Sep 23, 2022 12:59 PM
https://noufors.com/Documents/scienceindefault.pdf
Science in Default:
Twenty-Two Years of Inadequate UFO Investigations
American Association for the Advancement of Science, 134th Meeting
General Symposium, Unidentified Flying Objects
James E. McDonald, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences
University of Arizona
Tucson, Arizona
December 27, 1969
A testament to the dismissive 'nothing worth further investigation' attitudes prevailing in US military/intelligence circles, continued till very recently.
Equally damming of the same false claims of 'no good evidence after more than 70 years' parroted repeatedly over at the long running SF UFO thread we all know.
Regarding the first detailed case study, pp4-9:
Case 1. USAF RB-47, Gulf Coast area, September 19–20, 1957
I include a choice paragraph under the Discussion section:
"...Actually, various hypotheses (radar anomalies, mirage effects) are weighed in one part of the Condon Report
where this case is discussed separately (pp. 136–138). But the suggestion made there that perhaps an inversion near
2 km altitude was responsible for the returns at the Carswell GCI unit is wholly untenable. In an Appendix, a very
lengthy but non-relevant discussion of ground return from anomalous propagation appears; in fact, it is so unrelated
to the actual circumstances of this case as to warrant no comment here. Chase’s account emphasized that the GCI
radar(s) had his aircraft and the unknown object on-scope for a total flight-distance of the order of several hundred
miles, including a near overflight of the ground radar. With such wide variations in angles of incidence of the
ground-radar beam on any inversion or duct, however intense, the possibility of anomalous propagation effects
yielding a consistent pattern of spurious echo matching the reported movements and the appearances and
disappearances of the target is infinitesimal. And the more so in view of the simultaneous appearances and
disappearances on the ECM gear and via visible emissions from the unknown. To suggest, as is tentatively done on
p. 138 that the “red glow” might have been a “mirage of Oklahoma City,” when the pilot’s description of the
luminous source involves a wide range of viewing angles, including two instances when he was viewing it at quite
large depression angles, is wholly unreasonable. Unfortunately, that kind of casual ad hoc hypothesizing with almost
no attention to relevant physical considerations runs all through the case-discussions in the treatment of radar and
optical cases in the Condon Report, frequently (though not in this instance) being made the basis of “explanations”
that are merely absurd...."
The entire pdf document is worth reading. Contrast between dedication to truth vs biased agendas bent on culling inconvenient details not fitting a desired outcome and/or ideology.
Science in Default:
Twenty-Two Years of Inadequate UFO Investigations
American Association for the Advancement of Science, 134th Meeting
General Symposium, Unidentified Flying Objects
James E. McDonald, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences
University of Arizona
Tucson, Arizona
December 27, 1969
A testament to the dismissive 'nothing worth further investigation' attitudes prevailing in US military/intelligence circles, continued till very recently.
Equally damming of the same false claims of 'no good evidence after more than 70 years' parroted repeatedly over at the long running SF UFO thread we all know.
Regarding the first detailed case study, pp4-9:
Case 1. USAF RB-47, Gulf Coast area, September 19–20, 1957
I include a choice paragraph under the Discussion section:
"...Actually, various hypotheses (radar anomalies, mirage effects) are weighed in one part of the Condon Report
where this case is discussed separately (pp. 136–138). But the suggestion made there that perhaps an inversion near
2 km altitude was responsible for the returns at the Carswell GCI unit is wholly untenable. In an Appendix, a very
lengthy but non-relevant discussion of ground return from anomalous propagation appears; in fact, it is so unrelated
to the actual circumstances of this case as to warrant no comment here. Chase’s account emphasized that the GCI
radar(s) had his aircraft and the unknown object on-scope for a total flight-distance of the order of several hundred
miles, including a near overflight of the ground radar. With such wide variations in angles of incidence of the
ground-radar beam on any inversion or duct, however intense, the possibility of anomalous propagation effects
yielding a consistent pattern of spurious echo matching the reported movements and the appearances and
disappearances of the target is infinitesimal. And the more so in view of the simultaneous appearances and
disappearances on the ECM gear and via visible emissions from the unknown. To suggest, as is tentatively done on
p. 138 that the “red glow” might have been a “mirage of Oklahoma City,” when the pilot’s description of the
luminous source involves a wide range of viewing angles, including two instances when he was viewing it at quite
large depression angles, is wholly unreasonable. Unfortunately, that kind of casual ad hoc hypothesizing with almost
no attention to relevant physical considerations runs all through the case-discussions in the treatment of radar and
optical cases in the Condon Report, frequently (though not in this instance) being made the basis of “explanations”
that are merely absurd...."
The entire pdf document is worth reading. Contrast between dedication to truth vs biased agendas bent on culling inconvenient details not fitting a desired outcome and/or ideology.
