At the 2019 UFOlogy World Conference in Barcelona, Physicist Michio Kaku gave an address, in which he said (21:24):
That video is unfortunately cut short (can anyone find the full-length video?), but he talks more about it here:
https://news.yahoo.com/a-turning-po...ference-the-truth-is-out-there-090005631.html
https://news.yahoo.com/a-traffic-ja...is-search-for-the-god-equation-090020986.html
Also, during a Q&A, he was asked what brought him to the conference. He responded (21:58)
The problem here is that he is wrong. The three videos do not show anything that is outside the bounds of human science. In fact, they most likely show rather banal things, viewed in an unusual way. There are three videos: Flir1, Gimbal, and Go Fast
Flir1 (also called Nimitz, or TicTac) is a fuzzy blob in the distance. It does not move (although it jumps around when the camera changes zoom settings or does a gimbal lock correction). There's what looks like a final "zipping away at high speed" at the end of the video, but it's actually just the camera no-longer tracking the object, combined with a change in zoom that gives the illusion of speed. See:
https://www.metabunk.org/2004-uss-nimitz-tic-tac-ufo-flir-footage-flir1.t9190/
Gimbal is a saucer-shaped infrared glare. It rotates because the camera is rotating to counter gimbal lock. We can prove this because there are other light patterns in the sky that rotate at the same time the glare rotates. The video is consistent with a jet engine several miles away. it does not have any sudden acceleration. See:
https://www.metabunk.org/nyt-gimbal-video-of-u-s-navy-jet-encounter-with-unknown-object.t9333/
Go Fast is what looks like a cool object moving rapidly across the surface of the ocean. However, the angles and range on the screen allow us to triangulate the position and speed of the object. It turns out it's actually moving quite slowly (under 50 knots) and is quite high (13,000 feet). It does not accelerate at all. In fact, it most closely resembles a balloon, or possibly even a large gliding bird. See:
https://www.metabunk.org/go-fast-footage-from-tom-delonges-to-the-stars-academy-bird-balloon.t9569/
Kaku describes these videos as "testable evidence", and we can in fact test hypotheses on them to see if they fit. However, Kaku seems not to have tested them himself and is instead relying on the ideas of others. The "To The Stars Academy," for example, still claims that "Go Fast" is going fast, and is close to the water. This is demonstrably wrong. Likewise, others have interpreted the camera movements in Flir1 as object movements, or have interpreted the optical rotation of an infrared glare in "Gimbal" as a physical rotation of a craft. These are all demonstrable unsupported interpretations that Kaku has somehow been convinced are true.
So no, the burden of proof has not shifted. The Navy has no current obligation to prove that Mach 20 craft that zigzag at impossibly high g-forces are not aliens. There's no such obligation because no such craft have yet been demonstrated to exist. We don't know exactly what these videos show, but they don't show anything impossible, and they are well explained by ordinary events.
Kaku may be an accomplished physicist and science popularizer, but unless he can present some evidence for his statements, then they carry no more weight than any other UFO fan. The burden of proof is still very much on the person making the extraordinary claim, which in this case is Kaku himself.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zf4hneVuLmk&t=1284s (Broken Link)Science is based on things that are testable, reproducible, and falsifiable. That's the criteria for science. Now what's the difference? In the past when people said they saw something, they saw something in the sky, that's not testable. That's not reproducible on demand. That's not falsifiable. It's anecdotal information. Maybe it's true. Maybe you did see something coming across the sky. But it's not enough for science. That's changed now. Two years ago, we now know from the United States Navy, that Navy pilots have videotaped, videotaped objects executing things that are impossible with ordinary commercial and military aircraft. I'll talk more about this in a few moments. So testability, we are now in the realm of testable. Testable encounters with some strange object in the sky.
That video is unfortunately cut short (can anyone find the full-length video?), but he talks more about it here:
https://news.yahoo.com/a-turning-po...ference-the-truth-is-out-there-090005631.html
The Yahoo quotes seem mostly from this interview:
“We now know they fly between Mach 5 and Mach 20 — five to 20 times the speed of sound,” Kaku said. “We know they zigzag so fast that any pilot would be crushed by centrifugal force. That they have no exhaust that we can see.” The explanations usually invoked for UFO sightings — meteors, weather balloons, even the planet Venus — can’t explain these live-action high-precision shots, said Kaku, leading to either of two possible conclusions: They are of human origin, representing a technology so cutting-edge that even leading scientists are puzzled by it. Or, he said, “maybe they are evidence of an advanced outer space civilization.”
Could they be Russian, not Martian? Perhaps, Kaku allowed, given that last year Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that “Russia had built a hypersonic flying vehicle that can zigzag.” The U.S. and China are also working on hypersonic drones. On the other hand, Kaku emphasized, “maybe they are extraterrestrial.”
[...]
Even if not smoking-gun proof, the declassified videos — bolstered by confirmation of multiple sightings of unexplained aerial vehicles during 2014 and 2015, including at least one near-collision — are giving ufology new weight. “We’ve reached a turning point,” Kaku said. “It used to be that believers had to prove that these objects were from an intelligent race in outer space. Now the burden of proof is on the government to prove they’re not from intelligent beings in outer space.”
The possibility that they are vehicles from other planetary civilizations, Kaku told Yahoo, “now has to be put on the table.”
https://news.yahoo.com/a-traffic-ja...is-search-for-the-god-equation-090020986.html
Also, during a Q&A, he was asked what brought him to the conference. He responded (21:58)
Source: https://youtu.be/5OXC0gdx-ME?t=1318 [Broken link]“Traditionally, when physicists were asked about extraterrestrials, their eyes would go rolling to the heaves and they would laugh. But that's because they assumed that aliens going between stars, it would take so long to go between stars. But the mistake they make is to assume these aliens are only 100 years ahead of us. Imagine that they could be 100,000 years more advanced than us. Then new laws of physics begin to enter into the picture, new laws of physics. Also, We’ve reached a turning point, I think. Usually, the believers have the burden of proof, they have to prove it. Now the burden of proof is on the government to disprove that they're not from outer space. You see science is based on things that are testable, reproducible, and falsifiable. (Falsifiable, [meaning] you can prove that it's not a hoax.) Now for the first time, we have testable evidence from the United States Navy. We have studied these military videotapes and we now can measure how fast they are, how high they are, we now have numbers we can play with. We now have testable evidence, but we don't yet have reproducible evidence, that is evidence we can touch. Therefore I tell everyone who may be kidnapped or abducted by flying saucer people, please steal something when you are kidnapped. We need you to steal as much as you can. Alien chips, alien paperclips, alien forks, knives, anything from a flying saucer
The problem here is that he is wrong. The three videos do not show anything that is outside the bounds of human science. In fact, they most likely show rather banal things, viewed in an unusual way. There are three videos: Flir1, Gimbal, and Go Fast
Flir1 (also called Nimitz, or TicTac) is a fuzzy blob in the distance. It does not move (although it jumps around when the camera changes zoom settings or does a gimbal lock correction). There's what looks like a final "zipping away at high speed" at the end of the video, but it's actually just the camera no-longer tracking the object, combined with a change in zoom that gives the illusion of speed. See:
https://www.metabunk.org/2004-uss-nimitz-tic-tac-ufo-flir-footage-flir1.t9190/
Gimbal is a saucer-shaped infrared glare. It rotates because the camera is rotating to counter gimbal lock. We can prove this because there are other light patterns in the sky that rotate at the same time the glare rotates. The video is consistent with a jet engine several miles away. it does not have any sudden acceleration. See:
https://www.metabunk.org/nyt-gimbal-video-of-u-s-navy-jet-encounter-with-unknown-object.t9333/
Go Fast is what looks like a cool object moving rapidly across the surface of the ocean. However, the angles and range on the screen allow us to triangulate the position and speed of the object. It turns out it's actually moving quite slowly (under 50 knots) and is quite high (13,000 feet). It does not accelerate at all. In fact, it most closely resembles a balloon, or possibly even a large gliding bird. See:
https://www.metabunk.org/go-fast-footage-from-tom-delonges-to-the-stars-academy-bird-balloon.t9569/
Kaku describes these videos as "testable evidence", and we can in fact test hypotheses on them to see if they fit. However, Kaku seems not to have tested them himself and is instead relying on the ideas of others. The "To The Stars Academy," for example, still claims that "Go Fast" is going fast, and is close to the water. This is demonstrably wrong. Likewise, others have interpreted the camera movements in Flir1 as object movements, or have interpreted the optical rotation of an infrared glare in "Gimbal" as a physical rotation of a craft. These are all demonstrable unsupported interpretations that Kaku has somehow been convinced are true.
So no, the burden of proof has not shifted. The Navy has no current obligation to prove that Mach 20 craft that zigzag at impossibly high g-forces are not aliens. There's no such obligation because no such craft have yet been demonstrated to exist. We don't know exactly what these videos show, but they don't show anything impossible, and they are well explained by ordinary events.
Kaku may be an accomplished physicist and science popularizer, but unless he can present some evidence for his statements, then they carry no more weight than any other UFO fan. The burden of proof is still very much on the person making the extraordinary claim, which in this case is Kaku himself.
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