UFO over O'Hare

[firecoins]

Thats right. A UFO tried to land at O'Hare but the country's busiest airport had no place for them to land.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/automotive/columnists/chi-0701010141jan01,0,5874175.column?coll=chi-newsnationworldiraq-hed

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

All the witnesses said the object was dark gray and well defined in the overcast skies. They said the craft, estimated by different accounts to be 6 feet to 24 feet in diameter, did not display any lights.

Some said it looked like a rotating Frisbee, while others said it did not appear to be spinning. All agreed the object made no noise and it was at a fixed position in the sky, just below the 1,900-foot cloud deck, until shooting off into the clouds.
Where do I learn how to estimate the diameter of a disk at 1,900 feet?

~~ Paul

[Slimething]

"To fly 7 million light years to O'Hare and then have to turn around and go home because your gate was occupied is simply unacceptable," said O'Hare controller and union official Craig Burzych.

My favorite quote from the article. Many thanks to Mr. Burzych for summing up the controversy!

[hcmom]

Where do I learn how to estimate the diameter of a disk at 1,900 feet?

~~ Paul
If I were you, I'd start somewhere other than the group of people that estimated it with differences from a six foot diameter to a twenty-four foot diameter...

[The Atheist]

I love this one:

"I tend to be scientific by nature, and I don't understand why aliens would hover over a busy airport," said a United mechanic who was in the cockpit of a Boeing 777 that he was taxiing to a maintenance hangar when he observed the metallic-looking object above Gate C17.

"But I know that what I saw and what a lot of other people saw stood out very clearly, and it definitely was not an [Earth] aircraft," the mechanic said.

Oh yeah, reeeeeally scientific...

As are most mechanics.

[firecoins]

My favorite quote from the article. Many thanks to Mr. Burzych for summing up the controversy!
you don't mess with the Unions in Chicago. These aliens better watch out cause they will disappear for real!:eek:

[firecoins]

In the days of camera phones, digital camers and camcorders, its really amazing no one has even a grainy photo of it, especially at an airport! Your would figure that there are security cameras looking at the airfield as well as sky in the dirction of takeoffs and landings too!

[latent aaaack]

"One United employee appeared emotionally shaken by the sighting and "experienced some religious issues" over it, one co-worker said."

Because if there's a God, how could he just sit back and allow something as horrible as a grey disc sitting in the sky to happen? Doesn't make sense.

Shouldn't that bolster a religious viewpoint, that crazy stuff can just be poofed into existence without needing any explanation? I would've thought that seeing a UFO would comfort a believer.

[Huntster]

"One United employee appeared emotionally shaken by the sighting and "experienced some religious issues" over it, one co-worker said."

Because if there's a God, how could he just sit back and allow something as horrible as a grey disc sitting in the sky to happen? Doesn't make sense.

Shouldn't that bolster a religious viewpoint, that crazy stuff can just be poofed into existence without needing any explanation? I would've thought that seeing a UFO would comfort a believer.

Never been afraid of the unknown?

[The Atheist]

Never been afraid of the unknown?

Not when it's a UFO scared off the airport because it was too busy...

Hunt, please tell me you don't buy into UFOs.

[Foolmewunz]

Uh oh! Move it to the Conspiracy Boards! The gubmint is trying to cover it up.

Federal agency backtracks

Like United, the FAA originally told the Tribune that it had no information on the alleged UFO sighting. But the federal agency quickly reversed its position after the newspaper filed a Freedom of Information Act request.

[American]

Shouldn't that bolster a religious viewpoint, that crazy stuff can just be poofed into existence without needing any explanation? I would've thought that seeing a UFO would comfort a believer.

The distinction is not one that most skeptics accept:

Miracles have a certain "poofiness" about them - they are things that happen without reason, and always attributed to faith.

UFOs, if they do exist, are based on technology and science that's advanced further than our own. There is no "poof" to them.


Most often, "If they do exist," is not even considered in skeptical forums.

[latent aaaack]

The distinction is not one that most skeptics accept:

Miracles have a certain "poofiness" about them - they are things that happen without reason, and always attributed to faith.

UFOs, if they do exist, are based on technology and science that's advanced further than our own. There is no "poof" to them.


Most often, "If they do exist," is not even considered in skeptical forums.

The point is they're accustomed to believing in phenomena much weirder than a spacecraft and to not needing to think about ramifications or explanations of anything. Unless it's like learning you have a new brother that your parents might like more, I don't get the "religious issues" that existence of aliens would provoke.

I can't think of a paranormal phenomenon with less potential ramifications than aliens that are impossible to prove or learn anything about.

[Huntster]

Originally Posted by Huntster
Never been afraid of the unknown?
Not when it's a UFO scared off the airport because it was too busy...

Have you ever seen a UFO scared off the airport because it was too busy?

Hunt, please tell me you don't buy into UFOs.

Of course I do. What's so difficult to "buy into" about unidentified flying objects?

I've seen several. I've even seen unidentified non-flying objects, and as my eyes fail more and more with age, I'll probably see a whole lot more of both in the future.

Were they spaceships filled with little green men?

I'm "highly skeptical" of that.

But I don't know. So I'm not going to make a fool of myself saying that I do.

[American]

Unless it's like learning you have a new brother that your parents might like more, I don't get the "religious issues" that existence of aliens would provoke.

That might be a good analogy.

I think a lot of religious people aren't true believers, they just practice it (and lie to themselves) in order to feel good. Seeing a "real" UFO would force them to realize there's no mysterious universe, instead only one based on hard science.

Of course a true believer would be just fine, secure in their faith that God is still in command.

[Patricio Elicer]

In the days of camera phones, digital camers and camcorders, its really amazing no one has even a grainy photo of it, especially at an airport! Your would figure that there are security cameras looking at the airfield as well as sky in the dirction of takeoffs and landings too!As I was scrolling down the thread I was thinking exactly the same thing. No pictures? hmmm, odd.

Another fantastic case where we just have testimonies to rely on, why the hell there's never the "hard evidence" for all of us to examine? :confused:

[thatguywhojuggles]

nothing here, move along...

[Patricio Elicer]

Here (http://forums.uforesearcher.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=3;t=000177) are seemingly two independant pictures of the UFO. Too good to be true?. If these are true pics of the object, then the case may be worth paying attention.

[The Atheist]

Here (http://forums.uforesearcher.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=3;t=000177) are seemingly two independant pictures of the UFO. Too good to be true?. If these are true pics of the object, then the case may be worth paying attention.

Here, I'll run that through the Gizmo........




http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/10377451f74d05e792.gif (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=1714)

[SezMe]

Hmpf. Pics shown more than 3 weeks after the incident, sent to a UFO nuttiness site by an anonymous person who refuses to state his employer. Hmmm, why am I suspicious?

ETA: If a picture is worth a thousand words, The Atheist is way ahead of me.

[The Atheist]

Were they spaceships filled with little green men?

I'm "highly skeptical" of that.

But I don't know. So I'm not going to make a fool of myself saying that I do.
Ok, I'll buy that.

I was a bit worried that you were off to Area 51, or whatever number it is.

I figure that if the little green men are smart enough to travel the billions of miles to Earth, they'd most likely say hi while they were here.

[Trig]

I know it's generally accepted now that UFO (aliens) believers are crazy. I know in the USA it's a pretty common thing to believe you've been abducted. Maybe people really want to be special, so much so they crave the attention they receive when making such a claim.

However they could be right, and one day all the skeptics will be eating their hats in preparation for when the flying saucer lands, and they come and eat our brains.

Who knows? Well you would think the government did, and they keep telling us that they don't. But you would also think they would have a legitimate explanation for such occurances, and would be able to convince the people what they really are.

If someone could explain the phenomena, and replicate it, then I would be totally convinced that it isn't aliens visiting. Whilst they cannot, I am open to believe it is: a funny cloud, someones funky frisbee, birds carrying a trash can lid, aliens in their space ship, military test craft, a prankster having fun at the gullible peoples expense.. and so on.

You can't discredit something whilst you have nothing to back it up, and vice versa.

I'm not a firm believer of the existence of extraterrestrials who our visiting our world, but I am open to the idea. It is feasible, however unlikely.

If you said to anyone 100 years ago that we would have space stations and regular trips to planets in our system, they would think your are crazy. One day, maybe, something will come visit us, and realise how technologically inferior we are.

[Patricio Elicer]

I know it's generally accepted now that UFO (aliens) believers are crazy. I know in the USA it's a pretty common thing to believe you've been abducted. Maybe people really want to be special, so much so they crave the attention they receive when making such a claim.

However they could be right, and one day all the skeptics will be eating their hats in preparation for when the flying saucer lands, and they come and eat our brains.

Who knows? Well you would think the government did, and they keep telling us that they don't. But you would also think they would have a legitimate explanation for such occurances, and would be able to convince the people what they really are.

If someone could explain the phenomena, and replicate it, then I would be totally convinced that it isn't aliens visiting. Whilst they cannot, I am open to believe it is: a funny cloud, someones funky frisbee, birds carrying a trash can lid, aliens in their space ship, military test craft, a prankster having fun at the gullible peoples expense.. and so on.

You can't discredit something whilst you have nothing to back it up, and vice versa.

I'm not a firm believer of the existence of extraterrestrials who our visiting our world, but I am open to the idea. It is feasible, however unlikely.

If you said to anyone 100 years ago that we would have space stations and regular trips to planets in our system, they would think your are crazy. One day, maybe, something will come visit us, and realise how technologically inferior we are.I agree with your views, but this particular case smells like a hoax to me, judging by the pics I linked above. There are quite a few reasons to think it's a hoax, some of them have been mentioned before, but the most compelling to me is that there are tens of pictures of the kind already proven to be hoaxes.

Anyway, I'd love to be proven wrong ....

[The Atheist]

I know it's generally accepted now that UFO (aliens) believers are crazy. I know in the USA it's a pretty common thing to believe you've been abducted. Maybe people really want to be special, so much so they crave the attention they receive when making such a claim.That, and I think the anal probes are a big selling point.
However they could be right, and one day all the skeptics will be eating their hats in preparation for when the flying saucer lands, and they come and eat our brains.Mmmm, fricasseed brains.
Who knows? Well you would think the government did, and they keep telling us that they don't. But you would also think they would have a legitimate explanation for such occurances, and would be able to convince the people what they really are.Look, I know your government has the odd problem - Iraq, North Korea, an imbecile as President, but inability to explain hoaxes, hysteria and downright lunacy shouldn't really count against them
If someone could explain the phenomena, and replicate it, then I would be totally convinced that it isn't aliens visiting. Whilst they cannot, I am open to believe it is: a funny cloud, someones funky frisbee, birds carrying a trash can lid, aliens in their space ship, military test craft, a prankster having fun at the gullible peoples expense.. and so on.Same applies - if you want to replicate the deal, try 3 or 4 days on a savia divornum and don't have any sleep. That should put your brain into the same mush-like state as UFO abductees.
You can't discredit something whilst you have nothing to back it up, and vice versa.You can't discredit delusions? Well, you can, it's just difficult because the people with the delusions don't usually realise they're deluded. It's like debunking god - it's very hard to disprove a non-existent entity. Try disproving the existence of the Tooth Fairy while you're at it.
I'm not a firm believer of the existence of extraterrestrials who our visiting our world, but I am open to the idea. It is feasible, however unlikely.Now you're onto it - of course it's possible. I'd personally love to meet a couple. Hitching a ride back with them is an attractive idea.
If you said to anyone 100 years ago that we would have space stations and regular trips to planets in our system, they would think your are crazy. One day, maybe, something will come visit us, and realise how technologically inferior we are.

Not sure that's correct, actually, early sci-fi dealt with this sort of thing right back to the 1600s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_fiction#Ancient_precursors) Imaginary voyages to the moon in the 17th century, first in Johannes Kepler's Somnium (The Dream, 1634), and then in Cyrano de Bergerac's Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon (1656). Space travel also figures prominently in Voltaire's Micromégas (1752).

[Trig]

Yes, but this was science fiction right? and ufo's and aliens are science fiction now right? I stand by my original point.

I just think its unfair to dismiss everything at the glance of the content, and from what I have viewed throughtout these boards, I see alot of peoples 5 word posts, or posts that just state 'BULLSH*T'.

[Huntster]

Originally Posted by Huntster
Were they spaceships filled with little green men?

I'm "highly skeptical" of that.

But I don't know. So I'm not going to make a fool of myself saying that I do.
Ok, I'll buy that.

I was a bit worried that you were off to Area 51, or whatever number it is.

I always wanted to go there, just to screw with security..........

.....you know; get painted up and crawl up to good optical range, just to see if they'd catch me.

I figure that if the little green men are smart enough to travel the billions of miles to Earth, they'd most likely say hi while they were here.

Maybe not.

We might not be "friendly natives."

[The Atheist]

I always wanted to go there, just to screw with security..........

.....you know; get painted up and crawl up to good optical range, just to see if they'd catch me.Nah, they'd just think you were Santa checking out for new propulsion to replace the reindeer.
Maybe not.

We might not be "friendly natives."True. They might realise that shoot first is a good option!

[Huntster]

Originally Posted by Huntster
I always wanted to go there, just to screw with security..........

.....you know; get painted up and crawl up to good optical range, just to see if they'd catch me.

Nah, they'd just think you were Santa checking out for new propulsion to replace the reindeer.

Ho, ho, ho!

[bruto]

Anybody else here old enough to remember the old Sid Caesar show, and his character Progress Hornsby? No no, you can't land here. We're all full up!

[TjW]

The first picture looks nothing at all like the second picture.
The second picture looks very much like a lenticular cloud.
I have no idea what might create a low-level wave condition around O'Hare.

[SezMe]

I have no idea what might create a low-level wave condition around O'Hare.
Photoshop.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

At approximately 16:30 p.m. (Central) on Tuesday, November 07, 2006, Federal authorities at O'Hare Airport received a report that approximately a dozen witnesses were observing a small, round disc-shaped object, metallic in appearance, which hovered over Gate C17 at that airport.
It's 1,900 feet in the air, but it's "over Gate C17"?


At the end of that time, the object was seen to suddenly accelerate straight up at a very rapid pace, and it "shot" through the solid overcast, which was at 1,900 feet at the time. The witness added that the object appeared to leave a "hole" in the clouds, where it had streaked upwards through the overcast.
Aha, first it was low, then it shot up through the clouds, leaving a hole. Sounds like shadow effects of lenticular clouds.


we observed a dark gray hazy round object hovering over head C Terminal and holding very steady and near the cloud cover.
Now it's up at 1,900 feet but "over head C Terminal."

~~ Paul

[baron]

I don't understand where those two photos came from. The second one is 100% unquestionably fake. Not only that it was faked by someone totally unfamiliar with photography and digital manipulation.

The first one may or may not be fake, but it is certainly not a photo of what was described. There are two options ~

1) The object was very small in the original photo and was cropped and blown up for display. This sounds fine until you examine the extreme gradient of the background sky. This would manifest almost as a sharp cut-off in the original photo and is certainly not consistent with overcast conditions. There are even defined cloud-like structures bottom left.

2) The object was large in the photograph. However, witnesses said clearly that this was not so.

Therefore, as relates to this event, they are bogus.

If these photos are genuinely related to the reports then I'm afraid the whole thing is a fake. If not, the report is quite interesting (despite the somewhat childish derision it received from some quarters)

[Trig]

I think the second looks more like a cloud :)

[American]

I can't think of a paranormal phenomenon with less potential ramifications than aliens that are impossible to prove or learn anything about.

I thought of this a bit, and I now change some of my argument--

The fact is: seeing a real UFO could be absolutely terrifying to a lot of people, both religious and atheist alike.

Some might take it lightly. Others would be un-nerved, but they'd still handle it maturely... Still, many folks would just freak out and "lose it".

So clinging to one's religion, whether or not they believed strongly, might be the right reaction for someone scared s--tless.

[Skeptic Guy]

I thought of this a bit, and I now change some of my argument--

The fact is: seeing a real UFO could be absolutely terrifying to a lot of people, both religious and atheist alike.

Some might take it lightly. Others would be un-nerved, but they'd still handle it maturely... Still, many folks would just freak out and "lose it".

So clinging to one's religion, whether or not they believed strongly, might be the right reaction for someone scared s--tless.

I wonder how many people would get really frightened about something like an alien visitation. That has always been the excuse the UFO CT'ers have used to explain why the government would hide the fact that UFOs have visited the Earth. To me, I don't think the majority of the world's population would be that freaked out about it. At least in an overly frightened manner.

I think the majority of people who would think it a fantastic, life-changing experience. And I would suspect that some fundamentalist religions would go into convulsions and among the rest of the more woo-centric believers there would spring up a plethora of new religions based on whatever showed up on our doorstep.

Of course, in our limited, earthly experience, there has never been a peaceful meeting between a highly technologically advanced culture and a lesser one. Therefore, if a flying saucer did show up one day, the love would probably be short-lived until the lasers start flying. That's another reason I don't think that we have been visited by aliens to date, I am not currently reporting to my new alien overlord.

[meg]

Is it just me, or does the second picture here:
http://forums.uforesearcher.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=3;t=000177

look strikingly similar to the picture found here?:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O'Hare_International_Airport

What are the odds of that ;)

[Overman]

Thats right. A UFO tried to land at O'Hare but the country's busiest airport had no place for them to land.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/automotive/columnists/chi-0701010141jan01,0,5874175.column?coll=chi-newsnationworldiraq-hed

YOU MEAN THEY ACTUALLY GOT MY NYE PARTY INVITE, ONLY TO LEAVE BECAUSE THE GATE WAS FULL!!!

DAMN YOU AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS!!!!

;)

[Kiwiwriter]

It was obviously here before to pick up the goods from Al Capone's vault, and replace it with the mud and dirt that Geraldo Rivera found.

Now, it's back for a follow-up.

:)

[MichelQC]

At approximately 16:30 p.m. (Central) on Tuesday, November 07, 2006, Federal authorities at O'Hare Airport received a report that approximately a dozen witnesses were observing a small, round disc-shaped object, metallic in appearance, which hovered over Gate C17 at that airport.

Only a dozen people saw this?? At O'Hare airport one of the busiest airport in the US? In broad daylight? During peak traffic hours? There must have been hundreds if not thousands of people within visual range of this "phenomena" and yet only a handful of people reported seeing this? Now there's solid evidence for you! :rolleyes:

[shemp]

The distinction is not one that most skeptics accept:

Miracles have a certain "poofiness" about them - they are things that happen without reason, and always attributed to faith.

UFOs, if they do exist, are based on technology and science that's advanced further than our own. There is no "poof" to them.


Most often, "If they do exist," is not even considered in skeptical forums.

You seem to know a lot about "poofiness". Have you been ripping off Elton John again?

[Huntster]

Only a dozen people saw this??

Yup. Only a dozen.

Enough to convict someone of a capital crime..............

Now there's solid evidence for you! :rolleyes:

Define "solid", please.

[meg]

Sorry. I'm still stuck the "photos".

That same second picture can be found on this page:
http://www.nationalufocenter.com/artman/publish/article_121.php

The "photo" caption reads "Illustration of disc above control towers"

However on that first page of pics, the caption posted by forum member Steven was "Second independant photo of same object taken of disc above control towers same event - O'Hare."

Just thought I'd share.

[Skeptical Greg]

http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/3466/untitled6xu5.jpg

Definitely manipulated image..

Ditto ..

http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/9241/oharedisksm8.jpg


Here is a zoomed in crop ..



http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_573459aa43ed0c87.gif (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=3444)


Of course God, or aliens could make objects, that when photographed, appear to be amateur Photo Shop'ed jobs...

[Crazycowbob]

Here (http://forums.uforesearcher.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=3;t=000177) are seemingly two independant pictures of the UFO. Too good to be true?. If these are true pics of the object, then the case may be worth paying attention.

I was reading Phil Plait's badastronomy blog earlier, and one of the posts linked to this site http://pic1.funtigo.com/valuca/?g=25544746&cr=1, a collection of some truly remarkable cloud photos (thanks Phil!)

Is it just me, or does that second picture in the UFO site look remarkably like a lenticular cloud? I'm sure there would be at least a dozen people in a crowd of hundreds that would be convinced it was a ufo...

[The Atheist]

Only a dozen people saw this?? At O'Hare airport one of the busiest airport in the US? In broad daylight? During peak traffic hours? There must have been hundreds if not thousands of people within visual range of this "phenomena" and yet only a handful of people reported seeing this? Now there's solid evidence for you! :rolleyes:

They were the only group smoking salvia?

[The Atheist]

You seem to know a lot about "poofiness". Have you been ripping off Elton John again?:dl:

[meg]

Hi Crazycowbob,

Yeah. I think it looks like a lenticular cloud, too. (Way cool pictures on that funtigo.com site, btw).

However, I'm quite sure that blob of what ever it is was photoshopped into this photo from wikipedia:

4855

[The Atheist]

If not, the report is quite interesting (despite the somewhat childish derision it received from some quarters)
The derision will stop on the very day that a "report" of a UFO sighting has any more credibility than sightings of angels dancing on the head of a pin.

This is clearly just a load of crap thought up by some bored (or stoned) employees.

Just think about it for a millisecond, all the thousands of people at the airport who didn't see it, yet one of the guys who "saw" the "UFO" was at the time parking a plane. Don't you think he might have been looking where he was going while in charge of several million dollars worth of equipment?

Anyone giving credence to this rubbish ought to be posting on a UFO forum, not here.

[Crazycowbob]

http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/3466/untitled6xu5.jpg

Definitely manipulated image..

Ditto ..




Here is a zoomed in crop ..






Of course God, or aliens could make objects, that when photographed, appear to be amateur Photo Shop'ed jobs...

I personally see no reason to believe that first image was photoshopped, and, if it was taken on the date in question, it easily explains what was seen. Check the link in my previous post, and you'll see that clouds can make some amazing shapes, including discs.

The image seems to be in good resolution (a rarity in these cases!), and the fuzziness of the object would be consistent with a cloud. No need to think it was edited, just missinterpreted.

[The Atheist]

Hi Crazycowbob,

Yeah. I think it looks like a lenticular cloud, too. (Way cool pictures on that funtigo.com site, btw).

However, I'm quite sure that blob of what ever it is was photoshopped into this photo from wikipedia:

4855

THAT is nominated - superb effort!

[Crazycowbob]

Hi Crazycowbob,

Yeah. I think it looks like a lenticular cloud, too. (Way cool pictures on that funtigo.com site, btw).

However, I'm quite sure that blob of what ever it is was photoshopped into this photo from wikipedia:

4855

Ah, hadn't seen that image, yeah, you're probably right then. You'd figure they'd find a better picture of a UFO if they were going to go through all the trouble of photoshopping it lol!

[firecoins]

Today's CNN article.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/01/02/ufo.sighting.ap/index.html

[Skeptic Guy]

I personally see no reason to believe that first image was photoshopped, and, if it was taken on the date in question, it easily explains what was seen. Check the link in my previous post, and you'll see that clouds can make some amazing shapes, including discs.

The image seems to be in good resolution (a rarity in these cases!), and the fuzziness of the object would be consistent with a cloud. No need to think it was edited, just missinterpreted.

Well, if you read Meg's post, I think it strongly suggests that someone invested in an Adobe product.

EDIT: Nevermind, I hadn't gotten down to the end of the posts. Sorry.

[Skeptical Greg]

I personally see no reason to believe that first image was photoshopped, and, if it was taken on the date in question, it easily explains what was seen. Check the link in my previous post, and you'll see that clouds can make some amazing shapes, including discs.

The image seems to be in good resolution (a rarity in these cases!), and the fuzziness of the object would be consistent with a cloud. No need to think it was edited, just missinterpreted.
Actually, if you zoom in on the first image you can see that the texture of the UFO doesn’t match the rest of the image..

It is what you see when you paste a high resolution sprite onto a low resolution background..


Click on this..


http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_573459ab1dad90f1.gif (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=3450)


It may very well be a lenticular cloud. 'Just didn't occur in the context as shown ..

[meg]

Why thank you, Atheist :)

For what it's worth, as a former air traffic controller, I doubt very much that the airline workers were trying to deliberately hoax anyone. Nor do I suspect they were stoned. If I were to guess, I'd say they saw some weird cloud, shadow, or smoke formation that near dusk, from their exact angle, with a low cloud deck just appeared to be some kind of solid disc shaped thing. One possibility might be some kind of hanging remnant from the wingtip vortices from a heavy jet. Here's a very cool picture of that sort of thing http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1091105/M/ , if you're interested. Another possibility might be a ring cloud. Over the years I've seen many bizarre cloud formations, many strange weather phenomena, and many times I've looked at aircraft from a certain angle, or through a heat haze, or with sunlight reflecting on them in a strange way, and thought I saw something different than what I was really looking at.

So I don't blame the airline workers for reporting what they saw. I think they probably believed they really saw something and were genuinely concerned about it.

The UFOers, on the other hand, that decided to "bump up" the story with faked photos... well, I can only assume that they're not really interested in finding the truth if they'll do something like that.

[Crazycowbob]

The UFOers, on the other hand, that decided to "bump up" the story with faked photos... well, I can only assume that they're not really interested in finding the truth if they'll do something like that.

Too true, though it still just blows my mind that they'd photoshop in a cloud of all things...

Ah well, no one said these were the best and brightest.

That vortex picture was awesome BTW! I love seeing all the cool things that happen in they sky, and I've seen a lot of cool things, no need for little green men to spice it up. :)

[baron]

The derision will stop on the very day that a "report" of a UFO sighting has any more credibility than sightings of angels dancing on the head of a pin.

This is clearly just a load of crap thought up by some bored (or stoned) employees.

Just think about it for a millisecond, all the thousands of people at the airport who didn't see it, yet one of the guys who "saw" the "UFO" was at the time parking a plane. Don't you think he might have been looking where he was going while in charge of several million dollars worth of equipment?

Anyone giving credence to this rubbish ought to be posting on a UFO forum, not here.

Top quality argument. Well done.

[baron]

And just to be clear about the photo. Of course it's a fake. However, it's not a cloud that's been pasted in, it's simply a single pen stroke painted onto the copied photo. I can even tell you the pen settings they used.

[The Atheist]

Why thank you, Atheist :) You are most welcome!
For what it's worth, as a former air traffic controller, I doubt very much that the airline workers were trying to deliberately hoax anyone. Nor do I suspect they were stoned. If I were to guess, I'd say they saw some weird cloud, shadow, or smoke formation that near dusk, from their exact angle, with a low cloud deck just appeared to be some kind of solid disc shaped thing.Again, I'm sure you're right - I just get thoroughly annoyed with people who see something odd and immediately jump to the least likely conclusions, especially when they give lie to themselves with claims like, "I'm a really scientific person." then don't even consider the likely optical or meteorological illusions, but go straight to, "Oh my god! A UFO!"

[baron]

And I get annoyed with people who don't bother to research the facts and simply shout "liar!" or "stoned!" when someone reports what they saw. If someone saw something that looked like a structured craft then why on earth should they not say so? Is it a crime to be mistaken, or to honestly report an experience? Should they keep their interpretations secret for fear of offending those who are positively up themselves with righteous indignation at the thought of phenomenon they can't immediately explain.

[Skeptic Guy]

You are most welcome!
Again, I'm sure you're right - I just get thoroughly annoyed with people who see something odd and immediately jump to the least likely conclusions, especially when they give lie to themselves with claims like, "I'm a really scientific person." then don't even consider the likely optical or meteorological illusions, but go straight to, "Oh my god! A UFO!"

Or, "I'm normally a skeptical person, but this was totally unexplainable...".

[Luke T.]

From both the OP link and the CNN story:

"Our theory on this is that it was a weather phenomenon," Cory said. "That night was a perfect atmospheric condition in terms of low (cloud) ceiling and a lot of airport lights. When the lights shine up into the clouds, sometimes you can see funny things."

Works for me.

[Crazycowbob]

And I get annoyed with people who don't bother to research the facts and simply shout "liar!" or "stoned!" when someone reports what they saw. If someone saw something that looked like a structured craft then why on earth should they not say so? Is it a crime to be mistaken, or to honestly report an experience? Should they keep their interpretations secret for fear of offending those who are positively up themselves with righteous indignation at the thought of phenomenon they can't immediately explain.

True, I agree that shouldn't be a skeptics first thought. A thought out examination of evidence and list of possible explainations would be a better thing to bring to them. Of course, there are a lot of believers who will see something, and say they saw a spacecraft, instead of they think what they saw was a space craft, and typically those are the people who won't accept any other explaination than their own.

Should we call them "lairs" or "stoned"? No, everyone is entitled to make mistakes, but I do think they should be willing to acknowledge that mistake instead of clinging to it for fear of being wrong.

[baron]

...everyone is entitled to make mistakes, but I do think they should be willing to acknowledge that mistake instead of clinging to it for fear of being wrong.

That's true. However, as supposedly critical thinkers we shouldn't concern ourselves too much with that aspect. If, when a satisfactory solution has been presented, the witness decides not to accept it, then that's their business.

Also, bear in mind that in this instance not only have there been no reports of people acting in this fashion, there have been no reasonable explanations put forwards as to what the witnesses saw. The "weather phenomenon" is so vague and ridiculous it doesn't even warrant discussion. Swamp gas, anyone?

[meg]

And just to be clear about the photo. Of course it's a fake. However, it's not a cloud that's been pasted in, it's simply a single pen stroke painted onto the copied photo. I can even tell you the pen settings they used.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean, baron, by "a single pen stroke painted onto the copied photo", or "pen settings". If you don't mind, I'd appreciate it if you'd elaborate. What do you think they did, and how did they do it?

I'm always interested in learning something new :)

Plus, I'm half heartedly contemplating going over to that forum and confronting them on the fake pics. Any ammo you could provide would be most useful, I'm sure.

Meg

[baron]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean, baron, by "a single pen stroke painted onto the copied photo", or "pen settings". If you don't mind, I'd appreciate it if you'd elaborate. What do you think they did, and how did they do it?

To start from basics (apologies if you know some of this already) there are a number of software packages on the market designed for digital manipulation and painting. One of the most popular is Photoshop although there are several others (e.g. Painter, which I use for all my own work)

When you paint using one of these products you can create your own virtual "brushes" or use the ones provided. Brushes are essentially collections of pixels that you drag round the screen and "paint" with, and they have various attributes that emulate traditional painting, e.g. transparency, opacity, resaturation. In Photoshop and Painter there are literally dozens of attribues that can be tweaked to emulate almost any painting style and medium.

To take full advantage of these features you need to paint with a pressure sensitive pen and tablet (not a mouse) although in this case I doubt that was necessary :D

Basically what I'm saying is that this is a simple squiggle, done in Photoshop or similar, likely with one of the default brushes. It would have taken in the region of three seconds to produce.

(BTW - I noticed I said "pen settings" when I meant "brush settings" - slip of the brain)

[Astrophotographer]

Hi Crazycowbob,

Yeah. I think it looks like a lenticular cloud, too. (Way cool pictures on that funtigo.com site, btw).

However, I'm quite sure that blob of what ever it is was photoshopped into this photo from wikipedia:

4855

I think the photo at wikipedia pretty much puts this image into the "fake" category. What would be the odds that the photographer of the UFO would get the same perspective of the towers and the tail of the same airplane visible in his photograph?

[Patricio Elicer]

Is it just me, or does the second picture here:
http://forums.uforesearcher.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=3;t=000177

look strikingly similar to the picture found here?:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O'Hare_International_Airport

What are the odds of that ;)Good catch!. That seals the case definitely as a fake (surprise?).

Here are both pics side by side for better comparison (I resized and cropped the Wiki photo a bit). Superimposing the pictures they fit exactly on one another.

http://img164.imageshack.us/img164/4224/hareufo2yp7.jpg

[Patricio Elicer]

What would be the odds that the photographer of the UFO would get the same perspective of the towers and the tail of the same airplane visible in his photograph?Zero. And it's not only the perspective, all details are exactly the same.

[baron]

Good catch!. That seals the case definitely as a fake (surprise?).

It does? AFAIK the photos are not related to the witnesses. Someone sent them to a forum anonymously at a later date, did they not? If so they have no bearing on the case. (I may be wrong - there may be a connection - I'm a bit rushed ATM so apologies if I missed anything)

[RSLancastr]

Is it just me, or does the second picture here:
http://forums.uforesearcher.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=3;t=000177

look strikingly similar to the picture found here?:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O'Hare_International_Airport

What are the odds of that ;)You have dicovered that Wikipedia is part of the conspiracy! Why else would they have blanked out the image of the UFO from their copy of the picture?!?!

(Good catch, Meg!)

[Patricio Elicer]

It does? AFAIK the photos are not related to the witnesses. Someone sent them to a forum anonymously at a later date, did they not? If so they have no bearing on the case. Could be. They don't mention on that forum where the pictures come from, but they say: We have received documentation about the alleged sighting, which satisfies us as to the veracity of the report, and as to the credentials of the party reporting the incident. So it is to expect, since they don't state otherwise, that the pictures are part of such documentation.

EDIT
Also note that the caption to the second photo reads: "Second independant photo of same object taken of disc above control towers same event - O'Hare.". It clearly sates that it was taken on the event, and not not a mere illustration of the sighting.

[Notrump]

O’Hare UFO Cover-Up Revealed

By Barney Hill
Tribune staff reporter
Published January 2, 2007

Previously classified files regarding the November 7th UFO incident at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport have been obtained by the Tribune. Despite official denials, FAA logs indicate that air traffic controllers and Department of Homeland Security officials did indeed communicate with extraterrestrial beings that had requested clearance to land their ship.

Clearance was denied due to security concerns, according to the documents. Nevertheless, the alien craft hovered briefly above concourse C of the United Airlines terminal while awaiting instructions for a departure route through the crowded airspace. During those minutes DHS agents learned that the aliens had intended to negotiate with a UAL passenger for ownership of a weeping Madonna painting that he was planning to transport to his home.

Upon questioning, Hector Valenzuela, 43, of Roswell, New Mexico revealed he had come to Chicago knowing it contained the largest number of weeping Madonnas in the world. He claimed to have purchased one in Millennium Park in exchange for $100 and an undisclosed substance. However, after the extraterrestrials contacted him on his cell phone while he was in the airport security waiting line, Valenzuela said he quickly agreed to an offer of a sip of water from the Fountain of Youth and a guided tour of the alien ship in exchange for the artwork. Federal officials noted a greenish tint to Valenzuela’s complexion, suggesting a close relationship with the extraterrestrials. However, the agents accepted his explanation of having recently consumed a hefty portion of green Loch Ness monster meat.

President George W. Bush, after being advised of the incident, chastised his agents for not allowing the flying saucer to land. Bush lamented, “These were obviously creatures of faith who should have been treated with greater respect.”

Meanwhile, the Tribune has learned that witnesses to the UFO’s movements near O’Hare have hired Johnny Cochran to handle their defamation of character lawsuit against the US government, claiming that early dismissals of their sighting as that of a weather phenomenon were making them laughing stocks among their friends and families. Witness and UAL baggage handler, Chester Wooster, 38, who is a member of the Mutual UFO Network, told the Tribune that Cochran has proven that he can get people to believe the most preposterous things, making him “our kind of guy.”

Actor Dan Aykroyd, a life member of MUFON, took the opportunity to again denounce what he believes is the government’s blanket cover-up of extraterrestrial visitations. The highly regarded celebrity plaintively asked, “How can they continue to deny what we all know in our hearts must be true?”

[SezMe]

Cochran is coming back from the grave to take on this case! Now THAT is news. :)

[SezMe]

I think there are two separate events going on here. First, some people did see some unusual phenomenon over O'Hare and reported it. Fine.

Secondly, and quite separately, some UFO nutbar (or maybe a playful hoaxer) created some fake photos, sent them to MUFON and made the case that this was documentation of the O'Hare incident. MUFON bought it hook, line, and sinker.

Note on the link Patricio provided that there is a post from one of the witnesses AFTER the photos were posted. But he never referred to those photos. If the photos were, in fact, documentation, I would have expected him to say, "Yeah, that's what I saw."

ETA: Nope, I have that timing wrong. The quote from the eyewitness is before the pictures were posted. But I stand by my theory.

[rwguinn]

O’Hare UFO Cover-Up Revealed

By Barney Hill
Tribune staff reporter
Published January 2, 2007

Previously classified files regarding the November 7th UFO incident at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport have been obtained by the Tribune. Despite official denials, FAA logs indicate that air traffic controllers and Department of Homeland Security officials did indeed communicate with extraterrestrial beings that had requested clearance to land their ship.

Clearance was denied due to security concerns, according to the documents. Nevertheless, the alien craft hovered briefly above concourse C of the United Airlines terminal while awaiting instructions for a departure route through the crowded airspace. During those minutes DHS agents learned that the aliens had intended to negotiate with a UAL passenger for ownership of a weeping Madonna painting that he was planning to transport to his home.

Upon questioning, Hector Valenzuela, 43, of Roswell, New Mexico revealed he had come to Chicago knowing it contained the largest number of weeping Madonnas in the world. He claimed to have purchased one in Millennium Park in exchange for $100 and an undisclosed substance. However, after the extraterrestrials contacted him on his cell phone while he was in the airport security waiting line, Valenzuela said he quickly agreed to an offer of a sip of water from the Fountain of Youth and a guided tour of the alien ship in exchange for the artwork. Federal officials noted a greenish tint to Valenzuela’s complexion, suggesting a close relationship with the extraterrestrials. However, the agents accepted his explanation of having recently consumed a hefty portion of green Loch Ness monster meat.

President George W. Bush, after being advised of the incident, chastised his agents for not allowing the flying saucer to land. Bush lamented, “These were obviously creatures of faith who should have been treated with greater respect.”

Meanwhile, the Tribune has learned that witnesses to the UFO’s movements near O’Hare have hired Johnny Cochran to handle their defamation of character lawsuit against the US government, claiming that early dismissals of their sighting as that of a weather phenomenon were making them laughing stocks among their friends and families. Witness and UAL baggage handler, Chester Wooster, 38, who is a member of the Mutual UFO Network, told the Tribune that Cochran has proven that he can get people to believe the most preposterous things, making him “our kind of guy.”

Actor Dan Aykroyd, a life member of MUFON, took the opportunity to again denounce what he believes is the government’s blanket cover-up of extraterrestrial visitations. The highly regarded celebrity plaintively asked, “How can they continue to deny what we all know in our hearts must be true?”

That is made up!
I know Hector, and he lives in Artesia, not Roswell--so somebody is lying!
[/duh! mode *****:D

[baron]

Also note that the caption to the second photo reads: "Second independant photo of same object taken of disc above control towers same event - O'Hare.". It clearly sates that it was taken on the event, and not not a mere illustration of the sighting.

Reading that forum again it's probably best to discount anything that appears on it. I mean "Second independant photo of same object taken of disc above control towers same event" isn't even English. The account as a whole is contradictory and utterly unclear. To compound it, the person who wrote it is clearly stark staring mad, as evidenced by his last post.

[meg]

Yeah. I wouldn't say this proves the *case* is a hoax, only that image.

The same image is displayed here, http://www.nationalufocenter.com/artman/publish/article_121.php , the only difference being that here it is captioned "Illustration of disc above control towers." Indeed, the name of the imagefile is 51ohareillustration.jpg

That report is credited to Peter Davenport, Director of www.ufocenter.com however, it does not say who made the "illustration". As there is no "illustration" added to the ufocenter report, I tend to think it was added/created by the holders of the above site.

I suspect that Steven on the forum board we were first looking at just copped the pic and put it up and called it a "photo".

[Patricio Elicer]

I wouldn't say this proves the *case* is a hoax, only that image.I agree. I guess I jumped to a conclusion too fast.

I suspect that Steven on the forum board we were first looking at just copped the pic and put it up and called it a "photo". Just note that Steven seemingly speaks on behalf of "uforesearcher.com" and is a forum Admin.

[Fnord]

"One United employee appeared emotionally shaken by the sighting and "experienced some religious issues" over it, one co-worker said."

Because if there's a God, how could he just sit back and allow something as horrible as a grey disc sitting in the sky to happen? Doesn't make sense.

Shouldn't that bolster a religious viewpoint, that crazy stuff can just be poofed into existence without needing any explanation? I would've thought that seeing a UFO would comfort a believer.


This believer has seen UFO's (Literally: Objects flying in the air that he could not identify), and didn't lose any sleep over them. Those mechanics alledgedly saw something in the air that they were unable to identify. Whatever led them to leap from "Hovering disc-like object" to "Extra-terrestrial space craft" is beyond me.

Next they'll be seeing WMD's in every piece of luggage, the Loch Ness Monster off Navy Pier, and the Virgin Mary in a grease spot on the Dan Ryan expressway!

Commentary:

1) You'd think that after 911 people would be better skilled with Photoshop.
2) False data (Photoshopped images) detract from the validity of the original assertion.
3) They did not see anything because there was nothing to see.

-Fnord of Dyscordia-

[RichardR]

Hi Crazycowbob,

Yeah. I think it looks like a lenticular cloud, too. (Way cool pictures on that funtigo.com site, btw).

However, I'm quite sure that blob of what ever it is was photoshopped into this photo from wikipedia:

4855Well caught - it's identical (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Towers2566.JPG).

[The Atheist]

And I get annoyed with people who don't bother to research the facts and simply shout "liar!" or "stoned!" when someone reports what they saw. If someone saw something that looked like a structured craft then why on earth should they not say so? Is it a crime to be mistaken, or to honestly report an experience? Should they keep their interpretations secret for fear of offending those who are positively up themselves with righteous indignation at the thought of phenomenon they can't immediately explain.Nah, sorry, but that's just blatant rubbish.

As I said earlier, the problem is immediately jumping from, "What the hell's that!?!?" to, "Oh my god, it's a REAL UFO!"

I have no problem with people seeing strange objects in the sky - I've seen two myself which immediately appeared inexplicable, but study quickly resolved the issue in each case.

They needed to take a leaf out of Sherlock Holmes and eliminate the possible answers before jumping to the impossible ones.

As long as people are happy to jump to conclusions, I'm very happy to jump on them with equal amounts of scorn and ridicule.

Can you imagine what the first man to see an aurora thought? He probably thought the world was ending and his god arriving. When he still woke up the next morning and saw the same thing the next night, he probably started looking for other explanations.

[The Atheist]

I think there are two separate events going on here. First, some people did see some unusual phenomenon over O'Hare and reported it. Fine.

Secondly, and quite separately, some UFO nutbar (or maybe a playful hoaxer) created some fake photos, sent them to MUFON and made the case that this was documentation of the O'Hare incident. MUFON bought it hook, line, and sinker.

I agree. I bet this happens every time someone experiences an unusual phenomenom. One of the group of no-brains at MUFON think, "Wow, let's climb on board the bandwagon and post that old UFO pic again (again) [again].

Any crop circles or dissected cows found in the area?

[WildCat]

The first picture looks nothing at all like the second picture.
The second picture looks very much like a lenticular cloud.
I have no idea what might create a low-level wave condition around O'Hare.
I'd bet that the first pic is fake, the second shows what looks like a cloud or some other weather phenomena. In the fading light maybe could be mistaken for a UFO.

[WildCat]

OTOH, it was election day and Cook County pols have been known to do whatever it takes to bring the votes in. Bringing in space aliens to vote for Todd Stroger I bet, how else did that incompetent idiot actually get elected after taking his stroke-addled fathers place in the Cook County Board President election?

This will be pretty easy to discover if true, I'll look out for space aliens working in high-paying do-nothing county jobs.

[MichelQC]

Yup. Only a dozen.

Enough to convict someone of a capital crime..............



Define "solid", please.

To me solid evidence, given the fact that there must have been several thousand possible witnesses in and around O'Hare airport at that time would have been more than a few testimonies. For example if several dozens (instead of just one) individual would have seen the object and given concording descriptions of it while being at different locations around O'Hare that would have given a lot more weight to the sighting. There was surely more than one plane on the tarmac at the time, why did no other passengers or crew reported seeing anything?

The fact that only a limited number of people claim to have seen something certainly suggest that what they saw is most probably an optical illusion of some sort who could be viewed only from the exact location where they happened to be at the moment. That would explained why the thing "suddently vanished". I am reasonably sure that they indeed saw something and that the report is an honest one. But the lack of supporting evidence certainly do not permit us to conclude that this was an extra-terrestrial craft.

[WildCat]

The fact that only a limited number of people claim to have seen something certainly suggest that what they saw is most probably an optical illusion of some sort who could be viewed only from the exact location where they happened to be at the moment. That would explained why the thing "suddently vanished". I am reasonably sure that they indeed saw something and that the report is an honest one. But the lack of supporting evidence certainly do not permit us to conclude that this was an extra-terrestrial craft.
I seem to remember some scattered light rain that day, anyone know where to look up past weather? Perhaps headlights from a plane, tanker truck, or some other vehicle on the tarmac reflecting off slick pavement onto a low-hanging cloud? It would appear to move very fast when the vehicle moved.

Just a WAG.

[switchtech]

Uh oh! Move it to the Conspiracy Boards! The gubmint is trying to cover it up.

Problem is the FAA is trying to cover up that they have no evidence there was anything there other than a call to the tower to see if there was anything there... the controllers said they had nothing on their scopes. So the FAA is covering up that there was nothing there.:boggled:

Surprising how fast a FOIA request was filed!

jbs

[switchtech]

Here (http://forums.uforesearcher.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=3;t=000177) are seemingly two independant pictures of the UFO. Too good to be true?. If these are true pics of the object, then the case may be worth paying attention.

These people really need to come forward if they have real evidence. The top image has no context and is from an anonymous source. The second one looks pretty much as the taxi mechanic describes, a hazy gray object, but has been convincingly debunked in this thread.

I would love to discover we aren't alone in the universe, scared that they have the technology to cross the vast distances of the universe (or even our galaxy), but relieved again since they must have been visiting here for a very long time without destroying us (of course we might be a particularly interesting strain of fruit fly to them...);)

BUT - I seriously doubt the ET are here and the type of evidence UFO fans accept as proof seriously degrades their position and believability.

jbs

[meg]

Well, I'll be d**ned. They accepted my registration over at uforesearcher.com. I guess we'll see how long this will last ;)

[Joe_Black]

Who cares, it was to far to be sure in fading light, perhaps it was perhaps it was not, is it even worth a thread?

[switchtech]

Well, I'll be d**ned. They accepted my registration over at uforesearcher.com. I guess we'll see how long this will last ;)

Well, if they're like most "true believer" sites, it won't be long, considering you're calling into question, albeit somewhat subtly, the veracity of their evidence.

Wonder what's they'd do if someone pointed out the O'Hare Wiki and the identical photo (from July apparently) sans saucer they have there?:D

jbs

[Huntster]

Originally Posted by Huntster

Yup. Only a dozen.

Enough to convict someone of a capital crime..............

Define "solid", please.

To me solid evidence, given the fact that there must have been several thousand possible witnesses in and around O'Hare airport at that time would have been more than a few testimonies. For example if several dozens (instead of just one) individual would have seen the object and given concording descriptions of it while being at different locations around O'Hare that would have given a lot more weight to the sighting.

Okay.

Several dozen rather than one.

84 instead of 12.

What do you think of this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Miracle_of_the_Sun)?

There was surely more than one plane on the tarmac at the time, why did no other passengers or crew reported seeing anything?

Who says they didn't?

The FAA?

The fact that only a limited number of people claim to have seen something certainly suggest that what they saw is most probably an optical illusion of some sort who could be viewed only from the exact location where they happened to be at the moment. That would explained why the thing "suddently vanished". I am reasonably sure that they indeed saw something and that the report is an honest one. But the lack of supporting evidence certainly do not permit us to conclude that this was an extra-terrestrial craft.

I conclude nothing except that they saw what they described as an "unidentified flying object".

I certainly don't conclude that they saw an "extraterrestrial craft", however I also don't reject the possibility.

Call me "skeptical".

[SezMe]

Well, I'll be d**ned. They accepted my registration over at uforesearcher.com. I guess we'll see how long this will last ;)
Your first post was quite polite...more than I could have done. Good luck.

[Patricio Elicer]

Well, I'll be d**ned. They accepted my registration over at uforesearcher.com. I guess we'll see how long this will last ;)
Good one. Let's see what happens....

[The Atheist]

Your first post was quite polite...more than I could have done. Good luck.
Class tells, eh? I'd have been out of there after one post.

[meg]

Well, I'm really darn skeptical, Huntster.

What are you saying with that link? Are you implying that these United mechanics were maybe chosen witnesses to Our Lady of O'hare?

At 4:30pm on a tuesday afternoon they would have been entering the "dinner rush", meaning they would have been pulling United aircraft into the airport as fast as possible. A typical rate would have been a little over 1/min (1.3) per runway. With two runways in operation, (typical) it would have been about 2.6/minute. About one every 24 seconds. While all the reports state that "up to a dozen people" saw the thing "for several minutes", when they get down to the quotes, the most they can come up with quotewise is one guy says that he saw the thing for about two minutes. So, at the BARE MINIMUM, in two minutes, at least 5 aircraft were coming in. At an average of 120 passengers and 3 crew in the cockpit per jet that comes to about 615 people entering that concourse area in that 2 minutes. If it was indeed in the air for "several" minutes, let's say 10, that would mean about 3075 people entered that particular space in that time.

Add at least 15 people in the tower, so in a 2 minute window there would be around 630 possible witnesses. In a 10 minute window, there would be around 3090 potential witnesses to the miraculous event. This would be a minimum, not counting planes departing or people in the concourse awaiting their loved ones.

So, if the maximum reported (about a dozen) saw the event, that would mean at the small side 1.9%, and at the big end .4% (.0039 rounded up)

So let's compare that to the "Miracle of the Sun", shall we? According to your wikiwedia link, the estimated crowd size ranged from 30,000 to 100,000, depending on reports, however according to John De Marchi, who stayed at Fatima for years and interviewed people, he had "hundreds" of witness testimonies.

Let's really give him the benefit of the doubt and say that "hundreds" means 700. If 700 out of 30,000 attested to the event, that's 2%. If 700 out of 100,000 attested to the event, that means .7%

So, if we compare the two, we find that it is MORE likely that in 1917 the sun spun on its axis, danced and, "whirling, seemed to loosen itself from the firmament and advance threateningly upon the earth as if to crush us with its huge fiery weight." than it is that on Nov 7, 2006, twelve United employees saw a disc shaped thing in the sky that kind of suddenly disappeared.

[Huntster]

Well, I'm really darn skeptical, Huntster.

What are you saying with that link? Are you implying that these United mechanics were maybe chosen witnesses to Our Lady of O'hare?

That depends on how you look at it.

It's rather humbling to be among a few to witness something spectacular while thousands sat on their asses nearby in complete ignorance.

It can also be damned frustrating.

At 4:30pm on a tuesday afternoon they would have been entering the "dinner rush", meaning they would have been pulling United aircraft into the airport as fast as possible. A typical rate would have been a little over 1/min (1.3) per runway. With two runways in operation, (typical) it would have been about 2.6/minute. About one every 24 seconds. While all the reports state that "up to a dozen people" saw the thing "for several minutes", when they get down to the quotes, the most they can come up with quotewise is one guy says that he saw the thing for about two minutes. So, at the BARE MINIMUM, in two minutes, at least 5 aircraft were coming in. At an average of 120 passengers and 3 crew in the cockpit per jet that comes to about 615 people entering that concourse area in that 2 minutes. If it was indeed in the air for "several" minutes, let's say 10, that would mean about 3075 people entered that particular space in that time.

Add at least 15 people in the tower, so in a 2 minute window there would be around 630 possible witnesses. In a 10 minute window, there would be around 3090 potential witnesses to the miraculous event. This would be a minimum, not counting planes departing or people in the concourse awaiting their loved ones.

So, if the maximum reported (about a dozen) saw the event, that would mean at the small side 1.9%, and at the big end .4% (.0039 rounded up)

So let's compare that to the "Miracle of the Sun", shall we?

Yes.

Let's.

According to your wikiwedia link, the estimated crowd size ranged from 30,000 to 100,000, depending on reports, however according to John De Marchi, who stayed at Fatima for years and interviewed people, he had "hundreds" of witness testimonies.

Let's really give him the benefit of the doubt and say that "hundreds" means 700. If 700 out of 30,000 attested to the event, that's 2%. If 700 out of 100,000 attested to the event, that means .7%

So, if we compare the two, we find that it is MORE likely that in 1917 the sun spun on its axis, danced and, "whirling, seemed to loosen itself from the firmament and advance threateningly upon the earth as if to crush us with its huge fiery weight." than it is that on Nov 7, 2006, twelve United employees saw a disc shaped thing in the sky that kind of suddenly disappeared.

Neat math. Real science there.

And so?

[meg]

Just saying, that's all.

[baron]

This believer has seen UFO's (Literally: Objects flying in the air that he could not identify), and didn't lose any sleep over them. Those mechanics alledgedly saw something in the air that they were unable to identify. Whatever led them to leap from "Hovering disc-like object" to "Extra-terrestrial space craft" is beyond me.

It was the mechanic's opinion. He concluded it was a craft. He also concluded that it resembled no earth-based craft he had witnessed. In an admittedly large leap of logic he appeared to suggest it was an extra-terrestrial craft. Not a conclusion I personally agree with but I don't find any difficulty in understanding his reasoning, nor do I feel the need to mock this guy for expressing an opinion.

Commentary:

1) You'd think that after 911 people would be better skilled with Photoshop.

I'd expect everyone to be better skilled at Photoshop than this dismal effort suggests.

2) False data (Photoshopped images) detract from the validity of the original assertion.

Yes they do. That's hardly the fault of the original witnesses, though, is it?

3) They did not see anything because there was nothing to see.

Please provide evidence.

Nah, sorry, but that's just blatant rubbish.

As I said earlier, the problem is immediately jumping from, "What the hell's that!?!?" to, "Oh my god, it's a REAL UFO!"

First off, UFO = unidentified flying object. It doesn't mean alien space craft. It's important to be precise.

Secondly, why should it be of relevance what the witness concludes? If a witness accurately descibes their oberservation then why are you concerned with what interpretation they put forward? If you disagree with their conclusion then discount it. What's the problem? Notwithstanding the fact that if an observer sees something they believe is a structured craft, what possible reason can you come up with for them not stating this? Why should they not be allowed to speculate?

Intellectual snobbery is probably the answer you're looking for.

I have no problem with people seeing strange objects in the sky - I've seen two myself which immediately appeared inexplicable, but study quickly resolved the issue in each case.

They needed to take a leaf out of Sherlock Holmes and eliminate the possible answers before jumping to the impossible ones.

No they don't. They have no obligation at all to investigate. The only thing required of them is to provide accurate observational accounts and, if possible, evidence, such as photos. We, as critical thinkers, hopefully have the brains to perform evaluation for them and not jump up and down indignantly because they have the gall to actually express an opinion.

As long as people are happy to jump to conclusions, I'm very happy to jump on them with equal amounts of scorn and ridicule.

That says more about your critical thinking abilities than theirs.

Can you imagine what the first man to see an aurora thought? He probably thought the world was ending and his god arriving. When he still woke up the next morning and saw the same thing the next night, he probably started looking for other explanations.

Indeed. At the point he saw the aurora there would be no explanation as to what it was. Further investigation by qualified people would eventually establish the true nature of the aurora. Just imagine if this guy's peers had acted in the way you appear to condone - called him an fool or a drunk on the basis of his interpretation without pausing to consider the reported facts. Not much progress would have been made, would it?

[Cuddles]

It was the mechanic's opinion. He concluded it was a craft. He also concluded that it resembled no earth-based craft he had witnessed. In an admittedly large leap of logic he appeared to suggest it was an extra-terrestrial craft. Not a conclusion I personally agree with but I don't find any difficulty in understanding his reasoning, nor do I feel the need to mock this guy for expressing an opinion.

Secondly, why should it be of relevance what the witness concludes? If a witness accurately descibes their oberservation then why are you concerned with what interpretation they put forward? If you disagree with their conclusion then discount it. What's the problem? Notwithstanding the fact that if an observer sees something they believe is a structured craft, what possible reason can you come up with for them not stating this? Why should they not be allowed to speculate?

Someone could see a 6 foot wide spacecraft at 1900 feet? We can mock this guy as much as we like because this is simply not possible. The fact that he then concluded that something which he could not have seen was an alien just makes it that much easier to mock him.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Secondly, why should it be of relevance what the witness concludes? If a witness accurately descibes their oberservation then why are you concerned with what interpretation they put forward? If you disagree with their conclusion then discount it. What's the problem? Notwithstanding the fact that if an observer sees something they believe is a structured craft, what possible reason can you come up with for them not stating this? Why should they not be allowed to speculate?
Why do some people insist on taking a skeptic's "ha, ha, what a clown" and shoving down his throat "I think we should immediately pass laws disallowing people from stating their opinions"? No one said anything about disallowing the witnesses from babbling about what they saw. Please don't confuse mocking and guffawing with legal action.


Just imagine if this guy's peers had acted in the way you appear to condone - called him an fool or a drunk on the basis of his interpretation without pausing to consider the reported facts. Not much progress would have been made, would it?
But we haven't done that, have we? We've discussed the facts of the matter as much as possible and reached some conclusions about what happened. As usual with UFOs, there probably isn't enough information to reach a definitive conclusion.

~~ Paul

[baron]

Someone could see a 6 foot wide spacecraft at 1900 feet? We can mock this guy as much as we like because this is simply not possible. The fact that he then concluded that something which he could not have seen was an alien just makes it that much easier to mock him.

You appear to have combined selected facts to suit your own ends. As I recall (I don't have time to check) the size quoted was between 6' and 24'. It does not say that the height of the object and its size were related in this fashion by any one observer.

Having said that, if you can't see a solid 6' object against a uniform grey sky at approx. 1/3 mile away then you need to visit an optician.

Furthermore you immediately state he's lying instead of allowing for the possibility he did not judge the size and / or height accurately. Again, to suit your own slanted view.

This may well be a hoax, or misperception, or whatever. However, I prefer to judge that on evidence, not ridiculous biased assumption.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Furthermore you immediately state he's lying instead of allowing for the possibility he did not judge the size and / or height accurately. Again, to suit your own slanted view.
I agree he certainly could be telling the truth. I do wish that observers would stop telling me the size and speed of unknown objects in the sky, however. Not that I want to pass a law against it, mind you. :D Can't people have a little bit more awareness of their own limitations?

~~ Paul

[UTGrad3920]

I am a skeptic. I believe life exists on other planets far away. I do not believe we have been visited by extraterrestrial life. I do however have often wondered the following question and wonder if any of you have thought about it?

If these UFO sightings are some kind of illusion or hoax people have made up over the years, why is it the same saucer-shaped craft we see in photos? This kind of stuff has been going on since before the 1950s and if I were to come up with a claim of a UFO from space coming to Earth I would probably imagine a more "aerodynamic" looking craft with a more familiar shape (like a jet aircraft or something which looks like it could actually fly). A rotating disc shape, especially in the 1950s would not be convincing to me as a craft which would move up and down, turn, and propel itself through our atmosphere. Yet it seems throughout the years this is the only shape mentioned in UFO sightings. Doesn't this seem odd?

[baron]

Why do some people insist on taking a skeptic's "ha, ha, what a clown" and shoving down his throat "I think we should immediately pass laws disallowing people from stating their opinions"? No one said anything about disallowing the witnesses from babbling about what they saw. Please don't confuse mocking and guffawing with legal action.

Come off it. Legal action? Passing laws? What on earth are you babbling about? Are you making a joke, because I can't believe anybody could infer that I was talking about legal action or forcing anyone to do anything.

But we haven't done that, have we? We've discussed the facts of the matter as much as possible and reached some conclusions about what happened.

Have you actually read the thread? Of course some people have done this, and still continue to do it, seemingly outraged that someone is attempting to apply balanced thinking to the matter.

This is one thread I think I will bow out of. It's clear what some people's preferred approach is, and it clearly can't be influenced by reason.

Yep, all these witnesses are stoned loonies and liars.

Great, that's another case solved.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Come off it. Legal action? Passing laws? What on earth are you babbling about? Are you making a joke, because I can't believe anybody could infer that I was talking about legal action or forcing anyone to do anything.
I was exaggerating. But you did say "Why should they not be allowed to speculate?" No one said anything about disallowing speculation.[/quote]


Have you actually read the thread? Of course some people have done this, and still continue to do it, seemingly outraged that someone is attempting to apply balanced thinking to the matter.

This is one thread I think I will bow out of. It's clear what some people's preferred approach is, and it clearly can't be influenced by reason.
You need to get a thicker skin, Baron.

~~ Paul

[Cuddles]

You appear to have combined selected facts to suit your own ends. As I recall (I don't have time to check) the size quoted was between 6' and 24'. It does not say that the height of the object and its size were related in this fashion by any one observer.

Having said that, if you can't see a solid 6' object against a uniform grey sky at approx. 1/3 mile away then you need to visit an optician.

Furthermore you immediately state he's lying instead of allowing for the possibility he did not judge the size and / or height accurately. Again, to suit your own slanted view.

This may well be a hoax, or misperception, or whatever. However, I prefer to judge that on evidence, not ridiculous biased assumption.

So while ranting on about how slanted my view is you lie about what I have said. What a good argument you make. Now go back and read my post again. At which point did I say anything about him lying? After you visit the optician that you obviuosly need more than me, you may notice that I said he it is not possible to say that a 6 foot object was 1900 feet away. It is not possible for the human eye to be anywhere near that accurate. Therefore, either he was mistaken or he was lying. As it turns out I think the former is far more likely, but for some reason you decided to suit your own slanted view by making some ridiculous assumptions instead of bothering to ask me, or even read what I said. Come back when you have an actual argument to make instead of lying about something that is easily refuted by the quote in your own post.

[R.A.F.]

It was the mechanic's opinion. He concluded it was a craft.

2 assumptions. (that it was an actual physical object, and that it was a "craft".)

He also concluded that it resembled no earth-based craft he had witnessed.

Another assumption...

In an admittedly large leap of logic he appeared to suggest it was an extra-terrestrial craft.

...and another assumption...

Not a conclusion I personally agree with but I don't find any difficulty in understanding his reasoning...

You understand his reasoning?? What reasoning??? He's made a number of assumptions...he's made those assumptions without any supportive evidence, and you "understand"??

Please explain that to me.

[baron]

You need to get a thicker skin, Baron.

I'm not offended, just tired of repeating what should be common sense.

...and still the nonsense rolls in. Cuddles doesn't understand the concept of estimation and RAF doesn't understand the process of reasoning.

It's enough to drive a sane man mad :eye-poppi

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Cuddles doesn't understand the concept of estimation...
No? How do I estimate the size of an unknown object up in the sky? How do I tell how far below the 1,900-foot cloud ceiling the object is, and reconcile that with its unknown size?

~~ Paul

[R.A.F.]

...and RAF doesn't understand the process of reasoning.

If that be true, then why don't you explain it to me (as I asked) instead of being insulting??

[Cuddles]

If that be true, then why don't you explain it to me (as I asked) instead of being insulting??

Having now seen some of his posts in other threads, I think that's all we're going to get.

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

...
Next they'll be seeing WMD's in every piece of luggage, the Loch Ness Monster off Navy Pier, and the Virgin Mary in a grease spot on the Dan Ryan expressway!
...-Fnord of Dyscordia-

If the Loch Ness Monster shows up off of Navy Pier I've got a 6mm w/ a 6x-24x scope with its name on it. Just need to find a taxidermist that can mount the thing.

[baron]

No? How do I estimate the size of an unknown object up in the sky? How do I tell how far below the 1,900-foot cloud ceiling the object is, and reconcile that with its unknown size?

~~ Paul

OK, I will try one last time.

Someone sees an object in the sky. He doesn't know for sure how far away it is nor how big it is. He therefore estimates to the best of his ability. He uses factors such as the cloud ceiling, strength and direction of natural illumination, atmospheric hazing and his natural ability to grossly judge distance using the focus of his eyes. When the object moves through the cloud ceiling he is able to further refine his estimates based on its apparent speed and time until it disappeared.

He therefore concludes that the object, to the best of his judgement, was x' in diameter and y' above the ground.

What exactly is the problem here?

What's the alternative? "I saw something. I don't know what it was, nor am I qualified to offer any information about it. It could have been an inch wide or two miles. It hovered between ten feet and half a mile from the ground. It may have been solid or vapourous. It may not have existed at all except in my own mind."

Or maybe that's exactly what some people want to hear. Such an account would be that much easier to ridicule, wouldn't it?

[baron]

Having now seen some of his posts in other threads, I think that's all we're going to get.

Run out of steam already? No surprise there then.

[baron]

If that be true, then why don't you explain it to me (as I asked) instead of being insulting??

Spare me. You posted a sarcastic diatribe to which you pompously demanded response. Repost in a civil manner and I will reply.

[Hellbound]

Spare me. You posted a sarcastic diatribe to which you pompously demanded response. Repost in a civil manner and I will reply.
It was R.A.F.'s opinion. He concluded you were an a$$. He also concluded that you shoudl respond to his questions. In an admittedly large leap of logic he thought sarcasm would be appropriate. Not a conclusion I personally agree with but I don't find any difficulty in understanding his reasoning, nor do I feel the need to berate this guy for expressing an opinion.

[Hellbound]

To continue:

Why should it be of relevance what someone concludes? If someone accurately descibes their opinions then why are you concerned with what interpretation they put forward? If you disagree with their conclusion then discount it. What's the problem? Notwithstanding the fact that if someone sees an observer who has obviously interpreted far beyond their ability or capacity, what possible reason can you come up with for them not stating this? Why should they not be allowed to speculate?

Intellectual snobbery is probably the answer you're looking for.

[CLD]

Just for the heck of it, I reposted this in a woo board discussion of the UFO incident:

Is it just me, or does the second picture here (http://forums.uforesearcher.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=3;t=000177)...

...look strikingly similar to the picture found here? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O'Hare_International_Airport)

What are the odds of that?

http://img164.imageshack.us/img164/4224/hareufo2yp7.jpg

Here is the response I got:

My guess is that the airport has a fixed camera set up in that spot. All photos taken will look almost identical, except for lighting. At that level, nothing is changing - you don't have traffic, or people, or new buildings being erected. So the pics will look identical

the tail of a United Airlines plane in the lower left of the photo. It would always be there if UA always uses the gates in that area of the airport.

it could possibly be in the same position at times when the camera catches it if it's up to a gate to load up.

Note To Self: Objectivity can be suspended if one really WANTS to believe.

[baron]

It was R.A.F.'s opinion. He concluded you were an a$$. He also concluded that you shoudl respond to his questions. In an admittedly large leap of logic he thought sarcasm would be appropriate. Not a conclusion I personally agree with but I don't find any difficulty in understanding his reasoning, nor do I feel the need to berate this guy for expressing an opinion.

And do you have anything to add to the discussion, or are you content to be an a$$?

[baron]

My guess is that the airport has a fixed camera set up in that spot. All photos taken will look almost identical, except for lighting. At that level, nothing is changing - you don't have traffic, or people, or new buildings being erected. So the pics will look identical

I guess they have such things as fixed planes, too...

[Hellbound]

And do you have anything to add to the discussion, or are you content to be an a$$?

I'm prefectly content to reply in kind. Much like you, being an a$$ is mnore fun than actually participating in the discussion.

However, just so you won't feel as if you need to start another hypocritical, sanctimonious tirade, I'll provide a tidbit:

You CANNOT determine the size of an aerial object without knowing the distance, and vice versa. His estimations of size, speed, and distance were as valid as any WAG I might make, within the limits of the ground and the cloud deck. The witness in questions make completely unsupportable assumptions from ignorance, and his entire "reasoning" that led to the interpretation of "it's aliens!" consists of arguments from ignorance, or logical fallacies.

I would not say stoned or liar, myself, but that's another's opinion. I will say that this "evidence" can be dismissed with nothing more than the fact that the entirety of it, as far as evidence for alien craft, is somebody's guess. Can I rule out aliens? No, perhaps not. I also canot rule out flying monkeys, Dumbo, tears in the space-time fabric of the universe, a buttered cat antigravity array, or l;evitating Mr. Hanky. Non of which implies that any of these ideas have any validity whatsoever, just as a witnesses uninformed interpretation has no bearing whatsoever on the actual reality of this incident (and is actually emnical to the accurate reporting of his observation, as it is immediately obvious that his account is embellished in order to fit his preconceptions and cultural ideas).

[baron]

You CANNOT determine the size of an aerial object without knowing the distance, and vice versa. His estimations of size, speed, and distance were as valid as any WAG I might make, within the limits of the ground and the cloud deck. The witness in questions make completely unsupportable assumptions from ignorance, and his entire "reasoning" that led to the interpretation of "it's aliens!" consists of arguments from ignorance, or logical fallacies.

I would not say stoned or liar, myself, but that's another's opinion. I will say that this "evidence" can be dismissed with nothing more than the fact that the entirety of it, as far as evidence for alien craft, is somebody's guess. Can I rule out aliens? No, perhaps not. I also canot rule out flying monkeys, Dumbo, tears in the space-time fabric of the universe, a buttered cat antigravity array, or l;evitating Mr. Hanky. Non of which implies that any of these ideas have any validity whatsoever, just as a witnesses uninformed interpretation has no bearing whatsoever on the actual reality of this incident.

I will answer the second part of your post (that part worthy of response).

I said that, to the best of his knowledge, the witnesses provided an estimate as to size, height and location. I never said those estimates were accurate and I never said they could not be mistaken.

Your argument that valid estimates cannot be produced is based on what? Please detail what leads you to this conclusion, bearing in mind we are not talking about a featureless object in clear air at infinite focus against a blank background. I have already specified features I personally would take into account to make my own judgement. Why not back up your argument instead of saying "It's impossible" and expecting reasonable people to believe you.

Read my posts where I have argued that his interpretation is irrelevant in terms of any phenomenon that might have occurred. If you have read them, why make the same point to me that I have already dealt with? (EDIT: Ah, I see you have at least read one of them, yet you just re-quoted it with hilarious results instead of actually attempting to understand it)

Yet again - to the best of anybody's current knowledge he provided his best estimate and description of what he saw. What is the problem here? If you saw something would you attempt to describe it, along with its position, or would you simply say "I saw something but beyond that I cannot possibly make any judgement."? To provide such information is something that anybody would do, and should not be discouraged from doing by intellectual pomposity as we repeatedly see here.

(and is actually emnical to the accurate reporting of his observation, as it is immediately obvious that his account is embellished in order to fit his preconceptions and cultural ideas)

Please back this up with evidence.

[Hellbound]

Intellectual pomposity?

Pot, kettle. Kettle, pot.

Let's examine the factors you would use for your estimate, shall we?

He uses factors such as the cloud ceiling,
The cloud ceiling only places an upper limit on the distance. I adressed that.
strength and direction of natural illumination,
Um, how can this tell you the distance to or size of an object? The difference in the angle of the sun at a distance of 1900 feet is nigh indetectible. If he can use this to determine distance, get him here for the challenge, he's about to be a millionaire.
atmospheric hazing
So he knew the exact visibility imparted by the air on that particular day at the particular elevations from ground to 1900 feet, and estimated a distance based on that? And also ruled out any problems that might be related to his own vision? At DUSK?
and his natural ability to grossly judge distance using the focus of his yes.
An ability that has been evolutionarily shaped to dodge things like thrown rocks and leaping tigers, and loses accuracy significantly with distance.
When the object moves through the cloud ceiling he is able to further refine his estimates based on its apparent speed and time until it disappeared.
But without knowing the initial location, speed, size, and direction his estimates cannot be accurate with any degree of certainty. Even watching large planes (known-size objects, C-130s in my case) flying at much shorter distances (as much as a few hundred feet, they fly low into the airbase near here) it is very difficult to even determine the direction the plane is travelling with any accuracy, much less the speed. And that is with a known size object. Add in that this is a dusk (low-light) condition, and if he can do this we need to get him out of his mechanics job and into the Guiness book.

I dismiss this readily because it's blatant ignorance. It's apparant that this is your guesses, guesses which simply reinforce my view that this was an argument from ignorance. The factors you would use are what most people would, and these will not give you an accurate estimate of the distance or the size. Pilots and other professionals will be the first to tell you that determining size, speed, and direction of an object in the air is near impossible to do by eye, unless you havea nearby known size object that can be used as a comparison. Even then, you have to know exactly how close this known-size object is to make any sort of accurate determination.

And this is why I say it is immediately obvious his account is embellished. He had no accurate way of determining the size or distance to the object. He could not accurately identify it's speed or vectors. Yet he concludes it is an alien spacecraft? That is the influence of culture, and since the idea is in his head, his account immediately becomes suspect. His memory immediately becomes suspect, as its very likely that additional details will be added, coinciding with the alien spacecraft idea, as the story is remembered and retold.

Now, if you can quit throwing strawmen around everywhere:If you saw something would you attempt to describe it, along with its position, or would you simply say "I saw something but beyond that I cannot possibly make any judgement." To provide such information is something that anybody would do, and should not be discouraged from doing by intellectual pomposity as we repeatedly see here.
and listen to actual arguments, we might get somewhere. OF course, without your strawman you couldn't act morally superior and pull off that smug, condescending tone...but oh well.

Saying "It's an alien spacecraft" does NOT provide any information as to what he saw. If he wanted to describe it's shape, color, and apparent size and psoition, great. However, he didn't. He said it was a craft. He could NOT have possibly known this from the information he had. He did not provide an accurate accoutning of what he saw, he proivided an embellished version of what he thought the object he saw was.

Why not back up your argument instead of saying "It's impossible" and expecting reasonable people to believe you.
If I were talking to a reasonable person, I'd be more concerned. This is simply more of your hypocrisy, though. You expect us to give credence to the "alien spacecraft" description of the mechanic, based only on his word with no evidence. Nice.

[Hellbound]

You still don't see the irony here, do you?

We have someone claiming "alien craft!" on the basis of little to no evidence at all (there's barely enough evidence to conclude they saw something). A very small minority make the claims of liar or stoned. The rest discuss the possibilities more or less intelligently (with a bit of humor, which humans actually enjoy). You focus on these minority of posts, claiming we're all playing intellectual snobs, while situationg yourself firmly on top of the highest horse around and berating the entire board for the actions of a few posters. While talking about how the board paints all the alien-sighters with the same brush, you paint everyone here with a brush just as wide. You complain about us acting intellectually superior, while looking "down" on us from your apparently believed intellectual superiority. Your actions here are the hieght of hypocrisy, baron. Mote, plank, etc.

[MichelQC]

Okay.

Several dozen rather than one.

84 instead of 12.

What do you think of this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Miracle_of_the_Sun)?



Mass hysteria???



Who says they didn't?

The FAA?


The original linked article at the beginning of the thread is not very precise on the actual number of witnesses so a point for you.


I conclude nothing except that they saw what they described as an "unidentified flying object".

I certainly don't conclude that they saw an "extraterrestrial craft", however I also don't reject the possibility

Call me "skeptical".

I do not reject it either but let's say that the evidence (or more likely the absence of conclusive evidence) is far from convincing in favor the extra-terrestrial theory

I am (very) skeptical when it comes to UFOs so I guess we're on the same page there.

[meg]

I just can't help but keep beating this dead horse, in case there are any wooers out there still thinking this might really be a picture of the "event". Note that the photo shows the old tower on the left and the new tower on the right.

I hope you'll forgive my crappy edits to this pic of the airport layout, where I have pointed out where the old tower, the new tower and concourse C are.

Note. In order to take the picture of the two towers, with the old one on the left, one would need to be facing AWAY from concourse C, which is where the alleged event occurred.

4871

Note "PP" = picture point = my guess of the approximate area one would be in to get that shot

[Beth]

Just curious - the news article linked didn't provide detailed information:

How many people actually witnessed the event? 2? 10? 20?

Where were they located in proximity to one another?

If they were all located at approximately the same place, I think that would lend evidence to it being an optical illusion. If they saw it from various locations and angles, it would lend credence to it being a real phenomona of some sort. Did different witnesses independently claim that it went straight up vertically punching a hole in the cloud cover? That seems a very odd thing to happen or to be mistaken about.

[Dave1001]

Hunt, please tell me you don't buy into UFOs.

I believe in UFOs, at least until they're identified.

ETA: I see Hunster beat me too it.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Someone sees an object in the sky. He doesn't know for sure how far away it is nor how big it is. He therefore estimates to the best of his ability. He uses factors such as the cloud ceiling, strength and direction of natural illumination, atmospheric hazing and his natural ability to grossly judge distance using the focus of his eyes. When the object moves through the cloud ceiling he is able to further refine his estimates based on its apparent speed and time until it disappeared.

He therefore concludes that the object, to the best of his judgement, was x' in diameter and y' above the ground.

What exactly is the problem here?
The problem is that I don't trust this ability farther than I can spit, when he doesn't know what the object is.


What's the alternative? "I saw something. I don't know what it was, nor am I qualified to offer any information about it. It could have been an inch wide or two miles. It hovered between ten feet and half a mile from the ground. It may have been solid or vapourous. It may not have existed at all except in my own mind."
Now we're being honest with ourselves.

~~ Paul

[Hellbound]

Just curious - the news article linked didn't provide detailed information:

How many people actually witnessed the event? 2? 10? 20?

Where were they located in proximity to one another?

If they were all located at approximately the same place, I think that would lend evidence to it being an optical illusion. If they saw it from various locations and angles, it would lend credence to it being a real phenomona of some sort. Did different witnesses independently claim that it went straight up vertically punching a hole in the cloud cover? That seems a very odd thing to happen or to be mistaken about.

A good point. We need to know who saw it from where...were there peopel that shoudl have seen it that didn't, etc, etc, etc. If we could actually get some definitive viewpoints from different locations, we could make some rough estimations of a "target volume" it could have been in by combining the various viewing angles (without some definitive evidence, like photo or video, this will be a guestimate at best, however. It will place some reasonable limits on size and location, though).

Right now, as I stated, we barely have enough information to assume that something was seen, and even that is a mild stretch.

[baron]

I dismiss this readily because it's blatant ignorance. It's apparant that this is your guesses, guesses which simply reinforce my view that this was an argument from ignorance.

My guesses as to what? On how I would judge size and distance? OK, let's ignore your ignorant assumption that I don't know what I'm talking about, and look at the possibilites.

Let's say this disc was not actually between 6' and 24', as stated. What would you say the minimum size would be? I would say 3'; any less and the near-focus of the eyes would be obvious. Now, what would the maximum size be? Well, let's go crazy and say 1/2 mile. Would you now care to explain how a 3' disc or a 1/2 mile disc is any easier to explain than a 6' one or a 24' one?

But without knowing the initial location, speed, size, and direction his estimates cannot be accurate with any degree of certainty

Here you go again. "Accurate", "certainty". For the millionth time I never said his estimates were accurate, I simply defended his right to make estimates as best as he is able. How many more times?

The factors you would use are what most people would...

Yes, any reasonable person would. Thank you for proving my own point whilst believing you are proving yours.

And this is why I say it is immediately obvious his account is embellished. He had no accurate way of determining the size or distance to the object.

And again! Unbelievable.

If he wanted to describe it's shape, color, and apparent size and psoition, great.

Er, so what's all this then... (hint: it's the topic of this discussion)

All the witnesses said the object was dark gray and well defined in the overcast skies. They said the craft, estimated by different accounts to be 6 feet to 24 feet in diameter, did not display any lights.

Some said it looked like a rotating Frisbee, while others said it did not appear to be spinning. All agreed the object made no noise and it was at a fixed position in the sky, just below the 1,900-foot cloud deck, until shooting off into the clouds. Saying "It's an alien spacecraft" does NOT provide any information as to what he saw.

Indeed not. That's why I have repeatedly said that we should rely on description, not interpretation. Why not read what I have posted instead of trolling?

He could not accurately identify it's speed or vectors. Yet he concludes it is an alien spacecraft? That is the influence of culture, and since the idea is in his head, his account immediately becomes suspect. His memory immediately becomes suspect, as its very likely that additional details will be added, coinciding with the alien spacecraft idea, as the story is remembered and retold.

Quite possibly. Is that a reason to dismiss everyone else's testimony, and indeed the entire incident?

Now, if you can quit throwing strawmen around everywhere:
and listen to actual arguments, we might get somewhere.

Feel free to present one, when you're ready.

If I were talking to a reasonable person, I'd be more concerned. This is simply more of your hypocrisy, though. You expect us to give credence to the "alien spacecraft" description of the mechanic, based only on his word with no evidence. Nice.

And finally you wreck your flimsy credibility by conclusively proving you are a troll. I have said with emphasis I do NOT believe it is an alien spacecraft. I have repeatedly said that we should NOT take evaulations of witnesses at face value, instead we should do your own investigations. In addition you conveniently ignore the fact it was a multiple witness event.

On top of being a sloppy thinker you are a troll and I shall not respond to any more of your lame posts.

[valis]

The distinction is not one that most skeptics accept:

Miracles have a certain "poofiness" about them - they are things that happen without reason, and always attributed to faith.

UFOs, if they do exist, are based on technology and science that's advanced further than our own. There is no "poof" to them.


Most often, "If they do exist," is not even considered in skeptical forums.

UFOs are unidentified; they could be anything, including someones imagination, a mis identified everyday physical object, a trick of the light, swamp gas, Venus, weather balloons or angels in chariots.

Even amongst the most die hard UFO believers there is no consensus that UFOs are physical space craft.

[baron]

You still don't see the irony here, do you?

We have someone claiming "alien craft!" on the basis of little to no evidence at all (there's barely enough evidence to conclude they saw something). A very small minority make the claims of liar or stoned. The rest discuss the possibilities more or less intelligently (with a bit of humor, which humans actually enjoy). You focus on these minority of posts, claiming we're all playing intellectual snobs, while situationg yourself firmly on top of the highest horse around and berating the entire board for the actions of a few posters. While talking about how the board paints all the alien-sighters with the same brush, you paint everyone here with a brush just as wide. You complain about us acting intellectually superior, while looking "down" on us from your apparently believed intellectual superiority. Your actions here are the hieght of hypocrisy, baron. Mote, plank, etc.

Oh, more trolling. I must have missed it. Read my posts and you will see I took great care NOT to use a broad brush with my criticism, always referring to "some people", not "everybody". Still, nothing more than I've learned to expect from you.

(And that is the last time I will reply - you're on ignore)

[valis]

I figure that if the little green men are smart enough to travel the billions of miles to Earth, they'd most likely say hi while they were here.

That is one argument I have never understood. Considering all the powers attributed to UFOs and their occupants I would consider it impossible to guess at their motavation or reasoning for anything.

Combine the fact that they would be advanced enough to do things we consider impossible; with the fact that they are a different species entirely (in most theories), how could we possibly make an intelligent guess at the 'why' of anything they would do?

[Hellbound]

baron:

I am heart-broken.

However, I specifically was referring to claims of alien spacecraft, as was the poster who discussed liars and stoned. Frankly, I would discount his testimoney, and I also would be highly skeptical of the accuracy of any of the other testimony. the specific gentleman's conclusion that it was an "alien spacecraft" brings his particular testimony into questions, because there is no way he could have made that determination (which was my argument from the beginning).

You, however, seem to think I'm arguing that all the testimony should be thrown out. I am not. I am arguing specifically about the ignorant who claim that they identified this object (whatever it was) as an alien spacecraft, something I've made clear. You keep defending their right to say it's an alien craft as if it's the most reasonalbe thing in the world...which you apparently now are retracting. I'm glad you did finally see the light.

That, and I also got intot his thread initially because of your blatant hypocrisy, which I also pointed out. Your response? Call me a troll and put me on ignore. I'll rest my case on that.

You are, however, the first to call me a troll.

ETA: And, just for clarification, I use the term ignorant in it's specific, technical meaning...not as insult. Ignorant, as in, lacking the knowledge. The factors you would use to estimate size and distance cannot give a figure that's useable. Thus, these figures shoudl not be considered as accurate when evaluating the witness accounts. And a witness who takes these inaccurate figures and leaps to the conclusion of "alien spacecraft" is making the formal logical error of argument from ignorance.

You keep making strawman fallcies, yourself. I have never stated we shoudl dismiss all witness testimony. I have never stated we should dismiss the entire incident. I have stated that those who believe they can postitively identify an alien spacecraft in the sky in low-light conditions and accurately determine it's size and distance are, by this simple declaration of facts no in evidence, showing themselves to be unreliable witnesses. There's a difference in saying "I couldn't identify it", saying "it could be aliens", and saying "It was a craft. It was not of this Earth."

Of course, you read my arguments with an eye to what you could attack me with, rather than what I actually stated.

[I less than three logic]

You are, however, the first to call me a troll.

Oh, oh. I want to be the second. I call dibs. :D

[Hellbound]

Oh, oh. I want to be the second. I call dibs. :D
*Huntsman smacks I<3 with a wet cod*

Have at it :p

[Mr. Stick]

I am a skeptic. I believe life exists on other planets far away. I do not believe we have been visited by extraterrestrial life. I do however have often wondered the following question and wonder if any of you have thought about it?

If these UFO sightings are some kind of illusion or hoax people have made up over the years, why is it the same saucer-shaped craft we see in photos? This kind of stuff has been going on since before the 1950s and if I were to come up with a claim of a UFO from space coming to Earth I would probably imagine a more "aerodynamic" looking craft with a more familiar shape (like a jet aircraft or something which looks like it could actually fly). A rotating disc shape, especially in the 1950s would not be convincing to me as a craft which would move up and down, turn, and propel itself through our atmosphere. Yet it seems throughout the years this is the only shape mentioned in UFO sightings. Doesn't this seem odd?

From this (http://www.csicop.org/si/2000-05/delusions.html) page at CSI: Mass Delusions and Hysterias

First Flying Saucer Wave, 1947
On June 24, 1947, Kenneth Arnold was piloting his private plane near the Cascade mountains in Washington state when he saw what appeared to be nine glittering objects flying in echelon-like formation near Mount Rainier. He kept the objects in sight for about three minutes before they traveled south over Mount Adams and were lost to view (Arnold 1950; Arnold and Palmer 1952; Gardner 1988; Clark 1998, 139-143).
Worried that he may have observed guided missiles from a foreign power, Arnold eventually flew to Pendleton, Oregon, where he tried reporting what he saw to the FBI office there. But the office was closed, so he went to the offices of The East Oregonian newspaper. After listening to Arnold's story, journalist Bill Bequette produced a report for the Associated Press. It is notable that at this point, Arnold had described the objects as crescent-shaped, referring only to their movement as "like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water" (Gardner 1957, 56; Story 1980, 25; Sachs 1980, 207-208). However, the Associated Press account describing Arnold's "saucers" appeared in over 150 newspapers.
The AP report filed by Bequette was the proto-article from which the term "flying saucer" was created by headline writers on June 25 and 26, 1947 (Strentz 1970). Of key import was Bequette's use of the term "saucer-like" in describing Arnold's sighting. Bequette's use of the word "saucer" provided a motif for the worldwide wave of flying saucer sightings during the summer of 1947, and other waves since. There are a few scattered historical references to disc-shaped objects, but no consistent pattern emerges until 1947, with Arnold's sighting. There have only been a handful of occasions prior to 1947 that a witness has actually used the word "saucer" to describe mysterious aerial objects. Hence, the global 1947 flying saucer wave can be regarded as a media-generated collective delusion unique to the twentieth century.

Also see http://skepdic.com/saucers.html where you find:
The fact that so many UFO and alien sightings conform to rather standard depictions is taken by some as evidence that the observers are not mistaken. They must be seeing the same things. It is more likely that they see what they see because of their expectations, which are based on stereotypes created largely by the mass media. In this respect, and maybe some others as well, UFO an alien sightings might be compared to Santa Claus sightings.

BTW, great work Meg, on your contributions to this thread! Are you some kind of airport investigator? ;)

[R.A.F.]

Spare me. You posted a sarcastic diatribe to which you pompously demanded response. Repost in a civil manner and I will reply.

I see...you insult others, then claim that you're the one being "picked-on". That way, you can continully dodge other's questions.

How cute.

For whatever reason, you feel a need to behave like a jerk, and fortunately, I don't put up with that kind of bull crap.

Here's a little secret...you won't be treated in a civil manner unless you behave in a civil manner...though by your over-reaction, I can see that you're pretty much hopeless...

In other words...I simply don't waste my time with people like you...

[meg]

Thanks, Mr Stick! Excellent article!

No, I'm not an airport investigator. Mostly, I'm just a good googler.

[Astrophotographer]

Interesting discussion but I think there is a lot of information missing. However, we can conclude two things so far:

1) It has been pretty much figured out that the photo showing the two towers is a fake.

2) The estimates made by witnesses of what they saw really can not be considered accurate. UFOlogists, who normally gather this data love to talk about sizes in feet and never discuss angular sizes/speeds. This is better data. Perhaps comparing the object to the size (not brightness) of the moon might be a better grasp of what might be seen. In fact, one investigator did get an angular estimate:

http://www.virtuallystrange.net/ufo/updates/2006/nov/m15-006.shtml

One can read the raw report here:

http://www.nuforc.org/webreports/053/S53541.html

Note that a quarter at arms length is about 1-2 degrees. Additionally, an object 24 feet across from 1900 feet is about 0.7 degrees in size. If the object was at the estimated 700 feet (how did they get that number?), the angular size is close to 2 degrees.

So, we might be able to conclude that the witness saw an object about 1 to 4 times the size of the moon, which really is not that big when you look at the entire sky. It was a gray disc/circle against a gray sky, was visible for about two minutes, and it went up into the clouds really fast leaving an apparent hole behind that quickly disappeared.

I don't know what it was but I can guess based on the testimony. Call me a debunker but it sounds too much like a balloon of some kind.

[Fnord]

Sure ... but what are the FACTS?

1.0) Exactly how many people witnessed and/or reported the event first hand?
1.1) Were any of them trained observers?
1.2) Were they tested for intoxicants? Hallucinogens?
1.3) Were each of their stories recorded before they had a chance to discuss the event with each other and/or with outsiders?
1.4) Were they all of one group?
1.5) Did each person have previous knowledge of any or all of the others?
1.6) Do any of the persons have a history of emotional disturbances or recent traumatic experiences?

2.0) Were any photographs taken?
2.1) By whom?
2.2) With what equipment?
2.3) Under what conditions and settings?
2.4) Is the equipment in good working order?
2.5) Are the operators of the equipment trained and qualified to do so?
2.6) Do the operators of the recording equipment have histories of fraudulent reporting?

3.0) Was the event independently verified?
3.1) Did anything show up on radar at the time and place in question?
3.2) Were any unusual electromagnetic events reported in the area and time frame in question?

Just the facts, please.

-Fnord of Dyscordia-


PS: I'm inclined to go along with Astrophotographer and GUESS that it was a balloon of some sort; likely one of those aluminised mylar party balloons. I can't be certain, but that's the way I'd bet. -F-

[Huntster]

Originally Posted by Huntster
Okay.

Several dozen rather than one.

84 instead of 12.

What do you think of this?

Mass hysteria???

I don't think so: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Miracle_of_the_Sun)

....It has been alleged that the fact that an unspecified "miracle" had been predicted in advance, the abrupt beginning and end of the alleged miracle of the sun, the varied nature of the observers as including both skeptics and believers alike, the sheer numbers of people present, and the lack of any causative factor, all reasonably preclude the theory of a mass hallucination. That the activity of the sun was reported as visible by those up to 18 kilometers away, also precludes the theory of a collective hallucination or mass hysteria.....

Originally Posted by Huntster

Who says they didn't?

The FAA?

The original linked article at the beginning of the thread is not very precise on the actual number of witnesses so a point for you.

There's a scoreboard?

[MichelQC]

I don't think so: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Miracle_of_the_Sun)

I am not very familiar with the miracle of the sun stuff and would need to do more research on it before I can comment further. However that being said

....It has been alleged that the fact that an unspecified "miracle" had been predicted in advance,

Alleged? by whom?

the abrupt beginning and end of the alleged miracle of the sun, the varied nature of the observers as including both skeptics and believers alike,

Someone polled the crowd?

the sheer numbers of people present,

How do we know how many people present actually saw something?

and the lack of any causative factor, all reasonably preclude the theory of a mass hallucination. That the activity of the sun was reported as visible by those up to 18 kilometers away, also precludes the theory of a collective hallucination or mass hysteria.....

If the sun really "danced in the sky" then either the earth was thrown off it's orbit, or all law of physics and gravity were momentarily suspended an the solar system disrupted. If that was the case then I'm pretty sure that it would have been noticed pretty much outside of 18 kilometers! ..... Hummm I don't know but call me skeptical :D



There's a scoreboard?

Hopefully not or I'm in big trouble:)

[firecoins]

1.0) Exactly how many people witnessed and/or reported the event first hand?
1.1) Were any of them trained observers?
1.1) Were any of them trained observers?
unknown but the article implied a dozen or so. A group of United Airline employees.Since they were airline employees, it is inferred some may be experts in aircraft to varying extents.


1.2) Were they tested for intoxicants? Hallucinogens?
They were airline employees. On the record, no. Off the record, it is possible.


1.3) Were each of their stories recorded before they had a chance to discuss the event with each other and/or with outsiders?
I assume they talked with each other. The FAA seems to have a report of it.


1.4) Were they all of one group?
They were United airline employees. So yes.


1.5) Did each person have previous knowledge of any or all of the others?
presumably. It is possible they did not know everyone else in the group but probably knew some of the others.


1.6) Do any of the persons have a history of emotional disturbances or recent traumatic experiences?

Probably a few of them but probably not all of them.


2.0) Were any photographs taken?
2.1) By whom?
Apparently there is 1 or 2 that seem to be fake. If this occurred at an airport there should be more than 1 or 2. There should be video footage from security cameras.


2.2) With what equipment?
2.3) Under what conditions and settings?
2.4) Is the equipment in good working order?
2.5) Are the operators of the equipment trained and qualified to do so?
There should be secutiy cameras, radar and weather equipment, none of which have been released. Probably because they caught nothing.


2.6) Do the operators of the recording equipment have histories of fraudulent reporting?

Hopefully not!:eek:

3.0) Was the event independently verified?

nope!


3.1) Did anything show up on radar at the time and place in question?
3.2) Were any unusual electromagnetic events reported in the area and time frame in question?

Nope!

[Huntster]

....It has been alleged that the fact that an unspecified "miracle" had been predicted in advance,

Alleged? by whom?

I don't know about anybody else, but I'll "allege" it.

Quote:
the abrupt beginning and end of the alleged miracle of the sun, the varied nature of the observers as including both skeptics and believers alike,

Someone polled the crowd?

As far as I know, not "scientifically".

But, then, "scientific" polls aren't good for much, either.

Quote:
the sheer numbers of people present,

How do we know how many people present actually saw something?

I don't know.

I guess you had to be there: (http://www.answers.com/topic/our-lady-of-fatima)

On October 13, 1917, the final in the series of the apparitions of 1917, a crowd believed to be approximately 70,000 in number[3], including newspaper reporters and photographers, gathered at the Cova da Iría in response to reports of the children's prior claims that on that day a miracle would occur "so that all may believe".[1] It rained heavily that day, yet, countless observers reported that the clouds broke, revealing the sun as an opaque disk spinning in the sky and radiating various colors of light upon the surroundings, then appearing to detach itself from the sky and plunge itself towards the earth in a zigzag pattern, finally returning to its normal place, and leaving the people's once wet clothing now completely dry. The event is known as the "Miracle of the Sun".[4].

Columnist Avelino de Almeida of O Século (Portugal's most influential newspaper, which was pro-government in policy and avowedly anti-clerical)[1], reported the following "Before the astonished eyes of the crowd, whose aspect was biblical as they stood bare-headed, eagerly searching the sky, the sun trembled, made sudden incredible movements outside all cosmic laws-the sun 'danced' according to the typical expression of the people."[5] Eye specialist Dr. Domingos Pinto Coelho, writing for the newspaper Ordem reported "The sun, at one moment surrounded with scarlet flame, at another aureoled in yellow and deep purple, seemed to be in an exceeding fast and whirling movement, at times appearing to be loosened from the sky and to be approaching the earth, strongly radiating heat".[6] The special reporter for the October 17, 1917 edition of the Lisbon daily, O Dia, reported the following, "...the silver sun, enveloped in the same gauzy grey light, was seen to whirl and turn in the circle of broken clouds...The light turned a beautiful blue, as if it had come through the stained-glass windows of a cathedral, and spread itself over the people who knelt with outstretched hands...people wept and prayed with uncovered heads, in the presence of a miracle they had awaited. The seconds seemed like hours, so vivid were they."[7]

There is no question that something significant happened there and then. It was reported in newspapers all around the world at the time.

I suppose this is the place to go to find someone who might try to deny the event.

Quote:
and the lack of any causative factor, all reasonably preclude the theory of a mass hallucination. That the activity of the sun was reported as visible by those up to 18 kilometers away, also precludes the theory of a collective hallucination or mass hysteria.....

If the sun really "danced in the sky" then either the earth was thrown off it's orbit, or all law of physics and gravity were momentarily suspended an the solar system disrupted. If that was the case then I'm pretty sure that it would have been noticed pretty much outside of 18 kilometers! .....

That's what would be called a scientific fact.

This was not a scientific event.

Hummm I don't know but call me skeptical

Yeah. That's the natural view.

However, a miracle was promised, lots came to see it, and they saw one.

Imagine that...................

[SezMe]

This was not a scientific event.
What IS a "scientific event", precisely?

[Huntster]

Originally Posted by Huntster
This was not a scientific event.
What IS a "scientific event", precisely?

An event that can be scientifically explained?

[Patricio Elicer]

The latest at UfoResearcher Forum (http://forums.uforesearcher.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=3;t=000177) following Meg's inquiries.

It's interesting that there may be actual photos of the event.

[The Atheist]

That is one argument I have never understood. Considering all the powers attributed to UFOs and their occupants I would consider it impossible to guess at their motavation or reasoning for anything.

Combine the fact that they would be advanced enough to do things we consider impossible; with the fact that they are a different species entirely (in most theories), how could we possibly make an intelligent guess at the 'why' of anything they would do?

That smacks of christians who tell me that they don't attempt to answer for what god would do, because he is so far superior to us that we can't begin to know.

I'm just working on the simple fact that curiosity exists in all even semi-intelligent species and that a hyper-intelligent species is likely be at least inquisitive about humans to the extent that they do as we would and drop in to say hi. Humans send messages and spacecraft in the hope that we may meet up with another species and I'm assuming that aliens would act the same way.

You're right, though, I might be completely wrong and they may well have taken a quick look and thought, "what a horrible species, we're out of here"

It just doesn't add up. If they only wanted to learn about us, no doubt their technology would enable them to do it without the need to spend 30 seconds over O'Hare Airport.

Then again, maybe they were Teasers (http://flag.blackened.net/dinsdale/dna/book1.html).

[Fnord]

Let me highlight the holes.

unknown but the article implied a dozen or so. A group of United Airline employees.Since they were airline employees, it is inferred some may be experts in aircraft to varying extents.

They were airline employees. On the record, no. Off the record, it is possible.

I assume they talked with each other. The FAA seems to have a report of it.

They were United airline employees. So yes.

presumably. It is possible they did not know everyone else in the group but probably knew some of the others.


Probably a few of them but probably not all of them.


Apparently there is 1 or 2 that seem to be fake. If this occurred at an airport there should be more than 1 or 2. There should be video footage from security cameras.

There should be secutiy cameras, radar and weather equipment, none of which have been released. Probably because they caught nothing.


Hopefully not!:eek:

nope!


Nope!

"Implied..." == "I assumed..."
"It is inferred" == "I infer that..." ~~ "I guess that..."
"It is possible" == "Better than a 0% chance that..."
"I assume" == "I guess that..."
"Presumably" == "It's a likely guess that..."
"Probably" == "Better than a 50% chance" ~~ "I guess that..."
"Apparently" == "It looks as if..."
"Seems to be" == "It looks like..."
"Should be..." == "I think it should be..."
"Hopefully not..." == "I hope not..."

Sorry, but you cite no real or definitive emperical values, only opinions and vague generalities. This is one of the roots of conspiracy theory. As such, it is irrelevant to finding the facts.

And what a wonderful thing it is for diseminating woo-woo articles fit for a tabloid. The only thing missing is the "Un-named expert witness" or "Confidential source" to clinch the category and win the Hokum prize.

W H E R E A R E T H E F R E A K I N G F A C T S ? ! ! :mad:

-Fnord of Dyscordia-

[Slimething]

You're right, though, I might be completely wrong and they may well have taken a quick look and thought, "what a horrible species, we're out of here"

Then again, maybe they were Teasers (http://flag.blackened.net/dinsdale/dna/book1.html).

That's the most plausible theory I've seen yet. Only one thing: what about all the truly amazing wildlife on the planet? (Surely, they're worth a second look!) Maybe they were watching a flock of geese?

And thanks for the wonderful link!

[latent aaaack]

The fact that no one in the control towers saw it suggests that it wasn't visible from that angle, lending credence to it being a light effect.

[American]

W H E R E A R E T H E F R E A K I N G F A C T S ? ! ! :mad:

Behold the American way:

It is definitely an alien spacecraft, and I don't care what anyone else thinks.

[Cuddles]

That is one argument I have never understood. Considering all the powers attributed to UFOs and their occupants I would consider it impossible to guess at their motavation or reasoning for anything.

Combine the fact that they would be advanced enough to do things we consider impossible; with the fact that they are a different species entirely (in most theories), how could we possibly make an intelligent guess at the 'why' of anything they would do?

We can make an intelligent guess because we assume that a species intelligent enough to cross interstellar distances is not stupid enough to do so for no reason. The chance that anyone/thing would waste all that time and energy simply in order to say "Well, here we are. Right, time to go home." is much lower than the chance that they would be interested in actually having a look around once they're here.

Let me highlight the holes.



"Implied..." == "I assumed..."
"It is inferred" == "I infer that..." ~~ "I guess that..."
"It is possible" == "Better than a 0% chance that..."
"I assume" == "I guess that..."
"Presumably" == "It's a likely guess that..."
"Probably" == "Better than a 50% chance" ~~ "I guess that..."
"Apparently" == "It looks as if..."
"Seems to be" == "It looks like..."
"Should be..." == "I think it should be..."
"Hopefully not..." == "I hope not..."

Sorry, but you cite no real or definitive emperical values, only opinions and vague generalities. This is one of the roots of conspiracy theory. As such, it is irrelevant to finding the facts.

And what a wonderful thing it is for diseminating woo-woo articles fit for a tabloid. The only thing missing is the "Un-named expert witness" or "Confidential source" to clinch the category and win the Hokum prize.

W H E R E A R E T H E F R E A K I N G F A C T S ? ! ! :mad:

-Fnord of Dyscordia-

Are you really suggesting that your "translations" are in any way accurate? For example "Probably a few of them but probably not all of them". A group of people working for the same company in the same place at the same time. If you can find any such group where most of them don't know most of the others I will give you a cookie, so this is sensible assumption to make. I could take all your other ones apart in the same manner, but I'm lazy so I'll let you think it through yourself.

[JMA]

It's interesting that there may be actual photos of the event.

Yep, I'm really curious to see those...

[Thomas]

Just for the heck of it, I reposted this in a woo board discussion of the UFO incident:

Here is the response I got:

"My guess is that the airport has a fixed camera set up in that spot. All photos taken will look almost identical, except for lighting. At that level, nothing is changing - you don't have traffic, or people, or new buildings being erected. So the pics will look identical"

[snip]

Note To Self: Objectivity can be suspended if one really WANTS to believe.
You can demolish that hypothesis by a simple argument: The photo from wiki was taken with a Sony Cybershot, which is a handheld camera in all the variants I'm aware of. You can see that in the jpeg metadata (EXIF). No flash was used, normal exposure, focal lenght 21.0 and compression mode 6.

http://www.livingroom.org.au/photolog/sony-cybershot-dsc-w100.jpg

Note also that the EXIF data has been deleted from both "UFO" photos :rolleyes:

[baron]

Re photos:

These are only pictures to tell the story, they were not taken at the time of the sighting.
I guess I should say illustration of report. I'm not aware of any actual photos taken at the time.

So the photos were not hoaxed, per se, they were simply used to illustrate, based on what people say they saw. Shows how gullible some people can be, and how easily simple oberservations can lose credibility as a result of poor investigation and after-the-fact ludicrousness.

[baron]

I see...you insult others, then claim that you're the one being "picked-on". That way, you can continully dodge other's questions.

How cute.

For whatever reason, you feel a need to behave like a jerk, and fortunately, I don't put up with that kind of bull crap.

Here's a little secret...you won't be treated in a civil manner unless you behave in a civil manner...though by your over-reaction, I can see that you're pretty much hopeless...

In other words...I simply don't waste my time with people like you...

I apologise if you got the impression that I care one iota what you think of me. I am perfectly content to debate with all-comers, no matter what their attitude, and to ignore those who become repetitive and refuse to read my posts.

With that in mind, do you have any actual contribution to this thread or are you still having an ickle tantrum?

[JMA]

I'm a bit confuse here. I do understand that the pictures that we can see on some websites now are "illustrations". But if I understand the all case, they are some real pictures out there, just the people who are investigating the case don't want to show them yet.

Is that it, or am I completely lost in the wild? :p

[baron]

The fact that no one in the control towers saw it suggests that it wasn't visible from that angle, lending credence to it being a light effect.

Around 1630 a pilot made a comment on the radio about a circle or disc shapped object hovering over gate C-17 at the C concourse in Chicago. At frist we laughed to each other and then the same pilot said again on the radio that is was about 700feet agl (above ground level)...

...The radio irrupted with chatter about the object and the ATC controler that was handling ground traffic made a few smart comments about the alleged UFO siting above the C terminal.

I'm a bit confuse here. I do understand that the pictures that we can see on some websites now are "illustrations". But if I understand the all case, they are some real pictures out there, just the people who are investigating the case don't want to show them yet.

I don't think there are any photos. I suspect that there's nothing more can be obtained from this event.

[Fnord]

Are you really suggesting that your "translations" are in any way accurate?

No. They are opinions, and therefore only as accurate as the words they translate.

For example "Probably a few of them but probably not all of them". A group of people working for the same company in the same place at the same time. If you can find any such group where most of them don't know most of the others I will give you a cookie, so this is sensible assumption to make. I could take all your other ones apart in the same manner, but I'm lazy so I'll let you think it through yourself.

I stand by my opinions, although they might change when I see some real evidence that the alledged object was anything other than an aluminised mylar party ballon ... or a shared delusion.

It just gripes me when people go from vague generalities and unsubstantiated assumptions straight to "established fact" and "common sense" (which isn't so common) ... just like the religionists.

Come to think of it, I've seen as much religious fervor at a M.U.F.O.N. convention as I've seen in the local A.M.E. Church services!

That's it! :eye-poppi UFO-logy is a religion!

A few unverifiable "miracles" witnessed and reported only by a select few (in this case, about twelve ... apostles?), and taken as fact by faith alone! Those witnesses did not just see a U.F.O., they saw a manifestation of their messiah!

"And in those days the prophet Woo did spaketh unto the masses, saying 'All hail Zarkon the magnificent, and his prophet Van Daniken, for in the final days Zarkon, in his unfathomable wisdom, shall rain flaming fire from his chariot upon the unbelievers, sparing only the most nubile of maidens and all the malt liquor in Chicago...'"

Gack! Spare me.

-Fnord of Dyscordia-

[R.A.F.]

I am perfectly content to debate with all-comers, no matter what their attitude, and to ignore those who become repetitive and refuse to read my posts.

That's fine...in post #110 (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2224445&postcount=110) I asked you for an explanation. Will you now be providing that explanation??

[Hellbound]

Another point to take into consideration:

The cloud cover was at 1900 feet. Unless the witnesses were directly below the object, this extends our possible range. If they saw it at a 45 degree angle, for example, that means the object could have been up to 2600 feet or so distant. 3800 feet for a 30 degree angle. And so on and so forth. 1900 feet is not our upper limit on distance.

[meg]

I found a couple of interesting articles about mirages caused by temperature inversions. Perhaps this phenomenon might be a possible explanation for some UFO sightings:

http://www.astronomycafe.net/weird/lights/mirUFO.htm

http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/elements/mirage1.htm

Out of curiousity, after reading about that I searched the archives of the tribs weather reports:

Chicago Tribune - Chicago, Ill.
Author: Tom Skilling
Date: Nov 8, 2006
Start Page: 13
Section: Metro
Text Word Count: 265

Abstract (Document Summary)

WITHIN 3,000-FOOT DEEP MOIST LAYER TUESDAY Fog shrouds Chicago metro area a second consecutive morning OBSERVED TUESDAY DuPage County Airport visibilities MIDNT. 6 A.M. NOON 6 P.M. Fog and haze trapped beneath temperature inversion: Lowest Chicago area visibilities* O'Hare 1/2 mile Midway 1/2 mile Aurora 1/4 mile Joliet 1/4 mile Waukegan 1/4 mile DeKalb 1/4 mile Rockford 1 3/4 m. *Statute miles AVERAGE RELATIVE HUMIDITY 90% AVERAGE WIND SPEED 4.8 m.p.h. - See microfilm for complete graphic.


Looking at this satellite image of Concourse C, I see that C17 (the gate where all this allegedly happened) is quite close to some kind of round object on the concourse roof. Do you suppose that the temperature inversion could have created a mirage which made it appear as though that round thingee was hovering above the concourse?

I realize that's just a WAG, - but do you suppose that *could be* what happened?
4899

[Astrophotographer]

Looking at this satellite image of Concourse C, I see that C17 (the gate where all this allegedly happened) is quite close to some kind of round object on the concourse roof. Do you suppose that the temperature inversion could have created a mirage which made it appear as though that round thingee was hovering above the concourse?

I realize that's just a WAG, - but do you suppose that *could be* what happened?


Probably not. However, since we are talking about UFOs, anything (including interstellar space travel) is possible.

I notice that there are claims of photographs being thrown about. However, I doubt they will show much. If the were cameras on cell phones, they would have been low resolution - maybe 1.3 MP - without an optical zoom. This means were are going to see nothing more than a small dot against the sky. The best one could hope for would be two different photographs from two different locations showing the object. This could allow triangulation and accurate determination of height, speed, and size.

UFO groups can't stand to hold back when it comes to the press. I doubt that any convincing images exist otherwise, we would have seem them published already. At best, as I stated, any images are nondescript dots. The group that is apparently investigating this case, NARCAP, is not, IMO, a very thorough group. Despite claiming they were investigating the 2004 mexican AF video, they apparently gave up on it once the explanation had been produced by several groups (including some good discussion on JREF that pretty much nailed the explanation). They promised an eventual report but the last time I checked it wasn't on their website (I got the excuse that the video lacked a chain of custody and that it was outside the US and therefore NARCAP wasn't going to pursue the matter). So, IMO, NARCAP is going to do the UFO two-step and claim it wasn't a balloon, it wasn't an aircraft, and nothing of this earth can make a hole in the clouds and disappear, therefore it was an unknown (with the implication that it was alien technology).

[baron]

That's fine...in post #110 (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2224445&postcount=110) I asked you for an explanation. Will you now be providing that explanation??

But of course.


It was the mechanic's opinion. He concluded it was a craft.
2 assumptions. (that it was an actual physical object, and that it was a "craft".)

He made two presumptions. In view of what he claims to have witnessed they don't strike me as being way-out or in any way outrageous. In his place I might not have made those same presumptions and I gather you wouldn't either (so you say). That doesn't make his assessment worthless, it simply differs to that which perhaps more critical thinkers might supply. I don't recall this mechanic ever claiming to be some kind of towering intellectual, he appears to be a normal bloke who saw something he can't explain.

He also concluded that it resembled no earth-based craft he had witnessed.
Another assumption...

That sounds like a fact to me. He compared memories of the craft he had witnessed with this object and did not find a match.

In an admittedly large leap of logic he appeared to suggest it was an extra-terrestrial craft.
...and another assumption...

I agree, but as I said before, why are you concerned with his interpretation? It's only natural for people to speculate. If you don't agree with his deduction, ignore it. Concentrating on these peripheral issues and ignoring the (allegedly) factual testimony is a favoured method of arch-skeptics to divert attention away from the fact they don't know the answers and are afraid to admit it.
Not a conclusion I personally agree with but I don't find any difficulty in understanding his reasoning...
You understand his reasoning?? What reasoning??? He's made a number of assumptions...he's made those assumptions without any supportive evidence, and you "understand"??

"Supportive evidence"? He's a guy who works at an airport, not a scientist in a lab! If you personally aren't prepared to accept anecdotal evidence then that's fine, up to you. Just please stop ridiculing the people who report their experiences and - horror of horrors - maybe even have the gall to jump to illogical conclusions.

Of course, this guy and his colleagues might be liars. They might be (and very probably are) mistaken in their conclusions about this being a solid craft. Only more evidence will tell. However, I am perfectly happy, in the absence of such evidence, to say "I don't know" and leave it at that.

[meg]

Probably not. However, since we are talking about UFOs, anything (including interstellar space travel) is possible.


Why not? If that thing is one of those round air vent things you see on many building rooftops, a reflection of it might even be seen to spin.

[baron]

Why not? If that thing is one of those round air vent things you see on many building rooftops, a reflection of it might even be seen to spin.

It's an interesting idea although I'm tempted to discount it because AFAIK mirages occur at very acute viewing angles, normally reflecting objects at or beyond the horizon. I'm not sure this very localised event fits that pattern.

[meg]

Oh! I found a picture of the very concourse and gate we're talking about here:

http://www.airchive.com/airline%20pics/CHICAGO%20ORD%20SUM04/*UA%20GATES-2

Looks like the round thing has a bunch of equipment on top of it. A weather station perhaps.

[Marc L]

Here (http://forums.uforesearcher.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=3;t=000177) are seemingly two independant pictures of the UFO. Too good to be true?. If these are true pics of the object, then the case may be worth paying attention.

My thoughts on the photos:

The one on the top of the page looks strangely familiar. I think I've seen that photo before.

The second one looks odd. Notice how the foreground (the airplane and the towers) are crisp and clear, while the object is all fuzzy. To me, it looks like it was photoshopped in from another ufo photo.

Conclusions: Both really bad fakes.

Marc

[firecoins]

your obviously taking yourself a way bit too seriously my man. take a deep breath and relax. chill out. This is a UFO report. All you can do is read the article. Unless you have more info than the article which I don't, stop making unreasionable demands.

Let me highlight the holes.



"Implied..." == "I assumed..."
"It is inferred" == "I infer that..." ~~ "I guess that..."
"It is possible" == "Better than a 0% chance that..."
"I assume" == "I guess that..."
"Presumably" == "It's a likely guess that..."
"Probably" == "Better than a 50% chance" ~~ "I guess that..."
"Apparently" == "It looks as if..."
"Seems to be" == "It looks like..."
"Should be..." == "I think it should be..."
"Hopefully not..." == "I hope not..."

Sorry, but you cite no real or definitive emperical values, only opinions and vague generalities. This is one of the roots of conspiracy theory. As such, it is irrelevant to finding the facts.

And what a wonderful thing it is for diseminating woo-woo articles fit for a tabloid. The only thing missing is the "Un-named expert witness" or "Confidential source" to clinch the category and win the Hokum prize.

W H E R E A R E T H E F R E A K I N G F A C T S ? ! ! :mad:

-Fnord of Dyscordia-

[Marc L]

It's 1,900 feet in the air, but it's "over Gate C17"?


Now it's up at 1,900 feet but "over head C Terminal."

~~ Paul

Um, how is that inconsistent? Gate C17 would be at C Terminal, wouldn't it?

Marc

[R.A.F.]

I am perfectly happy, in the absence of such evidence, to say "I don't know" and leave it at that.

But that's not what you posted...you posted...

Not a conclusion I personally agree with but I don't find any difficulty in understanding his reasoning...

So you understand his uncritical reasoning?? If that's not what you meant, then explain what you did mean.

[I less than three logic]

I agree, but as I said before, why are you concerned with his interpretation? It's only natural for people to speculate. If you don't agree with his deduction, ignore it. Concentrating on these peripheral issues and ignoring the (allegedly) factual testimony is a favoured method of arch-skeptics to divert attention away from the fact they don't know the answers and are afraid to admit it.
I don't think it is his interpretation of what he saw that people are concerned about, but rather the "(allegedly) factual testimony", more precisely the notion it should be accepted it as such. The only fact that can be concluded from his statement is that he appears to believe he saw something. All the other information provided is not factual; the distance, size, speed, the solidity of the object, and so on are all speculation as there were no means for him to discern these things. He could have claimed it was a blimp (of unknown size) and I would still doubt his "factual testimony" of the distance, size, speed, and so forth of the object he saw because there is no way for him to know these.

Take the distance for example, to triangulate the height or distance to an object you must have at least 3 things. You need to know were the point directly below the object is (to get a 90o angle), the distance from that point to you (for the length of one leg of the triangle), and the angle you're viewing the object at. With those three you can calculate how high the object is, and also how far away the object is from you. Once you know the distance from you you can calculate the size of the object. This also works in reverse, if you know the size of the object you can calculate the distance it is from you. Once you have the distance as one leg of the triangle, you can use the angle at which you're viewing the object to deduce the angle needed to point straight at the ground to form your right angle (triangles add up to 180o so if your view at 30o the other angle is 60o), and with the two angles and the hypotenuse you can calculate the height of the object. However, since this was a UFO, unknown being a key word here, he didn't know the size of the object so he couldn't deduce the distance. Since he knew neither the distance nor the size of the object there was no way for him to figure out either of them. Thus, his testimony contains no facts, just unfounded speculations.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Um, how is that inconsistent? Gate C17 would be at C Terminal, wouldn't it?
I didn't say it was inconsistent. I was chuckling at the idea that an object at 1,900 feet could be thought of as begin over a particular gate. I say it was over gate C16, not C17!

~~ Paul

[baron]

I am perfectly happy, in the absence of such evidence, to say "I don't know" and leave it at that.

But that's not what you posted...you posted...

Not a conclusion I personally agree with but I don't find any difficulty in understanding his reasoning...

So you understand his uncritical reasoning?? If that's not what you meant, then explain what you did mean.

I don't know what your point is. Was what I wrote unclear?

I am happy to say "I don't know" because in this instance, I don't
I have no difficult in understanding the reasoning by which this mechanic derived his conclusion
I disagree with the mechanic's conclusion that it must have been a solid, alien craftI literally don't know what else to say.

...Since he knew neither the distance nor the size of the object there was no way for him to figure out either of them. Thus, his testimony contains no facts, just unfounded speculations.

Yes, I know, and I agree that his estimate was just that, an estimate. I've dealt with this many times. I do not want to appear any more confrontational than I have already been accused of being but please, read what I have written concerning your point.

Also, my question (below) remains unanswered...

Let's say this disc was not actually between 6' and 24', as stated. What would you say the minimum size would be? I would say 3'; any less and the near-focus of the eyes would be obvious. Now, what would the maximum size be? Well, let's go crazy and say 1/2 mile. Would you now care to explain how a 3' disc or a 1/2 mile disc is any easier to explain than a 6' one or a 24' one?

[Marc L]

I didn't say it was inconsistent. I was chuckling at the idea that an object at 1,900 feet could be thought of as begin over a particular gate. I say it was over gate C16, not C17!

~~ Paul

Oh, ok. Sorry :)

Marc

[chracatoa]

Here we have a better picture of the incident. And I can give you my expert opinion about it - the software called "adobe photoshop" was definitely NOT used in this case:

http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/3294/ohare2bx1.jpg (http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/3294/ohare2bx1.jpg)

[meg]

Here we have a better picture of the incident. And I can give you my expert opinion about it - the software called "adobe photoshop" was definitely NOT used in this case:

http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/3294/ohare2bx1.jpg (http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/3294/ohare2bx1.jpg)

Much better image! :D

[R.A.F.]

I literally don't know what else to say.

Lets try this....emphasis mine

I have no difficult in understanding the reasoning by which this mechanic derived his conclusion.

OK...are you saying that you understand why the mechanic would reason in an uncritical manner? Because I can understand that...it makes sense.

But if you're saying that you understand his actual reasoning, then you lose me because I simply don't understand that "type" of reasoning...it doesn't make sense.

What I'm asking (if it's the latter) is just how do about go about "understanding" uncritical reasoning??

[rwguinn]

Why not? If that thing is one of those round air vent things you see on many building rooftops, a reflection of it might even be seen to spin.
Not knowing where the observers were in relation to concourse C, itis even possible that the object they saw was the round thingie directly.
Fog plays heck with depth perception--and a 1900 foot ceiling is not a hard boundary.
A thing to remember--without something to focus on, when looking at the sky (esp. clear blue or consistent grey/gray)the eyes tend to focus about 8-10 feet out. That is what makes it so hard to find an airplane you hear going overhead. I learned the trick at NASA (Dryden) of dipping the eyes to the horizon, then back up. Gives you a point of focus and keeps it jst long enough to spot the whatever before unfocusing...

[baron]

OK...are you saying that you understand why the mechanic would reason in an uncritical manner? Because I can understand that...it makes sense.

But if you're saying that you understand his actual reasoning, then you lose me because I simply don't understand that "type" of reasoning...it doesn't make sense.

What I'm asking (if it's the latter) is just how do about go about "understanding" uncritical reasoning??

I'll try once more, with a simple analogy from my experience. Somebody once told me they had seen a hummingbird in their garden. I said that hummingbirds don't live in the UK. They said nevertheless, they saw one. It was a couple of inches long, they said, had a long beak, hovered completely stationary for long periods and moved quickly from one flower to the next.

Now I happen to know that what they saw was a hummingbird hawk moth. It is large for a British moth, brightly coloured, has a long proboscis that looks at first glance like a beak, and it hovers and darts very much like a hummingbird. Hence its name.

The guy in question had therefore made an observation and based on that, come to a conclusion. I fully understood how he came by his conclusion despite the fact his reasoning was flawed and his conclusion extremely unlikely.

In the case of the mechanic, the same thing happened. For sure, he postulated an even more outlandish solution to his experience, but this makes no difference to the fact I can see how his reasoning, flawed as it was, caused him to believe it was a non-earthly craft.

[Astrophotographer]

Also, my question (below) remains unanswered...


The larger the actual size would make it easier to see details and possibly deduce it's origin. Looking at a 747 from 1/3 a mile is impressive and easy to identify. Seeing a 747 from 7-10 miles is not impressive at all and you can't tell what it really is. Since we are talking about small angular sizes here (on the matter of 2-3 degrees or less) and a limited distance (supposedly and upper limit of 1900 feet), we really aren't talking about something too large physically speaking. I have seen estimates of altitude ranging from 700 feet to 1500 feet. This means the object was somewhere on the size of a car, assuming any angular estimates were correct.

However, based on my astronomical experience, estimating angular size is not an easy task even when you have a reference to work with (moon, sun, Pleiades, big dipper pointer stars). Less experienced observers usually get the estimates wrong especially when they are reporting based on their memory. Remember, the sky was overcast and there was no ready reference point. I really think we are talking about something that was essentially a small dot in the sky where details could not be seen.

[R.A.F.]

I can see how his reasoning, flawed as it was, caused him to believe it was a non-earthly craft.

See that wasn't too hard was it? If you had simply added the phrase I boldened in one of your earlier posts then we could have avoided this entire exchange. :)

[meg]

Good points, rwguinn and Astrophotographer as to how hard it is to estimate size and distance.

One thing that keeps coming into my mind is that this happened at approximately 4:30 pm. According to NWS, sunset in Chicago was at 4:38 pm on 11/7, so it was very close to sunset.

I am wondering if the sun low on the horizon might reflect off the round thingee and cast a shadow above on the low clouds? Kind of a Brocken spectre sort of thing.

This shadow would then disappear in a few minutes, either when the sun moved, or when other lights came on around the concourse.

Perhaps it wasn't even the light of the sun, but light from below. Looking at pictures of the inside of the concourse, it looks like that's a big long glass ceiling. Maybe that light could cast a shadow upward onto the low clouds, which then disappeared as other lights came on at sunset.

[latent aaaack]

All indications are that the conditions which caused this sighting were very rare so an explanation has to account for that. Among the people who reported it were commercial pilots who would tell you that they've been in all weather conditions at the airport and have seen everything that airport lights do and have never seen this. Given this I lean more towards it being a weird weather event and maybe a combination of that with something more mundane like the position of the sun.

Good points, rwguinn and Astrophotographer as to how hard it is to estimate size and distance.

One thing that keeps coming into my mind is that this happened at approximately 4:30 pm. According to NWS, sunset in Chicago was at 4:38 pm on 11/7, so it was very close to sunset.

I am wondering if the sun low on the horizon might reflect off the round thingee and cast a shadow above on the low clouds? Kind of a Brocken spectre sort of thing.

This shadow would then disappear in a few minutes, either when the sun moved, or when other lights came on around the concourse.

Perhaps it wasn't even the light of the sun, but light from below. Looking at pictures of the inside of the concourse, it looks like that's a big long glass ceiling. Maybe that light could cast a shadow upward onto the low clouds, which then disappeared as other lights came on at sunset.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I am wondering if the sun low on the horizon might reflect off the round thingee and cast a shadow above on the low clouds? Kind of a Brocken spectre sort of thing.
Shadows on clouds? Preposterous!

http://www.photoastronomique.net/voir_us.php?taille=grand&nom=040403_dsfc0046-48

~~ Paul

[tsig]

OK, I will try one last time.

Someone sees an object in the sky. He doesn't know for sure how far away it is nor how big it is. He therefore estimates to the best of his ability. He uses factors such as the cloud ceiling, strength and direction of natural illumination, atmospheric hazing and his natural ability to grossly judge distance using the focus of his eyes. When the object moves through the cloud ceiling he is able to further refine his estimates based on its apparent speed and time until it disappeared.

He therefore concludes that the object, to the best of his judgement, was x' in diameter and y' above the ground.

What exactly is the problem here?

What's the alternative? "I saw something. I don't know what it was, nor am I qualified to offer any information about it. It could have been an inch wide or two miles. It hovered between ten feet and half a mile from the ground. It may have been solid or vapourous. It may not have existed at all except in my own mind."

Or maybe that's exactly what some people want to hear. Such an account would be that much easier to ridicule, wouldn't it?

You are trying to solve an equation with two unknowns.

No one can judge both the size and the distance of an unknown object.

[The Atheist]

Here we have a better picture of the incident. And I can give you my expert opinion about it - the software called "adobe photoshop" was definitely NOT used in this case:

http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/3294/ohare2bx1.jpg (http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/3294/ohare2bx1.jpg)
Outstanding! That's definitely the craft they saw.

[Notrump]

At the woo site uforesearcher.com a poster named Meg may have found the solution. She was apologizing to the forum Administrator for sounding like a naysayer. She provided an aerial photo of concourse C-17, and noted that local TV weatherman Tom Skilling reported in the Chicago Tribune that there would be a temperature inversion over the area at the time.

Below I’ve posted an even closer photo from Terraserver. C-17 is the vacant slot immediately to the right of the large oval object affixed to the roof of the concourse. Witnesses had reported a gray elliptical object. As Meg suggested, it's entirely possible that the temperature inversion over the field reflected the image of this oval object in the manner of a mirage directly back to observers on the ground. This could explain why the witnesses were confined to such a small area, while those outside of it saw nothing at all. As the inversion fluctuated, so would the perceived altitude of the reflected image of the object.

http://www.curtrenz.com/c17.jpg

[Astrophotographer]

At the woo site uforesearcher.com a poster named Meg may have found the solution. She was apologizing to the forum Administrator for sounding like a naysayer. She provided an aerial photo of concourse C-17, and noted that local TV weatherman Tom Skilling reported in the Chicago Tribune that there would be a temperature inversion over the area at the time.

I don't know. I understand that temperature inversions could cause unusual visual effects on objects near the horizon but almost straight overhead seems like a stretch to me. It could be possible I guess but seems unlikely. I am leaning towards something more physical like an errant balloon.

[Fnord]

your obviously taking yourself a way bit too seriously my man. take a deep breath and relax. chill out. This is a UFO report. All you can do is read the article. Unless you have more info than the article which I don't, stop making unreasionable demands.

You think that it's unreasonable to want to examine the facts. This leaves any hypothesis you could posit in the dust of woo theory.

Show me the facts, then we'll talk.

-Fnord of Dyscordia-

[Notrump]

First, my apologies to Meg for not noticing that she is the same person who served as a clever undercover mole at uforesearch.com. I should have read all of the posts in this thread before I passed along her conjecture from the woo site that an oval structure over the O’Hare concourse may have appeared in a mirage. Her hypothesis may have merit and I applaud the work she did to develop it.

Meg also mentioned a report by Chicago TV weatherman Tom Skilling, who happens to be a friend of mine. Tom is similarly fascinated by the O’Hare incident and he commends Meg for her efforts. He suggested that I contact Penn State Professor Emeritus Craig Bohen who is an expert in atmospheric optics. I’m sending him an e-mail and will let you know his response. Tom leans toward Meg’s theory, but would like an explanation of the high speed of the object and the hole in the cloud. I suspect that the rapid movement of the image may have been due to fluctuation of the temperature inversion. The apparent hole in the cloud could have simply been the original object later seeming at a much greater distance but with a change in color or brightness due to the setting Sun. The professor may have better ideas. Here’s a link to his webpage.

http://www.met.psu.edu/dept/faculty/Bohren.htm

A poster on another message board suggested a site that presents a radio interview with a witness. He thought it was of interest because the witness described the edge of the object as wavering like a highway on a hot day. Here is the link to the webpage where you can find that interview. You’ll get a kick out of it.

http://www.rense.com/

The host, guest UFO expert and O’Hare witness are all pure woo and convinced of a government cover-up. Yet the witness’s description fits quite well with the idea of a mirage. Many years ago I was briefly an assistant air traffic controller. Yes, we received occasional UFO reports from pilots. Neither the controllers nor the pilots jumped to the conclusion that they were extraterrestrial in the couple of cases in which I was present. And never were we told not to reveal this information to friends or the media. Perhaps Meg can relate her ATC experiences in this regard. Actually, most of my working life was in the television news business. Again, never were we asked by anyone in authority to quash a story simply because it involved a UFO. Yet UFO woos are convinced that the government and the media have been in a giant conspiracy to suppress UFO information for nearly sixty years.

[meg]

Excellent, Notrump!

No apologies necessary to me at all. It's been a little hard to follow this thread, as there've been a few different conversations going on at once. That's so cool that you're a friend of Tom Skilling! After reading his weather blog, I was wishing there was a way I could talk to him about this. I am wondering if he had any reply to the rebuttal to the mirage theory that said that mirages only form when the object is below the horizon, and that it wouldn't be possible for a mirage to form that looked like it was directly overhead, - as at least one witness reported that he was looking straight up.

I'm also wondering if he had any comment on the brocken spectre/shadow on a cloud theory. - And I'm wondering if he has any pictures or information about what the sunset was like that day. I think it might be important that this happened right around sunset, as right around that time there would be all sorts of lights just coming on. Could one light have created the shadow, which was cancelled out when more lights went on?

I'm curious about the alleged rapid movement of the thing, too. Although I'm especially interested in finding the exact words of the witness. I suspect that there might be some inferring going on there. For example, a witness looked away for one minute, then looked back and it was gone, and he reconstructs this in his mind as the thing "shot up". Or maybe a reporter just chose that way of stating it, because he couldn't come up with a more logical explanation.

As to the "hole left behind", here's a quote from Skilling's forecast for that day:

Though haze and cloudiness will be extensive, precipitation is to remain downstate, and computer models predict drying above a thick low cloud deck—a process expected to scour several sun-blocking mid and high level cloud decks out of Chicago skies. Thus, even though low clouds may hang on, the effect of eliminating clouds above may be to allow skies to brighten. And, air may sink just enough to open holes in the low overcast over at least sections of the metro area this afternoon.

So it could be that the vision/shadow/thing was projected over a "hole in the clouds" that was already forming, and when it was gone that's what they saw.

I've also wondered if the image just seemed to shrink rapidly, which a brain might interpret as shooting up higher into the sky.

Here's another thought: If it was a mirage, caused by light bending, what would it look like right when the light started to unbend? Might it appear to shoot straight up?

Unusual things happening around that time, that day, at that place:

1 Sunset. Daylight was fading and artificial lights were turning on.

2 Temperature inversion trapping clouds (and smoke and pollution) down low all day.

3 Humid atmosphere. Here (http://blogs.trb.com/news/weather/weblog/wgnweather/chhisky112106.jpg) is a picture of what Chicago woke to that morning. (From Skilling's weblog) It burned off by late morning, but I see that the temperature and dewpoint around 4:30 were within 5.1 degrees of each other, meaning that small pockets of fog might have been forming around that time.

4 Between 3:51 and 4:51pm visibility went from 2.5 miles to 4 miles. Something was changing right around that time.

5 Winds were calm at the time, but started picking up the next hour. Something was changing right around that time.

6 This is an airport with lots of big jets taking off and landing, meaning interesting engine-made winds and air movements. I don't know it as fact, but I think it is quite possible that fragment of a wingtip vortex might create a small lenticular cloud which could just hang there for a few minutes, then blow apart or shrink or dissipate.

7 This is an airport with lots of big jets rolling all around that concourse with big bright lights on them. Could some big aircraft light on the other side of the concourse been shining on the round thingee (or some other thingee) creating a shadow reflected on the low clouds which moved when the aircraft moved?

8 It was election day. I don't know if this is relevent, but who knows? I would guess that there might be more balloons escaping on election day than other days.

So, I can think of at least eight things that might or might not be factors that combine in creating a shadowy disc shaped image of an unknown size at an unknown altitude in the air.

I'm very much looking forward to what Dr. Bohren has to say about this all. Are you going to contact him? If so, I hope you'll share his replies here.


Where were you an ATA, Notrump? I was at ZKC. I too have a few stories about pilots asking if we were seeing things on radar, or pilots saying they saw something unusual over the radio. One thing I would like to note is that there is a very specific meaning to the word "report" to the FAA, and calling up the tower to ask if anybody was seeing this thing is not a "report". When I was a controller, if a pilot were to state that he/she was seeing something unusual, we would have to specifically ask them "Do you want to file a report?" Only if they said "Yes. I am filing a report." would we start the process, which involved calling over the supervisor, who would start the ball rolling pulling all the radar tapes, radio tapes, and landline tapes, which would be locked up and kept whole as evidence. Copies would later be made and transcribed. We'd be pulled off the sector to make a written report of the incident. Union reps were called, investigators were called in. All sorts of stuff would happen then. This was not a small thing. It was treated with the same level of seriousness as a separation error or an accident.

My understanding was that the airlines treated "reports" with the same seriousness. And pilots were not quick to file reports. The would only do it if they were genuinely convinced that something real happened and the safety of their aircraft might have been compromised. It generally is not good for one's aviation career to be found that one sees things that no one else can see, so pilots take "filing a report" very seriously.

United has said that there were no official reports made, and that there's nothing on their operation logbooks about the incident. The FAA made similar remarks. So that says something to me. It says that even though some people might have witnessed something and they called the tower and asked the controllers if they saw it too, no official reports were made about the incident, because nobody considered it to be that serious.

Please do let me know what Dr. Bohren makes of the whole thing. While I'm sure that none of us will be able to "solve" the mystery after the fact, I'm enjoying learning about and contemplating all the fascinating phenomena that can happen in unusual atmospheric conditions, and I'm sure his reply will be very interesting.

[Notrump]

Meg –

Your eight points all appear well considered and quite relevant. A poster at another message board says he’s eager for this to be analyzed on the TV show “Mythbusters”. Wouldn’t that be great if we eventually come close to solving this. Meanwhile, I have received Professor Bohren’s analysis dismissing the mirage conjecture:


I do not find the mirage conjecture reasonable. Mirages are blamed for
everything imaginable by people who know nothing about them. A mirage is
a distorted image appreciably different from the corresponding object,
the result of transmission of light in a nonuniform atmosphere. This
nonuniformity is usually the result of temperature gradients. Mirages do
not shoot up into the sky. Popular science books and textbooks almost
always show mirages highly distorted, giving the false impression that
they can result in appreciable angular displacements. Not so. Consider,
for example, a ship on water that is colder than the air aloft. The
observer is at some distance from the ship (neglect the curvature of
Earth). Without an atmosphere, the ship would be seen at some angle above
the surface. With an atmosphere (and a temperature gradient), the image
of the ship is displaced upwards. This is called a superior mirage, not
because it is better than other mirages but because it results in lifting
of in image above where it would be otherwise. But the angular
displacement is of order 1 degree or so. Thus an image cannot be lifted
into the clouds, even though you will see lots of diagrams that convey
this notion. The huge distortion in the diagrams is necessitated because
if the mirage were drawn to scale, the displacement would hardly be
noticeable.

There do exist wall mirages, that is distorted images as a consequence of
large temperature gradients near solid surfaces. You can see them all the
time in parking lots on hot days. But again, the angular displacements
are small. And you have to look very close to the surface (and along the
surface).

Holes in clouds, however, are not mirages. They are seen from time to
time and are photographed. I have a few photographs of these "fall streak
holes", none of them spectacular. But occasionally someone takes a photo
of a beautiful circular fall streak hole, and this is often followed by
mindless chatter about some unknown physical phenomenon. Rubbish. Fall
streak holes have nothing to do with mirages and the mechanism for
producing them has been understood for years.

I hope that this helps.

Beware of people bearing mirages.

Craig Bohren


In response I’ve asked him to speculate on what the apparition may actually have been. Without credible persons of science offering reasonable possibilities, the ufologists (and much of the public) tend to accept by default bizarre imaginings of extraterrestrial visitations.

If you would like to hear the exact words of a witness, listen to the radio interview that I provided a link to in my previous post.

http://www.rense.com/

You may have to scroll down the webpage to find where to download the O’Hare UFO discussion. The interview is quite extensive. The radio host is pure woo, but he does a fine job as a journalist in drawing out testimony from the witness. For a moment the host even questions the wisdom of extraterrestrials visiting a busy airport.

I was briefly on the “A” side at Chicago Center before washing out at the Oklahoma City academy due to a lack of quickness in telling left from right (west from east). BTW, I once witnessed a fabulous UFO when I was 12. I awoke around midnight one warm spring evening and went to the kitchen for a class of milk. Outside the screen door I saw a brilliant white light hovering motionless about half way above the southern horizon. I knew it could not be Venus, which is never out at midnight. A UFO – Wow! I quickly ran out into the yard with my new telescope. My heart pounded fiercely as I focused on a huge elliptically shaped mother ship surrounded by four tiny scout craft! My great excitement lasted for about 15 seconds - until it dawned on me that I had “discovered” Jupiter and its four great satellites.

-- Curt

[baron]

Fallstreak holes ~

http://www.cloudappreciationsociety.org/gallery/index.php?x=browse&category=16&pagenum=1

I doubt it was one of these either, as they only appear in high cloud

[Notrump]

Professor Bohren in his second response declined to speculate on the O’Hare event, but offered some interesting scientific insights into cloud holes and other alleged “UFO” related phenomena:

It is very difficult for me to speculate on something for which there are
no good observations. It is not uncommon for me to get a query from
someone saying that they saw a light in the sky: What was it? When I
press for details I rarely get them. This then gets distorted into
"Scientist baffled by inexplicable phenomenon." There is a distinction
between inexplicable and unexplained, but, unfortunately, not often
made…

As I noted, holes in clouds, even spectacular ones, are not mysterious.
And by holes in clouds I do not mean just breaks in clouds on partly
cloud days.

Fallstreak holes really get your attention because the holes can appear
to have been cut out with a cookie cutter. Every so often Weatherwise
magazine (and Weather, the British equivalent) will publish a spectacular
photograph of a fallstreak hole.

Use Google to search on fallstreak holes. The first entry I got was a
collection of great photos, assembled by Australians, of fallstreak holes
all over the world. Now I am not saying that what was observed is a
fallstreak hole, only that strange holes in clouds are not the work of
extraterrials.

The folks who use the term Unidentified Flying Object are, in a sense,
already biased. How the hell do they know that the "object" (which in
fact may be an image) is in fact "flying"? Suppose that a searchlight
illuminates the base of clouds, the result being a moving white spot. Is
this a flying object? I don't think so. It is a moving patch of
illuminated cloud brighter than adjacent cloud. But it is neither an
object nor is it flying. I'll give you another example. I have seen many
subsuns from airplanes. They are elliptical bright spots. As the plane
moves the subsun moves with it. Is the subsun flying? Is it an object?
Neither. It is a slightly distorted image of the sun reflected by falling
ice crystals that are oriented. And yet the subsun is probably the most
common "unidentified flying object." My colleague Alistair Fraser told me
that he once saw a book about flying saucers in a shop window. On the
cover of was a photo of one of these saucers. Alistair said that it was a
beautiful photo of a subsun.

It is easy to see why subsuns are mistaken for flying saucers. They are
bright, elliptical, and no matter how fast the plane flies the "saucer"
keeps up. Wow! The mystery vanishes when you realize that what you are
seeing is fundamentally no different from what you would see if you were
walking along the edge of a fairly still lake with the sun low in the
sky. You would see the reflected image of the sun, and as you moved the
image would move. Run fast and the image will keep up with you. This is
exactly what happens in the atmosphere. The mirrors are just thousands of
tiny ice crystals.

Craig Bohren

[meg]

Great responses from Dr Bohren! That's wonderful he was able to respond so quickly and at such length. I guess the mirage theory is out, though. Oh well.

Regarding the hole in the clouds, here's an interesting site with many pictures:
http://www.schools.ash.org.au/paa2/mediagallery/gallery.asp?orgid=1&suborgid=1&ssid=&pid=596&uid=&gallcatid=&gallid=5&fileid=# They call fallstreak holes by another name, "hole punch clouds", and there's an interesting explanation there as to how they're formed on the same site.

Here are a few more:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040112.html
http://www.wkrg.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WKRG%2FMGArticle%2FKRG_BasicArt icle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031772579616&path=%21weather%21education
http://weatherthings.com/holepunch.html
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/grb/?n=holepunch

Interestingly, several of these sites say that these cloud formations are triggered by something flying through the cloud, though it takes some minutes for the hole to form.


I listened to the Jeff Rense show you pointed to. I also listened to a Nov 15th interview with Peter Davenport on Coast to Coast, which as far as I can tell, is the first report of the incident. He discussed the one witness statement he had which was:[here are my notes]

A ramp employee standing at nose of an aircraft at c17 while waiting for cockpit crew to get aircraft ready for departure, he was looked directly up.

He saw a disc shaped object, size of quarter at arms length, metallic, "obviously spinning". Looked like a frisby He apprised crew, they looked up through the windows at the top of the cabin - it is conjectured that they saw it, too.

He then called supervisor, (conjectured that)word went up the chain of command very fast and that the FAA was notified PD conjectured that tower operators were able to see object with binoculars

The sighting lasted 2 minutes. This person on ramp just stared at it whole time.
Skies were overcast at 1900 ft. It was just under the clouds.

Witness said it seemed to accelerate very very rapidly straight up. He asserted it "punched a hole in the clouds"

Others (PD didn't say how many others or where they were exactly) looking at it from the side, said that the object accelerated so fast, they lost view of it as soon as it started moving, some said it went left. Some said it went right.

So we've got a few conflicts here.

Witness A (coast to coast) says 2 minutes.
Witness B (jeff rense) says 20 minutes.

Witness A says just under 1900 ft cloud deck.
Witness B says 700-800 ft above ground level.

Witness A says "obviously spinning"
Witness B did not see spinning.

Both said hole in the clouds afterwards.
Both had similar size estimates.
Both said gray shadowy disc shape.


I don't know. Is there anything here to go on? Would it be reasonable to assume that since both witnesses talk about the "hole punched in the clouds", and since some of the cloud sites discussing "hole punch clouds" state that the hole is triggered by an aircraft/jet engine/object flying through the cloud, that they might have really seen an actual object, and not just a mirage or a shadow?

[firecoins]

You think that it's unreasonable to want to examine the facts. This leaves any hypothesis you could posit in the dust of woo theory.

Show me the facts, then we'll talk.

-Fnord of Dyscordia-
I thinkm its unreasonable that your upset at me that are no facts to examine. Just an article fill of speculation. Seriously chill.

[RichardR]

Anonymous cell phone camera image received by email:

http://www.earthfiles.com/news/news.cfm?ID=1200&category=Environment

Thoughts?

[Thomas]

Anonymous cell phone camera image received by email:

http://www.earthfiles.com/news/news.cfm?ID=1200&category=Environment

Thoughts?
Bump!

[Taffer]

Looks like a cloud to me...

[wahrheit]

Anonymous cell phone camera image received by email:

http://www.earthfiles.com/news/news.cfm?ID=1200&category=Environment

Thoughts?

http://www.earthfiles.com/Images/news/O/OhareUFO2full.jpg.jpg

The little gray, blurry thing in the top left corner is supposed to be an alien UFO?

Those aliens love to paint their UFOs in cloud color, it seems.

To me, the American Airlines aircraft in the foreground looks much more like a "flying object". ;)

[Thomas]

Those aliens love to paint their UFOs in cloud color, it seems.

Wait a minute, that's nooo classic UFO, dude. I mean, where's the colored festival lights and the little green head sticking out on top?! :boxedin: