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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
 Posted - 10/02/2009 : 19:16:01 [Permalink]
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bng said:
Well, Dude, I really can only do it once. petards don't reassemble themselves!
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You seem to have a few.
| Don't be too sure. You are wrong. I meant 90%! |
You aren't making sense now. Unless you meant to say that there is a definite mundane explanation for that 90%, not a "high chance" of one? Genuinely confusing.
This is a leap of presumption unworthy of even your condition of high dudgeon.
"You think 10% of it surely has some fantastic explanation" What would that "fantastic" explanation be, "Dude? I have alluded to no fantasy of any sort. Your neurotic paranoia about the subject of UAP causes you to babble hysterically about phantasms that do not exist. Try Xanax, I'm sure it's available to you. |
Maybe I just enjoy making fun of people who spend time looking down every rodent hole thinking they will find something other than a rodent.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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jakesteele
New Member
USA
37 Posts |
Posted - 10/02/2009 : 22:21:40 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by bngbuck
Jakesteele.....
Thanks for your response. I must apologize for my drama queen performance attempt to bring you back to the Forum. Frequently, posters with controversial views will make an initial statement here, stir up a lot of largely adversarial interest, but never return to defend their positions.
Naturally, they are condemnned as trolls, cowards, hit and runners, flyby's, etc. There is some merit in this condemnation. By and large, this is a serious discussion group operating at a pretty high intellectual level. Although there is lockstep on some issues (I confess to some degree of goose-stepping), controversy fuels much of the commentary. Many posters put considerable thought, research, and contemplation in their answers to the initial challenge. Dave is one example of a poster that usually offers substantial refutation to poorly constructed arguments.
When an arguable, (or more likely, confutable) view is presented and well answered and then the proponent of that view fails to return to defend his assertions; scorn is the natural response. Besides, it really spoils the fun when the lions swallow the gladiator before he even pulls his sword! It is like a debate team walking off the stage and not returning when it's their time to respond to the other side!
Suffice to say I'm glad to see you return and stand up well under attack.
Cut to the chase.| After doing more research and gotten some good info from people on other sites I now accept the Official Story of the Phoenix incident. What I found particularly compelling was the UFOlogist, (sp)Bruce Maccabbe who is an optical physicist. He did an impressive analysis and came to the same conclusion that the flares were, indeed, over and behind the mountain range. |
I understand the persuasion of the "flares behind the mountain" analysis, but what is your understanding of the mechanics and logistics involved in maintaining an even and uniform spacing and "formation" arrangement with flares on parachutes either dropped sequentially from aircraft moving at several hundred miles per hour; or achieving a "formation" and lateral movement after being launched under homemade hot air balloons by one man in his back yard?
1. How could the flares maintain a V formation for several hours and maintain their altitude, when they are ostensibly free-floating under parachutes or hot air balloons?
2. Why didn't the flares extinguish after a relatively(five?) minutes burn time?
3. Why didn't they hit the the ground in a minute or two as the parachutes broke their freefall to a slower descent; or as the hot air cooled in the balloon and it's vertical ascent changed to a descent?
4. How did the vertical descent (parachutes) or vertical ascent (hot air balloons) change to slow horizontal movement lasting (according to many accounts) for several hours?
If, in fact, the flare scenario is the appropriate explanation for this event, it appears to me that the geometry, physics, and logistics of these questions must be properly addressed.
What do you think?
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Just to let you know, I’m not trolling, I am seeking. I come to skeptic sites because I find the collective IQ level to be noticeably higher than your average site. I posted the same question on three other sites so I have to bounce back and forth and do research at the same time, so that’s why my responses are slow. But I’ll keep plugging along.
Now, you asked me some very difficult questions that I don’t know how to answer scientifically. Also, I’m not quite sure which event you’re talking about, but I’ll do my best.
All of the questions you asked could not be the 1st sighting - Henderson, Nevada, which is 243 miles away from Phoenix and the flares only burn for 5 minutes.
As far as being accurate for the 2nd event, Phoenix, what I haven’t found out yet is, how long the sighting lasted. If it was longer than 5, then the Official Story doesn’t hold water. The other thing that bugs me is if it is routine for the military to drop blazing hot flares over civilian populations. Seems like a dangerous thing. If they do drop them routinely, then why did everybody get fooled this time.
As far as the lights disappearing on the other side of the mountains, so what? If it were a craft it could have descended on the other side. What I have seen is reputable scientists interpret it both ways.
I guess the biggest issue I have with the Phoenix sighting is how could the flares burn that long and how could so many people be optically fooled into thinking that something far away (approx. 35-40miles) away seemed like it was right overhead.
Here’s the trouble I have with debunkers. Below is a segment of a very astute guy on JREF called Astrophotographer. If you look at the parts I highlighted, you will see what I call Forced Plausibles, which is basically, trying to make a size foot fit into a size 6 shoe. Instead of saying that the possibility of UFOs could be within the realm of feasibility, they will come up with all kinds of stuff just not to have to say it. Getting a debunker to say that UFOs are possibly alien is like pulling eye teeth from a pissed off gorilla. To me, the irony is that if asked if they think there is other life in the universe, they will inevitably give some version of Drake’s equation and say yes, but when it comes to earth, no way in hell.
When explanations are nothing more than educated guesses, they fall into a different category than proof positive and are open to other possibilities.
http://home.comcast.net/~tprinty/UFO/azconc.htm
My website describes what transpired. However, in a nutshell, this is my theory for which I have pretty good information. A formation of five Canadian Tutors (not the snowbirds) on a training flight flew from Las Vegas to Tuscon that night(He doesn't show any links). Because the formation they chose to fly in, they operated with their taxi lights (which is pretty bright in the nose of the airplane). They flew at a very high altitude (19,000 feet by the Readers digest report) and because of their air speed, they appeared to move slowly across the sky from the ground. Additionally, their height and conditions prevented their engine noise from being heard. After spending the night in Tuscon, they moved on to another air base in another state unaware of what they caused. The local media did not start really reporting it until a few days later and the Tuscon media probably did not mention it that morning (assuming the pilots even watched the local news). By the time it became national news (three months later), the pilots were back in Canada and probably did not hear about it.
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Sacred Cows make the tastiest hamburgers |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 10/02/2009 : 23:25:48 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by bngbuck
Almost all of us would agree that what to do about it would be to eliminate it because it's a bunch of harmful bullshit! |
No touché for you. The "issue," here at SFN (and elsewhere), is entirely about how to eliminate it, because that it should be eliminated is a "water is wet" kinda thing. We have people who would ridicule the religious at every opportunity, those who would enlist the moderately religious against the extremists and those who would ignore the whole mess in the hopes that it'll go away. And then there's the lawyer solution. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 10/02/2009 : 23:50:52 [Permalink]
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jakesteele:
Getting a debunker to say that UFOs are possibly alien is like pulling eye teeth from a pissed off gorilla. |
First off, unless we are actually investigating an incident, we can't really be called "debunkers." And if our intent is to debunk, than we can't fairly assess an incident or a claim. So I reject the word "debunker" to describe skeptics. Looking for the most likely explanation is not the same as debunking, and I feel that you are using that word as a pejorative to describe those of us who default to critical thinking.
As for UFO's with aliens at the controls, what has to be considered first is every other possibility, because the least likely of all possibilities, within reason, is alien visitation. Given the time it would take to get here from even the closest star system with a habitable planet and intelligent life on it, and more, with the ability to make such a journey, makes the notion of alien visitations unlikely at best. I won't say impossible, but to any reasonable person, every other possibility has to be rejected first. And I do mean all of them. Alien visitation would be the most extraordinary of all possibilities.
Just because it's likely that life may exists on other planets in the Universe, and might even be a common occurrence, does not shorten the distance that would have to be traveled to get here from another star system. Sure, you can speculate on the possibility of civilizations so advanced that they have overcome that formidable an obstacle. But that's all it is. Speculation. As a critical thinkers, most of us would be hard pressed to default to speculation when more down to earth possibilities are available to us. Occums razor. Unless the evidence is very close to undeniable, there is simply no reason to go there.
Perhaps the flairs did burn too long to be flairs. Can you not think of any other possibility other than it was alien vessels? Because until every other possibility proves unlikely in the extreme, and only then, can you even begin to posit alien visitation, with the understanding that much more substantial evidence would be required than strangely behaving lights in the sky, before you can form any kind of workable hypothesis. You don't get to fill in a mystery with an extremely speculative answer. "I dunno" will suffice. To a skeptic, anyhow...
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2009 : 00:06:28 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by jakesteele
Instead of saying that the possibility of UFOs could be within the realm of feasibility, they will come up with all kinds of stuff just not to have to say it. Getting a debunker to say that UFOs are possibly alien is like pulling eye teeth from a pissed off gorilla. |
Because as soon as you suggest that UFO might be aliens, you have left the realm of feasibility and entered the realm of wild speculation.
An elementary knowledge of our current understanding of physics will tell a person that the amount of energy required to travel at even 0.1c is tremendous, requiring nearly planetary-scale resources (our fastest travel is at 0.005c so far). At 0.1c, the only star systems close enough to know that we are here are within 12 light years, and there are only 20 such stars. How many of them have planets?
Even if any of them do, going that fast simply isn't feasible. It's only theoretically possible, and then to go 12 light years would take 120 Earth years, so unless they're sending tortoises, the travelers would be dead or require such a large ship (to include reproduction) that it'd take orders of magnitude more energy.
This is what we know, which is what defines "feasibility."
Anything more is reckless guesswork. It may be possible that aliens have far more advanced technology which allows them to violate the physical laws that we think we know, but we have precisely zero evidence for any such technology (by definition!).
That's why it's nearly impossible for you to get anyone who knows science to agree that UFOs might be aliens. Anyone who elevates these bare possibilities into feasibilities is obviously speaking from either willful ignorance or wanton dreaming, and so has left science behind, in favor of science fiction. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2009 : 02:46:29 [Permalink]
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Dave.....
Bien sûr que non! Il était toujours aussi! Only a riposte! What else could I expect?| The "issue," here at SFN (and elsewhere), is entirely about how to eliminate it, because that it should be eliminated is a "water is wet" kinda thing. We have people who would ridicule the religious at every opportunity, those who would enlist the moderately religious against the extremists and those who would ignore the whole mess in the hopes that it'll go away. |
Certainly true and illustrative of diversity within unity. It does not diminish the fact that there is near-unanimity in the robust rejection of religiosity and several other idiotic belief systems (ultra right wing conservatism, for example) here; and pointing that out to a newcomer is a cautionary as to the rudeness he might encounter in introducing highly controversial subject matter here.
Apparent from Jake Steele's last post is a rather judicial and sensible analysis of the Phoenix Lights events, and a probable explanation that makes a whole lot more sense than the generally accepted "flare" explanation.
It appears likely to me that it wasn't properly explained years ago and that entirely different factors were involved in the appearance of the lights. Also, that a whole lot of people may have bought the "flare" explanation reflexively without carefully thinking about it.
I have never seen anything really validating the flare hypothesis and concomitant with that, there appeared to be no possibilty that this was alien visitation. But the fact that it was almost certainly not extraterrestrial certainly did not demonstrate that although some flares had been dropped, and in another instance some flares had been sent up by helium balloons; that those two events were the explanation for the event! Lights on conventional aircraft at high altitudes seem much more plausible!
In the rush to distance themselves from the dreaded "alien visitation" explanation, some folks seem to have rushed to an equally wrong judgement!
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
 Posted - 10/03/2009 : 02:54:37 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
[At 0.1c, the only star systems close enough to know that we are here are within 12 light years, and there are only 20 such stars. How many of them have planets?
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How do you arrive at that "12" lightyear number?
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2009 : 02:58:30 [Permalink]
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Dude.....
| You aren't making sense now. Unless you meant to say that there is a definite mundane explanation for that 90%, not a "high chance" of one? Genuinely confusing. |
Where's the confusion? I have stoutly maintained for a long time that by far the majority of UAP were due to reasonably "mundane" (not alien visitation, extraterrestrial devices, interdimensional time travel and the like)
That is the only position that makes sense to me. The idea that most or all UAP is alien spaceships is preposterous, even psychotic!
| Maybe I just enjoy making fun of people who spend time looking down every rodent hole thinking they will find something other than a rodent. |
Not a rodent! Leporidae! White leporidae! Curiouser and curiouser!
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| Edited by - bngbuck on 10/03/2009 03:05:47 |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2009 : 03:27:11 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by bngbuck
Dude.....
| You aren't making sense now. Unless you meant to say that there is a definite mundane explanation for that 90%, not a "high chance" of one? Genuinely confusing. |
Where's the confusion? I have stoutly maintained for a long time that by far the majority of UAP were due to reasonably "mundane" (not alien visitation, extraterrestrial devices, interdimensional time travel and the like)
That is the only position that makes sense to me. The idea that most or all UAP is alien spaceships is preposterous, even psychotic!
| Maybe I just enjoy making fun of people who spend time looking down every rodent hole thinking they will find something other than a rodent. |
Not a rodent! Leporidae! White leporidae! Curiouser and curiouser!
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The confusion is this: If 90/100 events have only a "high chance" of being mundane, then the other 10 don't. You are saying that 10% of these events do not have a mundane explanation at all. Which is just something you pulled out of your ass. As with all other such detrious, I suggest you flush and sanitize.
There is a "high chance" that all 100% have a mundane, normal, rational explanation.
Also, the position that any UAP is an alien spaceship is preposterous and psychotic (and stupid). The reasons are self evident to anyone who has an even rudimentary grasp of basic physical laws.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2009 : 03:50:46 [Permalink]
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Kil.....
| First off, unless we are actually investigating an indecent, we can't really be called "debunkers." |
If you get the indecents out of the bed, you can be called a debunker.| As for UFO's with aliens at the controls, what has to be considered first is every other possibility, because the least likely of all possibilities, within reason, is alien visitation. |
Why is teleportation or time travel not even more fantastical and unlikely?| As a critical thinkers, most of us would be hard pressed to default to speculation when more down to earth possibilities are available to us. Occums razor. Unless the evidence is very close to undeniable, there is simply no reason to go there. |
Occam's beard. (courtesy of Jake) If all the explanations that anyone can come up with are shown to be wrong, there may be a reason to consider an unlikely one, even if that evidence is not undeniable. Or say there is no explanation, if ETV gives you hives.| Perhaps the flairs did burn too long to be flairs. Can you not think of any other possibility other than it was alien vessels? |
Jesus, Kil, he has come up with a far better explanation than alien visitation and vastly better than the idiotic "flare" hypothesis! Give the man a break! Why is there a supposition that extraterrestrials have been claimed when they have not been?
Critical thinking did not lead to the "flare" explanation! Nor would it lead to aliens. If there was not such an eagerness to accuse someone of using an "alien" explanation when in fact they were merely objecting to an ill-thought-out "official" explanation, I feel the thinking would be more constructive and "critical"! |
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2009 : 05:31:13 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse
Originally posted by Dave W.
[At 0.1c, the only star systems close enough to know that we are here are within 12 light years, and there are only 20 such stars. How many of them have planets?
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How do you arrive at that "12" lightyear number?
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If memory serves, the 12 LY number comes from the amount of time humans have been broadcasting signals to space (via radio, TV, etc) and some study was done (with the Voyager and Pioneer spacecraft) on signal degregation/distortion over distance. |
Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2009 : 08:09:50 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse
How do you arrive at that "12" lightyear number? |
12 ly at 0.1c would take 120 years, which is an extremely generous estimate for how long ago the first radio signals with enough power to be received by another star were sent from Earth (in reality, given the distance-squared law, most transmissions even today are way too weak to get very far). |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2009 : 08:28:40 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by bngbuck
Certainly true and illustrative of diversity within unity. It does not diminish the fact that there is near-unanimity in the... |
I just find it difficult to agree that the "lock step" descriptor is accurate, since the term implies dogmatic unanimity of thought.| Apparent from Jake Steele's last post is a rather judicial and sensible analysis of the Phoenix Lights events, and a probable explanation that makes a whole lot more sense than the generally accepted "flare" explanation. |
Someone else's analysis, which Jakesteele rejects as being full of "Forced Plausibles." Also apparent from his latest post is his expectation that scientists admit that alien visitation isn't simply possible but plausible. It seems to me that he does not understand the science that he "seeks," and he's given little indication that he's making even a good-faith effort to do more than "debunk the debunkers." |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2009 : 08:46:33 [Permalink]
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Bill:
Jesus, Kil, he has come up with a far better explanation than alien visitation and vastly better than the idiotic "flare" hypothesis! Give the man a break! Why is there a supposition that extraterrestrials have been claimed when they have not been? |
I was responding to this:
| Getting a debunker to say that UFOs are possibly alien is like pulling eye teeth from a pissed off gorilla. |
I think jakesteele tipped his hand a bit in the above quote. Why should a skeptic even entertain the idea of alien visitation, when more earthly explanations are still available? And no skeptic would rule out alien visitation with absolute certainty. It's just very unlikely. Based on the above quote, I suppose to him we come off as not very reasonable. Too bad.
Bill:
Why is teleportation or time travel not even more fantastical and unlikely? |
Lots of things are more unlikely than alien visitation. We are talking about lights in the sky in this thread. And you know that, Bill. Nice try. My comment stands.
And thanks for catching the typo that I fixed before you posted. Unfortunately for me, my spell checker does not flag words that sound the same but have different spellings and definitions. Sometimes it even changes a misspelling into another word that I never intended to use. I should have proofed the post better than I did. I am missing the spelling gene. Unless I have Michelle go over everything I write, I'm pretty much fucked. Oh well...
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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jakesteele
New Member
USA
37 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2009 : 09:08:17 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by jakesteele
Instead of saying that the possibility of UFOs could be within the realm of feasibility, they will come up with all kinds of stuff just not to have to say it. Getting a debunker to say that UFOs are possibly alien is like pulling eye teeth from a pissed off gorilla. |
Because as soon as you suggest that UFO might be aliens, you have left the realm of feasibility and entered the realm of wild speculation.
An elementary knowledge of our current understanding of physics will tell a person that the amount of energy required to travel at even 0.1c is tremendous, requiring nearly planetary-scale resources (our fastest travel is at 0.005c so far). At 0.1c, the only star systems close enough to know that we are here are within 12 light years, and there are only 20 such stars. How many of them have planets?
Even if any of them do, going that fast simply isn't feasible. It's only theoretically possible, and then to go 12 light years would take 120 Earth years, so unless they're sending tortoises, the travelers would be dead or require such a large ship (to include reproduction) that it'd take orders of magnitude more energy.
This is what we know, which is what defines "feasibility."
Anything more is reckless guesswork. It may be possible that aliens have far more advanced technology which allows them to violate the physical laws that we think we know, but we have precisely zero evidence for any such technology (by definition!).
That's why it's nearly impossible for you to get anyone who knows science to agree that UFOs might be aliens. Anyone who elevates these bare possibilities into feasibilities is obviously speaking from either willful ignorance or wanton dreaming, and so has left science behind, in favor of science fiction.
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http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2007/08/has-warp-speed-.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Alcubierre
http://media.caltech.edu/press_releases/11935
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17476-ion-engine-could-one-day-power-39day-trips-to-mars.html?full=true
http://www.jlab.org/news/internet/1997/spooky.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3308109.stm
The links above show:
1. Stopping light in its tracks totally.
2. Teleportation
3. Spooky effect at a distance.
4. A way to get around the speed of light.
And, of course, there's the Drake Equation. With all of these things going on, don't you think that 10-50-100 yrs. from now we might come up with some stuff that would astound us just like relativity and quantum mechanics would have blown Newton's mind?
The Scientific Method is only as far knowing and far seeing as its present limitations will allow it to be. The edge of the cosmological, quantum envelope is continually getting pushed out, but unfortunately, there are people that frantically keep trying to pull back until finally they loose the tug-o-war contest. Thank God for open minded, visionary people leading the charge.
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Sacred Cows make the tastiest hamburgers |
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Phoenix Lights flare debris
