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Michio Kaku says the burden of proof has shifted to the government to demonstrate UFOs don't exist (video)
https://video.foxnews.com/v/608821568300...show-clips

INTRO: The Navy admits that several UFO videos are real and show aerial phenomena that they can't currently explain; analysis from Michio Kaku, professor of theoretical physics and author of the bestselling book 'The Future of Humanity.' (MORE - video)

RELATED: Are the Navy UFOs real or just in the low information zone?

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‘Storm Area 51’ event results in a few dozen people acting weird in the desert
https://bgr.com/2019/09/20/storm-area-51-event-nevada/

INTRO: It has been building for months after a California man scheduled an event as a joke on Facebook, but the “Storm Area 51” mission began with a whimper today, as only a few dozen people bothered to march out into the Nevada desert to hang out at the front gate of the secure military compound. The original event listing on Facebook titled “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us” amassed over two million “attendees,” but the actual turnout thus far is much closer to zero. As Reuters reports, the event has featured very little “storming” and was more just a gathering of particularly dedicated memers and alien enthusiasts. (MORE) ... RELATED: 'Storm Area 51' Fails To Materialize

Why Michio Kaku is wrong about the UFO Burden of Proof & Navy Videos (response from skeptic community)
https://www.metabunk.org/why-michio-kaku...os.t10912/

EXCERPT: At the 2019 UFOlogy World Conference in Barcelona, Physicist Michio Kaku gave an address, in which he said [video]: 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.

[...] Also, during a Q&A, he was asked what brought him to the conference. He responded [video]: “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 three vides: 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...ir1.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-vide...ect.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...oon.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... (MORE)

"Admittedly, the nearly featureless objects shown in the Pentagon footage obtained by Elizondo leaves a lot to the imagination. However, there may be problems with the “it’s probably just a plane” argument. While West should be commended for attempting to narrow down what the object in the footage might have been, any conventional aircraft that had been operating nearby at the time of filming would presumably have had a transponder, making it easily identifiable; also, radar systems would likely have had little trouble detecting such an aircraft. Hence, it seems logical to presume that if the object in the video had displayed these conventional characteristics, it would not have been of interest to the pilots who were filming it (who initially described it as resembling a drone) in the first place."---- https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2018/01/d...-skeptics/

Ultralights don't have transponders, and some wouldn't be readily recognized on radar.

(Sep 21, 2019 05:43 PM)Syne Wrote: [ -> ]Ultralights don't have transponders, and some wouldn't be readily recognized on radar.

Noone said it was an ultralight. They said it was a jet viewed from the rear.

There were more possibilities given than just a jet.

(Sep 21, 2019 03:39 AM)C C Wrote: [ -> ]Michio Kaku says the burden of proof has shifted to the government to demonstrate UFOs don't exist (video)
https://video.foxnews.com/v/608821568300...show-clips

I'd re-post that link over in the... other place... except they would probably burn me alive.

I liked that Michio Kaku mentioned hypersonic drones, which I suggested. But unlike Michio, I don't think that it has to be either drones or aliens. There's a huge grey area full of possibilities that we haven't even conceived of. (Space animals! Time-travelers!)

I liked Michio saying 'The next time you are abducted, steal something!!' Though I've often wondered how we could distinguish the simpler alien artifacts from Earth products. A piece of high-tech gear sure, but something like a paperweight or a spoon? Even if it had an otherworldly shape, people would just think that you bought it at ComicCon.

But the main thing I liked was Michio saying that the burden of proof is shifting, from UFO proponents having to demonstrate that there's some objective phenomenon there, to UFO opponents having to demonstrate that there isn't.

I'm inclined to agree.

It's only a straw man that UFO skeptics deny there being any phenomena at all, as demonstrated by all the possible explanations given. There's no need to explain away something that never occurred. So no, the burden of proof is not shifting. It is, and has always been, the burden of those making positive claims...like saying it's definitely alien in origin. Those simply saying their origin is mundane are making the null hypothesis, which is the base assumption in science.

Kaku has long since favored his own public appeal over the science though.

If the Null Hypothesis for skeptics is that nothing ever really happens, then they must live in a really boring universe!

(Sep 22, 2019 05:23 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: [ -> ]If the Null Hypothesis for skeptics is that nothing ever really happens, then they must live in a really boring universe!

That's an ignorant straw man. I just said skeptics don't "deny there being any phenomena at all". They readily agree that something happens.

And if "true believers" need to invent the incredible, then they must live really moribund lives.