An unidentified flying object is just that: unidentified. Not “identified as alien”. The argument is isomorphic to “God in the gaps”, for which I think there are few takers here.
I agree.
Just observing with your eyes, camera, military ground radar and nose radar a huge yellow-ish glowing object with the diameter of two aircraft carriers, in front of your Boing 747, tracking you as you go, over a long distance, and even following you around in a 360 degree turn is not evidence of little green men.
But where do we go from there? There are a limited amount of possible explanations, all which is eliminated as plausible by any one involved (air traffic control personnel, the pilots, military radar stations, meteorologists).
It would be a leap of faith to conclude “aliens”, but would it be a bigger step than concluding any hypothesis’ already deemed implausible? (eg. weather balloons).
Using your curiosity, investigate these cases and decide what hypothesis will provide the smallest leap of faith. You can start by reading the wikipedia-article on the incident:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Air_Lines_flight_1628_incident
but there are many many more cases:
“An Air Force major is ordered to approach a brilliant UFO in his Phantom jet over Tehran. He repeatedly attempts to engage and fire on unusual objects heading right toward his aircraft, but his missile control is locked and disabled. Witnessed from the ground, this dogfight becomes the subject of a secret report by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency.
In Belgium, an Air Force colonel investigates a series of widespread sightings of unidentified triangular objects, and he sends F-16s to attempt a closer look. Many hundreds of eyewitnesses, including on-duty police officers, file reports, and a spectacular photograph of an unidentifiable craft is retrieved and analyzed.
There are a limited amount of possible explanations, all which is eliminated as plausible by any one involved (air traffic control personnel, the pilots, military radar stations, meteorologists). It would be a leap of faith to conclude “aliens”, but would it be a bigger step than concluding any hypothesis’ already deemed implausible? (eg. weather balloons).
That’s a very good conclusion. I would be satisfied by just sticking to that.
That being said, having all sorts of pilots and radars report flying objects in the sky, crossing air space boundaries as they like, going close to both civilian and military crafts, really should provoke massive investigation and massive public awareness. It doesn’t!
That being said, having all sorts of pilots and radars report flying objects in the sky, crossing air space boundaries as they like, going close to both civilian and military crafts, really should provoke massive investigation and massive public awareness. It doesn’t!
Why?
We don’t have evidence that it’s causing a lot of aviation accidents. If you have a high prior for the observations being caused by some sort of extraterrestrial activity, then it probably merits serious investigation, but if you just file it with all the other “I don’t know” phenomena, there’s nothing to single it out as meriting massive public awareness.
We don’t know what causes ball lightning. It’s weird and mysterious, and it’s been observed for hundreds of years or more, and we really don’t know what’s up with that. If we figure out what causes it, it’ll lay a longstanding mystery to rest, but it probably won’t revolutionize the way we live, we’ll just be less confused.
As a scientifically inclined individual, I’m curious about lots and lots of stuff. I’d certainly like to know about the reasons for some of these allegedly extraterrestrial observations, which I don’t know how to explain. But one thing that’s incredibly frustrating is when people fixate on particular unexplained observations, and insist in the absence of good evidence that the explanations must be revolutionary and life changing. When people read about things like the faster-than-light neutrino observations at CERN, or unexplained observations in the night sky, and act like anything short of a paradigm shift in our basic picture of the universe would be a ripoff, it’s really disheartening, because most unexplained observations just don’t turn out that way, and it’s sad to see people refusing to be satisfied by the way reality actually works.
An unidentified flying object is just that: unidentified. Not “identified as alien”. The argument is isomorphic to “God in the gaps”, for which I think there are few takers here.
I agree. Just observing with your eyes, camera, military ground radar and nose radar a huge yellow-ish glowing object with the diameter of two aircraft carriers, in front of your Boing 747, tracking you as you go, over a long distance, and even following you around in a 360 degree turn is not evidence of little green men. But where do we go from there? There are a limited amount of possible explanations, all which is eliminated as plausible by any one involved (air traffic control personnel, the pilots, military radar stations, meteorologists). It would be a leap of faith to conclude “aliens”, but would it be a bigger step than concluding any hypothesis’ already deemed implausible? (eg. weather balloons).
Using your curiosity, investigate these cases and decide what hypothesis will provide the smallest leap of faith. You can start by reading the wikipedia-article on the incident: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Air_Lines_flight_1628_incident but there are many many more cases:
“An Air Force major is ordered to approach a brilliant UFO in his Phantom jet over Tehran. He repeatedly attempts to engage and fire on unusual objects heading right toward his aircraft, but his missile control is locked and disabled. Witnessed from the ground, this dogfight becomes the subject of a secret report by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency.
In Belgium, an Air Force colonel investigates a series of widespread sightings of unidentified triangular objects, and he sends F-16s to attempt a closer look. Many hundreds of eyewitnesses, including on-duty police officers, file reports, and a spectacular photograph of an unidentifiable craft is retrieved and analyzed.
Here at home, a retired chief of the FAA’s Accidents and Investigations Division reveals the agency’s response to a thirty-minute encounter between an aircraft and a gigantic UFO over Alaska, which occurred during his watch and is documented on radar.” from: http://www.amazon.co.uk/UFOs-Generals-Pilots-Government-Officials/dp/0307717089
Also there are cases directly involving little green men (actually, grey) emerging from crafts.
How about concluding “I don’t know”?
That’s a very good conclusion. I would be satisfied by just sticking to that.
That being said, having all sorts of pilots and radars report flying objects in the sky, crossing air space boundaries as they like, going close to both civilian and military crafts, really should provoke massive investigation and massive public awareness. It doesn’t!
Why?
We don’t have evidence that it’s causing a lot of aviation accidents. If you have a high prior for the observations being caused by some sort of extraterrestrial activity, then it probably merits serious investigation, but if you just file it with all the other “I don’t know” phenomena, there’s nothing to single it out as meriting massive public awareness.
We don’t know what causes ball lightning. It’s weird and mysterious, and it’s been observed for hundreds of years or more, and we really don’t know what’s up with that. If we figure out what causes it, it’ll lay a longstanding mystery to rest, but it probably won’t revolutionize the way we live, we’ll just be less confused.
As a scientifically inclined individual, I’m curious about lots and lots of stuff. I’d certainly like to know about the reasons for some of these allegedly extraterrestrial observations, which I don’t know how to explain. But one thing that’s incredibly frustrating is when people fixate on particular unexplained observations, and insist in the absence of good evidence that the explanations must be revolutionary and life changing. When people read about things like the faster-than-light neutrino observations at CERN, or unexplained observations in the night sky, and act like anything short of a paradigm shift in our basic picture of the universe would be a ripoff, it’s really disheartening, because most unexplained observations just don’t turn out that way, and it’s sad to see people refusing to be satisfied by the way reality actually works.