https://youtu.be/PRgoisHRmUE
Any opinions? The witnesses seem professional.
Order of Kilopi
https://youtu.be/PRgoisHRmUE
Any opinions? The witnesses seem professional.
Bad Post-Doc
Which, as we all know, is all that matters when it comes to eyewitness testimony.
_____________________________________________
Gillian
"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"
"You can't erase icing."
"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"
Order of Kilopi
Metabunk have analysed the video pretty thoroughly, and it seems that this is not necessarily evidence of a craft with unusual flight characteristics, or indeed, anything unusual at all.
https://www.metabunk.org/2004-uss-ni...e-flir1.t9190/
Most of the peculiar aspects of this clip are caused by the movement of the Forward Looking Infra-Red sensor, which (despite its name) does look sideways as well as forwards. The rapid movement at the end, for instance, was caused by a rapid change in magnification in the FLIR, not by anything the target did.
But this does not explain Fravor's account. I should point out that Fravor did not take the movie clip, but this was shot by a different airplane - slightly later. However I suspect that Fravor may have seen the clip later - in fact, probably very soon after the encounter- and he has in some way conflated his memories of the encounter with his memories of the clip.
This would explain his descriptions of the erratic movements of the target, which were caused by the sensor itself, and almost certainly were not real movements. Conflation of this kind is a very common occurence in UFO reports, especially after a period of many years.
Order of Kilopi
Remember--this guy's call sign was David “Sex” Fravor.
I seem to remember an old tale of spent Bofors/pom-pom gun shells hitting the decks sharp end first--leaving circular divots.
Sailors would tell land-lubbers that the holes were from birds called "deck-peckers"
Established Member
NDAs for confused witnesses and faulty videos seems extreme. What's your opinion gzhpcu?
Last edited by Spacedude; 2019-Sep-07 at 02:00 PM. Reason: Left out a z
Order of Kilopi
The thing about Non-Disclosure Agreements is that they're not necessarily a marker for suppressed truth. They can be used to stop people saying anything about their work which might incur embarrassment, cost or hassle for their employer - which includes lies, mistaken notions and jokes.Originally Posted by Spacedude
Grant Hutchison
Established Member
True Grant, but nevertheless these witnesses were determined to tell their story. I wonder if they'll suffer any consequences?...or more likely the authorities will assume no harm done and just allow this event to fade away into the dustbin of ufo history.
Order of Kilopi
My opinion? Considering the quality of the witnesses, I tend to think there is something to be taken seriously. I believe they saw something. What exactly, the jury is out. Shame it was not officially investigated.
Member
They saw something, which they could not identify. This only means it's any one of a myriad of possibilities, but all have a rational Earthly origin.
Problem is, eyewitness accounts are the LEAST reliable source of data (which is ironic considering how highly courts value it). Each human brain interprets and stores data differently. Take any group of 100 people and stage an identical event for them to witness individually and you will always get 100 different accounts of the event later.
Order of Kilopi
I've had personal bitter experience of "good quality" witnesses "determined to tell their story", who sincerely believed they had seen something that not only didn't happen, but couldn't happen, and which would have been impossible for them to observe from where they were standing, even if it had happened. Inconsistencies in their original reports ironed out very quickly after they had spoken to each other, and then some of them began to "remember" details which were consistent with one person's report, but inconsistent with their own original reports.
Being sane and conscientious and "trained to observe" doesn't stop you misinterpreting sensory data, sometimes quite grossly, in order to align it with what you think you're observing, and it doesn't stop you remodelling your own memories for consistency later.
Grant Hutchison
Order of Kilopi
Could someone explain where the NDA information comes from? It’s explained in the video?
As above, so below
Established Member
Yes, in the video the pilots claimed that they were instructed to sign NDAs about their experience and all the camera recording were carted away by persons of mysterious origin. Watch the video for how the events unfolded.
Order of Kilopi
The story comes from an In-Flight Technician named "Roger" (I don't know if that's his real name) and an aviation tech from Nimitz called PJ Hughes, who say that "Roger" and others were obliged to sign NDAs. Other witnesses, including the pilots, have denied signing or being asked to sign NDAs, and say they were not aware of anyone else being asked to sign such documents.
The story from Hughes and "Roger" was a late addition to the narrative - they came forward only after seeing the film "The Nimitz Encounters".
Grant Hutchison
Order of Kilopi
My bold - David Fravor is actually on record saying exactly the opposite. The NDA and "mysterious personnel" story is a later iteration of the narrative, as I describe above, and Fravor has rather distanced himself from it.
Grant Hutchison
Order of Kilopi
As so often in these cases, the story has become obscured by poor memory, confabulation and (quite possibly) deliberate invention. These events happened 15 years ago; this confusion will only get worse. In contrast, the only concrete evidence so far is the Nimitz FLIR film, which is ambiguous, and can easily be interpreted as a conventional aircraft (possibly a drone) at a considerable distance.
Here's Metabunk on the possibility that this is just a distant plane.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1oTg0kxzDs
Order of Kilopi
Also, regarding the NDAs, I think it would be strange if Navy personnel don’t have a general NDA, considering that they use advanced technologies that other people are keen to learn about. And regarding the “carting away” of equipment, I assume it is Navy equipment, so if they are going to do an investigation they will need the data. So it sounds kind of fishy when they put it that way, but it seems pretty normal to me.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
As above, so below
Order of Kilopi
One of the striking psychosocial aspects of "classic" UFO-encounter narratives is how they are worn smooth with time - complications and inconsistencies are omitted in the retelling. But at the same time new material accretes, only to be consolidated in turn. What's left is a sort of slick and compelling summary narrative, sometimes quite a long way from the messy and confusing original.
I think it's probably exactly the same process that, left to run for a few centuries, distilled King Arthur and the Round Table out of an assortment of Brittonic stories about real people doing mundane things.
Grant Hutchison
Order of Kilopi
Yeah. Why let extraordinary evidence requirements get in the way of extraordinary stories?
We know time flies, we just can't see its wings.
Order of Kilopi
Sorry, I’m not quite sure what you are meaning to say.Yeah. Why let extraordinary evidence requirements get in the way of extraordinary stories?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
As above, so below
Order of Kilopi
Paraphrasing Sagan, adding a twist, plus also being facetious, as was Grant (not toward him, btw).
Altered stories aren’t likely objective and usually do more harm to credibility than good.
iPhone
Last edited by George; 2019-Sep-09 at 04:34 AM.
We know time flies, we just can't see its wings.
Order of Kilopi
I wasn't being facetious - I think the causes and effects are exactly the same, whether it's the evolution of a UFO narrative, or the evolution of legendary narrative. There are some specific parallels I could draw with the evolution of the Arthur/Merlin stories, but I'll spare you that so we don't all end up with infractions again.
Grant Hutchison
Order of Kilopi
Ok, my error. I immediately mentally conjured-up the sword in the stone, etc. and overreacted. King Arthur is a fair analogy along with Big Foot, no doubt.
My main point is that Sagan's popularization of "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" is very apt in such stories. Given revisionists accounts years later from witnesses is very detrimental to any story, unless one is an ET that wants to maintain doubt and confusion, of course.
We know time flies, we just can't see its wings.
Order of Kilopi
Here pilots, technicians and radar operators come forward and fighter pilots and the crew onboard the Hawkeye claiming visual contact. Also traces from various tracking systems, including Aegis and even sonar according to the video.
Order of Kilopi
I believe what is invoked is the absence of a sonar trace - the USS Louisville, in company with the Nimitz, detected no unusual underwater signals despite the large area of disturbed water reported by the FA-18C pilot.
This absence, like the inability of the FA-18Fs to acquire a radar target, is made into a virtue in the classic UFO narrative ("alien stealth tech"), rather than being seen as a problematic inconsistency in the narratives.
Grant Hutchison
Order of Kilopi
I don’t think there’s really much doubt that they saw something. It’s just that people fill in details of memories later, and we are also influenced by the recollections of others, so the details are probably unreliable.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
As above, so below
Order of Kilopi
And it was confusing. Different systems and different people reported different things, there was a definite sense of paranoia in some quarters as events unfolded, and the story has continued to evolve as more people have come forward with new (and different) reports. Fravor in particular seems hugely frustrated by the number of conflicting narratives that have appeared since his original testimony.
Grant Hutchison
Order of Kilopi
I don't know what to make of the Navy's more open policies on reporting UFOs.
Sprites are real--and giant jellyfish looking things in the skies would seem more fantastic things to report than a metal disk--so there is that.
But another way of looking at this is that a lack of critical thinking is finding its way in the military--and that is not good.
Order of Kilopi
I’m not sure that is the issue. It may be more like this: there are many kooky people who believe in Flying saucers. Military people might see things that look like flying saucers but are actually advanced enemy weapons. And they might fail to report those sightings because they are afraid of being ridiculed in association with the kooky people. Which is a bad thing. So it’s probably a good thing to have a policy that says, nobody will ridicule you for reporting something you see, even if it turns out to be something mundane.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
As above, so below
Order of Kilopi
And there was a definite sense that something hostile might be out there, at one point - the FA-18C pilot was asked if he had any weapons on board when he was routed to investigate. But then Fravor was greeted by crew wearing tinfoil hats after he reported his experience.
So behaviour was flip-flopping between extremes - in that sense, I suppose, there was a lack of critical thinking, and a more open policy on reporting could help restore critical thought.
Grant Hutchison
Order of Kilopi
I'm not sure I'd say flip-flopping. Those are two different circumstances. An on-duty operator aboard the USS Princeton tasked with monitoring local airspace and vectoring aircraft is unlikely to engage in any silliness. Whereas the pilot's off-duty comrades certainly are.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote