I’ve been wanting to ask questions about UFO’s for ages but held back, I dunno why, maybe because of the contraversial nature of debating this, but I had to ask on here specifically and because people are skeptical, and I enjoy people debunking things which seem outlandish at first, but then can be rationally explained later by people who actually know what they’re talking about. (I love debunking 9/11 conspiracy theorists)
Anyway, enough rambling, I want people to debate the existance of UFO’s and tell me, in light of this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0jpUPLqLhA I’ve just watched from STS-80 (ignore the commentary) what can you make of this series of events I’ve just witnessed on this video?
Now I am an amateur space buff, I love NASA and think space exploration in general is excellent, and I know a little bit about the amount of garbage spacecraft still in orbit which don’t do anything anymore, however, is it accurate of me to say that, in light of this video, space junk doesn’t act like this and there is no rational explanation of what’s going on here other than an intelligent craft/s going about their business in full view of the Space Shuttles cameras, or am I wrong?
The space shuttle program costs 100 billion and they can’t afford a color camera to hang off the back?
Honestly the footage looks like a bunch of blobs moving around next to other blobs. If the little text blurbs didn’t say “hey look, there goes a UFO”, I don’t think I could tell which blobs were supposed to be aliens and which were just clouds/light spots/whatever.
Looks like parts of debris (Ice and water mostly, I guess) from the shuttle itself to me. If that stuff moves in a similar orbit with similar speed the resuliting movement relative to the shuttle can become pretty counterintuitive.
Notice that the objects are all out of focus, so they are a lot closer to the shuttle that earth.
If this things are visible from the shuttle, its reasonable to assume they are visible from the ground, too. So many so big objects (as the video suggests) would have been seen by a few thousand amateur astronomers, so… No. No UFOs.
Seems to me it is more likely related to Sprite lightning. (That goes for the objects seen from afar, IMO the early shots are from smaller objects close to the shuttle)
It would not surprise me that the orbs in the latter shots are the upper atmosphere cold plasma versions of the low level ball lightning phenomenon.
Ok, so that explains the first half of the video, but what about that weird object which enters the Earths atmosphere in the second half? It goes into the atmosphere, stays stationary, then a counterpart comes into view, all this happening with video footage of metorites zooming past, so what was that?
:smack: Woops, sorry, I’ll pay more attention next time. But on another note, ok if it is ball lighting of some sort, when the Shuttle camera zooms near the end of the video, there’s 3 objects in low level orbit, which is what the phenomena was.
So, if it just an atmospheric phenomenon, surely it has been filmed many times since then, considering how many more missions have been carried out? Any comparitive footage, anyone?
IMHO the fist part of the video can be explained by what** in hiding** posted.
Simplicio, depending on the need, the NASA camera will be set to overexpose the subject, it can also be that we are seeing an infrared shot.
Amazingly, the History Channel “UFO Hunters” does a very good explanation on why most if not all of what we see in the OP video has mundane explanations:
Just ice and debris from around the ship.
I still think that some items in the second part of the video can still be explained by the weird high altitude plasma lightning; but, after seeing the explanation from the UFO hunters, I have to say that we do not need to resort to just that to explain the orbs.
There is also the Camera LEDs or other bright objects inside the shuttle causing reflections in the shuttle windows:
Mundane explanation at 1:07
It is very likely that we are seeing all items mentioned here in the video, but alas, no UFOs.
Ok puttin that to one side, the hoaxes and the people who actively encourage overreaction to make money off them, what about Military reports of UFO sightings above US military installations, an interesting one was featured on UFO Hunters I think, about a huge NATO naval operation in the North Sea in the 50’s called Operation Mainbrace, where allegedly UFO’s buzzed the fleet in numerous circumstances and aircraft chased a UFO. I single that out because it was before major space flight/satellite developments, aircraft developments, and also because it was a military report.
That’s increased my respect for UFO hunters, but by the look on that guy in the sunglasses face, he looked as though he wasn’t too happy it was debunked so easily. Thanks for the link.
Well, no, because he’s invested his reputation on being correct without putting in any real effort is supporting or taking responsibility for his claim.
The same kind of thinking and positioning occurs in the medical pseudoscience I deal with. Step one is the false assumption that if a phenomenon can’t be explained by current knowledge, it must then prove a given (i.e. pet/favorite) hypothesis, despite lack of any supporting evidence. Step two is to discredit any reasonable explanation while at the same time demanding that the unsupported conclusion be accepted at the same level as the discredited explanation. Not only can you not have your cake and eat it as well, you haven’t even given a reason why a multilayered meat-cheese-pasta concoction ought to be considered cake to begin with.
In the end it is opinion needing to be accepted as fact and validated by a recognized authority that drives the kind of logic that is often seen in the mentally ill. Please note that I am not suggesting that people who push unreasonable theories as undeniably true are mentally ill; some are, some aren’t, but the logical twists and turns required to see their truth is very similar to psychotic delusions. When 99.99% of what others think or perceive as true is discounted, the problem lies with the 0.01% who can’t see themselves as the outlier, rather than the mean.
I can’t check if this was covered by UFO hunters, my tubes are clogged. If I could see one of those things take a turn, come closer to the camera or move farther away I’d be impressed as heck but they always just go in one direction, which doesn’t impress me all that much. Personally, I’m more interested in military and civilian aviation reports and such–I recently saw something called Black Box UFO something rather and was more than intrigued.
That, IMO, is the big one, and bears repeating: just because you can’t explain something, doesn’t mean it’s inexplicable, and neither does it mean that [your favourite woo here] is correct. It may be the case that these things can be conclusively shown not to be space debris or whatever else hypothesis one might put forward; but that in no way implies that they’d have to be space aliens in flying saucers.
I mean, I can’t explain most magic tricks, either, but that doesn’t mean that they actually are magic; it just means that I can’t think of an explanation, is all. It’s a failure of mine, nothing more.
Same thing goes for those UFOs: just that we can’t think of any mundane explanation, doesn’t mean there isn’t any. Maybe we’re just stupid.
Ok, that’s a good point in explaining civilian UFO reports, and I agree that more than likely that about 99.99999999999% are perfectly explainable, however, harking back to a previous post, what about Military reports of UFO’s where planes actually chase these objects around, or where military aircraft give chase and their entire electronics are shut off etc?
The explanation was mostly for the **second **part of the video.
