Aug 11, 2021 02:25 AM
(This post was last modified: Aug 11, 2021 02:45 AM by C C.)
O UFOs, Where Art Thou?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/artic...-art-thou/
KEY POINTS (excerpts): Five reasons why sorting all of this out is so scientifically challenging...
Challenge No. 1: All UAP/UFO incidents are nonrepeatable: we can’t go back and perform the “experiment” of that exact observation again.
Challenge No. 2: There is nothing systematic in how incidents are recorded or reported. Different camera systems, radar systems, data processing, observers and environmental circumstances mean that each incident is, in effect, an uncontrolled experiment, with few ways to ascertain the real quality and sensitivity of data.
Challenge No. 3: There is no easy way to account for “cherry-picking” of data. We don’t know how often pilots or other observers see something unexpected but then, a minute later, figure out what they’re witnessing (or at least convince themselves they’ve done so) and consequently don’t report anything. There could be thousands of such incidents, or very few. We don’t know, and those “mundane” cases could actually represent all cases.
Challenge No. 4: If any incidents or observations are genuinely associated with something tangible and physical, we don’t know whether we’re looking at a single underlying phenomenon or many. It’s a bit like going into a zoo blindfolded and trying to understand what you’re hearing and smelling. If there’s only one species you might figure it out, but if there are 100 species, then decoding your experience is going to be very difficult.
Challenge No. 5: The popular association of UAP with hypotheses involving alien technology creates a severe analysis bias. Usually, science tries to move stepwise towards finding support for a given hypothesis or for eliminating hypotheses, and weighs those options as evenly as possible. But in this case a hypothesis that would require extraordinarily robust evidence in order to be supported (as with Carl Sagan’s famous dictum “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”), regardless of what some people say, hangs heavily over any analysis or discussion, and there is a vocal community who feel that the answer is already known. That’s a problem. (MORE - missing details)
UFOs, UAPs -- whatever we call them, why do we assume mysterious flying objects are extraterrestrial?
https://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet...180978374/
EXCERPTS: Earlier this summer, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released a much publicized nine-page report titled, with deliberate blandness, “Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.”
[...] Military and intelligence officials have consistently framed these mysterious incidents in terms of national security. The Preliminary Assessment stated that ODNI’s charge from Congress was to provide policymakers with an overview of “the challenges associated with characterizing the potential threat posed by UAP.” The office was directed to focus on “identification of potential aerospace or other threats posed by the unidentified aerial phenomena to national security, and an assessment of whether this unidentified aerial phenomena activity may be attributed to one or more foreign adversaries.”
Even those who promote the study of UFOs agreed that possible military threats—not extraterrestrials—were the focus of the new report. So why do the press and social media keep bringing up aliens? Because, for better or worse, sightings of unidentifiable things in the sky have become inextricably linked to visitors from outer space. Aliens are now our default explanation for such events, and the reason is no accident: For nearly 75 years, people have worked hard to make it the default.
[...] The most worrying UAP episodes for national security-minded readers involved 18 outlier instances in which it was reported that the object displayed “unusual flight characteristics.” In these cases, investigators could not rule out the possibility that it was the result of sensor errors, cyberattack, or misperception. In the end, intelligence authorities recommend increased funding to the task force to develop a more robust data collection and analysis system.
This is by no means the first government fact-finding effort in this arena. After 1947, the U.S. Air Force established a series of UFO investigation task forces, the most prominent being Project Blue Book during the years 1952-1969. [...] officials publicly concluded that most reports of UFOs were explicable and presented no reason for concern, and that the residue of inexplicable cases did not pose a national security threat.
In short, the ODNI Preliminary Assessment is all too familiar. Modern investigation of UAPs has been hampered by inconsistent standards of reporting and limited resources, and as in the past, officials on the whole appear unruffled by such reports. And once again, government agencies leave room for ambiguity in admitting that there are a number of anomalous incidents.
ODNI’s preliminary report does break some new ground, however. It clearly states that most unidentified aerial phenomena reported are physical objects. It also admits that a culture of dismissiveness and ridicule within the military and intelligence communities has inhibited witnesses from coming forward [...] In fact, the Preliminary Assessment appears to open the way for more scientists and technical experts to join the discussion, although how they should do that remains unclear... (MORE - missing details)
https://www.scientificamerican.com/artic...-art-thou/
KEY POINTS (excerpts): Five reasons why sorting all of this out is so scientifically challenging...
Challenge No. 1: All UAP/UFO incidents are nonrepeatable: we can’t go back and perform the “experiment” of that exact observation again.
Challenge No. 2: There is nothing systematic in how incidents are recorded or reported. Different camera systems, radar systems, data processing, observers and environmental circumstances mean that each incident is, in effect, an uncontrolled experiment, with few ways to ascertain the real quality and sensitivity of data.
Challenge No. 3: There is no easy way to account for “cherry-picking” of data. We don’t know how often pilots or other observers see something unexpected but then, a minute later, figure out what they’re witnessing (or at least convince themselves they’ve done so) and consequently don’t report anything. There could be thousands of such incidents, or very few. We don’t know, and those “mundane” cases could actually represent all cases.
Challenge No. 4: If any incidents or observations are genuinely associated with something tangible and physical, we don’t know whether we’re looking at a single underlying phenomenon or many. It’s a bit like going into a zoo blindfolded and trying to understand what you’re hearing and smelling. If there’s only one species you might figure it out, but if there are 100 species, then decoding your experience is going to be very difficult.
Challenge No. 5: The popular association of UAP with hypotheses involving alien technology creates a severe analysis bias. Usually, science tries to move stepwise towards finding support for a given hypothesis or for eliminating hypotheses, and weighs those options as evenly as possible. But in this case a hypothesis that would require extraordinarily robust evidence in order to be supported (as with Carl Sagan’s famous dictum “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”), regardless of what some people say, hangs heavily over any analysis or discussion, and there is a vocal community who feel that the answer is already known. That’s a problem. (MORE - missing details)
UFOs, UAPs -- whatever we call them, why do we assume mysterious flying objects are extraterrestrial?
https://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet...180978374/
EXCERPTS: Earlier this summer, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released a much publicized nine-page report titled, with deliberate blandness, “Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.”
[...] Military and intelligence officials have consistently framed these mysterious incidents in terms of national security. The Preliminary Assessment stated that ODNI’s charge from Congress was to provide policymakers with an overview of “the challenges associated with characterizing the potential threat posed by UAP.” The office was directed to focus on “identification of potential aerospace or other threats posed by the unidentified aerial phenomena to national security, and an assessment of whether this unidentified aerial phenomena activity may be attributed to one or more foreign adversaries.”
Even those who promote the study of UFOs agreed that possible military threats—not extraterrestrials—were the focus of the new report. So why do the press and social media keep bringing up aliens? Because, for better or worse, sightings of unidentifiable things in the sky have become inextricably linked to visitors from outer space. Aliens are now our default explanation for such events, and the reason is no accident: For nearly 75 years, people have worked hard to make it the default.
[...] The most worrying UAP episodes for national security-minded readers involved 18 outlier instances in which it was reported that the object displayed “unusual flight characteristics.” In these cases, investigators could not rule out the possibility that it was the result of sensor errors, cyberattack, or misperception. In the end, intelligence authorities recommend increased funding to the task force to develop a more robust data collection and analysis system.
This is by no means the first government fact-finding effort in this arena. After 1947, the U.S. Air Force established a series of UFO investigation task forces, the most prominent being Project Blue Book during the years 1952-1969. [...] officials publicly concluded that most reports of UFOs were explicable and presented no reason for concern, and that the residue of inexplicable cases did not pose a national security threat.
In short, the ODNI Preliminary Assessment is all too familiar. Modern investigation of UAPs has been hampered by inconsistent standards of reporting and limited resources, and as in the past, officials on the whole appear unruffled by such reports. And once again, government agencies leave room for ambiguity in admitting that there are a number of anomalous incidents.
ODNI’s preliminary report does break some new ground, however. It clearly states that most unidentified aerial phenomena reported are physical objects. It also admits that a culture of dismissiveness and ridicule within the military and intelligence communities has inhibited witnesses from coming forward [...] In fact, the Preliminary Assessment appears to open the way for more scientists and technical experts to join the discussion, although how they should do that remains unclear... (MORE - missing details)
