If I wiggle my hand back and forth as fast as I can with a laser pointer hitting the wall across the street, the light spot appears to not just move at supersonic velocity along the wall, but accelerate at hundreds of Gs when it goes from rightward to leftward in a few milliseconds.
If you have electromagnetic waves - be they light through your windshield, or radar returns - exhibiting similar patterns, either it's JUST light waves, like my laser pointer dot, or it's technology we don't even have physics for, much less engineering. As the poster notes, physical laws of fluid flow, requiring supersonic shockwaves, would be getting violated, not just "where's the thrust coming from".
If it's just a light phenomena, it's one of hundreds we're still investigating; the heavens are full of mystery. I'd certainly advocate more science budget, but then I always do.
If actual physical objects are doing this, because of intelligence, then there's absolutely no way to investigate them if they don't want to be investigated.
Hmm, Matt and Jen, I question whether publishing this was worth your time -- unless it was to drive engagement, in which case, kudos! Some of the people mentioned in this post are outright cranks and a lot of the video evidence has been debunked https://www.youtube.com/c/MickWest/videos
Do aliens exist? The probabilistically informed answer seems to generally land somewhere around 'given the size and age of the universe, there are likely some somewhere'. But aliens on earth? The evidence is either dramatized retellings of unexplained events from pilots or civilians or fuzzy video footage of phenomena which can often be explained using basic geometry and a few reasonable assumptions about wind speed, etc.
To my eyes, this is like asking for better investigation of paranormal activity (of ghosts, spirits, etc.). We don't trust the first-hand account of people who claim to have seen ghosts, demons, etc., our best theories of the physical world gives us absolutely no reason to think such phenomena are possible, even in principle, and whatever video evidence exists seems so weak or non-existent, that there isn't even a debate. Yet when it comes to allegedly physics defying maneuvers and other grainy, difficult to interpret videos, suddenly it's worth covering?
I land firmly on the 'we need very strong evidence' side of things for this to even get off the ground as something worth investigating.
The other reason I'm skeptical is that human history gives us some idea of what typically happens when two civilizations at different levels of technology run into each other. Why would a hypothetical alien space-faring civilization attempt to conceal itself?
When all the UAP news was drawing headlines last year, I read a lot of it with interest and then watched and read skeptical coverage, and came away with the distinct sense that the media got carried away with some stories and failed to do their due diligence in interrogating the claims of those pushing the 'these are real phenomena' side of things.
I forget the British fellow's name but he runs a terrific YouTube channel were he breaks down what is going on in many of the videos that others cite as evidence of incredible physics defying feats of the alleged UAPs. Once you've gone through a few, you realize how easily we can misunderstand what is recorded, and basic geometry can show that what looks like incredible speeds are illusions.
That question kind-of informed the Star Trek "Prime Directive" that had them dressing up in native drag to keep the locals from even knowing aliens exist. It followed decades of SF novels that explained away the "shy aliens" paradox with "containment until you invent worldgov and universal peace".
Of course, you are then left with "but why would they break the secrecy rule JUUUUST enough to show us that impossible flying machines exist, and are running around the lower atmosphere all the time?" If that had happened once, OK - but after so many of these sightings, the secrecy-sworn aliens must star-traveling incompetents - a paradox in its own right.
I believe the government should spend time on the neighbours-secretly-sleeping-on-others-couches phenomenon - including, but not limited to raising a committee, creating living room surveillance subsidies, and raising public awareness of this disturbing issue. There is anecdotal evidence that neighbours of people are sneaking into others homes and sleeping on their couches. This evidence includes blurry images of people sleeping on couches, indications and measurements that couches have different dents and cushion configurations than they were previously with no clear explanation, and most importantly a concern from portions of the populace that such nefarious activities are in fact happening. While people have not been able to provide any consistent information on the effects of these sneaky naps, the potential for something to happen is there, and public anxiety is rising. Could the frequency of these couch naps increase? Could this be an indication of a secret society of nappers looking to undermine democracy? Does this mean our recliners and day beds are next? How can we stand still while it is entirely possible that some people are sneaking naps that we can't clearly measure or validate? Something must be done, and a standing government committee to evaluate what the wide range of possible consequences of this variously described phenomena are is the least the federal government could do.
“ UAPs are real and Canadians need to take them seriously.” Why should we take the views of Larry Maguire on ESPs seriously? He is a CPC MP with a farming background and used his knowledge to bring forth a Private Members Bill re farming. Good for him.
Why am I reading his views on an area where he lacks expertise? I do not get it.
Remember, farmers are ideally situated to observe the sky. They personally own good chunks of where the it contacts the earth, over which they can and do control the artificial light which obscures the night sky.
Larry appears to be a solid guy - I was not denigrating his work. But there was a debate last night among CPC leadership hopefuls. I thought I would see an article reflecting that. This is a piece you use when there is not really any big news.
"In a serious and thoughtful manner, members of Parliament should ask questions and engage on this topic."
That's some Twilight Zone level of science fiction right there! I have no idea how serious an issue this is, but if it is indeed serious - the last message I want to hear is: 'Don't worry, the House of Commons is on the case!'
Very funny. If the Prime Minister said UAP’s were real all of Western Canada would become skeptics. Maybe we can have a greener UAP program built on principles of social justice ….
I mean, I don't think this currently needs to be a government policy priority, but it does get my imagination going! This could be natural phenomenom which confounds both our own senses (there are lots of eye-witness accounts) and modern sensors. Undertanding that could be really useful scientifically.
It could be very advance technology from another country, but it seems like if you had technology this advanced, why keep it a secret? You'd be the globe's superpower by a pretty wide margin! So, that seems less-likely.
It could be evidence that time travel is possible -- that our great-great grandchildren our touring our time and have very strict rules against engagement that get slightly broken from time to time. This could be literally traveling back in time (which seems to violate the knows laws of physics) or between different timeline dimensions (which is merely very, very hard to imagine!).
It could also be highly intelligent alien life, which would seem to be adhering to a no/minimum engagement rule of some kind since we don't really get a lot of information from each encounter.
Or -- like so many other things -- it could just be the human need to build narratives around islands of information that don't otherwise make sense. It's why we have urban myths and legends.
I have no idea what the truth is and suspect we won't find out in my lifetime! But, fun to muse.
When doing research on Nova Scotia history I came across a diary entry describing a UFO sighting in the 1760s. They have been at it for a long time. Would be good to know what they are.
If only. Heaven knows we could use some intelligence on this planet. Since UAPs have been seen for centuries, I expect they come and have a look and give us a miss. Some things are just too much trouble.
What is the downside to having a single agency collating and investigating UAP's? If they can be explained away fine. If not we should know that too. Just because we can't explain it doesn't mean its aliens. Just stop treating Canadians like we are all ostriches!
Of course, Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon are real. Of course, we don't know what 'they' are, i.e. unidentified.
Now what, exactly, does take them seriously mean? Let's assume governments make public all the information they have sufficient to satisfy the Member of Parliament from Brandon-Souris. Now what?
How do we get serious about UAPs, exactly? What would the member from Brandon-Souris like to see done? How, I wonder, do we determine their origin and intent, assuming there even is an origin and intent?
I think that is the most concisely correct response to this article. Just no.
Now I'll explain why a simple "no" should suffice here. Let's look at this statement:
"Periodically, UAP would drop from 28,000 feet to sea level (estimated to be 50 feet), or under the surface, in 0.78 seconds. ... Either some nation state has developed technology that is beyond next-generation, or we are dealing with something that is completely unknown."
That is a clear false dichotomy. The problem with almost all proponents of UAPs / UFOs being a serious topic needing addressing is that they, like the author here, have created false choices based on unchecked assumptions in their premise. I don't mean they are unintelligent; I meant that it hasn't occurred to them what assumptions they are starting with when they create these false choices.
In most cases, as in this one above, it is the assumption that the measurement process is some sort of gospel truth as if our measurement systems are infallible. If we're going to declare what the limited choices are here, I will assert then that the choices quite differently. One option is that this is something moving from 28,000 feet to 50 feet in 0.78 seconds. If that were true, yes, the g-forces would destroy any substance we know. But also it would create massive friction heating of the air that would turn it into a plasma and create enormous pressure waves (aka, sonic booms) that could be felt and heard over a long distance. Did that happen?
So the choices are that we are wrong about basic physics on multiple domains from material properties, forces, friction, heat, air molecules, sound, and pressure -- AND -- some secret agency, aliens, or time-travelers invented some technology that can get around this understanding of basic physics -- AND -- they went on some strange joy ride going up and down, back and forth one day and then never again in the same vehicle -- OR -- it is a phenomenon of the measurement device and process that is misinterpreted by software or people. Occam's Razor picks one of these options pretty clearly. I'll leave it up to the reader to figure out which option.
If we're going to focus on credentials, I worked directly on aerospace and defence sensors for more than a decade, lead teams of mission-critical measurements from those sensors, and co-authored two international standards on sensor-based motion and tracking measurements. Typically sensors like cameras, radars, and lidars have all sorts of potential sources of errors including internal reflections, cross-talk, and saturation of detectors combined with their method of read-out circuitry. Further, the software involved in tracking and measuring is built on assumptions about what the information in the pixels mean.
For example, time-of-flight lidars bounce laser pulses off objects and measure the round-trip time, and can give a 3D image of what is in front of the sensor. But, they assume that the light falling on the detector is caused by the pulse that the lidar's laser source just emitted. Other lidars in the area, any other light source of same frequency -- including intentional use of such sources -- can fool the sensor into measuring things that aren't there, e.g., https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/07/hackers-trick-self-driving-cars-lidar-sensor
Notice that it never moves from the center of the image. It doesn't bounce up and down or drift left or right. That's quite an impressive tracking system that I've never seen or heard of being possible. If you watch the clouds you'll see that in addition to moving constantly, they do bounce up and down e.g. around 25 seconds especially, yet the "object" stays centered. That means either the object very coincidentally just happens to move exactly up and down relative the clouds at the exact time and in exact angular proportion as the camera happens to bounce up and down relative to the clouds, or the thing being measured is itself part of the camera.
This often happens with things like internal reflections, things on the lens, or internal things between the lens and imaging detector.
A clue to its location in the process is in the case where it actually does move in the image, in contradiction to what I said above. While it doesn't jostle around like a real camera tracking a real object tends to do, it does "rotate" around 28-30 seconds, and move left-right around 32-34 seconds.
If you look at the clouds around 27-28 seconds you'll notice they start to rotate and bounce a little before moving back. This suggests that either the aircraft is rotating, the camera is rotating, or the tracking systems is on a stabilized gimbaled platform similar to the 3-axes handheld systems we use like these: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kZpS17m13g
So that implies that the artifact is external to sensor itself, and the gimbal outer frame is rolling at around 28-30 second and the inner frame with the camera is rolling back the opposite direction to keep the camera aligned in 3D space (per the clouds staying horizontal) like in the Youtube video above where they move the gimbal handled left and right (outer frame) but the inner frame does in the opposite direction to keep the camera horizontal.
That implies either something on the gimbal ball outer glass that is out of focus because of the zoom, or a fixed reflection relative the outer frame as the camera rotates relative to it.
Gimbal motions and counter motions are not perfectly synchronized; there is lag, so as the outer frame moves left-right a little at 32-34 seconds, inner frame takes a second to readjust, likely driven by the software to keep the "target" centered (which might just be out of focus dust on the inside of the glass of the ball the camera is looking through.
If you are fast or can do frame-by-frame, at 33 seconds there is a frame where the re-centering shows the "target" with significant interlaced artifacts. These are the odd-even row offsets that make moving objects look like they have jagged left-right edges like sliced bread, per pixel row. This was common in old NTSC interlaced video prior to the digital age, so either the camera is older using NTSC video processing, or possibly a digital readout with a left-right line dump of the the pixel data (odd rows go to a left readout circuit, even rows go right, etc.) for faster readout.
If you get that frame, note that the clouds do not have jagged edges and nothing like the scale of the offsets between rows of the object. In terms of the motion at the time, this means either the vehicle happened to split up like sliced bread perfectly aligned with the video pixel rows, or the object is immensely closer to the camera than the clouds, as in inside the camera/ball housing.
This one is clearly and unambiguously a parallax effect at high zoom. It is very likely a bird at normal flight speed somewhere closer to the aircraft than the water far below, and the camera is rotating to track it.
Imagine you are out on a boat and looking at the horizon through binoculars. You catch side of a mosquito a few feet away flying around your head and you spin around to keep it in the binoculars. The background horizon is moving rapidly through the image as you do this. Objects far away like boats or waves on the horizon appear to be traveling by fast, and if you assume the mosquito is at the same or similar distance, it must be traveling incredibly fast. If you rotate fully once per second, objects at 10 km on the horizon appear to be moving in the image coordinate frame at ~63 km/s (~226,000 km/h) based on velocity = rotation speed x radial distance.
If we're talking visually, this is made more extreme the higher the zoom. If the camera has a wide field of view of 90 degrees, you only turn 4 full image widths before you get back to your starting point. If it is zoomed in to a field of view of 1 degree (looking through a straw), it takes 360 full image widths before you get back to your starting point. You are rotating at the same speed (1 rotation per second) in both cases, so this means in the second case the objects are moving across the image pixels 60 times faster.
The ability to keep that straw aimed at the close mosquito as it flies around you is harder, so higher zoom is "bouncier", but with defence systems for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), the tracking capabilities and stability have gotten crazy good compared to consumer products (which themselves have gotten quite good with steady-cams).
If you (or software) are estimating the speed of the mosquito, or bird in the Youtube video, what assumptions are built in? Are you assuming the camera is translating sideways without rotating? Are you assuming it is a certain distance or size relative to the background? How do you tell the difference between a close mosquito moving slowly versus a large vehicle moving quickly much further away?
Those assumptions matter in the measurement and its accuracy.
But, I note that azimuth of the camera changes from 4 degrees relative to the aircraft at the beginning to 8 degrees by the end, so it doesn't appear to be fixed relative to the aircraft so might not be on a piece of glass. It might be an external reflection, e.g., sun reflecting from a high altitude balloon, or other atmospheric phenomena.
Again, the assumptions are built into the measurement here. At 2:29 the video claims the object moves off to the left at unprecedented rate. Based on what assumptions? If it is close to the camera and moves slowly to the left, how do you tell the difference? It looks to me like it is the camera moving to the right, not object moving left. Look at the azimuth and zoom just before it loses lock. It goes from 7 to 8 degrees, and zoom from 2 to 1 to 2 again. It looks to me like the zooming in and out and motion of the aircraft cause it to bounce out of the center far enough that the software looses track.
It's only if you assume the camera is fixed in place relative to the ground looking at the same spot in the sky and not moving at all that you can assume it is the motion of the object, and even then you have to have some means to differentiate something small close to the camera moving slowly versus something far moving quickly.
The aircraft is moving relative to the ground, and the camera is moving relative to the aircraft, and the zoom is going in and out, and there's no means to determine range to object here. So many assumptions built in.
And, then there's assumptions about the object. It is just a blob. Is it a solid object like an out-of-focus piece of dust on a window or lens, a close mosquito, a mid-range bird, or a far away large object? Or, is the blob caused by lighting effects like reflections. Not only is light massless so it can move at, well, the speed of light, but the geometry of reflections can even beat that.
Take for example shining a laser at the Moon. If you have a powerful enough laser and you bounce it off the Moon (there are reflectors placed there, BTW) and see the reflection in a camera. Suppose you point it at the left side of the moon, see the reflection in the camera, and then quickly rotate your laser pointer slightly in 1/1000 of a second (0.001s) so that it is pointed at the right side of the moon. The high-speed camera catches the reflection move across the Moon.
The camera observer doesn't know it is a reflection but thinks it is an object on the moon. What speed do they calculate?
Well, the diameter of the Moon is ~3500 km. Their calculated velocity of the "object" on the moon is 3500 km / 0.001s = 3.5 million km/s, or more than 10 times the speed of light. That "object" appears to be moving faster than the speed of light. Even if they assume it is massless or is a light phenomenon, it appears to be moving faster than the speed of light which is impossible by physics.
But again, it is just bad assumptions and bad physics.
Nothing is moving "across" the moon at all. We abstract the "spot" as an object, but it isn't. No single photon of light is moving faster than the speed of light. They are traveling from the laser pointer on Earth to the Moon at back, at the speed of light. So, you sit with it pointed at the left size, then move to the right size in 0.001 seconds. The camera sees nothing at that point. The photons take 2.5 seconds to travel to the moon and back into the camera lens, so 2.5 second later the camera sees the spot "move" across the Moon, but these are just different photons that left slightly later, bounced off a different spot, and arrived back slightly later than the photons from the last frame.
The problem comes from the assumption of some "thing" moving on the moon. No object and no photons travel across the moon. Every photon comes from Earth and bounces back to Earth, never moving sideways along the surface.
But, the interpretation of people, and software, built on the experience of moving "objects" fail to catch the bad assumptions and simply read the number coming out of the calculation, sensor, or video narrator and accept is as being true and correct.
That is the problem with these UAP videos and measurements. IT departments have a term for some computer problems called a PEBKAC, or "Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair", which is a reference to the person sitting in that chair and typing on the keyboard as the source of the error.
These UAPs are all typically very obvious PEBKACs, or the equivalent in sensors and measurements. Or, to be more generous, the errors may come from the software writers of the measurement tools.
Credentials don't really matter here. If your claim is that multiple laws of physics are being broken by some blurry blob, any reasonable and rational interpretation MUST start with it likely being a problem of assumptions in the measurement process or interpretation of the data. Otherwise you come off as Moon Landing hoaxers or Flat Earthers, both whom use legitimate physics principles but apply them inappropriately and don't see their hidden assumptions.
"According to Pentagon spokesperson Christopher Sherwood: 'Mr. Elizondo had no responsibilities with regard to the AATIP program while he worked in OUSDI [the Office of Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence], up until the time he resigned effective 10/4/2017. Elizondo has since appeared in various media as a UFO expert, but critics question Elizondo's credibility and credulity." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Elizondo
Note also that Elizondo is working for To the Stars, a Sandiago based company co-founded by the lead guitarist for Blink-182, which has a major enterainment division creating TV, film and books. "Most of the company's books deal with topics of the supernatural, ufology and science fiction."
"In September 2017, the company began offering $50 million worth of public stock through a Regulation A+ equity crowdfunding campaign. According to SEC filings, as of October 2018 only $1 million of those shares had been sold and the company had a $37.4 million deficit, largely from a stock incentive plan for its employees, prompting Ars Technica and Vice to question its financial sustainability." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_the_Stars_(company)
So sure, let's promote another conspiracy theory by a guy who appears to be even less credible than tinfoil hat, former US National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.
(I'm open to the possibility of life on other planets. But given we've only been around for less than a nanosecond in terms of infinite time, the odds that that life would co-exist with ours is... unlikely.)
How nice for Mr Maguire that he has found an intriguing new hobby. I wonder if he is aware of the Drake equation used for calculating the probability of making contact with extraterrestrial life in the Milky Way. The probability is good too.
But when he writes that UFOs are something that warrants high-level briefings from military leaders I get a bit nervous. I suppose we'll have 2 rely on the US Space Force (insert Hale-Bop salute) to do the heavy lifting as space is their bailiwick but someone is going to want to blow them out of the sky because they are a danger to our Terra, or someone thinks they might be, or someone doesn't like the colour of their skin, a grey-green shade, not unattractive, or someone was pissed that they won't share their weapons with us because we are dangerous children.
I poke fun but I am a believer. We are not alone and the truth is out there. I have never seen a UFO, I think. (just because the US changes a name, now we all have to? If it's not broken, don't fix it. I'm sticking with UFO).
But the heavens are vast and are full of the most spectacular sights. The black hole in the centre of our Milky Way, or the images of the radio signals around that black hole are incredibly beautiful. With just a set of binoculars or just a clear night away from the city, you can see Orion's Belt's scabbard; jewels and stars and nebulas. Andromeda, our nearest neighbourhood galaxy is much larger in our sky than you'd think.
So I am content with leaving 1st Contact to the Vulcans. Unless of course, our various militaries blow them away.
We have another Con, slipping away from the fold. I'm sure he wants smaller gov and much tighter spending and how much would one little department regarding UFOs really cost?
If I wiggle my hand back and forth as fast as I can with a laser pointer hitting the wall across the street, the light spot appears to not just move at supersonic velocity along the wall, but accelerate at hundreds of Gs when it goes from rightward to leftward in a few milliseconds.
If you have electromagnetic waves - be they light through your windshield, or radar returns - exhibiting similar patterns, either it's JUST light waves, like my laser pointer dot, or it's technology we don't even have physics for, much less engineering. As the poster notes, physical laws of fluid flow, requiring supersonic shockwaves, would be getting violated, not just "where's the thrust coming from".
If it's just a light phenomena, it's one of hundreds we're still investigating; the heavens are full of mystery. I'd certainly advocate more science budget, but then I always do.
If actual physical objects are doing this, because of intelligence, then there's absolutely no way to investigate them if they don't want to be investigated.
Hmm, Matt and Jen, I question whether publishing this was worth your time -- unless it was to drive engagement, in which case, kudos! Some of the people mentioned in this post are outright cranks and a lot of the video evidence has been debunked https://www.youtube.com/c/MickWest/videos
Do aliens exist? The probabilistically informed answer seems to generally land somewhere around 'given the size and age of the universe, there are likely some somewhere'. But aliens on earth? The evidence is either dramatized retellings of unexplained events from pilots or civilians or fuzzy video footage of phenomena which can often be explained using basic geometry and a few reasonable assumptions about wind speed, etc.
To my eyes, this is like asking for better investigation of paranormal activity (of ghosts, spirits, etc.). We don't trust the first-hand account of people who claim to have seen ghosts, demons, etc., our best theories of the physical world gives us absolutely no reason to think such phenomena are possible, even in principle, and whatever video evidence exists seems so weak or non-existent, that there isn't even a debate. Yet when it comes to allegedly physics defying maneuvers and other grainy, difficult to interpret videos, suddenly it's worth covering?
I land firmly on the 'we need very strong evidence' side of things for this to even get off the ground as something worth investigating.
I looked up a couple of the people cited (Luis Elizondo, Hal Puthoff), and they appear to be cranks. https://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/claims-about-pentagon-ufo-program-how-much-is-true/
The other reason I'm skeptical is that human history gives us some idea of what typically happens when two civilizations at different levels of technology run into each other. Why would a hypothetical alien space-faring civilization attempt to conceal itself?
Thanks Russil, came here to say that.
When all the UAP news was drawing headlines last year, I read a lot of it with interest and then watched and read skeptical coverage, and came away with the distinct sense that the media got carried away with some stories and failed to do their due diligence in interrogating the claims of those pushing the 'these are real phenomena' side of things.
I forget the British fellow's name but he runs a terrific YouTube channel were he breaks down what is going on in many of the videos that others cite as evidence of incredible physics defying feats of the alleged UAPs. Once you've gone through a few, you realize how easily we can misunderstand what is recorded, and basic geometry can show that what looks like incredible speeds are illusions.
That question kind-of informed the Star Trek "Prime Directive" that had them dressing up in native drag to keep the locals from even knowing aliens exist. It followed decades of SF novels that explained away the "shy aliens" paradox with "containment until you invent worldgov and universal peace".
Of course, you are then left with "but why would they break the secrecy rule JUUUUST enough to show us that impossible flying machines exist, and are running around the lower atmosphere all the time?" If that had happened once, OK - but after so many of these sightings, the secrecy-sworn aliens must star-traveling incompetents - a paradox in its own right.
I believe the government should spend time on the neighbours-secretly-sleeping-on-others-couches phenomenon - including, but not limited to raising a committee, creating living room surveillance subsidies, and raising public awareness of this disturbing issue. There is anecdotal evidence that neighbours of people are sneaking into others homes and sleeping on their couches. This evidence includes blurry images of people sleeping on couches, indications and measurements that couches have different dents and cushion configurations than they were previously with no clear explanation, and most importantly a concern from portions of the populace that such nefarious activities are in fact happening. While people have not been able to provide any consistent information on the effects of these sneaky naps, the potential for something to happen is there, and public anxiety is rising. Could the frequency of these couch naps increase? Could this be an indication of a secret society of nappers looking to undermine democracy? Does this mean our recliners and day beds are next? How can we stand still while it is entirely possible that some people are sneaking naps that we can't clearly measure or validate? Something must be done, and a standing government committee to evaluate what the wide range of possible consequences of this variously described phenomena are is the least the federal government could do.
“ UAPs are real and Canadians need to take them seriously.” Why should we take the views of Larry Maguire on ESPs seriously? He is a CPC MP with a farming background and used his knowledge to bring forth a Private Members Bill re farming. Good for him.
Why am I reading his views on an area where he lacks expertise? I do not get it.
Remember, farmers are ideally situated to observe the sky. They personally own good chunks of where the it contacts the earth, over which they can and do control the artificial light which obscures the night sky.
Larry appears to be a solid guy - I was not denigrating his work. But there was a debate last night among CPC leadership hopefuls. I thought I would see an article reflecting that. This is a piece you use when there is not really any big news.
"In a serious and thoughtful manner, members of Parliament should ask questions and engage on this topic."
That's some Twilight Zone level of science fiction right there! I have no idea how serious an issue this is, but if it is indeed serious - the last message I want to hear is: 'Don't worry, the House of Commons is on the case!'
Very funny. If the Prime Minister said UAP’s were real all of Western Canada would become skeptics. Maybe we can have a greener UAP program built on principles of social justice ….
I mean, I don't think this currently needs to be a government policy priority, but it does get my imagination going! This could be natural phenomenom which confounds both our own senses (there are lots of eye-witness accounts) and modern sensors. Undertanding that could be really useful scientifically.
It could be very advance technology from another country, but it seems like if you had technology this advanced, why keep it a secret? You'd be the globe's superpower by a pretty wide margin! So, that seems less-likely.
It could be evidence that time travel is possible -- that our great-great grandchildren our touring our time and have very strict rules against engagement that get slightly broken from time to time. This could be literally traveling back in time (which seems to violate the knows laws of physics) or between different timeline dimensions (which is merely very, very hard to imagine!).
It could also be highly intelligent alien life, which would seem to be adhering to a no/minimum engagement rule of some kind since we don't really get a lot of information from each encounter.
Or -- like so many other things -- it could just be the human need to build narratives around islands of information that don't otherwise make sense. It's why we have urban myths and legends.
I have no idea what the truth is and suspect we won't find out in my lifetime! But, fun to muse.
When doing research on Nova Scotia history I came across a diary entry describing a UFO sighting in the 1760s. They have been at it for a long time. Would be good to know what they are.
If only. Heaven knows we could use some intelligence on this planet. Since UAPs have been seen for centuries, I expect they come and have a look and give us a miss. Some things are just too much trouble.
What is the downside to having a single agency collating and investigating UAP's? If they can be explained away fine. If not we should know that too. Just because we can't explain it doesn't mean its aliens. Just stop treating Canadians like we are all ostriches!
Ward Carroll has put out a very interesting video on his YouTube channel, on this very subject. https://youtu.be/6z1lQ9Gp8Vk
His suggestion is one l haven't really heard elsewhere but in this context makes a great deal of sense to me.
"The Line is Canada’s last, best hope for irreverent commentary. We reject bullshit."........eer really?
Of course, Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon are real. Of course, we don't know what 'they' are, i.e. unidentified.
Now what, exactly, does take them seriously mean? Let's assume governments make public all the information they have sufficient to satisfy the Member of Parliament from Brandon-Souris. Now what?
How do we get serious about UAPs, exactly? What would the member from Brandon-Souris like to see done? How, I wonder, do we determine their origin and intent, assuming there even is an origin and intent?
No.
I think that is the most concisely correct response to this article. Just no.
Now I'll explain why a simple "no" should suffice here. Let's look at this statement:
"Periodically, UAP would drop from 28,000 feet to sea level (estimated to be 50 feet), or under the surface, in 0.78 seconds. ... Either some nation state has developed technology that is beyond next-generation, or we are dealing with something that is completely unknown."
That is a clear false dichotomy. The problem with almost all proponents of UAPs / UFOs being a serious topic needing addressing is that they, like the author here, have created false choices based on unchecked assumptions in their premise. I don't mean they are unintelligent; I meant that it hasn't occurred to them what assumptions they are starting with when they create these false choices.
In most cases, as in this one above, it is the assumption that the measurement process is some sort of gospel truth as if our measurement systems are infallible. If we're going to declare what the limited choices are here, I will assert then that the choices quite differently. One option is that this is something moving from 28,000 feet to 50 feet in 0.78 seconds. If that were true, yes, the g-forces would destroy any substance we know. But also it would create massive friction heating of the air that would turn it into a plasma and create enormous pressure waves (aka, sonic booms) that could be felt and heard over a long distance. Did that happen?
So the choices are that we are wrong about basic physics on multiple domains from material properties, forces, friction, heat, air molecules, sound, and pressure -- AND -- some secret agency, aliens, or time-travelers invented some technology that can get around this understanding of basic physics -- AND -- they went on some strange joy ride going up and down, back and forth one day and then never again in the same vehicle -- OR -- it is a phenomenon of the measurement device and process that is misinterpreted by software or people. Occam's Razor picks one of these options pretty clearly. I'll leave it up to the reader to figure out which option.
If we're going to focus on credentials, I worked directly on aerospace and defence sensors for more than a decade, lead teams of mission-critical measurements from those sensors, and co-authored two international standards on sensor-based motion and tracking measurements. Typically sensors like cameras, radars, and lidars have all sorts of potential sources of errors including internal reflections, cross-talk, and saturation of detectors combined with their method of read-out circuitry. Further, the software involved in tracking and measuring is built on assumptions about what the information in the pixels mean.
For example, time-of-flight lidars bounce laser pulses off objects and measure the round-trip time, and can give a 3D image of what is in front of the sensor. But, they assume that the light falling on the detector is caused by the pulse that the lidar's laser source just emitted. Other lidars in the area, any other light source of same frequency -- including intentional use of such sources -- can fool the sensor into measuring things that aren't there, e.g., https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/07/hackers-trick-self-driving-cars-lidar-sensor
Let's take a look some of the 2017 cases linked to in this article. Here's one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TumprpOwHY
Notice that it never moves from the center of the image. It doesn't bounce up and down or drift left or right. That's quite an impressive tracking system that I've never seen or heard of being possible. If you watch the clouds you'll see that in addition to moving constantly, they do bounce up and down e.g. around 25 seconds especially, yet the "object" stays centered. That means either the object very coincidentally just happens to move exactly up and down relative the clouds at the exact time and in exact angular proportion as the camera happens to bounce up and down relative to the clouds, or the thing being measured is itself part of the camera.
This often happens with things like internal reflections, things on the lens, or internal things between the lens and imaging detector.
A clue to its location in the process is in the case where it actually does move in the image, in contradiction to what I said above. While it doesn't jostle around like a real camera tracking a real object tends to do, it does "rotate" around 28-30 seconds, and move left-right around 32-34 seconds.
If you look at the clouds around 27-28 seconds you'll notice they start to rotate and bounce a little before moving back. This suggests that either the aircraft is rotating, the camera is rotating, or the tracking systems is on a stabilized gimbaled platform similar to the 3-axes handheld systems we use like these: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kZpS17m13g
But more likely in a sensor ball like these: https://www.asdnews.com/news/defense/2018/02/01/l3-wescam-wins-defense-contracts-valued-at-more-than-250-m-usd-second-half-2017
So that implies that the artifact is external to sensor itself, and the gimbal outer frame is rolling at around 28-30 second and the inner frame with the camera is rolling back the opposite direction to keep the camera aligned in 3D space (per the clouds staying horizontal) like in the Youtube video above where they move the gimbal handled left and right (outer frame) but the inner frame does in the opposite direction to keep the camera horizontal.
That implies either something on the gimbal ball outer glass that is out of focus because of the zoom, or a fixed reflection relative the outer frame as the camera rotates relative to it.
Gimbal motions and counter motions are not perfectly synchronized; there is lag, so as the outer frame moves left-right a little at 32-34 seconds, inner frame takes a second to readjust, likely driven by the software to keep the "target" centered (which might just be out of focus dust on the inside of the glass of the ball the camera is looking through.
If you are fast or can do frame-by-frame, at 33 seconds there is a frame where the re-centering shows the "target" with significant interlaced artifacts. These are the odd-even row offsets that make moving objects look like they have jagged left-right edges like sliced bread, per pixel row. This was common in old NTSC interlaced video prior to the digital age, so either the camera is older using NTSC video processing, or possibly a digital readout with a left-right line dump of the the pixel data (odd rows go to a left readout circuit, even rows go right, etc.) for faster readout.
If you get that frame, note that the clouds do not have jagged edges and nothing like the scale of the offsets between rows of the object. In terms of the motion at the time, this means either the vehicle happened to split up like sliced bread perfectly aligned with the video pixel rows, or the object is immensely closer to the camera than the clouds, as in inside the camera/ball housing.
Or, you know, aliens.
(2/2)
Or lets take this one second 2017 video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUrTsrhVce4
This one is clearly and unambiguously a parallax effect at high zoom. It is very likely a bird at normal flight speed somewhere closer to the aircraft than the water far below, and the camera is rotating to track it.
Imagine you are out on a boat and looking at the horizon through binoculars. You catch side of a mosquito a few feet away flying around your head and you spin around to keep it in the binoculars. The background horizon is moving rapidly through the image as you do this. Objects far away like boats or waves on the horizon appear to be traveling by fast, and if you assume the mosquito is at the same or similar distance, it must be traveling incredibly fast. If you rotate fully once per second, objects at 10 km on the horizon appear to be moving in the image coordinate frame at ~63 km/s (~226,000 km/h) based on velocity = rotation speed x radial distance.
If we're talking visually, this is made more extreme the higher the zoom. If the camera has a wide field of view of 90 degrees, you only turn 4 full image widths before you get back to your starting point. If it is zoomed in to a field of view of 1 degree (looking through a straw), it takes 360 full image widths before you get back to your starting point. You are rotating at the same speed (1 rotation per second) in both cases, so this means in the second case the objects are moving across the image pixels 60 times faster.
The ability to keep that straw aimed at the close mosquito as it flies around you is harder, so higher zoom is "bouncier", but with defence systems for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), the tracking capabilities and stability have gotten crazy good compared to consumer products (which themselves have gotten quite good with steady-cams).
If you (or software) are estimating the speed of the mosquito, or bird in the Youtube video, what assumptions are built in? Are you assuming the camera is translating sideways without rotating? Are you assuming it is a certain distance or size relative to the background? How do you tell the difference between a close mosquito moving slowly versus a large vehicle moving quickly much further away?
Those assumptions matter in the measurement and its accuracy.
Or take the third one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rWOtrke0HY
This one looks similar to the first one; an out of focus blob. (That should be a clue it is a camera artifact as a first guess all the time.)
This time though it does bounce around in the image while tracking. It doesn't look fixed relative to the sensor, so not moving with the camera itself. The camera is gimballed, but it could be looking through a fixed glass dome or something like that, rather than one that moves with the camera. Like this: https://rayoteksightwindows.com/products/molded-optical-domes-flanged/molded-optical-camera-video-glass-dome-flanged.html
Not this: https://www.asdnews.com/news/defense/2018/02/01/l3-wescam-wins-defense-contracts-valued-at-more-than-250-m-usd-second-half-2017
But, I note that azimuth of the camera changes from 4 degrees relative to the aircraft at the beginning to 8 degrees by the end, so it doesn't appear to be fixed relative to the aircraft so might not be on a piece of glass. It might be an external reflection, e.g., sun reflecting from a high altitude balloon, or other atmospheric phenomena.
Again, the assumptions are built into the measurement here. At 2:29 the video claims the object moves off to the left at unprecedented rate. Based on what assumptions? If it is close to the camera and moves slowly to the left, how do you tell the difference? It looks to me like it is the camera moving to the right, not object moving left. Look at the azimuth and zoom just before it loses lock. It goes from 7 to 8 degrees, and zoom from 2 to 1 to 2 again. It looks to me like the zooming in and out and motion of the aircraft cause it to bounce out of the center far enough that the software looses track.
It's only if you assume the camera is fixed in place relative to the ground looking at the same spot in the sky and not moving at all that you can assume it is the motion of the object, and even then you have to have some means to differentiate something small close to the camera moving slowly versus something far moving quickly.
The aircraft is moving relative to the ground, and the camera is moving relative to the aircraft, and the zoom is going in and out, and there's no means to determine range to object here. So many assumptions built in.
And, then there's assumptions about the object. It is just a blob. Is it a solid object like an out-of-focus piece of dust on a window or lens, a close mosquito, a mid-range bird, or a far away large object? Or, is the blob caused by lighting effects like reflections. Not only is light massless so it can move at, well, the speed of light, but the geometry of reflections can even beat that.
Take for example shining a laser at the Moon. If you have a powerful enough laser and you bounce it off the Moon (there are reflectors placed there, BTW) and see the reflection in a camera. Suppose you point it at the left side of the moon, see the reflection in the camera, and then quickly rotate your laser pointer slightly in 1/1000 of a second (0.001s) so that it is pointed at the right side of the moon. The high-speed camera catches the reflection move across the Moon.
The camera observer doesn't know it is a reflection but thinks it is an object on the moon. What speed do they calculate?
Well, the diameter of the Moon is ~3500 km. Their calculated velocity of the "object" on the moon is 3500 km / 0.001s = 3.5 million km/s, or more than 10 times the speed of light. That "object" appears to be moving faster than the speed of light. Even if they assume it is massless or is a light phenomenon, it appears to be moving faster than the speed of light which is impossible by physics.
But again, it is just bad assumptions and bad physics.
Nothing is moving "across" the moon at all. We abstract the "spot" as an object, but it isn't. No single photon of light is moving faster than the speed of light. They are traveling from the laser pointer on Earth to the Moon at back, at the speed of light. So, you sit with it pointed at the left size, then move to the right size in 0.001 seconds. The camera sees nothing at that point. The photons take 2.5 seconds to travel to the moon and back into the camera lens, so 2.5 second later the camera sees the spot "move" across the Moon, but these are just different photons that left slightly later, bounced off a different spot, and arrived back slightly later than the photons from the last frame.
The problem comes from the assumption of some "thing" moving on the moon. No object and no photons travel across the moon. Every photon comes from Earth and bounces back to Earth, never moving sideways along the surface.
But, the interpretation of people, and software, built on the experience of moving "objects" fail to catch the bad assumptions and simply read the number coming out of the calculation, sensor, or video narrator and accept is as being true and correct.
That is the problem with these UAP videos and measurements. IT departments have a term for some computer problems called a PEBKAC, or "Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair", which is a reference to the person sitting in that chair and typing on the keyboard as the source of the error.
These UAPs are all typically very obvious PEBKACs, or the equivalent in sensors and measurements. Or, to be more generous, the errors may come from the software writers of the measurement tools.
Credentials don't really matter here. If your claim is that multiple laws of physics are being broken by some blurry blob, any reasonable and rational interpretation MUST start with it likely being a problem of assumptions in the measurement process or interpretation of the data. Otherwise you come off as Moon Landing hoaxers or Flat Earthers, both whom use legitimate physics principles but apply them inappropriately and don't see their hidden assumptions.
Please do a basic fact check on sources.
"According to Pentagon spokesperson Christopher Sherwood: 'Mr. Elizondo had no responsibilities with regard to the AATIP program while he worked in OUSDI [the Office of Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence], up until the time he resigned effective 10/4/2017. Elizondo has since appeared in various media as a UFO expert, but critics question Elizondo's credibility and credulity." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Elizondo
Note also that Elizondo is working for To the Stars, a Sandiago based company co-founded by the lead guitarist for Blink-182, which has a major enterainment division creating TV, film and books. "Most of the company's books deal with topics of the supernatural, ufology and science fiction."
"In September 2017, the company began offering $50 million worth of public stock through a Regulation A+ equity crowdfunding campaign. According to SEC filings, as of October 2018 only $1 million of those shares had been sold and the company had a $37.4 million deficit, largely from a stock incentive plan for its employees, prompting Ars Technica and Vice to question its financial sustainability." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_the_Stars_(company)
So sure, let's promote another conspiracy theory by a guy who appears to be even less credible than tinfoil hat, former US National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.
(I'm open to the possibility of life on other planets. But given we've only been around for less than a nanosecond in terms of infinite time, the odds that that life would co-exist with ours is... unlikely.)
How nice for Mr Maguire that he has found an intriguing new hobby. I wonder if he is aware of the Drake equation used for calculating the probability of making contact with extraterrestrial life in the Milky Way. The probability is good too.
But when he writes that UFOs are something that warrants high-level briefings from military leaders I get a bit nervous. I suppose we'll have 2 rely on the US Space Force (insert Hale-Bop salute) to do the heavy lifting as space is their bailiwick but someone is going to want to blow them out of the sky because they are a danger to our Terra, or someone thinks they might be, or someone doesn't like the colour of their skin, a grey-green shade, not unattractive, or someone was pissed that they won't share their weapons with us because we are dangerous children.
I poke fun but I am a believer. We are not alone and the truth is out there. I have never seen a UFO, I think. (just because the US changes a name, now we all have to? If it's not broken, don't fix it. I'm sticking with UFO).
But the heavens are vast and are full of the most spectacular sights. The black hole in the centre of our Milky Way, or the images of the radio signals around that black hole are incredibly beautiful. With just a set of binoculars or just a clear night away from the city, you can see Orion's Belt's scabbard; jewels and stars and nebulas. Andromeda, our nearest neighbourhood galaxy is much larger in our sky than you'd think.
So I am content with leaving 1st Contact to the Vulcans. Unless of course, our various militaries blow them away.
We have another Con, slipping away from the fold. I'm sure he wants smaller gov and much tighter spending and how much would one little department regarding UFOs really cost?