This
week we moved into the realm of skepticism with Robert Sheaffer who hosts www.debunker.com and www.BadUFOs.com where he offers solutions to
many of what some believe are the best UFO sightings. We discussed a question
that has bugged me for years which is why skeptics are quick to reject the
alien solution for UFOs and equally quick to embrace the explanations without
much in the way of questioning those solutions. For those interested in minutia,
we discussed the radar and visual sightings over Washington, D.C. in 1952,
Roswell (well, of course, with him asking me a question that might have bugged him for a while) and a few other sightings along with some thoughts on the Kenneth Arnold sighting from June, 1947. You can listen to the show
here:
Next
week: Chris Rutkowski
Topic:
Canadian UFO Research (Yes, an international show).
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6 comments:
Hello,
Good podcast (as usual with/by Kevin), TU to both.... excepted the mantra and "Mogul offensive, as usual" by Kevin (or in his book). Dommage.
I'm a great fan of this podcast. Kevin is one or the most honest Roswell "myth-teller" (and UFO researcher) I have ever met (well read, or listen to him, I have never have the honor to meet him).
There are many people here or there who are not "bugged" by Kevin's "flight 4 was cancelled" rhetoric.
I hope a podcast with a "UFO-Skeptic Roswell exegete", well aware about Mogul, to debate this "thing" (the last "argument" to remain the myth intact?)...
Best regard and TU for this podcast,
Gilles Fernandez
Thank you, Gilles for proving my point.
The discussion wasn't actually about Project Mogul, but about the rejection of the statement made by Albert Crary in 1947 about Flight No. 4. The diary, field notes, and other documentation from the New York University balloon project tells us the flight had been cancelled, but all that information is rejected in favor of the testimony of Charles Moore about the flight. It makes no difference that the documentation contradicts what he said and that he altered the timing of this nonexistent flight so that winds aloft data would take the array to a point 17 miles from the Brazel ranch.
On the flip side is the statement by General Nathan F. Twining in a letter that he signed but was written by Colonel Howard McCoy mentioning the lack of crash recovered debris. This statement is accepted by many as absolute proof that the Roswell crash was not alien in nature...
The point was, shouldn't skepticism by brought to bear on these two statements. Why is the documentation about Mogul rejected and the statement about the lack of crash debris accepted? In both cases there is other documentation that backs up those statements. I would like to see a skeptical analysis of the Mogul statements showing why they are rejected rather than an argument that mentions the cluster of balloons and that one flight was launched early in the morning prior to dawn.
Hello Kevin,
We have already and from long time now (from 2009! concerning me) debating this specific points, aka the flight was "cancelled", how do you (or some are) are guessing June the 4th flight was few balloons + a Sonobuoy only cause your reading of Cary diary, the use of the term "cluster", etc.
Here is a comment I left in our public FB discussion group "UFO-Pragmatism" regarding the podcast and "your point". BTW, you are welcome to join( not to debate this, but it would be cool to have you in the page).
" Yeah. In France too, some Roswell "exégète"s like Gildas Bourdais use/argue the term "cluster of balloons" as if it means "few balloons" (une grappe de ballons).
1) As many times repeated (like in your article in SUNlite 5-5 or in my 2010 book), if you look at the drawing of flight #2, it is legended "train for CLUSTER flight n°2". It is a complex assembly/apparatus.
In other entries or documentations, the term "cluster" is often used for the first expedition in Alamogordo (June 1947) when describing the flights. So, the term is used for complex assembly of balloons. The term does not mean "few balloons".
Flight #7 is described as "Included CLUSTER of met[eorological] balloons". This flight included radiosonde, microphone, etc. The 3th July flight (flight #8) used the same term, "a CLUSTER of GM plastic balloons", and the assembly included micro, radiosonde, dribbler, etc. For the #9, we have "CLUSTER of balloons with dummy load".
So, for flights #7 & #8 we have the same use of the nominal syntagme "cluster of balloons", but for the June the 4th flight, it should or MUST be read in a very different manner (a little assembly of few balloons with ONLY a sonobuoy). Hum...
2) Crary's Diary is... well a diary: for many previous or ulterior flights than the one of June the 4th, Albert Crary is not describing all pieces and materials the flights are carrying. To use the diary to "guess" (in fact to claim here!) the composition of the assembly was not carrying radar-targets have a very few impact for me in an argumentation...
On a side note (or not!), Crary was not at the place where the flight of June the 4th have been launched, but he was in the test range to set explosions and charges, from midnight to 6 AM... So maybe this entry in the diary must take into account this "detail" when describing the assembly of the flight: he was not there after all...
==> A balloon assembly was launched June the 4th and followed by a plane. Crary's diary CANT be used to claim "Oooh, it was a few balloons + a sonobuoy ONLY assembly (whatever it was cancelled or not)". BTW: Notice too there was another flight launched May the 28th, 29th or the 30th (I dont remember exactly the date)...
End of Part 1
Part 2.
3) If the flight is not reported in the "famous" NYU table, it is probably for the same reasons other flights are "missing" here: when no scientific dataes were recorded, exploitable, they are not in the table. The ones with dataes are in the table (scientific flights). The absence of a flight in the table does not mean/imply for me that the fight was canceled, but no scientific dataes collected, etc. It does not mean they were "cancelled" or never flew.
4) Why there are no scientific dataes for the flight of June the 4th (call it #4 if you want)? A possibility is that it was radar tracked (and then included radar-targets), but the flight gone over the range tracking capacity of the SCR-584 (about 40 miles if my memories correct). Maybe this "test" flight have allowed the team to learn or to realize to use radio-sonde, because in West Coast, the flights are going over and far away the "Alamogordo area".
In essence, there WAS a flight June the 4th, probably first cancelled, but in fact only delayed, because the meteo conditions going better. To state it was "canceled", does not impress "me"."
Best regards and respect to you,
Gilles Fernandez
Kevin wrote: "The diary, field notes, and other documentation from the New York University balloon project tells us the flight had been cancelled"
"I" have already "responded" about the "Crary's diary argument": in NO CASE, it proves the flight have been cancelled, or that there was no flight launched that day. Kevin. Come on!
May I ask you to PROVIDE the other documentation of NYU telling "us" (or you) the flight had been cancelled, as you are claiming?
Do you have in your possession a document stating the flight was cancelled? No, of course... But it was cancelled because "Kevin" have decided it was. And let it be / ainsi soit-il !
Seriously, Kevin...
Best regards,
Gilles
Gilles -
I say again, the point was not a debate about Mogul, but the defense of it based on the bias of the researcher. You reject Crary's diary, but these were the field notes of the experiments. You reject the definition of a cluster of balloons which was laid out in the reports written about the NYU project in New Mexico, you ignore the table which has no data and suggest it was left out for that reason, yet other flight failures are noted that no data was recovered. And you challenge me to provide a document that says the flight was cancelled which is what the June 4 note in Crary's diary said, "No balloon flights again on account of clouds." Which of course doesn't say it was cancelled but means the same thing. We know what a cluster of balloon was because it is detailed in other sections of the documentation.
However, you prove the point by clinging so tenaciously to the idea that there was a flight no. 4, rejecting the documentation that argues otherwise.
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