5 ms·

Given that UFO means unidentified flying object, wouldn't that tend to look something like "X reported seeing XYZ, we don't know what it was"?

by Natsu 6y ago

pacamara619 6y ago
Yes! Precisely! Somehow people started associating UFOs with flying saucers and aliens. How would they know it's aliens if the U stands for unidentified?
- zrm 6y ago
  > Somehow people started associating UFOs with flying saucers and aliens. I saw a video (that I can't currently find) of Feynman explaining this once. The US government had a classified program that suspended 1940s saucer microphones from a balloon at a height in the atmosphere that would allow them to listen for Soviet atomic tests. The balloon crashes and some reporters are out sniffing around. Someone with loose lips lets slip that it was a flying saucer. You can imagine what the artist's rendition based on that description looked like. Then, since the program was classified, the official explanation becomes that it was a weather balloon or something, and a conspiracy theory is born.
  - apeace 6y ago
    Not sure where your source comes from, but the term came into popular use in the year 1947. It was most likely first used after Kenneth Arnold's famous report where he described a "saucer-like" shape. That story blew up, and people started reporting "flying saucers" everywhere. It even got into the heads of some government officials. For example, the initial press release given by the airforce for the Roswell incident was that they had captured a "flying disc". They later made a correction that it was a weather balloon, but you can see how the government making such statements would cause confusion and add to the mania. On the Wikipedia page for the incident you can see the original news articles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_UFO_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_UFO_incident
    - notahacker 6y ago
      Arnold has suggested his original remarks to the press referred to the motion of a saucer skipping across water rather than the shape too; his original report showed a semicircular front and triangular tail https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/the-man-who-introduced-the-world-to-flying-saucers/372732/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/the-m...
      - dogma1138 6y ago
        Yep the shape was likely closer to a B2 as in a flying wing than an actually flying saucer. It’s quite possible that what he saw was the YB-35 or a similar experimental aircraft. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_YB-35 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_YB-35
        matthewdgreen 6y ago
        Except that according to his measurements, they were moving at twice the speed of sound.
        dogma1138 6y ago
        His measurements could’ve been wrong, it’s nearly impossible to accurately measure distance and size in the air, using a tachometer to estimate speed is rather inaccurate under best conditions. In 1947 your cockpit would likely not even have a true airspeed indicator, there would be no ground speed indicators, no radar nor any other electro optical ranging devices. The YB-49 was already jet powered https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_YB-49 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_YB-49 Whilst not supersonic it’s quite possible that he could’ve encountered one of these too or another flying wing variant. This quite frankly more plausible than aliens as an explanation, the time frame of the sighting matches the period during which the USAF was exploring a lot of flying wing designs and that it was also the first time that jet powered aircraft began to appear and when turboprops were reaching nearly transonic speeded. So overall it’s very likely that what he saw was an experimental aircraft that was much faster than any aircraft that he encountered in the past and the slightest of errors in the estimation of size and range would have pushed any airspeed calculation into the supersonic range.
- apeace 6y ago
  I take the meaning to be "unidentified to the general public, perhaps identified or speculated about in classified reports that have not yet been shared with Congress".
- dheera 6y ago
  I dunno, the flying saucer / alien stuff is kind of fun to watch people go nuts over and pretty harmless. I think a Goodyear blimp was mistaken recently for aliens too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUjO03loz8M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUjO03loz8M
- polishdude20 6y ago
  You can see how the title says UFO's. If it's a confirmed alien from another planet, that's not a UFO anymore, it's an IFO (identified)
cma 6y ago
"Here are the classified flight characteristics of what we believe to have been a Russian hypersonic weapon test but we don't know that for certain; we're pretty sure the Chinese weren't able to capture this data but we're going to hand it over to them now at the behest of domestic conspiracy theorists."
- aurizon 6y ago
  Yes, The Russians test their research missiles off the US coast, when they have huge, well controlled land and ocean areas where they need not fear any US snapshots and US jet chases...
  - bonestamp2 6y ago
    Yep, and the 2004 incident happened during Navy training on a new radar system. The radar showed the "UFOs" coming from the area of San Clemente Island. I'm sure that's just a coincidence though, because there's nothing on that island except for one of the Navy's UAV airstrips. They even warn that the UAVs are very small and hard for other pilots to see, so they have a safety perimeter around the island. http://www.scisland.org/schedules/usageGoogle/safety_zone_info.html http://www.scisland.org/schedules/usageGoogle/safety_zone_in...
    - aurizon 6y ago
      One would anticipate the Russians/Chinese would be very curious about any new radars, so if there are any Russian/Chinese stealth drones they may well be deployed to sniff the spectrum
m463 6y ago
People are expecting the opening of the alien archive, including desiccated grey bodies, weapons that shoot blue blobs of light and wormhole generators.
- sjtindell 6y ago
  I would rather say they are hoping, as am I. Would be quite fun.
- ryanmercer 6y ago
  >weapons that shoot blue blobs of light Obviously they shoot purple blobs of light, amateur! Jokes aside, yeah... this. Out of curiosity in late December I joined the MUFON group on Facebook. Oh my. Oh, oh my. It's certainly worth joining simply to look at if one has a Facebook account. I certainly expected a little bit of suspension of disbelief but, wow. While some of the posts are serious "what was this" you'll find that very quickly someone will post either a horrible photoshop job, or an actual valid UFO (often what appears to be a plane with landing lights on) and quickly in the comments you get people talking about the races of aliens that have come and visited them/abducted them/communicated telepathically with them. They've been going on about this 180 days bit since it was discovered and I honestly just can't with some of the comments/claims.

Given that UFO means unidentified flying object, wouldn't that tend to look something like "X reported seeing XYZ, we don't know what it was"?

by Natsu 6y ago

Given that UFO means unidentified flying object, wouldn't that tend to look something like "X reported seeing XYZ, we don't know what it was"?

pacamara619 6y ago

Yes! Precisely! Somehow people started associating UFOs with flying saucers and aliens. How would they know it's aliens if the U stands for unidentified?

zrm 6y ago
> Somehow people started associating UFOs with flying saucers and aliens. I saw a video (that I can't currently find) of Feynman explaining this once. The US government had a classified program that suspended 1940s saucer microphones from a balloon at a height in the atmosphere that would allow them to listen for Soviet atomic tests. The balloon crashes and some reporters are out sniffing around. Someone with loose lips lets slip that it was a flying saucer. You can imagine what the artist's rendition based on that description looked like. Then, since the program was classified, the official explanation becomes that it was a weather balloon or something, and a conspiracy theory is born.
- apeace 6y ago
  Not sure where your source comes from, but the term came into popular use in the year 1947. It was most likely first used after Kenneth Arnold's famous report where he described a "saucer-like" shape. That story blew up, and people started reporting "flying saucers" everywhere. It even got into the heads of some government officials. For example, the initial press release given by the airforce for the Roswell incident was that they had captured a "flying disc". They later made a correction that it was a weather balloon, but you can see how the government making such statements would cause confusion and add to the mania. On the Wikipedia page for the incident you can see the original news articles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_UFO_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_UFO_incident
  - notahacker 6y ago
    Arnold has suggested his original remarks to the press referred to the motion of a saucer skipping across water rather than the shape too; his original report showed a semicircular front and triangular tail https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/the-man-who-introduced-the-world-to-flying-saucers/372732/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/the-m...
    - dogma1138 6y ago
      Yep the shape was likely closer to a B2 as in a flying wing than an actually flying saucer. It’s quite possible that what he saw was the YB-35 or a similar experimental aircraft. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_YB-35 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_YB-35
      - matthewdgreen 6y ago
        Except that according to his measurements, they were moving at twice the speed of sound.
        dogma1138 6y ago
        His measurements could’ve been wrong, it’s nearly impossible to accurately measure distance and size in the air, using a tachometer to estimate speed is rather inaccurate under best conditions. In 1947 your cockpit would likely not even have a true airspeed indicator, there would be no ground speed indicators, no radar nor any other electro optical ranging devices. The YB-49 was already jet powered https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_YB-49 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_YB-49 Whilst not supersonic it’s quite possible that he could’ve encountered one of these too or another flying wing variant. This quite frankly more plausible than aliens as an explanation, the time frame of the sighting matches the period during which the USAF was exploring a lot of flying wing designs and that it was also the first time that jet powered aircraft began to appear and when turboprops were reaching nearly transonic speeded. So overall it’s very likely that what he saw was an experimental aircraft that was much faster than any aircraft that he encountered in the past and the slightest of errors in the estimation of size and range would have pushed any airspeed calculation into the supersonic range.
apeace 6y ago
I take the meaning to be "unidentified to the general public, perhaps identified or speculated about in classified reports that have not yet been shared with Congress".
dheera 6y ago
I dunno, the flying saucer / alien stuff is kind of fun to watch people go nuts over and pretty harmless. I think a Goodyear blimp was mistaken recently for aliens too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUjO03loz8M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUjO03loz8M
polishdude20 6y ago
You can see how the title says UFO's. If it's a confirmed alien from another planet, that's not a UFO anymore, it's an IFO (identified)

cma 6y ago

"Here are the classified flight characteristics of what we believe to have been a Russian hypersonic weapon test but we don't know that for certain; we're pretty sure the Chinese weren't able to capture this data but we're going to hand it over to them now at the behest of domestic conspiracy theorists."

aurizon 6y ago
Yes, The Russians test their research missiles off the US coast, when they have huge, well controlled land and ocean areas where they need not fear any US snapshots and US jet chases...
- bonestamp2 6y ago
  Yep, and the 2004 incident happened during Navy training on a new radar system. The radar showed the "UFOs" coming from the area of San Clemente Island. I'm sure that's just a coincidence though, because there's nothing on that island except for one of the Navy's UAV airstrips. They even warn that the UAVs are very small and hard for other pilots to see, so they have a safety perimeter around the island. http://www.scisland.org/schedules/usageGoogle/safety_zone_info.html http://www.scisland.org/schedules/usageGoogle/safety_zone_in...
  - aurizon 6y ago
    One would anticipate the Russians/Chinese would be very curious about any new radars, so if there are any Russian/Chinese stealth drones they may well be deployed to sniff the spectrum

m463 6y ago

People are expecting the opening of the alien archive, including desiccated grey bodies, weapons that shoot blue blobs of light and wormhole generators.

sjtindell 6y ago
I would rather say they are hoping, as am I. Would be quite fun.
ryanmercer 6y ago
>weapons that shoot blue blobs of light Obviously they shoot purple blobs of light, amateur! Jokes aside, yeah... this. Out of curiosity in late December I joined the MUFON group on Facebook. Oh my. Oh, oh my. It's certainly worth joining simply to look at if one has a Facebook account. I certainly expected a little bit of suspension of disbelief but, wow. While some of the posts are serious "what was this" you'll find that very quickly someone will post either a horrible photoshop job, or an actual valid UFO (often what appears to be a plane with landing lights on) and quickly in the comments you get people talking about the races of aliens that have come and visited them/abducted them/communicated telepathically with them. They've been going on about this 180 days bit since it was discovered and I honestly just can't with some of the comments/claims.