NASA to start UFO investigations...

[birdguy 3,943]

Maybe next year Martin.

Noel

[DaviiB 104]

On 6/30/2022 at 5:10 AM, martin-w said:

 

We do, except that I think I'm in control of my "hope its aliens" bias a bit more. 😁

 

I only aim to point out the limits of science, and the fact that mainstream science is not a be-all, end-all.....even if it's the best tool we have to date.

 

On 6/30/2022 at 5:10 AM, martin-w said:

Peer review is the process by which a manuscript is assessed as suitable for publication. Its completed by scientists with similar competencies to maintain standards. Its only about assuring quality, that's all, its not about validity. Its a way of making sure quality research is published that's properly conducted.

As for how many studies, the more the better.  Two studies are interesting but not definitive, 20 studies all coming to the same conclusion, all replicating the results, are very convincing. Confidence grows the more studies there are that come to the same conclusion.

Its not how many" scientists to from a consensus", its how many studies that all come to the same conclusion, all manage to replicate the results. Its a collective judgement of a community of scientists in a respective field and requires what's referred to as a "supermajority". In other words, significantly more than one half. 

The qualifications needed in respect of studying a field need to be qualifications in that specific field, you wouldn't take the opinion of 20 microbiologists seriously if they told you that the Higgs Boson doesn't exist.

In the respect of UAP/UFO's then its a multi-aspect phenomenon. If you have a suspected alien organism then you need a consensus among biologists. If you have a chunk of flying saucer alloy the you need a consensus among material scientists. If you think you know which planet aliens come from then you need a consensus among astronomers. If you think you have an example of alien computer code then get Vallee and his fellow computer scientists to evaluate it and form a consensus. 

I am very familiar with how peer review works. 

I agree that the field needs to be opened up to study by more scientists. I'm just well aware of the possibility that the results may not be much different to what's already being done.

The fact remains that there has been scientific study of this phenomenon in the past. Even if it's not "mainstream", or well known, some very smart people (experts in a very diverse set of disciplines) have put time and effort into studying it, and a not-insignificant amount of money has been thrown at it. 

What happens if all 20 of the further studies come to the same conclusion - "Unknown", or "not enough evidence to be definitive" or "further study required"? 

It's not exactly straightforward to form a testable (meaningful) hypothesis on this either....other than to potentially rule out a limited number of prosaic explanations, which still leaves the door open to "unknown phenomena". (To be clear, how can you test an extraterrestrial hypothesis if there is no established basis from which to draw your criteria? i.e. we don't know conclusively what extra terrestrial (or extra dimensional, or whatever else) is....it is not defined. So how can you test for it?

Without a massive amount of extraordinary physical evidence from which to establish a new basis, science may get stuck.

Not much left to do at this point but wait and see what the scientific community does with it. I won't be holding my breath.

 

As for the "claims" made of (seeming) abnormal material....just because something hasn't made its way to 20 different labs doesn't mean it doesn't exist. You can do the digging to find the information if you like. There is a lot that mainstream science hasn't deemed worthy of investigation....meanwhile those who bothered to look found indications of something extraordinary. Proof of the extraordinary is something entirely different and probably a long way off.

 

Cheers,

DB

 

 

[JRBarrett 3,070]

22 hours ago, birdguy said:

We have a guest room in the basement Martin.  I'd have to pick you up in Albuquerque 200 miles away since we have no commercial air service to Roswell.

Noel

Are you sure? FlightAware shows that KROW has two flights every day to and from KDFW, operated by Skywest with a CRJ7.

[birdguy 3,943]

I'll have to check on that Jim.  I know American Eagle had flights up until a couple of years ago when American Airlines discontinued the service.  I didn't know they had picked it up again.  Are they flying as American Eagle?

Noel

[JRBarrett 3,070]

5 hours ago, birdguy said:

I'll have to check on that Jim.  I know American Eagle had flights up until a couple of years ago when American Airlines discontinued the service.  I didn't know they had picked it up again.  Are they flying as American Eagle?

Noel

I believe they are. They must have re-instituted service.

[birdguy 3,943]

Our air service has been an on again - off again enterprise ever since I've lived here.  We used to have Mesa Airlines that flew B1900Ds to Albuquerque.  They gave it up and for quite a while we had no commercial air service.  Then American Eagle came in for a couple years and then gave it up.  I guess it's back again now.

I'm glad to hear it.  Now I can fly to Charleston to visit my granddaughter and great grandkids.  I'm too old to be driving cross-country anymore.

When American Eagle last was flying I flew from Roswell to Dallas to Charleston.

I think American Eagle Flies from Dallas to Roswell to Phoenix and return.  So we are connected to one city to the east and one to the west.

Noel

[DaviiB 104]

On 6/29/2022 at 11:52 AM, martin-w said:

Putting science aside for  a moment, lets speculate about this below. I find it the most compelling of UFO reports. Numerous kids saw it, teachers saw it, Teacher was threatened by the authorities to keep quiet. US researchers arrived in Australia to interview the teacher. Little girl who saw it close up was sent home in a panic, when her friend tried to visit her home the family had vanished and the person in the house denied they lived there. 

 

 

Not a whole lot to speculate on. They saw something, and one or more elements of government would have preferred that they didn't. We can guess at their motives I suppose. 

It was either a military craft, or it wasn't. In either case, it was described as exhibiting maneuvering characteristics that put it outside of (known) publicly available technology at the time (and even now). 

 

It's quite similar to another incident in 1994 in Zimbabwe. About 60 kids saw a craft land behind their school ("Ariel" school I think), and 2 beings emerge. 

A well known psychologist from the UK interviewed most of the kids individually and found that their descriptions of the incident were corroborative. Apparently it does not match the typical signature of mass-hysteria, for a couple reasons: No prior exposure of the kids to UFOs/Aliens in pop culture, and their stories did not change over time.

There's a fairly recent documentary out there about it, where they were able to track down the now-grown witnesses. 

DB

[martin-w 3,235]

23 hours ago, DaviiB said:

I only aim to point out the limits of science, and the fact that mainstream science is not a be-all, end-all.....even if it's the best tool we have to date.

 

Well no, nobody said it was. It is spectacularly successful though, just look around you.

 

23 hours ago, DaviiB said:

I agree that the field needs to be opened up to study by more scientists. I'm just well aware of the possibility that the results may not be much different to what's already being done.

What happens if all 20 of the further studies come to the same conclusion - "Unknown", or "not enough evidence to be definitive" or "further study required"? 

 

That was what I said previously. It will be if we garner more data, more evidence, something new. 

 

23 hours ago, DaviiB said:

The fact remains that there has been scientific study of this phenomenon in the past. Even if it's not "mainstream", or well known, some very smart people (experts in a very diverse set of disciplines) have put time and effort into studying it, and a not-insignificant amount of money has been thrown at it. 

 

Like what. Nothing like the scenario I suggested. 

 

23 hours ago, DaviiB said:

we don't know conclusively what extra terrestrial (or extra dimensional, or whatever else) is....it is not defined. So how can you test for it?

 

We would know what extra-terrestrial is by studying the DNA. If its separate from ours, evolved independently, its alien. If we find a crashed ship with alien DNA we would know. If we find evidence of life on |Mars and its biology is distinct from ours we would know. Its even possible to find evidence of past life on the Earth that evolved in parallel to us that's distinct. Unlikely, but possible. 

 

23 hours ago, DaviiB said:

Without a massive amount of extraordinary physical evidence from which to establish a new basis, science may get stuck.

 

I wouldn't say massive. And if science does get stuck, then we are stuck. But what we don't do is guess, or speculate and then believe that speculation, or rely on personnel opinion. Or lower the standard for which we regard the veracity of evidence.

 

23 hours ago, DaviiB said:

As for the "claims" made of (seeming) abnormal material....just because something hasn't made its way to 20 different labs doesn't mean it doesn't exist. You can do the digging to find the information if you like

 

Doesn't mean it does exist either, And given the truck load of money people can make these days  by claiming such things the chances of it being fake are high. 

Again I see a bias on your part  in favour of the mysterious, the potentially alien. 😁

 

 

 

Edited July 2, 2022 by martin-w

[martin-w 3,235]

11 hours ago, DaviiB said:

Not a whole lot to speculate on. They saw something, and one or more elements of government would have preferred that they didn't. We can guess at their motives I suppose. 

It was either a military craft, or it wasn't. In either case, it was described as exhibiting maneuvering characteristics that put it outside of (known) publicly available technology at the time (and even now). 

 

It's quite similar to another incident in 1994 in Zimbabwe. About 60 kids saw a craft land behind their school ("Ariel" school I think), and 2 beings emerge. 

A well known psychologist from the UK interviewed most of the kids individually and found that their descriptions of the incident were corroborative. Apparently it does not match the typical signature of mass-hysteria, for a couple reasons: No prior exposure of the kids to UFOs/Aliens in pop culture, and their stories did not change over time.

There's a fairly recent documentary out there about it, where they were able to track down the now-grown witnesses. 

DB

 

I have top say, these Australian ladies and the teacher are the most believable witnesses I have seen. I prefer this incident to the Zimbabwe one to be honest. I prefer it because it wasn't just young kids claiming it, it was adults too.

There was another incident almost identical in Florida. Same scenario, witnessed by teachers and pupils, this was even more specular because it was said to put on a show and actually "show off" in front of the kids. It was said to fly straight through a tree without disturbing the b branches and back out again.

 

 

[birdguy 3,943]

One of the curious features of science news is that the excitement it generates bears little or no relation to our ability to understand it. Kudos to you if you can explain to me what a Large Hadron Collider actually is, but anything more precise than “a huge ring under a mountain for smashing particles into each other”, and you’re a member of the cognoscenti. Yes, I know it resulted in the discovery of the Higgs boson, but just because I can say it doesn’t mean I understand it.

A similar kind of uncomprehending buzz has greeted the discovery of the bones of at least 15 individuals in a South African cave system. These may be members of a hitherto unknown species, Homo naledi – perhaps our earliest ancestor, living as long as 4 million years ago.

Not so difficult to understand, you might think. But the significance of the finds can only truly be appreciated if you know your Home erectus and Homo habilis from your Australopithecus afarensis. If not, then – like me – your reaction to the news adds up to little more than: “Wow! We’ve got more funny old relatives! Cool!”

The thing is, it is cool and we’re right to be excited. We might not grasp the scientific significance of the find, but that doesn’t mean we can’t respond to its human importance.

It’s always a kind of magic to find out that there are more things in heaven and earth than we’ve dreamed of. Invention 

Quoted from Julian Baggini

Noel

[martin-w 3,235]

4 hours ago, birdguy said:

One of the curious features of science news is that the excitement it generates bears little or no relation to our ability to understand it. Kudos to you if you can explain to me what a Large Hadron Collider actually is, but anything more precise than “a huge ring under a mountain for smashing particles into each other”, and you’re a member of the cognoscenti. Yes, I know it resulted in the discovery of the Higgs boson, but just because I can say it doesn’t mean I understand it.

 

That's all you need to know Noel. 😁 And the Higgs Boson is the particle associated with the Higgs Field. And the Higgs Field imbues matter with mass. Without the Higgs field everything would whizz around at the speed of light. And a particle is merely an excitation in a field.

Here's a thought... aliens use a force field that shields matter from the Higgs field. Thus they shoot off at the speed of light. 😲🚀

 

Edited July 2, 2022 by martin-w

[dmwalker 603]

4 hours ago, birdguy said:

there are more things in heaven and earth than we’ve dreamed of

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

                                                                                                               Hamlet, Act1, Scene 5

[DaviiB 104]

On 7/2/2022 at 9:07 AM, martin-w said:

Like what. Nothing like the scenario I suggested. 

No, of course not, but why are you arbitrarily discounting existing scientific research until there is more of it? More research will add to certainty. That does not mean that work already done is invalid. Again, have a look at what's already been done.

 

On 7/2/2022 at 9:07 AM, martin-w said:

 

We would know what extra-terrestrial is by studying the DNA. If its separate from ours, evolved independently, its alien. If we find a crashed ship with alien DNA we would know. If we find evidence of life on |Mars and its biology is distinct from ours we would know. Its even possible to find evidence of past life on the Earth that evolved in parallel to us that's distinct. Unlikely, but possible. 

I'm not so sure it will be that straightforward. You might be on to something with the Mars bit. Going out there and finding something would be far more definitive than finding something on earth and trying to rule out a terrestrial origin. Again, we have no idea what extraterrestrial looks like, so no basis to compare against. What if we find commonalities in DNA, and it's not completely different? We could have already found ET life living on earth, and just don't recognize it as such.

 

On 7/2/2022 at 9:07 AM, martin-w said:

Doesn't mean it does exist either, And given the truck load of money people can make these days  by claiming such things the chances of it being fake are high. 

Again I see a bias on your part  in favour of the mysterious, the potentially alien. 😁

 

You've used the word bias more than once now.

Consider that despite decades of evidence and credible witness reports, mainstream science has waited until the US government, a non-scientific body, admitted a phenomenon is real before deciding to take the subject 'seriously' and commit more resources to its study. The determination wasn't reached by following evidence and data, not by the scientific method, but by being told by a governmental body (which likely has an agenda) that the phenomenon actually exists.

I'm not sure what you call that, but it's completely backwards. Bias might be the kindest word for it.

The first link from Scientific American you provided even talks about how mainstream science has avoided the subject, despite its history.

It seems in this case that mainstream science has a lot of catching up to do....50-70 years' worth, and it's self-inflicted.

 

DB

Edited July 5, 2022 by DaviiB

[martin-w 3,235]

1 hour ago, DaviiB said:

No, of course not, but why are you arbitrarily discounting existing scientific research until there is more of it? More research will add to certainty. That does not mean that work already done is invalid. Again, have a look at what's already been done.

 

I'm not and I have looked at it. I've been interested in the UFO phenomenon since the age of 17. I'm now 64. Existing research into UFO's has been inconclusive, obviously you realise that. Hence why we still don't know what the phenomenon represents. If you think there have been any quality research that has given us definitive answers then give me a link to it. Again... you are displaying your bias. What "valid work" has been done that tells us what the UFO phenomenon is, an alien visitation or some other causal factor with reasonable certainty? I've not come across any in many decades, nobody else has either. 

You say more research will "add to certainty" as if there is any "certainty" as to what the phenomenon represents now. 😁 Obviously there isn't.

 

1 hour ago, DaviiB said:

Again, we have no idea what extraterrestrial looks like

 

We know what carbon based life looks like, that's what we currently look for. Now you could argue that there might be life of a more exotic nature, perhaps based on silicone or something even more bizarre that we might have trouble recognising, well there are features that life has that we might recognise,  growth, reproduction, functional activity, continual change preceding death etc. But obviously given the immensity of the observable universe, and the fact that the universe appears to be geometrically flat thus infinite, all arrangements of matter must exist and repeat an infinite number of times somewhere, and that includes various forms of life. 

And of course, in terms of the UFO phenomenon we are looking for technological life which is likely to be obvious. Flying machines in our skies are obviously machines, and we recognise machines. Clearly, the mechanical devices that people see in the sky that its claimed appear to be metallic and "defying what we know to be the laws of physics" are recognizable machines. 

Its worth knowing that some experts expect carbon based life to be very common. Carbon seems to be ideal for the purpose. Nobody rules out something more exotic though. 

 

Quote

Consider that despite decades of evidence and credible witness reports, mainstream science has waited until the US government, a non-scientific body, admitted a phenomenon is real before deciding to take the subject 'seriously' and commit more resources to its study. The determination wasn't reached by following evidence and data, not by the scientific method, but by being told by a governmental body (which likely has an agenda) that the phenomenon actually exists.

 

Actually,  there have been scientific studies in the past, but studies require funding.

Science has been fully aware that the UNIDENTIFIED Flying Object phenomenon exists. And no, there isn't much in the way of resources committed to its study currently. We have Avi Loeb and a few other scientists and engineers that have decided to try and raise money off their own bat, not with official funding. And we have NASA who have decided to study it with a pitiful amount of funding. Not enough funding to determine anything really. Even the so called UAP task force is only manned by two people. 🙄 

Scientists aren't millionaires who dig into their own pockets and fund research themselves. They have to be funded, and significant funds haven't, in the past, been allocated for the task. In addition, there has always been a stigma associated with its study. 

I addition, the bar required for scientific evidence is high, and so it should be, and the "evidence" you refer to doesn't meet that high bar. Eye witness reports are incredibly unreliable and not sufficient for science to come to any definitive conclusions. If we do see a decent amount of funding arriving for its study, then maybe evidence that meets the high bar that's science demands will be forthcoming.

 

 

 

[sightseer 895]

2 hours ago, martin-w said:

We know what carbon based life looks like, that's what we currently look for. Now you could argue that there might be life of a more exotic nature, perhaps based on silicone or something even more bizarre that we might have trouble recognising, well there are features that life has that we might recognise,  growth, reproduction, functional activity, continual change preceding death etc. But obviously given the immensity of the observable universe, and the fact that the universe appears to be geometrically flat thus infinite, all arrangements of matter must exist and repeat an infinite number of times somewhere, and that includes various forms of life. 

Martin - I defy you to give me a complete explanation for consciousness that does not include anything that is not completely tangible, physical or measurable.  You cannot do it and yet you want to limit the concept of 'life' as to what can be tangibly touched or sensed by our tools and understanding.  It doesnt work that way.  You have to be open to possibilities in order to learn.