Are just 0.01 percent of UFO reports unexplained?

[Kornee]

Amusing to note how a self-proclaimed cautious, astute, objective critic of 'UFO nuts' with their stereotyped 'careless, exaggerated claims', falls in a heap himself.
I'm referring in particular to a laughable, extreme exaggeration of his own. Namely, asserting, without any references whatsoever to back it up, that, quote:

"The "ordinary, not very interesting" UFO reports make up the 99.99% of UFOs that turn out quickly to have been mistaken sightings of weather balloons, the planet Venus, drones, regular human aircraft, non-unusual weather phenomena, etc. The "difficult" UFO cases are the remaining 0.01%, where circumstances were sufficiently "unusual" to make identification of the UFO problematic."

Currently p323 #6456 over at another forum thread on UFOs.

Wow. Just 0.01% of UFO reports are worthy to be called 'problematic'! Then let's all move on, because 0.01% implies all that's needed is a bit more effort to fit that remaining tiny handful into the mundane pigeon-hole too.

But a quick online search and one hit casting above quoted into the comedic category:
https://spacetime.forumotion.com/t1583-o...ercentages

That article dates from 2013 so is not referring to the recent renewed flurry of interest. It is however far more careful and balanced in assessing the actual historical record regarding % estimates of unexplained cases.

[Kornee]

It's interesting and irksome to observe how dictators/charlatans/hypocrites etc. tend to survive a potentially tanking crisis of their own making, owing to timidity on the part of others. Who accommodate repulsive traits in authority figures because at rock bottom they prioritize 'respectability'/acceptance by peer community/authority-figures.
Don't rock the boat baby. Emphasize any and all points of agreement. De-emphasize any and all points of disagreement.
That or open yourself up to easy criticism by carelessly generalized claims. And so on.

It's precisely because the likes of Vallee and Hynek were both astute, cautious, and free of self-censure debilitation, and instead spoke their mind free of any thought of censure or ostracization, that I so admire them. Alas too few such folks exist. IMO.

Getting back to the thread title proper, one interesting point raised in the linked article in #1 was that, far from an incredibly tiny proportion of reported UFO sightings being an enduring enigma, it can be argued with greater validity that a mere ~ 4% have been definitely confirmed as misidentification or hoax. A disparity ratio of around 9000 fold!

The truth very likely lies somewhere in between but most unbiased estimates place it at ca 10% - 30% persistent unexplained despite dedicated efforts to resolve.
Much much closer fractionally to the 'True Believer' estimate than certain hardened skeptics would ever care to admit to!

[Magical Realist]

I asked James R for the source of the 99.99/0.01 % figure and he couldn't give me one. Just the usual deliberate spin of the dishonest skeptic.

[Kornee]

I asked James R for the source of the 99.99/0.01 % figure and he couldn't give me one. Just the usual deliberate spin of the dishonest skeptic.

Sadly all too predictable.  The unwavering track record of that team and it's chief member is a very long one now.

[Leigha]

Hmm, that stat seems off. Found this article that suggests the opposite.



https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politic...g-n1272390

Keep in mind though, ''unexplained'' doesn't mean we should conclude these claims must have other worldly explanations. But, that's a really eye opening stat...143 out of 144 are unexplained.

[Kornee]

Hmm, that stat seems off. Found this article that suggests the opposite.



https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politic...g-n1272390

Keep in mind though, ''unexplained'' doesn't mean we should conclude these claims must have other worldly explanations. But, that's a really eye opening stat...143 out of 144 are unexplained.

I'll give Mick West credit for probably nailing the 'go fast' encounter as a mundane parallax-error mistaken identity, and maybe, but with lower probability, the 'gimbal' encounter as a FLIR camera system visual artifact. The green flashing triangles shown in the accompanying NBC News vid has already been covered as bokeh artifacts of out of focus camera lens. The origin of said triangles was lights on Chinese copter drones that buzzed the US naval ship.

Just do a search for say 'giant ufo sightings', and, discarding the chaff hits, one quickly realizes there are many historical encounters/sightings where mundane explanations have no hope of explaining away. A famous example:
https://www.howandwhys.com/japan-airline...dent-1986/

[Kornee]

Forgot the highly contested nature of that claimed JAL 1986 encounter linked to last post. Better examples (YouTube vid links within) are given here:
https://www.ufoinsight.com/ufos/close-en...af3532-ufo

[Kornee]

On the one hand, we have an intellectual giant over at SF who is perpetually dismissive of 'flimsy, error-prone' reports of UFO/UAPs e.g. 2004 Nimitz carrier group incidents. And many following e.g. Eisenhower group encounters 2014-15.
On the other hand, a mere string theorist Michio Kaku. Who calls such synchronized multiple-human-observers + multi-spectrum-best-military-hardware-available records 'the gold standard' for validating existence of non-mundane UFO/UAP incidents:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YebZyAzLZuc
Where I disagree with the latter is his last half focus on physical interplanetary ET as the only realistic option for such top notch multi-witnessed encounters.
For instance he tries to 'explain' lack of sonic boom as indicating 'Planck level energies' 'engineering'. I don't think so.
Take in a wider historical sweep and imo supernatural/paranormal linkages leaps out as obviously integral - if one's mind is really open to it.

[Kornee]

And more foot-in-mouth stupidity - post #6739 over at that ufo thread at SF. Not quite as outrageously inaccurate as the "99.99% mundane" BS claim of JR, but 99.9% is close enough to the same careless hyperbole.
Once again, from folks that actually do serious research instead of sounding off:
https://spacetime.forumotion.com/t1583-o...ercentages

[Kornee]

No letting up for some - if not challenged, why not just repeat the same absurd falsehood. And so it is over at #6750 that SF UFO thread:

"Yes. And the context is: exactly zero confirmed UFO craft. In fact, even more accurate context: 99.9% of them have been explained
So that contextual logic of yours will lead you straight to "the other .1% is probably mundane as well, just less evidence available to nail it"."

The context wasn't crashed UFOs - just reported UFO encounters in general. See my #1 and #9 posts here.