would assume the various agencies and contractors that build and run these sensor systems are constantly trying to improve them. As such, the resolution improves and the UAP just move out beyond the new resolution.
With more data and better sensors, we can identify more things, like balloons. Having identified a balloon or bird or whatever prosaic thing it was, there is little reason to study it. How much studying needs to be done on a balloon? So, there's no real point in studying that which has been identified, but we can't study that which has not been identified. It's by definition "unidentified". To study, it must first be identified, which leaves us with things not worth studying, (assuming what has been identified is something like a balloon. An adversarial fighter plane or drone would obviously be studied). It all seems a bit circular.
People can study unidentified stuff in an effort to increase the resolution of a particular sensor, to in effect, identify the unidentified, but I'm sure they're doing that already. And when that is done successfully, the UAP move out to the next level of unidentified.
Fritzkquzerk
Active Member
I gotta be honest again, AARO and NASA do not use my money, if they were, I could even agree a bit. I'm still curious if something of interest could come out anyway, if anything, we end up with better instruments.
John J.
Senior Member.
Yes, but those instruments are paid for by normal working folk. More money for one thing means less for another, or higher taxes.
If those instruments go to the military, fine, and I'm all in favor of the US military maintaining an edge over potential adversaries, but let's not pretend they'd be used primarily for researching UAP, or even mainly for use over the United States (except perhaps at borders and for training purposes).
It must be a pretty safe bet that most US astronomers/ physicists/ planetary scientists aren't requesting funds for the next generation of (e.g.) Raytheon MTS optics. Most appear to be sceptical of any extraordinary explanations for UAP (or indeed that UAP represent any form of distinct physical phenomenon).
Unfortunately I can't quote figures, but there are a lot of magazine articles, popular science books and TV programs written by/ featuring respected astronomers, physicists etc. and I think it's reasonably clear what the majority scientific opinion is. People relying on online resources might not get that impression.
JMartJr
Senior Member.
They might increase the detail for items that are resolved -- items that can be resolved already are being identified. The true unidentified stuff is out in the LIZ, and you can move the LIZ, you can,t eliminate it. Higher resolution of things that are already able to be resolved would mean, for example, in a video of a balloon with a string, we could see the string better. That MIGHT convince more True Believers that the particular case is in fact a balloon, but it won;t help us learn anything new.
JMartJr
Senior Member.
Yep.
Depends what your goal is. If your goal is to eliminate unidentifieds in the LIZ, Unless you posit "real UFOs," whatever they are, knowingly avoid getting in range of sensors, existing sensors are numerous and powerful, we should have really good evidence by now, or at worst would expect to Real Soon Now. More sensors with 100$good enough coverage would result in fewer unidentifieds and UAPs, but then we hit the problem of "how big a thing are we looking at?" A sensor that resolves a balloon at, say, 1 mile, might be able to resolve a songbird at half a mile, a bee at some number of feet (distances made up and not calculated!)
The LIZ in what can be resolved is not just a function of distance, it's distance AND size (and other stuff I am sure I can think of or somebody else can.) To eliminate the LIZ, the proposed "space filling" grid of sensors is going to have to be every few feet, and even there, them pesky dust particles and pollen grains will, I suspect, create issues...
Edit to complete the second sentence, which I messed up the first time...
Mauro
Senior Member.
If what you're saying is that better sensors are a good thing I obviously agree wholeheartedly with you! Just don't expect better sensors to reduce the LIZ, they'll rather expand it.
Fritzkquzerk
Active Member
Yes we could end up with a different UAP definition altogether, I get that!
Well maybe not different, just a bit expanded?
I don't think that's happened in the past. Consumer video camera are vastly better and more common than before, but the nature of UFO video (blurry dots) seems to remain exactly the same.
Fritzkquzerk
Active Member
Yeah and then you have AI, CGI, blurry stuff from phones.
The very nature of the supposed anomalies is possibly not easily captured on a smart phone camera.
In fact, we are largely speaking on military cameras here.
If NASA or others will get better sensors and better data, I'd be curious to analyze it (and help you debunk it if needs to be done).
Fritzkquzerk
Active Member
It hasn't happened in the past, for sure.
That's why I don't think there ever was much "good science" on UAPs in the last 80 years.
Ann K
Senior Member.
Not "uninterested", just satisfied with the answers we already have. I quit believing in Santa Claus when I was four, and in Nessie when I was about ten. I see no reason to revisit either of those conclusions.
Curiosity is not. The belief that you cannot trust the current investigators is, as is your insistence that it can be done better by trained civilian scientists than it can by trained governmental scientists.
Ann K
Senior Member.
I saw a spider on my front walk today, moving faster than I would have thought possible for a spider to run. Then the cottonwood fluffy finally came down and met its shadow...
Fritzkquzerk
Active Member
If you think classified science is the best way to solve difficult scientific cases for the public, I have nothing more to say.
NASA is still (as far as I know) moving towards better analyzing the subject, and i'm personally not against it.
Yeah, I know Clas. I've had a lot of interesting discussions with him about all kinds of UFO-related stuff. I think it's very much thanks to him that UFO Sverige became a scientifically oriented organization. And it's kind of amazing what a job he's done with the Archives for the Unexplained.
Just a question: what is "good science on UAPs" according to you? Honestly, I don't really understand what you mean.
Fritzkquzerk
Active Member
I mean what's probably happening now with NASA, if it moves the LIZ further away I'm ok with that.
But developing new technology is nothing new. Obviously, this technology isn't being developed specifically to hunt flying Tic Tacs, since there's no serious reason to believe such objects exist. What we can now see and identify are more distant balloons, birds, and drones, and that's important for both air safety and military purposes.
But that's not really what most people mean by "science on UAPs," is it? Asking scientists to study UAPs implies that there is a genuine "phenomenon" to study and take seriously. And I haven't seen any evidence suggesting that's the case.
NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
Agreed. But I think that's because it's really hard to do science on something unidentified. Again, we have an 8 page thread on this very question. The first major hurdle is defining what an UAP is? As they are by definition "unidentified", it's difficult to even come up with a useful hypothesis to do science with. If we use the normal definition of the scientific process:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_methodExternal Quote:
Where would one even start? Do we look at fuzzy videos, or radar clutter, or witness testimony, or supposed pieces from UFOs? It's all a jumble. At best, any scientific look at UAP is still at the stage of collecting stuff to even base a hypothesis on.
We could, as has been done, hypothesize that some UAP, like video, photographic and radar, are the result of limits to collection systems. The LIZ. But I don't think that's anything new and it's something that is constantly being upgraded. What was classified military hardware 20-30 years ago, is often consumer grade now. FLIR systems and Night Vision Goggles are available on Amazon. Collection is always getting better, and yet we're left with very little to even attempt doing science with.
If it's trying to figure out why a balloon looked like a UAP, I'm sure in instances like the military and NASA, that's being done. That's not studying UAP, that's improving a collection system.
I just don't see how much actual science can be applied to UAP as they currently exist.
I doubt anything significant is happening at NASA. There's no indication they have done anything since the 2023 report. The "Director of UAP Research" position timed out after a year, and we've not heard anything about a replacement or any actions the program took for two years. It's a dead program that the original participants only took part in because they were directed to do so.
FatPhil
Senior Member.
It's closer to post-modernism than it is to science. It's constructed to not be usefully analysable.
JMartJr
Senior Member.
May I ask, if pushing the LIZ further away continues the trend we've seen to date, of the UAP/UFOs also moving further away as the LIZ is pushed our, would you agree that this wold suggest that the UAP/UFO phenomenon is basically just stuff that is too far away to be resolved for its size?
If so, it would seem to me that developing better sensors will not do anything to make for better UFO science, though it might be worth doing for a number of other reasons. That's my take, anyway.
Fritzkquzerk
Active Member
JMartJr
Senior Member.
Fair enough. I disagree (unless it is worth doing for other reasons.) Such efforts are not free, and there are other places I'd rather put the money! But I can't think of anybody with whom I agree on everything, so I think we'll be OK disagreeing on this one!
Keep looking up.
J
Todd Feinman
Senior Member
And I know you don't mean on battleships, arches, or gold leaf. Solid gold battleships..
In a way, I agree—no harm done, right? And even if we end up with no new knowledge about UFOs, we still get better sensors, and that's good for other reasons. Fair enough. But it's not that simple.
Accepting that there is something genuinely mysterious behind the UAP phenomenon also implies that the government is deliberately hiding the "truth" from the public. If it's a nuts-and-bolts phenomenon, then it can't exist only in the LIZ, and if that's the case, then the government must be hiding all the "good" videos of nearby objects, right? It's spreading distrust, and it's a hotbed for conspiracy theories (e.g., "NASA is lying about UFOs—I'm sure they're lying about the Moon landing too…"). And when politicians and small lobby groups start telling scientists what to focus their research on, time and money that could be better spent elsewhere tend to be wasted on unproductive research.
I'm sure Raytheon is currently working its ass off developing even better systems as we speak. And in the future, the UAPs will be even farther off in the distance. In other words, I understand where you're coming from, and I'm also curious on a personal level. But I disagree that it's "worth a try." It's not just about the money spent on such research, but also about the implications of letting people like Corbell shape the narrative. In the past, we ended up with millions of government dollars being sent to the guys at Skinwalker Ranch. And suddenly, we're not just studying UAPs—we're also trying to solve the werewolf and dino-beaver problem as well…
Eburacum
Senior Member.
There will always be unexplained stuff in the LIZ; we will never, ever explain everything captured by sensors, even if we could expand their sensitivity so that they covered the entire Solar System. Improving the sensor range just moves the LIZ further away.
UFOs/UAPs are a fact of life; they will always be there, at the edge of sensor range. Perhaps the best we can hope for is an opportunity to explain all the visual observations made by mark-one human eyeballs. If every visual sighting can be checked by a range of sensitive sensors, then many, most, or all visual sightings may be explainable.
UFOs/UAPs are a fact of life; they will always be there, at the edge of sensor range. Perhaps the best we can hope for is an opportunity to explain all the visual observations made by mark-one human eyeballs. If every visual sighting can be checked by a range of sensitive sensors, then many, most, or all visual sightings may be explainable.
boringrealit
Active Member
Yes, it isn't possible to convince everyone, but if there is any point to debunking, it will convince some people at least. To do that we need the data and the research.
As it is now, a lot of people find the UFO-WBers trustworthy and the longer USG is dragging this out the more people will be convinced that they are hiding something.
boringrealit
Active Member
My point was that they should release data that was useful instead.
But I am starting to feel that this discussion is pointless, since no one seems to actually read or understand what I write. The discussions seems to go something like this:
Me: They should release the data and research that the UAPTF and UFOlogists claim exists or confirm that it doesn't exist, so that it can be debunked.
Ppl: But what if there is nothing to release (as I said, then they need to confirm that, but ppl skip that part)? and the data they did release was bad so that implies that all data is bad so we don't need to demand anything more.
Me: (Repeats myself again trying to make it more clear)
Ppl: (Find some other excuse to not want to have that data) What if it can't be shown because secrecy? We can't demand that they reveal top secret radar tech just to prove that UFO-nuts are wrong.
Me: (again) Then they need to explain that and confirm that the data actually exists, and give a description of what the craft look like and how it is anomalous. They need to say and reveal as much as they can if we are to have any chance to debunk the claims.
Ppl: (find another excuse to not be interested in better data) But why should we try to debunk when it won't convince the UFOlogists anyway?
Me: Tries to explain that everyone interested the subject isn't a UFO-fanatic and that the UFOlogists are gaining in popularity because USG fail to answer the accusations, and that we can't debunk them unless we have the data they are talking about.
Ppl: (at this point the earlier discussion is forgotten and they probably comes with a repeat of one of the classics) But what if there isn't anything to release?
And round and round we go.
In short: USG has to answer to the accusations even if that means denying the existence of that material or admit that it exists but is so classified that they can't reveal anything more than to describe how it fits the UFOlogists description or not. They have to clarify the situation. If they don't, then they are leaving walkover to the UFOlogists.
And the counter-arguments to this is always some excuse for not wanting any answers.
This irrational refusal to learn more is making us look like dogmatists and them to look like the scientifically minded folks who want to see the data and evidences so that it can be analysed. We should be the ones that loudest demand disclosure.
I just think we have to agree to disagree on this point. Personally, I don't think we "need the data and the research." It's not about proving or disproving alien visitations. It's about disproving individual pieces of "evidence" put forward by believers.
The UFO crowd often argues, "ET is here—just look at all this evidence." That's why we have to study this "evidence" piece by piece, since a hundred lousy videos are no better proof than one lousy video.
But as a skeptic, I will never stand on the barricades demanding more evidence of UFOs. It's up to the people making all sorts of silly claims to present the evidence.
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