7 ms·

This analysis even admits that there’s an object required for the “glare” to exist. This analysis doesn’t reject an actual object being tracked: it confirms it

This analysis even admits that there’s an object required for the “glare” to exist. This analysis doesn’t reject an actual object being tracked: it confirms it and describes it as one that causes IR glare!

NyxWulf 5y ago
So the claim is...these highly trained pilots and the other sensor systems didn't realize that objects cause IR glare, but this guy did. Case closed.
- stouset 5y ago
  I'm quite confident that most people here are going to find a calm, measured, and thorough explanation of the observed phenomenon more credible than a snarky and instinctive dismissal that doesn't even bother to address a single one of the clearly demonstrated points in the analysis.
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > So the claim is...these highly trained pilots and the other sensor systems didn't realize that objects cause IR glare, but this guy did. Case closed. And frankly the "this guy" appears to be someone with no expertise and who is strongly biased towards particular investigatory outcomes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mick_West https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mick_West: > Mick West is a British science writer, skeptical investigator, and retired video game programmer. He is the creator of the websites Contrail Science and Metabunk, and he investigates and debunks pseudoscientific claims and conspiracy theories such as chemtrails and UFOs. Not to say he isn't right in this case, but I'm equality unenthusiastic about "skeptics" like that as I am about conspiracy theorists. Edit: on second thought, I'm somewhat more unenthusiastic "skeptics" like that. Conspiracy theorists can at least be entertaining sometimes, while "skeptics" tend to just bore you with self-assured arrogance while they take pot shots at low-hanging fruit.
  - msla 5y ago
    > Conspiracy theorists can at least be entertaining sometimes Right up until they're sure that there's a child molestation ring in the basement of a pizza parlor that doesn't have a basement, and someone goes and shoots up the place because the conspiracy theory was so damn entertaining.
    - tablespoon 5y ago
      That's exactly why I said "sometimes." It might have been more precise to mean occasionally, but the clear intended meaning was that it was a minority of the time.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - d35007 5y ago
    > Conspiracy theorists can at least be entertaining sometimes, while "skeptics" tend to just bore you with self-assured arrogance while they take pot shots at low-hanging fruit. I don't know about skeptics in general, but I found Mr. West's video to be pretty entertaining. He built some pretty impressive-looking simulations to support his claims. I think conspiracy theories can be interesting and entertaining, but a lot of their theorists are kinda pathetic.
  - Talanes 5y ago
    > Not to say he isn't right in this case, but I'm equality unenthusiastic about "skeptics" like that as I am about conspiracy theorists. Yeah, it can be interesting to hear a dubunking from someone with an actual background in the field, but someone who's whole schtick is debunking is just as motivated to prove things wrong as the conspiracy theorists are to prove things right.
  - glenstein 5y ago
    >Not to say he isn't right in this case, but I'm equality unenthusiastic about "skeptics" like that as I am about conspiracy theorists. My working theory for what creates the lowest common denominator of internet comments, is that you have to believe whatever is necessary to believe to keep the conversation going. If a skeptic debunks something by appeals to mundane facts relating to camera angles and physics principles, that closes the conversation. And for internet comment sections that is a problem. But, if them being right means they are arrogant, then we can talk about how arrogant they are, the nothing gets turned back into a something and the conversation can keep going.
- thesuitonym 5y ago
  It's not the pilots job to theorize on whether the object is glare or not, just to describe what he's seeing. This is one plausible explanation, not THE explanation. There is still a UFO there, the video is just saying it probably doesn't look like what we see on screen. If you're unwilling to even entertain that this might be a possibility because you want to believe... I guess do what you want.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  Yes. This happened multiple times. There was an incident where the tree-blade bokeh of a NVD was mistaken for a UFO once, for example.
RobertMiller 5y ago
stouset 5y ago
Exactly. Zero of the GPs objections are inconsistent with this explanation. The carrier group tracked an unknown object and scrambled fighters to investigate. The pilots may have visually observed the object, but it would have been too far away to really ascertain any visual detail. Instead they relied on infrared sensors which… suffered from glare, and so rendered incorrect visuals for the object. Its strange shape and rotational behavior are now explained. What remains is still an unidentified flying object, but one whose behavior is reasonably mundane and doesn't require advanced technology to explain.
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  And in the realm of mundane objects that may create very strange radar and visual patterns, we have our choice. Space Data Corporation was operating as early as 1997. Their product is radio communications provided by balloon. IIUC, normally those balloons are tethered, but if a tether snapped and one got away and was caught in a high-altitude crosswind, you'd have a mostly-metal object catching sunlight and throwing it in weird ways as it tumbled.
- adriand 5y ago
  We also need to be really honest about what we want this to be, and how that desire influences what we believe about it. I personally want this to be an alien spacecraft, because that's super interesting and exciting. I think the same is true of lots of other people. Unfortunately, there are much more mundane explanations which fit the evidence much better.
  - birdyrooster 5y ago
    Why do you want it to be alien spacecraft? Are you some sort of glutton for punishment?
    - sterlind 5y ago
      if the aliens don't annihilate us, maybe they'd be willing to teach us some physics?
    - 5y ago
bostonsre 5y ago
This analysis is saying it's likely 10 miles away, that doesn't track with the other evidence, does it?
- stouset 5y ago
  What other evidence is this inconsistent with?
  - colordrops 5y ago
    RADAR and visual confirmation.
    - thereddaikon 5y ago
      I didn't think the radar track was at the same time was it? I thought the Tico's tracked it with the SPY-1 and they sent F-18s to investigate who then tracked it with the FLIR and visually. Without a reference point you are unlikely to be able to guess the distance of an aircraft, especially an unknown one.
    - stouset 5y ago
      I’d be floored if the radar data didn’t back this up. A carrier group would have scrambled fighters well before anything unidentified got within a hundred miles, much less ten. Visual confirmation I don’t find remotely compelling. Besides the notorious general unreliability of human observers, humans simply cannot distinguish between small, nearby objects traveling slowly and large, far objects traveling quickly without additional contextual clues (e.g., a tiny plane-shaped object in the sky is probably the latter). Factor in that they were validating their observations against a sensor displaying a misleading image—in other words, providing incorrect contextual clues—and I think it’s not hard to call into question the accuracy of any visual claims.
      - bostonsre 5y ago
        It was picked up on radar over several different days and a training mission was scrubbed so that they could go investigate what they saw on radar. You don't think humans could get better at judging distance of objects with practice? It seems like if any humans on earth could reliably do it, it would be seasoned fighter pilots that have thousands of hours of experience doing that exact thing.
rasz 5y ago
The object might of existed for a millisecond. Test of a new stealth tech - quick directional laser burst to temporarily damage/blind IR camera. After that Jet was flying in circles trying to track its own camera glitch.
- dcow 5y ago
  That’s not how glare works.

NyxWulf 5y ago

So the claim is...these highly trained pilots and the other sensor systems didn't realize that objects cause IR glare, but this guy did. Case closed.

stouset 5y ago
I'm quite confident that most people here are going to find a calm, measured, and thorough explanation of the observed phenomenon more credible than a snarky and instinctive dismissal that doesn't even bother to address a single one of the clearly demonstrated points in the analysis.
tablespoon 5y ago
> So the claim is...these highly trained pilots and the other sensor systems didn't realize that objects cause IR glare, but this guy did. Case closed. And frankly the "this guy" appears to be someone with no expertise and who is strongly biased towards particular investigatory outcomes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mick_West https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mick_West: > Mick West is a British science writer, skeptical investigator, and retired video game programmer. He is the creator of the websites Contrail Science and Metabunk, and he investigates and debunks pseudoscientific claims and conspiracy theories such as chemtrails and UFOs. Not to say he isn't right in this case, but I'm equality unenthusiastic about "skeptics" like that as I am about conspiracy theorists. Edit: on second thought, I'm somewhat more unenthusiastic "skeptics" like that. Conspiracy theorists can at least be entertaining sometimes, while "skeptics" tend to just bore you with self-assured arrogance while they take pot shots at low-hanging fruit.
- msla 5y ago
  > Conspiracy theorists can at least be entertaining sometimes Right up until they're sure that there's a child molestation ring in the basement of a pizza parlor that doesn't have a basement, and someone goes and shoots up the place because the conspiracy theory was so damn entertaining.
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    That's exactly why I said "sometimes." It might have been more precise to mean occasionally, but the clear intended meaning was that it was a minority of the time.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- d35007 5y ago
  > Conspiracy theorists can at least be entertaining sometimes, while "skeptics" tend to just bore you with self-assured arrogance while they take pot shots at low-hanging fruit. I don't know about skeptics in general, but I found Mr. West's video to be pretty entertaining. He built some pretty impressive-looking simulations to support his claims. I think conspiracy theories can be interesting and entertaining, but a lot of their theorists are kinda pathetic.
- Talanes 5y ago
  > Not to say he isn't right in this case, but I'm equality unenthusiastic about "skeptics" like that as I am about conspiracy theorists. Yeah, it can be interesting to hear a dubunking from someone with an actual background in the field, but someone who's whole schtick is debunking is just as motivated to prove things wrong as the conspiracy theorists are to prove things right.
- glenstein 5y ago
  >Not to say he isn't right in this case, but I'm equality unenthusiastic about "skeptics" like that as I am about conspiracy theorists. My working theory for what creates the lowest common denominator of internet comments, is that you have to believe whatever is necessary to believe to keep the conversation going. If a skeptic debunks something by appeals to mundane facts relating to camera angles and physics principles, that closes the conversation. And for internet comment sections that is a problem. But, if them being right means they are arrogant, then we can talk about how arrogant they are, the nothing gets turned back into a something and the conversation can keep going.
thesuitonym 5y ago
It's not the pilots job to theorize on whether the object is glare or not, just to describe what he's seeing. This is one plausible explanation, not THE explanation. There is still a UFO there, the video is just saying it probably doesn't look like what we see on screen. If you're unwilling to even entertain that this might be a possibility because you want to believe... I guess do what you want.
sudosysgen 5y ago
Yes. This happened multiple times. There was an incident where the tree-blade bokeh of a NVD was mistaken for a UFO once, for example.

RobertMiller 5y ago

stouset 5y ago

Exactly. Zero of the GPs objections are inconsistent with this explanation. The carrier group tracked an unknown object and scrambled fighters to investigate. The pilots may have visually observed the object, but it would have been too far away to really ascertain any visual detail. Instead they relied on infrared sensors which… suffered from glare, and so rendered incorrect visuals for the object. Its strange shape and rotational behavior are now explained. What remains is still an unidentified flying object, but one whose behavior is reasonably mundane and doesn't require advanced technology to explain.

shadowgovt 5y ago
And in the realm of mundane objects that may create very strange radar and visual patterns, we have our choice. Space Data Corporation was operating as early as 1997. Their product is radio communications provided by balloon. IIUC, normally those balloons are tethered, but if a tether snapped and one got away and was caught in a high-altitude crosswind, you'd have a mostly-metal object catching sunlight and throwing it in weird ways as it tumbled.
adriand 5y ago
We also need to be really honest about what we want this to be, and how that desire influences what we believe about it. I personally want this to be an alien spacecraft, because that's super interesting and exciting. I think the same is true of lots of other people. Unfortunately, there are much more mundane explanations which fit the evidence much better.
- birdyrooster 5y ago
  Why do you want it to be alien spacecraft? Are you some sort of glutton for punishment?
  - sterlind 5y ago
    if the aliens don't annihilate us, maybe they'd be willing to teach us some physics?
  - 5y ago

bostonsre 5y ago

This analysis is saying it's likely 10 miles away, that doesn't track with the other evidence, does it?

stouset 5y ago
What other evidence is this inconsistent with?
- colordrops 5y ago
  RADAR and visual confirmation.
  - thereddaikon 5y ago
    I didn't think the radar track was at the same time was it? I thought the Tico's tracked it with the SPY-1 and they sent F-18s to investigate who then tracked it with the FLIR and visually. Without a reference point you are unlikely to be able to guess the distance of an aircraft, especially an unknown one.
  - stouset 5y ago
    I’d be floored if the radar data didn’t back this up. A carrier group would have scrambled fighters well before anything unidentified got within a hundred miles, much less ten. Visual confirmation I don’t find remotely compelling. Besides the notorious general unreliability of human observers, humans simply cannot distinguish between small, nearby objects traveling slowly and large, far objects traveling quickly without additional contextual clues (e.g., a tiny plane-shaped object in the sky is probably the latter). Factor in that they were validating their observations against a sensor displaying a misleading image—in other words, providing incorrect contextual clues—and I think it’s not hard to call into question the accuracy of any visual claims.
    - bostonsre 5y ago
      It was picked up on radar over several different days and a training mission was scrubbed so that they could go investigate what they saw on radar. You don't think humans could get better at judging distance of objects with practice? It seems like if any humans on earth could reliably do it, it would be seasoned fighter pilots that have thousands of hours of experience doing that exact thing.

rasz 5y ago

The object might of existed for a millisecond. Test of a new stealth tech - quick directional laser burst to temporarily damage/blind IR camera. After that Jet was flying in circles trying to track its own camera glitch.

dcow 5y ago
That’s not how glare works.