7 hours ago, FBW737 said:

There is no extra terrestrial life in the universe. There is not a single public example of an artifact that would indicate otherwise.

 

Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. 

19 hours ago, martin-w said:

This is interesting below. It's pointed out that the US Navy had a patent for radar reflectors inside transparent spheres.

Two radar reflecting devices were mentioned in the video at around 07:05.

The patent for the first radar reflecting device was filed in 1945. This device was incorporated into an inflatable spherical balloon composed of wave-permeable (not “clear, transparent”) material as illustrated in the video. The balloon was not rapidly inflatable and didn't work very well. 

https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/e7/48/55/7c755c05740f91/US2463517.pdf

The patent for the second radar reflecting device was filed in 1970. As far as I can tell from the patent, the device was not inside a balloon but was supported by two flexible hoops.

https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/3b/5d/4e/cfd4e580d2afdd/US3671965.pdf

The Politico article referred to said:

“And in 2020, the intelligence community assessed that much smaller balloons detected off the coast of Virginia were Chinese radar-jamming devices, according to a former senior DoD official.”

I'm not sure why this statement would have any more credibility than Grusch's.

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/05/trump-officials-deny-chinese-spy-balloons-00081257 

 

People are strange.  Our intelects kind of define us.  Some of us are open minded and some of us are not.  And some of us hard nosed types can have our minds changed.  But it takes some doing.  I'm one of those.

I'm more of an I don't know type with firm convictions that can be changed if enough hard evidence is presented. UFOs and aliens fall into that category for me.  But I doubt I have enough time left to find out either way.

It was perfectly natural for that pilot to question what that cube inside of a transparent ball was.  His experience had never seen or heard anything like it.  It's natural that the first thing to come to his mind was some sort of UFO.  And it was.  It was an object, flying, and to him unknown.  To me it would have been a UFO.  But once identified as a radar reflector it becomes known as opposed to unknown.

I think many more explanations are owed to us.  Keeping up the mystery is kind of stupid because people begin imagining all sorts of things and even make up stories in their own minds which they think are true.

If chaos in the UFO experiences is what the government wants then they have succeeded.  Like religion they have created believers and non-believers and a few I don't knows.  I'm the latter.  I think I could make good arguments for either side.  But why should I? 

Arguing about aliens and UFOs is like arguing about religion.  Both have people who have had sightings or visions.  Both have believers.  Both have non-believers.  Both have I don't knows.

Noel

6 hours ago, martin-w said:

 

Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. 

That's a cliche. The final outpost for these who believe in life and even intelligent life beyond our little blue marble. Absence of evidence is most certainly evidence of absence. Just because an old refrain is used a billion times doesn't make it true. It's not conclusive but I didn't say absence of evidence is proof of absence did I? No I merely said there is no evidence! But I know you are going to say 'Oh but there is! There is an abundance of proof here on Earth." I won't waste my time with your rhetoric and sophistry. As far as I'm concerned people are free to believe whatever BS tickles their fancy and live with the consequences so y'all go speculate to your hearts content.🤣

Edited July 29, 20232 yr by FBW737

3 hours ago, dmwalker said:

The balloon was not rapidly inflatable and didn't work very well. 

 

70 years later, we have an almost identical device being narrowly missed by a pair of F18's. 

Seems very likely that what they encountered was a better version of the same tech, to me. 

More likely than alien technology. 

 

Quote

The patent was filed way back in 1945 and was granted in 1949. It is alarmingly similar in appearance to what the pilots had reported seeing multiple times over the Atlantic Ocean. In fact, a near miss encounter with one of these objects as described by Navy Super Hornet pilot Ryan Graves states that the object was likely standing still, floating in the air, when the Super Hornet blasted by at a too close for comfort distance. In other words, it wasn't making any extreme performance maneuvers while within visual range. Instead, it was acting like, well, a balloon. 

 

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/28640/could-some-of-the-ufos-navy-pilots-are-encountering-be-airborne-radar-reflectors

 

Edited July 29, 20232 yr by martin-w

38 minutes ago, martin-w said:

70 years later, we have an almost identical device being narrowly missed by a pair of F18's. 

Seems very likely that what they encountered was a better version of the same tech, to me. 

More likely than alien technology. 

But presumably not American because why would they release it into American airspace unless by accident. So maybe a Chinese one from Cuba as suggested?

There don't seem to be any new US patents for such devices.

1 hour ago, FBW737 said:

That's a cliche. The final outpost for these who believe in life and even intelligent life beyond our little blue marble.

 

No, its fact. Its a true statement. And I've not said  that I believe there is any life in outer space, either intelligent or not intelligent.  Quite frankly we don't know, because we have no definitive evidence either way. And because we don't have nay definitive evidence either way, its inaccurate for you to state that you do definitively know by typing " there is no extra terrestrial life in the universe." 

 

Quote

Absence of evidence is most certainly evidence of absence.

 

Nope. Its evidence of absence of evidence, that's all. But its not evidence that the phenomenon itself isn't real. 

Alien lifeforms may or may not exist, thus its wrong for you to say... "there is no extra terrestrial life in the universe" You can't logically say that because you don't have knowledge that there is or that there isn't. Its an unknown, not a known absence. 

It's like me saying there's a coffee cup on my desk. And you saying "no there isn't because I cant see it, so I have no evidence its true, therefore its not true.  You would be wrong, there is indeed a coffee cup on my desk.

 

1 hour ago, FBW737 said:

No I merely said there is no evidence!

 

Nope! You said, and I quote "there is no extra terrestrial life in the universe".

 

1 hour ago, FBW737 said:

But I know you are going to say 'Oh but there is! There is an abundance of proof here on Earth." I won't waste my time with your rhetoric and sophistry.

 

 I'm not going to say anything of the sort. 

Edited July 29, 20232 yr by martin-w

30 minutes ago, dmwalker said:

But presumably not American because why would they release it into American airspace unless by accident. So maybe a Chinese one from Cuba as suggested?

There don't seem to be any new US patents for such devices.

 

In the video I linked to, they said that we know there were Chinese balloons operating in the area at the time. 

33 minutes ago, martin-w said:

In the video I linked to, they said that we know there were Chinese balloons operating in the area at the time. 

More accurately, Steven Greenstreet referred to a Politico article which said that an unnamed former senior DoD official said that "the intelligence community" assessed that the much smaller balloons detected off the coast of Virginia were Chinese radar-jamming devices.

That kind of report is just as unbelievable and has just as little physical evidence as any by Grusch, who is, similarly, a former, senior? intelligence officer.

2 hours ago, birdguy said:

But once identified as a radar reflector it becomes known as opposed to unknown.

Identified by Steven Greenstreet. Does that count?

22 minutes ago, dmwalker said:

That kind of report is just as unbelievable and has just as little physical evidence as any by Grusch, who is, similarly, a former, senior? intelligence officer.

 

Maybe, but for me. when we know that a transparent balloon with a geometric shape within is a design for a radar reflector, and the pilots in question saw a transparent sphere with geometric shape within, as they shot past at about 300 knots and only 75 feet away... it would seem the most likely explanation that it was indeed some manner of radar reflector. 

Re Greenstreet... a while back I'm pretty sure he teamed up with Nick pope and did pro UFO podcasts. I recall he even said he had his own UFO experience. And now, mysteriously, he's become a UFO debunker and is teaming up with Mick West. 🤔

 

See below. Bit of a switch around isn't it?

 

 

Edited July 29, 20232 yr by martin-w

27 minutes ago, martin-w said:

See below. Bit of a switch around isn't it?

All that youthful enthusiasm has evaporated, leaving only cynicism.

They seem to have missed this even earlier record of UFOs:

9 hours ago, martin-w said:

No, its fact. Its a true statement.

Just because Carl Sagan say's something doesn't make it a fact. My statement (me being a Mr. nobody) is far more factual. The absence of evidence is not proof of absence but it is evidence of absence and the harder you look the more the absence is evident. For anyone interested see the abstract I've linked from the Department of Philosophy of British Columbia. The common refrain "The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" is broadly refuted in philosophy of science. The absence of evidence is in fact evidence of absence. It's a cool thing to say and can throw your interlocutor off in a debate but the use of it is also, like other rhetorical instruments an admission of failure to present a valid argument. Better to spend the rest of this thread debating the validity of Sagan's false epistemological motto. Then the participants might actually come away with something.🤪

file:///C:/Users/Me/Downloads/tblair,+31.1StephensPubPDF.pdf

Edited July 30, 20232 yr by FBW737

55 minutes ago, FBW737 said:

not proof of absence but it is evidence of absence

Definitions from Oxford Languages 

proof
noun
1. evidence or argument establishing or helping to establish a fact or the truth of a statement.

Up until 1923, there was an absence of evidence for galaxies beyond our galaxy.

In 1924 Edwin Hubble showed that it was not evidence of absence by discovering that the universe was full of galaxies beyond our galaxy.

Absence of evidence doesn't mean the evidence does not exist; it means we just haven't found it yet and we may never find it.  

Edited July 30, 20232 yr by dmwalker

4 hours ago, dmwalker said:

Absence of evidence doesn't mean the evidence does not exist; it means we just haven't found it yet and we may never find it.  

 

FBW737 said... "There is no extra terrestrial life in the universe."

 

FBW737 believes that prior to 1974 gravitational waves didn't exist because we had no evidence for them. And then, in 1974, when we found evidence, they suddenly switched on. 😳 

Likewise, the coffee cup on my desk will suddenly have its atoms assembled and materialize on my desk, when he gets evidence. Thus he is an omnipotent being with the power to bring into existence any previously unknown object the instant his powerful mind receives and accepts the evidence.

This makes perfect sense, and when he obtains evidence for the existence of aliens, simultaneously, they will become manifest and the non existent alien race will suddenly be born into the universe.

The rest of us, of course, do not have this power, so will simply say, we do not know, we can't be definitive either way, and that alien life may or may not exist. 

 

 

Edited July 30, 20232 yr by martin-w