Wednesday, September 18, 2013

UFO Crashes Fifty Years Before Roswell


Zoamchomsky, in response to a comment in the last posting, suggested that there had been stories of UFO crashes for more than fifty years prior to the Roswell case. He was asked to provide sources but that isn’t really necessary. There is plenty of evidence that this is true and for those who would like to see a long listing of them, including a story or two that are centuries old, take a look at Crash: When UFOs Fall from the Sky.

In 1897 the Great Airship was being seen all over the Midwest and Southern states, with occasional excursions into the West. A report from San Angelo, Texas, for example, mentioned that the airship had flown into a flock of birds and exploded. In Waterloo, Iowa, the airship was found on the fairgrounds, and while not a crash, was certainly a landing, complete with crew members who described their flight.

The big story, and the one that nearly everyone has heard about, is the crash in Aurora, Texas on April 17, 1897. I have believed since I investigated the case in the early 1970s that it was a hoax. I talked to longtime residents, some who had been alive in 1897, to the Wise County historian (Aurora being in Wise County) and searched what records were available. I could find no follow up investigation, and nothing about it was mentioned in the Wise County histories, one published within ten years of the event. In other words, there simply wasn’t any evidence that there had been a crash with the exception of the original story in a Dallas newspaper in 1897.

Why mention this now, after having already posted about it a long time ago (See Aurora, Texas - A Story that Won’t Die, March 27, 2005)? Well, in the process of consolidating files and clearing out duplications and other clutter, I found a strip of black and white photographic negatives. I had not seen them in decades. I knew that I had them I just couldn’t put my hands on them.

When I held them up to the light to see what they were, I saw a picture that had a sign that said, “Aurora” and taken at what had been an Arco gas station on the outskirts of Aurora. There were a couple of other pictures of that, and knew that it was an old habit of taking three pictures at different exposures to ensure that one would be usable.

The prize, however, were the last three pictures. They were taken in the Aurora Cemetery at time I was there. They look as if they were taken in a rainstorm with a dense cloud cover. Given today’s technology, I was able to clean them up slightly so they are better than they were.

There is nothing startling on these pictures. The headstone with the three balls on it is not visible. When I was there, walking the graveyard, I didn’t see that stone and now it has disappeared. It was supposedly the marker of the “Martian’s” grave.

I print the pictures here for the little historical value they have. There is nothing on the negatives to prove when I was there or when I took them and too the real cynic, there is nothing on them to prove that I was actually there. However, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I did live in Texas, not all that far by Texas standards, from Aurora, so I took some time to explore the sighting. I will say, one last time so that it is clear, I do not believe that an alien craft crashed at Aurora and, in fact, don’t believe that anything crashed there on April 17, 1897.

72 comments:

Don Maor said...

Hello Kevin,

The denier zoamchomsky basically claimed that Scully's book was a rehash of the of pre-Roswell flokloric tales of UFO crashes. What is the truth of such belief? Why, in your opinion, Sarbacher told that what was in the book was substantially correct?

David Rudiak said...

"Zoam Chomsky" wrote in the previous blog:
Ignorance of the subject is no excuse. Here's an article by Nigel Watson describing the completely fictional origins of the "crashed saucer and alien bodies" myth, and containing two dozen early examples from a catalogue containing dozens of other crashes or aerial explosions, producing wreckage, bodies, mysterious metals, parts and heiroglyphics from nearly every US state that experienced mass-media manufactured Airship mania.
http://magonia.haaan.com/2009/down-to-earth/


Interesting sort of article of highly ARCANE historical information. And that's the whole problem. It is so incredibly arcane and old, from 1896-97 and before, that probably no one in 1947 knew the whole of it and probably only a handful knew even a fraction. This was all dug up decades AFTER 1947 (like the Aurora case) by a few "UFO buffs" mostly poking through musty old newspaper archives. So like many skeptical “explanations”, this also has an element of time travel to it, that information known only later was responsible for events that happened before it became more widely know, even though barely known even now by the “buffs”.

Or maybe we are supposed to believe that in the 1890s, there was the equivalent of the Internet, so various local joke crash stories that few took seriously in various mostly small-town hick newspapers somehow went viral and then practically everybody learned of them, took them seriously, and this incredibly powerful psychosocial "crash meme" persisted over a half century, was somehow still fresh in everybody's memories in 1947, and somehow led to an elite military base putting out a press release that they had recovered a “flying disc”. Really? That’s a lot of “somehows”.

Guys like Marcel and Blanchard must have been real Fortean buffs and quickly fell victim to the great psychosocial “meme” of crashed 1890s Martian airships. What we really have here is just another example of what I call drooling idiot theory.

Or did Marcel, Blanchard, et. al. know of those two even more obscure 1877-78 Peruvian stories, one of which stayed in Peru until 1979, while another made it into the NY Times contemporaneously as a small joke item (probably buried at the bottom of page 20), which ridiculed it. Obviously another great meme crash bubble was created with incredibly expansive staying power, like a baby universe.

Psychosocial “explanations” are such incredible BS for the most part. Whatever happened at Roswell, it wasn’t caused by highly obscure crash stories from the 1890s or 1870s, most barely known even back then, and almost totally or entirely forgotten by 1947.

Anthony Mugan said...

Thanks Kevin, it is very important to highlight negative results such as this case from the 1890s.
What is striking about Roswell is;:
a) the ease with which proposals for a conventional explanation have, so far, been falsified.
b) the credibility ( using firm objective criteria such as security clearances , positions held etc) of some of the key witnesses.
c) the unavoidability of needing to account for some actual debris.
d) the need to account for the military response to the incident
e) the emerging pattern of a coherence in the physical properties described

None of the above is sufficient to establish the ETH yet, although it is standing up quite well. Most of the documentary evidence points more towards 'organised confusion' in the official response to the phenomena but a number of items don 't fit that picture, not least the Smith / Sarbacher information which is itself consistent with Ruppelt's statement of another group looking at the issue.

We await improvements in the technology of reading fuzzy text (Ramey memo) and watch how theory and experiment progress in a number of fields in relation to our best estimates of how an actual Trufo might operate. What is really interesting is that direction of travel on both these fronts appears consistent with the ETH at this stage

cda said...

Anthony Mugan suggests Roswell has a certain uniqueness that other UFO crash or landing reports of the preceding 50 years do not. Therefore Roswell is 'different'.

It is different in that the military took part in the recovery of whatever it was, whereas previous landings did not, as far as we know, involve the military.

There was no USAF in the 1890s and air transport was non-existent. I suppose the army might have been interested but they were not involved because, unlike Roswell, nobody called them in.

Anthony says that the case for ETH at Roswell "is standing up quite well". Is it? Not to the scientific world. Not to those searching for life in the universe. Not to those in government. It is only 'standing up' to those who want to believe in it, i.e. crashed saucerologists.

In fact the ONLY reason Roswell is treated differently (and this applies partly to Aztec as well) is that the military took a brief interest in the case and actually recovered some hardware. They soon discarded it, however, and it lay dormant for 32 years until a very pro-ET investigator and a writer decided to publicise it.

There is not the slightest reason to suppose that Ruppelt's "other group looking at the issue" (which issue?) had anything to do with the information in the Smith/Sarbacher notes or Smith's Nov. 1950 memo.

Nor do I expect that further improved analysis of the 'Ramey memo' will yield anything useful to the ETHers.

Don Maor said...

In principle, the fact that there were cases of UFO crashes previously to Roswell does not mean that Roswell did not occur. Simply put, If one craft suffered an accident, other may suffer similar accidents in the past or in the future.

The ‘hieroglyphics’ part of many cases, even if true, does not mean too much. We should expect any technological apparatus to have writings on it: manufacturer, model, power, safety and caution signs, emergency button signs, instructions to open gates or activate systes, etc. The language does not really matter, any downed technological craft may have these markings, and ET vehicles should not be the exception.

Of course, our psychosocial psychos assume that all these pre-Roswell cases are hoaxes and therefore Roswell case is necessarily false, only caused by previous tales of false cases. This is a kind of circular reasoning. A more balanced view, is that all of these old cases have little information, and thus we really have no way of rigorously knowing if they were real cases or false alarms. Even Kevin Randle says that he believes that Aurora case was a hoax, but only because he found little information of it.

The point is: if ancient cases are real ones, we should expect some features of old cases will repeat in future cases. The problem is we don’t have a way to know if ancient cases were real or not.

Therefore, it is required to deal with Roswell case by its own merits, which is the approach that I mostly see in the proponents of the ETH cases.

Anthony Mugan said...

Hi CDA
Well, we'll just have to watch how things develop. The other thing worth noting is how some cases fall apart quite quickly when investigated, as the case Kevin described did, whilst others are far more resilient

David Rudiak said...

(1 of 2)
Hi Anthony,

Other crash cases I think with staying power are Shag Harbour and Kecksburg. There's been a lot of investigation of both and instead of everything quickly clearing up, the plot keeps thickening.

I've looked into a few others where they quickly shatter on examination. E.g., Leonard Stringfield in his list of possible crashes (case also in Kevin's "UFO Crashes), had one for June 27, 1979 in the mountains of SE Oregon, near the Idaho border. An ex-Marine/policeman claimed to have aided in a crash retrieval. When he got there, the object was already covered with a tarp on a semi-trailor. It was circular with a low dome. He described srange dull grayish-brown metal pieces, similar to fresh cast iron. Some surfaces were smooth, but larger pieces were very rough, extremely light, and appeared to have been subjected to great heat. Other pieces were crated up and flown out on helicopters.

Sounded interesting. First thing I did was check the NY Times 1979 index for plane crashes. It turned out an Air Force F-111A jet from Mountain Home AFB, Idaho, was reported to have crashed in SE Oregon on 7/31/79, 35 miles south of Jordon Valley, Oregon, near the Idaho border, killing both crew members. The wreckage was discovered by a helicopter search and probably involved helicopters in the recovery. Besides the story in the NY Times, I also found it in the Portland Oregonian, which included a photo of the burned crash site and the names of the two dead pilots.

Despite the slight date difference, this military plane crash was in exactly the same locale given by the witness. I stopped investigating at this point figuring the witness was simply mistaken about what had crashed.

Unless the military pulled a fast one and created an F-111 crash cover story (which I suppose is possible), this case is solved in my book. It didn’t take long.

Another listed crash case I just looked into very recently was the Death Valley flying disc crash of Aug. 19, 1949. According to the newspaper story cited by everybody in the Bakersfield Californian from Aug. 20, 1949, two “prospectors” , "Buck Fitzgerald" and "Mase Gardner" saw a 24-foot “flying disc” crash near Death Valley. Two "small people" emerged and ran off over the sand dunes, where they were quickly lost.

First I looked up the Bakersfield Californian on microfilm. The article was real, an INS story, the wire service of the Hearst newspaper chain. Next I checked the San Francisco Examiner, a Hearst paper. There was the identical story, with an INS dateline of Mojave, CA, July 19, 1949 added.

In some skeptic articles, such as by Martin Kottmeyer, it was noted that Loren Gross thought the "prospectors" were really Frank Scully's sources, Silas Newton and Leo Gebauer. Note, this crash story was still three months before Frank Scully first started talking about crashed saucers with little men in his Variety Magazine column.

Another source said the story of the Death Valley crash was in Scully's book, but I couldn't find it there. But Scully did write of driving up to Mojave only 3 weeks later to meet with Silas Newton and "Dr. G." It turns out they were trying to sell investors on a huge oil field under the area. What were the odds?

But it gets better. Gross knew of an FBI letter to AFOSI that was in Project BB files where somebody was pitching the same basic story on Aug. 7 to a Long Beach radio station. This time the names of the "prospectors" were "Michael McFadden" & "Meyers". "McFadden” told an even more elaborate story of the two small people being heavily clothed running away. "Meyers", who had a “scientific background”, examined the disc and determined it was made principally of calcium, was iridescent and radioactive, with small green wires running through it. "McFadden" still had a sample of it.

David Rudiak said...

(2 of 2)
Documents:
Bakersfield Californian, 8/20/49
http://tinyurl.com/on34jtz

San Francisco Examiner, 8/20/49
http://tinyurl.com/pqvm4xc

Blue Book FBI/OSI letter, 8/17/49
http://tinyurl.com/psp4bm5


The AF quickly wrote this off as "another hoax", although I don't know if they really investigated it. Nonetheless, this is one time where the skeptics got it right. McFadden/Fitzgerald were no doubt aliases of the smooth-tongued Silas Newton, whereas Gardner/Meyers were aliases for Leo Gebauer, or "Dr. G." in Scully's book. Seemingly, Newton first tried pitching the story to the radio station, which didn't bite, then 12 days later tried it with the newspapers, which did bite a little bit.

The question remains where Newton/Gebauer got the idea for the crashed saucers with little men crewing them. Did they make it up entirely on their own, hear general rumors, or actually know people who might have been directly involved in a crash-recovery? The jury is still out as to whether Scully’s book had a germ of truth in it, despite his primary or only sources being Newton/Gebauer. The 1950 Sarbacher interview would indicate that there might have been at least one crash-recovery, when Sarbacher was quoted saying that the facts in Scully’s book were “substantially correct” and that flying saucers did indeed exist, were very highly classified, and didn’t come from here.

Another thing to be learned from this is that true fantasy crashes do not hold up. The Death Valley crash would yield no new witnesses, no matter how much you investigated, since it was a hoax and nothing ever happened. That is also quickly evident from the documentation.

The Oregon crash turned out to be real, but with a wrong date, and was probably the crash of a conventional aircraft. Because it was real with a military connection, you could dig deeper into this one and find more witnesses, maybe file some FOIA’s and get some AF documents on the crash investigation, check to see if two crew members listed as killed were real people with families, etc. Probably in the end, the only reasonable conclusion to be drawn would be it was indeed the crash of an F-111 and the witness either made a simple mistake or decided to make the story more elaborate.

With Roswell, something undoubtedly came down on the Foster Ranch, rancher Brazel certainly thought it important enough to report to the Sheriff and then the Roswell base, head base intel officer Marcel and base commander Blanchard certainly thought it significant enough to investigate further, with Blanchard also ordering head CIC officer Cavitt to assist Marcel. Something was recovered, an official press release was issued saying it was a “flying disc” and was being flown on to “higher headquarters”. Gen. Ramey confirmed high classification ordered from the top and flying it on to Wright Field for further examination before debunking it as a weather balloon. We have an FBI document saying Wright Field didn’t agree with the weather balloon explanation. The story was front page news all over the country and even an international story. Just before all this happened, the AAF at the Pentagon issued another press release saying the flying saucers were definitely NOT “space ships”, maybe a case of protesting too much.

This was no simple hoax, ala Newton/Gebauer. Something crashed, the Air Force admitted it in an oblique way, treated it VERY seriously, imposed high classification, the list of credible witnesses is long telling of something very important and strange happening, you can find newspaper stories all over the place (not to mention the Ramey memo speaking of “victims” and something “in the ‘disc’”), and the Air Force keeps changing the official explanation, even inventing a nonexistent secret balloon flight to try to explain it away and invoking air crash dummies from the future. Despite all efforts by the sceptillians to classify Roswell as a “myth”, the story does not evaporate when investigated. It continues to have legs, and for good reason IMHO.

starman said...

DR wrote:

"Other crash cases I think with staying power are Shag Harbor and Kecksburg."

Las Vegas '62 was technically not a crash case but seems real.

NotRichard said...

Kevin,

One particular part of this fascinating (and perhaps relevant in more ways than one) article leapt out at me as being something you might find interesting:

http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/09/20/worst-manhattan-project-leaks/

"The most interesting story is that Prof. Oppenheimer is working on a beam that will cause the motors to stop so that German planes will drop from the skies as though they were paving blocks.

In support of this there are stories of the experiences of automobile drivers in the vicinity of Los Alamos. According to these their radios and motors stopped suddenly at the same instant and after 15 or 20 minutes suddenly began to operate as usual."

1944!

David Rudiak said...

Starman wrote:

"Las Vegas '62 was technically not a crash case but seems real."

There was certainly a very large, bright fireball and explosion seemingly over west Utah, similar to the recent Chelyabinsk bolide explosion. The flash of the explosion was seen over almost the entire Western U.S., so at least an A-bomb-size or bigger explosion.

The fireball was reported flying west directly over Denver, but we also get reports from Reno of it perhaps doubling back and heading east before exploding. (IF there was this change of direction, then it was no meteor fireball.)

The explosion was immediately followed by a military plane UFO sighting near the ground in Utah and then radar tracking of something unknown NE of Las Vegas.

According to newspaper reports, an airliner also reported something unknown flying BENEATH them. The Air Force admitted jet planes were scrambled from air bases in Reno and Phoenix following the fireball and then the radar tracking. In Las Vegas, it was reported search parties were being sent out to look for a possible plane crash. Then the trail goes cold.

We also know that in the follow-up, the Air Force tried to explain what happened as a combination meteor, U-2 spy plane sighting.

That's what we can document from the newspapers and the official record. SOMETHING clearly happened. There was a mass sighting of the fireball and explosion. Some unknown glowing object was seen from the air by the pilots of at least two planes. The government documents tell us something unknown was tracked on radar soon afterward.

And that's about as far as anybody has been able to take the case. Was it one continuous incident with the fireball/explosion connected to the plane UFO sightings and radar tracking? Or was it two or more incidents close together in time, perhaps a bolide coincidentally followed by the plane sightings/radar tracking/jet scrambles? I don't know.

Anthony Mugan said...

David... Thanks for the info.

starman said...

DR: According to what I've read, the explosion was preceded not followed, by a landing and radar tracking.

David Rudiak said...

Starman,

The radar tracking out of Nellis AFB, Las Vegas, started about 20 minutes after the explosion. It is unclear if what they tracked had anything to do with the explosion.

I have also seen accounts of an object being tracked on radar from Oneida, N.Y. clear cross country, or before the explosion, but I haven't seen any documentation on this.

It is still unclear in my mind whether an object actually landed. There was a large explosion seen and heard near Eureka, Utah, and conflicting accounts of it landing and knocking out the power plant there, vs. merely causing the street lamps to dim in Eureka for a few seconds from the bright light. An Air Force plane crew in the area saw an unknown glowing, cigarette-shaped object between them and the ground seconds after seeing a bright light above them. The written report, however, sounds like the object may still have been airborne rather than on the ground.

It's been hard to get a bead on exactly what happened because of lack of precise times and locations in many instances. E.g., newspapers and the A.F. said a Bonanza airlines pilot reported a glowing object flying beneath him while he was at 11,000 feet, but we don't know where or when, which would be an important data point. If this was at the same time Nellis AFB, Las Vegas, was tracking something on radar for half an hour between 10,000 and 11,000 feet headed NE from Vegas, it was probably the same thing, but we don't know for sure.

David Rudiak said...

Since the blog is dealing mainly with crash stories from the 1896-97 airship era, I know of an 1890 case of a mysterious "airship" throwing down "searchlights". This was supposed to have appeared in the Austin Statesman, precise date unknown.

This story came up again in the Statesman on July 8, 1947, when one of the 1890 witnesses (then a 12-year-old boy) also said he saw a white object similar to the full moon flying at high speed over Austin on July 7. In fact there were a number of sightings over Austin on July 7, the most interesting one by a military plane crew flying out of Austin, who estimated the speed of the round object at over 1400 mph and said it interfered with their radio (EM interference case). I have some details over on my website:

http://www.roswellproof.com/Texas_UFO_Reports.html

I bring up this 1890 "airship" case because it predates the much-scorned 1896 airship cases by half a dozen years and clearly was not influenced by them (unless you believe in time travel explanations for UFO cases). Jan Aldrich put up more of the text on the 1947 Statesman article, which you can read here:

http://www.ufoupdateslist.com/1997/jun/m01-003.shtml

zoamchomsky said...

Another example of wishful "UFO" thinking, the report is from 1897, entitled "Airship Again."

http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth278849/m1/5/

zoamchomsky said...

Not only have there been dozens of analogous non-aerial Collective Delusions over the past thousand years, there were immediate antecedents to the present "UFO" myth and delusion, including Flying Saucer Hysteria of 1947—the background for the original Roswell "Flying Disk" newspaper report.

Being conditioned by a series of newspaper hoaxes concerning the imminent arrival of the fantastic new Airship, entirely predisposed crowds of people saw its lights, heard its motors and the voices of its crew. Then newspapers reported on these completely imaginary sightings of the mysterious Airship and on imaginary crashes in remote locations. Soon, crowds were seeing Airships in every region where newspapers reported "Airship" stories. But there never were any Airships.

American Airship Mania of 1896-97

Edison's Electric Star Illusion of 1897

Canadian Ghost Balloons of 1896-97

New Zealand Zeppelin Scare of 1909

New England Airship Hoax of 1909-10

British Phantom Zeppelin Panic of 1912-13

Phantom German Air Raids and Spy Missions over Canada, America and South America during the World War of 1914-18

The Martian Invasion Panic of 1938

Ghost Aircraft and Balloon Scares Worldwide from 1938-45

European Ghost Rocket Delusion of 1946

Flying Saucer Hysteria of 1947
....

David Rudiak said...

The ZoamBot wrote
"European Ghost Rocket Delusion of 1946"

See what Swedish military intelligence in a Top Secret document told the USAF Europe in 1948 what they thought about the ghost rockets and flying saucers:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1948_Top_Secret_USAF_UFO_extraterrestrial_document.png

"For some time we have been concerned by the recurring reports on flying saucers. They periodically continue to pop up; during the last week, one was observed hovering over Neubiberg Air Base for about thirty minutes. They have been reported by so many sources and from such a variety of places that we are convinced that they cannot be disregarded and must be explained on some basis which is perhaps slightly beyond the scope of our present intelligence thinking.

"When officers of this Directorate recently visited the Swedish Air Intelligence Service, this question was put to the Swedes. Their answer was that some reliable and fully technically qualified people have reached the conclusion that 'these phenomena are obviously the result of a high technical skill which cannot be credited to any presently known culture on earth'. They are therefore assuming that these objects originate from some previously unknown or unidentified technology, possibly outside the earth".

For one thing, some 200 of these "delusions" had been tracked on radar. The radar were "delusional" as well.

"Flying Saucer Hysteria of 1947"

And when USAF intelligence immediately started studying the flying saucer reports, starting with the bests ones by highly experienced pilots, including their own, they quickly came to the conclusion that:

Gen. Schulgen, Pentagon Air Intelligence Study, July 30, 1947: "From detailed study of reports selected for their impression of veracity and reliability,several conclusions have been formed: This 'flying saucer' situation is NOT at all imaginary or seeing too much in some natural phenomena. Something is really flying around."

Gen. Twining, Air Materiel Command study by intelligence and engineering divisions, Sept. 23, 1947: "The phenomenon reported is something real and NOT visionary or fictitious."

USAF Project Sign study, Summer 1948: Flying saucers not only real, but best cases likely extraterrestrial in origin. Report ordered destroyed.

These were the conclusions of the experts who actually studied the data in detail. But modern skeptillians like the ZoamBot PsychoTroll know better. They were all idiots and who suffered from hysteria and delusion, just like the general public.

cda said...

DR:

Some early official thinking and conclusions were undoubtedly leaning towards ETH. The phenomenon was new. You would expect some of the initial thoughts to be biased towards a new phenomenon. So there is nothing surprising in the conclusions in any of these official or semi-official early documents.

E.g. look at the "Estimate of the Situation" (never published, but based on early sighting reports).

Keyhoe was always referring to his informants who told him of how certain high-ups in the military were convinced of ETH. As were a few astronomers, of course. I emphasise 'a few'.

You can say the military 'sobered up' after a while, adopting a more commonsense attitude. But there are always some individual exceptions, of course.

Roswell did NOT feature in anything published at the time. (If DR, or anyone else, disagrees, please produce the relevant source).

Zoam has got his topics from the book "UFOS and Alien Contact" by Bartholomew and Howard. Excellent and rational analysis too.

There is an abundance of stuff on the Swedish ghost rockets (including in the above book), giving a better and saner analysis than the one DR quotes from. Post-war hysteria at its best (or worst)!

David Rudiak said...

cda wrote:
There is an abundance of stuff on the Swedish ghost rockets (including in the above book), giving a better and saner analysis than the one DR quotes from. Post-war hysteria at its best (or worst)!

Yep, as I noted, radar was apparently suffering from "post-war hysteria" as well, some 200 "ghost rockets" being tracked by radar.

Thank you for serving up yet another version of drooling idiot theory. Military technical analysts, along with their twitchy radar sets, were all hysterical little girls, couldn't sort out reality from fantasy, unlike modern skeptoids from their superior perches many decades later who always know better, just because they say so.

Add to the collection of drooling idiots Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg, director of Central Intelligence, who had Gen.'s Jimmy Doolittle and David Sarnoff go to Sweden to investigate. Sarnoff, who practically invented radio broadcasting in the U.S. and was made a general by Eisenhower (a good friend) to handle communications for the D-Day invasion, came back and was quoted Sept. 30, 1946, in the N.Y. Times saying he was "convinced that the 'ghost bombs' are no myth but real missiles." Obviously Sarnoff was suffering from "war nerves" as well, which clearly voided his decades of technical expertise.

Vandenberg, meanwhile, back in August 1946, was sending a Secret memo to Truman telling him the ghost rockets were again quite real, but theorizing they were of Russian tests from the old German rocket research facility at Peenemunde. (No evidence has ever come forward since then to support this theory.) But, key point, they were REAL. In his memo, Vandenberg mentioned Swedish radar tracking from the area around Peenemunde. Idiot! Obviously Vandenberg was suffering from PTSD and belatedly cracking under the strain of WWII. Didn't he know that the radar sets were hallucinating? Too bad Zoambot and CDA weren't there to set him straight.

These inane psychosocial theories obviously serve as a security blanket for the skeptillians.

cda said...

And it was the same Gen Vandenberg that saw sense and killed off the (in)famous "Estimate of the Situation", didn't he?

Of course some will say he did it because he knew it was true (i.e. he knew the Roswell 'truth'). Reasonable people will see that Vandenberg had originally surmised the Ghost rockets were real and from Russian missiles but soon became disenchanted, and had no truck with ETH in any event.

So you do not need Zoambot and myself to set Vandenberg straight. He set himself straight.

Oh and in case DR wants to bring the topic up again, I will merely say that I have no doubt whatever that Vandenberg did NOT:

1. Put the 'Estimate' in the trash can because he knew it was the literal truth.

2. Take the Roswell secret to his early grave.

So much for skeptillology!

Zoam will probably share my views, but would use different phraseology to convey them, I am positive.

Don Maor said...

Hello CDA:

It seems to me that David is refuting the specific claim of ZoamChomsky (Dr. House) in the sense that any and all pre-roswell cases were "non-aerial collective delusions".

It also seems you are avoiding to acknowledge this specific point by quoting irrelevant apparent contradictions of opinions about the ETH, etc. Please read again and reconsider.

David Rudiak said...

As all UFO studies have shown, around 70% to 90% of UFO reports definitely or probably have prosaic explanations. In almost all cases, people DO see something (thus not "hallucinating"), but are misidentifying it, which is something else entirely.

It's the remaining 10%-30% of good, hardcore cases that are the UFO enigma. In fact, this is exactly how the USAF (Twining again, now Chief of Staff) defined "UFO" (or "UFOB") in 1953 in AF Reg 200-2. UFOs were the enigmatic, unsolved cases that remained AFTER investigation by their experts. They also stated UFOs were to be investigated for national security reasons and their "technical aspects".

Of course delusions, hysteria, and hallucinations have no "technical aspects" and only minimal national security implications. AFR 200-2 made it quite clear they were investigating real objects which because of their appearance and/or performance characteristics did NOT conform to conventional flying objects, but they WERE quite real.

The skeptillians like ZoamBot and CDA trying to reduce everything to "hysteria" and "delusion" is their own collective delusion refuted by the official record. Hysteria and delusions are not tracked by radar, nor can you photograph them, nor do they have physical interactions with the environment, such as stalling cars, interfering with radio communications, burning the soil, deactivating weapons systems, etc.

So some mild public "hysteria" or anxiety during well-publized UFO waves, which probably has some limited basis in fact, gets converted into everybody is wildly hysterical and suffering from "delusions", including, apparently radar sets that may simultaneously be detecting the same thing.

But as CDA himself says, that's skeptillology!

David Rudiak said...

The ZoamBot wrote:
Being conditioned by a series of newspaper hoaxes concerning the imminent arrival of the fantastic new Airship, entirely predisposed crowds of people saw its lights, heard its motors and the voices of its crew. Then newspapers reported on these completely imaginary sightings of the mysterious Airship and on imaginary crashes in remote locations. Soon, crowds were seeing Airships in every region where newspapers reported "Airship" stories. But there never were any Airships.

American Airship Mania of 1896-97

Edison's Electric Star Illusion of 1897

[snip-yada yada]

European Ghost Rocket Delusion of 1946

Flying Saucer Hysteria of 1947


Check out Billy Cox's blog where the ZoamBot wrote EXACTLY the same thing:

http://devoid.blogs.heraldtribune.com/13848/the-muzzle-of-hidden-events/

I don't call him the ZoamBot for nothing. The guy is like a telemarketing robocaller recording.

Bill Cox's hilarious comment about "Zoam":

"I think you’d have a more reasoned conversation about God with an Appalachian snake-handler speaking glossolalia than you would with Zoam."

Anthony Mugan said...

An interesting question connected to this post is why earlier waves of such reports fizzled out whilst 1947 marked the start of a meme that continues to this day. In large part the level of official response in the USA and the debate within the intelligence community seems key to this in that this debate became at least partially public via Keyhoe etc.
The discussion above references what seems to me to be a curious decision point in this process, the 1948 decision to reject Air Technical's estimate and the competing AF intelligence report which suggested the reports may relate to Russian technology, whilst emphasising misidentifications.
It has always struck me as a curious decision, if the standard narrative is 100% complete, to reject both sets of analysis from the recognised specialists and move to a Project Grudge type position. At the very least the AF intelligence proposal that they may relate to Russian technology may have been a reasonable possibility at the time, although not too long after that time.
I would suggest that the references in Ruppelt's work describing another group that studied the problem, his description of the reporting chain in 1952 as feeding back to both his own chain if command and 'a Major General from R&D', taken together with the Smith memo and Sarbacher's comments fit together quite well. This information suggests that there was probably a two tier approach with Grudge and later BB acting as a data collection / filtering function for a less public second tier study within the RDB.
Regardless of if UFOs turned out to be alien, Russian or entirely misidentifications the implications for the public face of policy remain largely unchanged. It is important that the public doesn't worry its pretty little head about such matters.

The irony is that by having a level of 'sober concern', as Hillenkoetter put it, regarding the UFO question the military intelligence community inadvertently created the meme we have today once their internal debates began to leak.

zoamchomsky said...

DR placing so much emphasis on radar ignores the obvious fact that radar is an ambiguous tool that requires human interpretation. Humans are fallible and disposed to social delusions.

It's like the old story about Hynek's dismissal of the PSH with the observation that many "UFO" cases involve animals' reactions. To which the skeptic replied, "How many animals have made 'UFO' reports?"

zoamchomsky said...

DR; If you think those lists are "EXACTLY" the same then have your eyes checked. (g)

And yes, Believer Billy's expression of frustration with scientific skeptics and the PSH is hilarious. It's very regional, let's say, and writerly. Billy talks a lot about what he calls "The Great Taboo." It's very obviously a straw-man of his imagination.

But Billy is a likeable fellow, even if he does fall for silly things like Kean's Chilean fly on video tape. A trick that's being repeated in the US. It's this sort of stuff of which the "UFO" myth has always been composed.

David Rudiak said...

Anthony Mugan wrote:

This information suggests that there was probably a two tier approach with Grudge and later BB acting as a data collection / filtering function for a less public second tier study within the RDB.

Yes, that's the way I see it too. The lower level to collect the basic data, such as different types of craft, how many are there, how are they distributed and where are they most often seen, what are the flight characteristics, etc.?

The higher level tries to figure out what it all means: who are they, why are they here, what are the national security implications, how do we counter them, can we back-engineer the technology, etc.?

Ruppelt certainly drops broad hints of the higher level, at least 3 times in his book.

As you say, one difference between modern and older times is we had/have the military and intelligence agencies invesigating, not just the peasants reporting. We also have the technology to think about and analyze such things, which didn't exist in the past. (Radar being just one such thing back in 1946-47. Now we would have satellite surveillance.)

However, I don't think the "meme" hung around just because military/intelligence took it seriously. It hung around, I believe, because we have reached a level of technology that we have become a concern to them. We can speculate all day why that might be, from fear that we will destroy a vast genetic repository on Earth that they use for their own purposes, to us soon going out there and being a threat them with our warlike ways and nukes. Whatever, we are the target of an ongoing surveillance of some kind.

I think one of the most telling documents I've ever seen was the letter written by Dr. Olavo Fuentes to APRO back in 1957, based on a briefing he said he received from two Brazilian Naval intelligence officers. The militaries and governments of the world were engaged in a massive coverup, though civilian authorities being largely cut out of it, because of the planetary security concerns. The aliens were hostile and dangerous; many planes and pilots had been lost. They feared we were being invaded, or at least a police action was in effect to keep us quarantined on this planet. We had no means of defense and the heavy-handed, global coverup was necessary to prevent mass panic and social breakdown.

It would take a mindset like that to explain a global coverup, including cooperation between nations on at least this one topic, when they can't seem to agree on hardly anything else.

zoamchomsky said...

"...why earlier waves of such reports fizzled out whilst 1947 marked the start of a meme that continues to this day."

Simple answer: the creation of the atom bomb and a state of continuous cold war.

Besides the public optimism about technological progress expressed by airship manias, earlier "UFO" scares were the direct results of the threat of war. Today we exist in a constant state of war anxiety, even if subliminally, and the threat of nuclear incineration, the death of civilization, and the poisoning of the very stuff of life on Earth is a real danger. We're haunted by an ineffable cosmic demon, expressed by the cryptic "U.F.O."

Why do you think the Grays are collecting eggs and semen? Why are the Pleiadians so concerned about us? (g)

zoamchomsky said...

DR writes: "we have become a concern to them."

You can't even show that there are real "UFOs" of any kind, much less visiting ET spacecraft or a "them." But you're venturing into anthropomorphic motives here like some old Contactee. Geez, DR, do you have any idea how extremely implausible interstellar travel must be for any civilization? Random radiations are caustic. The faster one travels, the more massive he becomes, space becomes impenetrable.

If there were somehow starfaring civilizations out there, their biologies would hardly be ours, their motives ours. But DR, as with mythologies before, can only project human concerns onto the cosmos.

"The militaries and governments of the world were engaged in a massive coverup, though civilian authorities being largely cut out of it, because of the planetary security concerns. The aliens were hostile and dangerous; many planes and pilots had been lost. They feared we were being invaded, or at least a police action was in effect to keep us quarantined on this planet. We had no means of defense and the heavy-handed, global coverup was necessary to prevent mass panic and social breakdown."

This is the plot of a 1960s science-fiction conspiracy TV show you're relating here, Mr Vincent.

"It would take a mindset like that to explain a global coverup, including cooperation between nations on at least this one topic, when they can't seem to agree on hardly anything else."

So close, DR! The absolute impossibility of such a coverup is just one of the real-world fatal flaws of the ETH. Another is the fact that fifty years of global nearspace surveillance has observed not one ET spacecraft in orbit or in Earth's atmosphere, while people are making mundane "UFO" reports of every kind. That's a real-world proof of Shaeffer's Null hypothesis: Everything is exactly the same, there just aren't any real "UFOs" of any kind--only ambiguous stimuli and culturally supplied motifs composing "UFO" reports.

Over a century of innumerable, insubstantial and utterly inconsequential "UFO" reports have not produced one real "UFO" of any kind. Anyone who is undecided on the subject should consider that fact, focusing on the complete and utter inconsequentiality of it all.

zoamchomsky said...

Surely there's at least one here who hasn't seen this "flying submarine" illustration from 1890.

http://www.gloubik.info/livres/robida/images/robida-25.jpg

Depicting an electric-powered human-piloted fighter aircraft in the year 2000!

Tesla radio-powered "flying saucers" began appearing on the covers of Gernsback's "Modern Electrics" by 1910.

Robida remercier pour la soucoupe volante!

Gilles Fernandez said...

In David Rudiak's world, there are not Human filter(s) and NOTHING concerning the Human Psychology when interpreting radar, photographies, physical interactions, videos, newspapers, etc.

Human variables dont exist when Rudiak have an input-output by a "machine". That's Rudiak... He is a man abble to interpretate machine's information dataes without to be an human when interpreting input-output dataes...

David is trancending Human.

Machines exist and speack for and by themselves and have a "soul" and self-regard on their inputs-outputs in David's view of our world, it seems. He is an ufologist after all...

Thank you very much, David, one more time, it was a great moment to read you and how you feel the real world and inputs-outputs of machines.

***
Concerning the 1896/97 airships wave, Zoam is right (imho) about the mass (or not - local I mean -) delusion pist in the sens of Robert E. Bartholomew & Goode works and meanings. Very good readings to have.

Among other evidences to support it, it exists PRIOR the wave, patents, as illustration in the same Californian newspapers which will "promote and made a social contagion" of this airships wave, ie the princeps sightings of this wave.

Prior patents and illustration showing the same airships and their "components" we will see in the wave.

E.T. have adapted itself to the "local" culture prior the wave to make an incursion after, will defend Doctor David Rudiak.

It cant be a sociopsychological hypothesis, mass delusion here... Thatt's not serious to be skeptical on what present ufologists concerning the Airships wave.

Sacred David...

Regards,

Gilles

Gilles Fernandez said...

PS:

Just an example of what presented a Californian newspapers BEFORE (in september) the wave and BEFORE the two princeps sightings in the local area. I have other examples, but that's for my blog.

http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/8/2010/04/sfflm

David Rudiak said...

Radar experts Gilles and ZoamBot should immediately convey their vital psychosocial BS insights into the total unreliability of radar to the FAA, NORAD, all militaries of the world, all air traffic controllers, all airlines, etc., etc., who rely on radar 24/7/365 to keep our planes from colliding with one another, keep ground-hugging military aircraft from colliding with the ground, determine if we are being attacked by missiles, reading the weather, and on and on. Same with ships at sea who foolishly rely on radar to keep from colliding with other ships or running aground.

After all, all instrumentation must ultimately be interpreted by delusional humans suffering from daily hysteria about running into other planes and ships or the ground. That would certainly leave me in state of perpetual anxiety, and thus totally unable to properly interpret what my instruments are clearly telling me.

Why even stop at radar? How about GPS, altimeters, sonar, etc. Can't trust any of it. No doubt even autopilots totally unfiltered by human interpretation suffer from delusions and hysteria as well.

Then there are known cases of radiation spikes associated with UFO sightings, such as the ones mentioned by Ruppelt in his book over Los Alamos and Oak Ridge, also in FBI and CIA documents. Damn, even the Geiger counters are delusional and hysterical. I'm not too sure about my thermostat either.

Or maybe, in Psycho PsychoSocial world, all these things are reliable EXCEPT when they pick up anomalies we call UFOs. Then, and ONLY then, can none of them ever be trusted, not even once, because the human operators who interpret the readings are ALL prone, yes every single one, to mass hysteria and delusional thinking because they read comic books and go to movies, thus are contaminated with psychosocial memes.

The ONLY humans seemingly immune to such weaknesses are the PyschoSocial rationalists, who know everything.

And that, folks, is psychosocial skeptillogy at its most idiotic best.

Anonymous said...

And this is why I love coming here. David slam dunks this in the faces of naysayers who surround themselves in the company of Rich and his "holier than thou" group.

Gilles Fernandez said...

Doctor Rudiak in his Splendor... None have asked to stop at radar, GPS, etc. Or to be back at the Bronze Age...

It is how you (Ufologists Doctor rudiak) interpret input-output of machines in order to serve your belief on the UFO myth which was questionned. Nothing other.

Hoo... Radiations made by "therefore alien" now.
No other possibilities in your equation..
Aliens only. Interresting, Doctor Rudiak. I'm pseudo-skeptic and you a true skeptic!

I'm sure a "Doctor" like you, David Rudiak, would be able to explain not explained cases, concerning murders, accidents, disparitions, conflagrations, rapes and so on, by "therefore aliens". Applying your same standards and methodology concerning UFO/IFO corpus ;)

Despite a very vast majority of these corpus cases received prosaïc explanations and have constituted an explained corpus.

Such corpus have non explained cases, as your chimera, aka UFO cases (versus IFO). That's statistical to have residual corpus ;)

I post again my extract of Luc Besson's Movie. It applies (I think) to Doctor David Rudiak I want to believe syndrome.

Enjoy Doctor David Rudiak, this extract :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oSJdSL8YOE

Regards,

Gilles

Anonymous said...

More quotes and fancy words to create fireworks in place of sound information to backup ones own OPINION.
Now that the smoke has cleared, please re-read what David has said as you obviously missed all of it within sound reason.

And being how much older than me Gilles, you still find it important to quote David as "Doctor". As if implying a joke or implying it as false.
Aren't men your age over the high school level of arguing and fireworks and fussing?

Bring more to the table next time than your mouth and maybe everyone will walk away better off!

Don Maor said...

Wowo. There seems to be a flap of trolls here. I ask why in the world, if the ETH proponents of this blog are irremediable irrationals, why in the world the typical skeptic bother to come here. -What motivates them to see what some deluded guys have to tell?

Gilles is a psychologist. Therefore, he should care of the apparently fragile and deluded minds of the ETH proponents. Instead of it, he tries to humilliate those poor and febrile minds. Highly recomendable for pacients who would like to be mocked by their doc.

In the meantime, zoamDr.housesky gospels the principles of the skepticism as if they were the holy truth: "space travel is impossible", "they would not be interested in us", etc., etc., etc.

Gilles Fernandez said...

Poor image of what cognitive psychology is, by Don Maor.

Troll yourself BTW.

There are "not patients and doctors" interactions in Cognitive Psychology. What a naive thinking point of view (not surprising me coming from you).

Dunno from where came such mental representations you have about Cognitive Psychology. Probably like your own representation concerning UFO.

All concerning Psychology is amalgamed to psychanalysis/psychatry where you have "a doctor and a patient".
Open a book, and read what Cognitive Psychology is. And come after.

Regards,

Gilles

cda said...

The reason, Don Maor, why skeptics bother to come to these debates is that occasionally, certain ET proponents say things that are so dotty that they require some sort of response.

Occasionally skeptics say things that sound a bit dotty, in which case the UFO proponents (NOT necessarily the same as ET proponents) point this out to the said skeptics.

In other words, this becomes a healthy debate (or maybe an unhealthy one).

Most, in fact almost all, of the scientific world, ignores this endless prattle about abductions and crashed saucers, because they know it has got nowhere and never will. And they know Roswell is a complete and utter dud.

But we, shall we say the more enlightened, whether believer or skeptic, like to continue to try and outsmart our opponents.

But at heart, I think we all realise we are getting nowhere, nowhere at all.

Don Maor said...

Hello Gilles:

Well thanks to god (if exists) you are not a therapist. Anyway, your research (on cognition and beliefs) will probably (with some luck) be used by therapists. You should be tuned with the overall goals of psychology, should not you?

Don Maor said...

Hello CDA:

Thanks for your responses. Please let me ask you two questions: Can the UFO-ET hypothesis be harmful to humanity in some way? Is your goal to discourage the ETH proponents?

cda said...

Don:

My goal is to get the ETH proponents to prove their case, preferably by getting hold of actual wreckage, alien bodies or official documentation. They have had long enough. Get on with it.

Instead all the ETHers do is produce endless 'witnesses' (none of whom would recognise a real ET if they saw one), second and third-hand story tellers, and then claim the US government has all the hard evidence stashed away in top secret cabinets!

Of course there is nothing harmful to humanity from the UFO-ET hypothesis. Hasn't Erich von Daniken 'proved' we were visited by ETs in the distant past anyway?

So what's new about ETs?

Anthony Mugan said...

The question of what constitutes proof is an interesting question. Strictly speaking it is not possible to formally prove any hypothesis ( outside of mathematical or logical formalisms). In practice it is almost impossible for any hypothesis outside the current paradigm to be accepted until that paradigm fails. So question is... Just what would constitute proof of the ETH at this time? Perhaps an object clearly known to exist displaying intelligent control, creating physical effects and with well measured performance characteristics clearly outside any terrestrial technology or known natural phenomena....?
Probably not I presume

zoamchomsky said...

"It is how you (Ufologists Doctor rudiak) interpret input-output of machines in order to serve your belief on the UFO myth which was questionned. Nothing other."

Exactly, Gilles. DR does this stupid ufoolergist false comparison trick repeatedly and pretends it's not blatantly fallacious. Radar (or any tool) is reliable for real-world events but not for the purported extraordinary, as any reasonable person knows. Extraordinary claims require much more evidence than the mundane, period. (Recently DR argued falsely that Mrs Trent being a flying-saucer repeater did not damage her credibilty because real-world events sometimes repeat themselves. Baloney!)

Whenever a light is sighted in the night skies that is believed to be a UFO and this is reported to a radar operator, who is asked to search his scope for an unknown target, almost invariably an "unknown" target will be found. Conversely, if an unusual target is spotted on a radarscope at night that is suspected of being a UFO, an observer is dispatched or asked to search for a light in the night sky, almost invariably a visual sighting will be made. --Klass UFOs: The Public Deceived p304

But DR would rather believe that mundane anomalous propagation could be or is visiting ET spacecraft. And when one believes in the "UFO" delusion or a paranoid delusion of any kind, everything is confirming evidence that his delusion is reality.

zoamchomsky said...

"...I think we all realise we are getting nowhere, nowhere at all."

Because it's not intended to? What purpose has any collective delusion served? None.

Another, more neutral, answer to Anthony's question is that the entire subject: the history of the myth and delusion, all reports ever, all media coverage, all books ever written about it, and all the activities of believers, skeptics, critics and theorists alike is simply mass-media static, psychosocial noise generated by the fact that world mass communications exist. As aviation and aerospace advanced, as the various media developed and the subject's currency was repeatedly proven, the subject became a semipermanent feature of the continuously evolving, pervasive media.

Utimately, as I argued at Bad UFOs, the psychosocial milieu will change and the "UFO" will be forgotten, to be replaced by some new social delusion. But as it is: "UFO" is the icon of antiscience; belief in "UFOs" is antintellectual obscurantism; those who profess and practice belief in the "UFO" delusion expose their studied antiscientific contrarianism with every fallacious appeal and every irrational claim.

zoamchomsky said...

Two interesting websites:

http://airminded.org/archives/mystery-aircraft/

http://www.anthroufo.info/au-soc.html

zoamchomsky said...

"Just what would constitute proof of the ETH at this time?"

"Why, something that we can only explain in terms of extraterrestrial visitations - something alien."

http://www.oocities.org/area51/corridor/8148/bzresp.html

starman said...

"Can the UFO-ET hypothesis be harmful to humanity in some way?"

If proven yes, it might be harmful, not necessarily to humanity, but much of the status quo.

Anthony Mugan said...

Conscious we are well off topic but I hope it is OK to pursue this discussion a little further.

Zoam, you suggest that a belief in UFOs is anti-scientific . I agree.

In fact a belief in anything is unscientific ( which I prefer to anti-scientific). All theories are tentative and can only falsified and never proven in a critical rationalist framework. In principle we tentatively accept those theories that appear to survive testing the best. In practice this only occurrs for ideas that fit within the current paradigm, with those outside it not being accepted regardless of evidence until the old paradigm collapses . Plate Tectonics is a classic example from the twentieth century , but all this is widely accepted.

I would suggest therefore that we need to be a little more precise in defining what would constitute actual evidence for the ETH, ie, precisely what tests does it have to pass

If I were to present a sample of events with primary data sources showing correlated radar visual observations of an object that engaged in movements suggestive of control, perhaps with physical effects I am sure the end result would be an argument that the radar aspect was AP or mult-trip echoes, ghosting or perhaps spoofing etc etc whilst the visual observer misidentified a star or a planet, plane or balloon etc etc.
In many cases this argument would be right, or there would be insufficient data to eliminate these possibilities. The problem arises when sufficient data is available to eliminate all these options.

In the later scenario I would contest that belief, and it's consequence of cognitive dissonance, tears its head . When you suggest above that interstellar travel is impossible you make a very strong claim. If you were to say it is impractical with current technology then clearly we would agree on that, but impossible... I shan't go into the many possible approaches to this but if you believe, really truly believe with all your heart that it is absolutely impossible for the ETH to be correct then you will dismiss any data.

It reminds me of the conversation Ruppelt described all those years ago after the Florida Scoutmaster case ( evidence of EM fields heating soil without heating plants above the surface). How much more evidence do you need, he was asked by a colleague, to which he replied that that was a 'good question'

I agree with Ruppelt on that one. There is evidence to support the ETH, but it will not ever be good enough unless the current paradigm collapses. If the ETH is correct then it is not in the interest of anyone in a position of responsibility to hasten that day.

Anthony Mugan said...

Part 2 of 2
So. To conclude...
Is it possible specify a set of criteria for an event that would be accepted as evidence in favour of the ETH ( not proof, as that is not possible, in principle)?

My first tentative attempt at this might include:
Original primary source data
Multiple types of data ( e.g . radar visual or visual with ground effects etc)
Data collection and recording methodology suggests data can be considered sufficiently robust to allow for analysis within acceptable error limits.
No contra-indications of fraud etc.
Quantitative analysis is possible and all mundane solutions can be positively rejected.
Clear indications of performance characteristics that can not be adequately explained by known terrestrial technology or known natural phenomena.
The event occurred sufficiently long ago ( ten years?) to rul out experimental or classified technology.

The above is just my current very tentative thinking and I would welcome any suggestions on how to improve this set of criteria. I would further suggest that a significant minority of UFO cases meet this criteria ( e.g. Martin Shough's RADCAT is very thorough, in my opinion) and that this therefore lends support to the ETH.

The only other game in town for some of these extreme cases such as Ellsworth 1953 or Tehran 1976 is Persinger's TSL hypothesis but I can not see how to get electromagnetic effects that could produce the patterns of behaviour observed. ( and no, I'm not remotely tolerant of some if the pseudo- scientific drivel that passes for supposed explanations of some of these cases, but then if you truly, deeply believe... I mean really believe that the ETH is impossible, then any old load of rubbish is better than accepting the cognitive dissonance the data would produce)

cda said...

Anthony:

Problems with your last two cases. Ellsworth sounds very good because Ruppelt thought so. Now see Condon Report p.132 (Gordon D.Thayer)

Tehran: See Klass "UFOs The Public Deceived" chap 14.

Things are not always what they seem, even if 'experts' say so.

Don Maor said...

Klass tried to discredit and damage the professional lifes of other ufologists. Clearly enough, he was cheating here, and thus was emotionally involved. Therefore, his UFO explanations are not trustable.

The primigenial UFO skeptic, Dr. Menzel, was emotionally involved too. S. Friedman, in his book "Top Secre / Magic", mentions an event in which Menzel almost suffered a heart attack when Dr. J. E. Mcdonald gave a pro-UFO speech during the congressional hearings of 1968.

Therefore, we simply cannot trust the efforts and theories of the skeptic prophets Menzel and Klass because they had gone emotionally psychotic about UFOs.

Anthony Mugan said...

Hello CDA

As I was saying, I have very little tolerance of either of those proposed explanations. The Colorado commission view of Ellsworth can only work if one deliberately ignores significant amounts if data in the primary sources which flatly contradict it. As for klass' ideas on Tehran, well, I prefer to keep things polite but I can see why some people get very angry indeed at things like that. Proposed explanations should at least not be in direct contradiction of the data. The only thing I can think of that could account for such poor work from people who had such ability is cognitive dissonance...it just had to be lights, stars, planets, radar anomalies and malfunctiions etc even if that means fudging the data.

Gilles Fernandez said...

Don wrote: Klass tried to discredit and damage the professional lifes of other ufologists. Clearly enough, he was cheating here, and thus was emotionally involved. Therefore, his UFO explanations are not trustable.

Don Schmitt (actualy member of the D.T.) tried to "increase" his professional life and his C.V. for his Public and Readers, and lied. Clearly enough, he was cheating here, and he was emotionally involved. Therefore, his Roswell investigations are not trustable.

It works in this sens, for you too, Don, or?

Regards,

Gilles

David Rudiak said...

Gilles wrote:
Don wrote: Klass tried to discredit and damage the professional lifes of other ufologists. Clearly enough, he was cheating here, and thus was emotionally involved. Therefore, his UFO explanations are not trustable.

Don Schmitt (actualy member of the D.T.) tried to "increase" his professional life and his C.V. for his Public and Readers, and lied. Clearly enough, he was cheating here, and he was emotionally involved. Therefore, his Roswell investigations are not trustable.

It works in this sens, for you too, Don, or?


Gilles F. clearly misrepresented psychological false memory research, such as by Elizabeth Loftus (~25% of subjects max, after repeated badgering by the researcher, will say they vaguely remember something happening to them which never happened), in order to claim ALL Roswell witnesses are "contaminated" with false memories.

Clearly enough, Gilles was cheating here, and he was emotionally involved. Therefore, his Roswell claims are not trustworthy.

Hey, this is fun! Can anybody play this game?

Don Maor said...

Oh come on Gilles! Klass' sins are much worst. Oh I see. Given you are a somewhat cruel psychologist, you cannot see the difference.

KRandle said...

Gilles -

First, this about Don Schmitt is not appropriate for this posting, which has ranged far from the original intent.

Second, if you are going to condemn him for misdeeds some 20 years ago and not allow for growth and regret for the misinformation, then nearly all of us will be eliminated from this discussion.

Third, should I go over Philip Klass' misinformation, distortion, exaggeration and false hoods about his UFO investigations... The mayor of Socorro owned the land where Zamora saw the UFO and the moving of his witness who heard nothing from inside the house to the outside as just two minor examples.

This is old news, and when you get into the investigations, but this point, the information he supplied has been reviewed and where necessary, corrected. Can you say the same about Philip Klass?

Again, this is all inappropriate water under the bridge, and frankly, doesn't belong in this discussion. We all know about it.

zoamchomsky said...

"All theories are tentative and can only falsified and never proven in a critical rationalist framework. [So] belief in anything is unscientific (which I prefer to anti-scientific)."

Anthony; I suggest that you might reconsider your formulation because the reality is more complex. We do not live in scientific hypotheses, we live in the one and only real world. We have direct experience of brute facts and form true beliefs about the world; the products of the scientific method further inform our real-world experience.

Unscientific hypotheses are those that have been falsified and superceded by others. They exist in the realm of the dismissed and the least likely to ever be revived; we refer to them as pseudoscience. To ignore the rules of falsification, evidence and reason to advocate a pseudoscience is to engage in antiscience. To specifically deny objective knowledge is possible by twisting falsification theory into radical skepticism to promote continued belief in the "UFO" delusion is antiscience.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiscience

Don Maor said...

Zoam ¿you are scientist?

David Rudiak said...

ZoamTroll wrote:
Unscientific hypotheses are those that have been falsified and superceded by others. They exist in the realm of the dismissed and the least likely to ever be revived; we refer to them as pseudoscience. To ignore the rules of falsification, evidence and reason to advocate a pseudoscience is to engage in antiscience. To specifically deny objective knowledge is possible by twisting falsification theory into radical skepticism to promote continued belief in the "UFO" delusion is antiscience.

I guess I missed the memo where UFOs had been "falsified", that is shown CONCLUSIVELY not to exist.

In fact, that would be IMPOSSIBLE scientifically. It would require showing that literally every single UFO report ever made could unambiguously be shown to have a prosaic explanation. No detailed UFO investigation EVER has reached such a conclusion.

Instead we have the ZoamBots claiming they are ALL due to delusions and hysteria. Really? Perhaps ZoamTroll can point us to any official study that ever came to that conclusion.

Even Project Blue Book statistics show that at most maybe 1 or 2% are actual hoaxes or "psychological" in origin, i.e. the reporter is slightly or completely nuts.

And before Blue Book got its marching orders in 1953 to start debunking everything they possibly could, the percentage of unknowns was over 20%. This was true even with its predecessor, the debunking Project Grudge. (Of course, Project Sign before than concluded that not only were they real, but ET in origin.)

This was "UFO" as Gen. Twining in AFR-200 defined it: any aerial object which by virtue of unusual shape and/or flight performance could not be identified, even after investigation by their experts, as any conventional aircraft or other aerial object. They were to be studied for their "technical aspects" and for national security reasons.

Apparently Twining also didn't get the memo that UFOs had been "falsified" and had no objective reality.

Even the good old debunking Condon Commission, with Edward Condon badly massaging his own investigators' data to arrive at a totally negative conclusion, never said they explained ALL of the UFO cases they studied away. About a third remained on the books as unexplained.

No investigation has ever remotely stated that literally every UFO case had a prosaic explanation, and a number of them instead came to the opposite conclusion, that UFOs were quite real objects of advanced design and of unknown origin.

So where is the "objective knowledge" that UFOs don't exist? Where is the "falsification"? It's just more argument by assertion by ZoamTroll, inserting his own religious beliefs on the subject as "objective" fact and laughingly trying to portray himself as the defender of the scientific method, which he clearly hasn't a clue about.

Anthony Mugan said...

Zoam... You really do need to think through the logic of your most recent post and perhaps reflect on the history of science a little more. I am sure we shall never agree on this issue but I think I shall now rest my case. As you very clearly would never accept any evidence in favour of the ETH there seems little value in further discussion.

Gilles Fernandez said...

@ Doctor Rudiak, the absolute UFO advocat wrote:
Gilles F. clearly misrepresented psychological false memory research, such as by Elizabeth Loftus (~25% of subjects max, after repeated badgering by the researcher, will say they vaguely remember something happening to them which never happened), in order to claim ALL Roswell witnesses are "contaminated" with false memories.
Clearly enough, Gilles was cheating here, and he was emotionally involved. Therefore, his Roswell claims are not trustworthy."

You are the only cheater here and incompetent, as many ufologist like you.

First, they are experiments with more than 25% of false memories induced.

Secondly: Ufologists like you, who we wait you present your ineptia in a peer-rewiever scientific paper, have selected their own sample as if it was a 100% right and not a selection by yourself, David (or by Ufologist).
You are out the cannon of Science. Normal, you are an ufologist!

Gilles Fernandez said...

Kevin,
The "slides" Saga is one other proof or evidence that what you stated about Schmitt before is "correct".
Face you in the mirror, "my friend", concerning what you know, wrote or think about these slides...

Cant help for this, and it is your problem to insist again and again to "defend" Don, your team mate, or to have teamed with others (like Rudiak) as if such a team will produce an agnostic RE-investigation concerning the Roswell case...

Seriously, Kevin...

Take a look of your teamers: the conclusions concerning Roswell have been written before by them, and despite your previous RED FLAG about one your own team mate...

I expect nothing agnostic or new by your team regarding the roswell myth. Same processings and bad methodology.

Regards,

Gilles

Don Maor said...

Hello Gilles,

Where can I take a look at a scientific paper from you? for example, one paper on cognitive psychology, or about the topic "why people believe weird things", etc. Thanks.

Gilles Fernandez said...

Hello Don,

Again, it seems you are far, very far away Sciences, Epistemology and the burden of Evidence when People (like UFO proponents) claim extraordinary statments (aka: an alien spacecraft crashed in Roswell in 1947 or ET is visiting us).
Ask first such ones to produce a scientific paper.
They have, here, the burden of proof...

For my papers concerning cognitive psychology, Google is your friend.

Regards,

Gilles

Gilles Fernandez said...

David,

For example, and only concerning the misinformation effect concerning falses memories chapter, a reviewed subset of experiments done by Linday et al. in 2004 showeds a mean percentage of 31% subjects whom the effect have been induced.

Calling only "false memories" as if it is the ONLY variable keptics invoke to hypothesize and to argue Roswell is probably a sort of retrospective falsification, is a reductionism by your part.
That's more complex than your attempt to reduce the skeptic approach of the Roswell case consisting to claim "Skeptics think Roswell is only a false memories problem". Nono.

There are many variables "in game": ONE is the fact that the investigators, despite all honnesty some have (ie: Kevin) have no one formation and competence to drive interviews with witnesses. They dont use standard protocoles like the one used in psychology, criminology, by Historians, Ethnologists, Folklorists, etc. in order to control or minimize several variables (suggestion/suggestibility cognitive interactions between the interviewer/interwieved ie.).

Another ONE of them is the possible selective sample of witnesses choosen in the books and by some investigators. Just one example, it concernes the "nurse's saga" and McCarthy findings (read OMNI Vol. 17, No. 8, Fall 1995).
He was abble to interview one of the Roswell nurse (Rosemary J. Brown if not a false memory by me), and despite she have been approached by the pro ETH investigators, the same investigator as before choose to not include her in the Gospels, probably because she have nothing sensationalist to said.
How many first-hand witnesses approached and the investigators "cheating" in order to not include them in the Gospels, because telling things not in accordance with their ETH bias concerning Roswell? I have no idea.
Where is first-hand witness legacy done by Lorenzo Kimball in the first Gospels - only for one example again -? And so on.

So, if you make probabilities or examine "statistics" only basing you on a highly possible "biased" sample of witnesses, what a curious methodology...

Yes, I vaguely remember in previous exchanges, you (David) calculated probabilities concerning the sample of witnesses alleguing "Brazel was in custody/escorted by MPs" (or something like it, you write so many things - sometimes very interresting I must say - and I'm not your biograph).

First, I dont think to calculate probabilities a posteriori is a good method and there is a bias in statistic called a posteriori probability bias.
Second, allow me to question your sample (see before how investigators make selective sample of witnesses).
Thirdly, there exists a "control group" of witnesses concerning this aspect of the myth (Brazel NOT escorted/NOT in custody to be short) provided by Pflock: if you use your same methodology to them, you have the same result and conclusion "They are not lying" (to be short). So your probability approach goes no where (it is reversible to another sample(s) of witnesses).

Regards,

Gilles.

cda said...

DR also made the claim:

"Of course, Project Sign before that concluded that not only were they real, but ET in origin."

Not so. No AF project has ever come to such a conclusion.

Certain INDIVIDUALS or small subgroups (such as those involved in the infamous "Estimate of the Situation") did, for a period, entertain this idea, along with scientists of all kinds, from time to time. And why not?

None of these amounted to more than the opinions of some early commentators/writers confronted with what was then a new phenomenon.

Even the document DR quotes about the ghost rockets of Scandinavia being thought at one time to be possibly due to ET craft is just that, one speculative document. We simply do not know who were the people who uttered these words and decided the objects were possibly ET visitors. It may have been just one person. It is certainly useless as an official conclusion of any kind, both then and now.

zoamchomsky said...

DR; Absence of progress is one of the hallmarks of pseudoscience, so habitually referencing a very few sixty-year-old opinions isn't helping you. Opinions voiced during incipient flying-saucer hysteria were all but worthless and inconsequential. Many more rational others knew that flying-saucer reports were merely the latest expression of war jitters, as phantom-aircraft reports had been for half a century.

The "UFO" hypothesis has always been the least likely explanation for reports of the failure to identify. The "UFO" hypothesis is illogical--a negative "unidentified" cannot be a positiven identity--unless the reporter is predisposed to some media-supplied identity: airships, ghost balloons, rockets or flying saucers. After each episode of mass-media generated hysteria, it was obvious there never were any "UFOs" of the kind imagined; and the mass-hysteria explanation was confirmed yet again.

So that's the model for over a century, in repeated real-world testing, the "UFO" hypothesis has been falsified; the Psychosocial hypothesis is reaffirmed as fact.

Where have all the saucers gone? Truth is, there never were any saucers. There never were any real "UFOs" of any kind, much less visiting ET spacecraft.

zoamchomsky said...

ufoolery IS pseudoscience

ufoology is characterized by partial or total pseudoscience. Pseudoscience is behavior that claims to exemplify the methods and principles of science, but does not adhere to an appropriate scientific methodology, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, or otherwise lacks scientific status.

ufoolery can be categorized as a pseudoscience because its adherents claim it to be a science while being rejected as being one by the scientific community and because the field lacks cumulative scientific progress; ufoolery has not advanced since the 1950s.

And to bring this back to the subject:
Not only is the minor "crashed 'UFO' and detritus" theme based in numerous hoaxes and is a century-old mass-media-manufactured pop-culture fiction, the elemental cosmic-conspiramythic narrative of the whole "UFO" delusion is a mashup of century-old science-fiction and antiscientific spiritualist transcendental nonsense.

Other hallmarks of pseudoscience, most of which are fundamental to ufoolery:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscience#Pseudoscientific_concepts

cda said...

Zoam:

"Ufoolery has not advanced since the 1950s".

Are you sure?

In the 1950s there were plenty of contact tales, but no abductions. Since then contactee tales have diminished almost to the vanishing point but abductions have proliferated more & more, until recently anyway.

Of course it largely depends which country you are talking about.

With luck, crash tales will die out and abductions ditto. I mean new ones. There will always be the old ones to chew over. People will still be talking about Roswell and Rendlesham by 2050, and maybe even the older ones of the 1890s.

Failing which there are always the visitors from Atlantis, Lemuria and so on.

Exciting stuff, isn't it?

starman said...

cda wrote:

"In the 1950s there were plenty of contact tales...Since then contactee tales have diminished almost to the vanishing point..."

In fact there were many, post '50s--Villa, Meier, Castillo, Fernandez, Moody, Heerman and Krapf. Even Harare might fit in this genre. Others are more obscure; some may be as yet unpublicized.