The Fortean/paranormal/conspiracy thread

[Kenny McBride]

I have no idea what it was. I strongly doubt aliens. It was an unidentified flying object though, and even though it was probably 15+ years ago now, I still find it fascinating and puzzling.

[Joe_the_Lion]

I have no idea what it was. I strongly doubt aliens. It was an unidentified flying object though, and even though it was probably 15+ years ago now, I still find it fascinating and puzzling.

Do you live anywhere near Lockerbie?

[Loki]

Clearly, it was marsh gas igniting ;)This is the thing, we're not all stupid. The fast changes in motion of objects like the one you saw are a common element of sightings and basically rule out the normal debunk theories. Assuming it's not little green men, then it's a man-made craft, either manned or unmanned, and at that point it's just a question of who made it and why.

See, it's that logical leap that means things that genuinely defy explanation get thrown out along with the nonsense. Absence of one sort of explanation does not automatically mean another sort of explanation is accurate. The movement Kenny described might be from a man (or alien) made craft, or it might not. But it's not certain, just because the sight he saw was unusual. Do you know for certain that nothing naturally occuring could create a vision like Kenny saw in the sky? Are you that prepared, from the paragraph of evidence Kenny gave you, to rule out all the "normal debunk theories" and go straight to some unknown sort of man-made craft?I'm aware I sound like an apologist for the status quo (not the band Status Quo, they're rubbish). I'm not, I'm just a healthy skeptic about second-hand information "definitely" being anything, especially when it's a long way outside what we currently know about science. I don't think there's anything wrong with holding bizarre occurrences to a higher level of proof than normal ones. Like the Bigfoot thing that started this thread, that I said was bullshit and turned out, indeed, to be bullshit. Like virtually every single UFO sighting in the history of the human race. Someone going "oh, a light moving in a weird way, must be some craft created in secret by the Government" is just starting from square one when there's already been tons of research done on this topic.

That's not what I said though!! Jeez. Assuming for a moment that Kenny's not outright lying, and that he's bright enough to describe accurately the movements of the object he saw, I said that that strongly suggests it's a man made object. You have me down as a naive conspiracy nut, which goes against almost every post I've made on this forum and thread. I, like you, am a sceptic, but one who doesn't start from the premise that it's all bullshit. I start with an open mind but a desire for decent evidence and research, something sadly lacking from the UFO sub-community. All I am saying is that I find it disappointing that the explanations for when good witnesses see something inexplicable are always so unconvincing and dismissive "oh, it was probably a cloud". It seems just as likely that Kenny saw something real out there, but as to whether it was a remote control plane, an amateur rocket, a test drone or something more interesting, I have no idea.

[Famous Mortimer]

I need to take a deep breath and go for a walk round the block before I post on stuff like this.I'd be as happy as a pig in muck if a UFO landed in the market square in Chesterfield tomorrow. I just think we need to hold things like this to a very high standard of proof, should it be something out of the ordinary. There's a difference between being open-minded (which I'd like to think I am) and being so open-minded your brain trickles out of your ears. We live in a country where stuff like homeopathy - with absolutely zero evidence, anywhere, over all time, that it works - getting NHS funding because it's got a vocal and clever-sounding support base. If you listened to them, you'd believe homeopathy was this proper, provable science.I'm actually wrong to compare them because there's more evidence to support the existence of UFOs - i.e. very slightly more than none. All I'm really harping on about is think critically. If you see some information, think of where it came from and why the person who produced it might have done so. A light in the sky is not evidence of secret spy planes any more than a placebo effect is evidence of the efficacy of homeopathy.

I said that that strongly suggests it's a man made object

Does it? How? How fast was it moving? What angles did it turn at? Where did it go to? Where did it start from? How big was it? Did it change colour? Kenny didn't mention any of these things in anything more than generalities, so you're making an enormous deductive leap to go from that to man-made object. You actually said "man-made craft, either manned or unmanned" so it is a craft or an object? Did it make a sound? Did anyone else see it? Was Kenny tired or stressed when he saw it? Had he been drinking or having a smoke? Does he have any pre-existing medical conditions relating to his eyes? You don't know any of these things, but you're happy to say what it probably is.

a desire for decent evidence and research

In case you don't know this, one person seeing something doesn't count as decent evidence, and the no questions you asked before you went "man-made craft" does not count as decent research. Edited October 23, 2008 by Famous Mortimer

[Kenny McBride]

If homeopathy legitimises the use of placebos as a course of action considered medically viable and reasonable, good for homeopathy.Edit: And in response to your edit, Morty, I was stone-cold sober and not especially tired. I think I was on my way home from badminton club, so it was probably about 9-ish. I was standing at the top of a hill looking down over a field next to my house, so there was little light pollution. At the bottom of said hill, the ground was fairly flat most of the way to the horizon, where there were some big hills, maybe 15-20 miles away. The object appeared some way above the horizon but not so high that I had to tilt my head back to see it. It stayed there motionless for a few seconds, then dropped suddenly to only just above the horizon. As I said before, the motion took no more than a split second. It stopped there for another second or two, then shot off to the west at almost an exact right angle to its initial movement. A split second later, it was gone. Whether it "vanished" or just moved too far away to be visible, I don't know.Anything else you'd like to know?

Edited October 23, 2008 by Kenny McBride

[Loki]

We're going to have to agree to disagree on this, I'm trying to talk about the larger picture of debate on this subject and you keep missing the point. Clearly I can't debrief Kenny in person to the level I'd like, as he's a poster on the fucking internet! I have already said that, taking his sighting as an example, and assuming as I have repeatedly said that he passes the sort of criteria you mentioned which obviously would be the first points of elimination, assuming for the sake of our hypothetical Kenny witness that he was neither drunk, blind or a lunatic, and a person in full possession of faculties, and therefore a reliable witness, the sort of motion he was describing is strongly indicative of a man-made object. I can't believe I actually have to take you step by step through this, can't we assume some level of intelligence on the part of other people in discussions on this forum?Moving back to the larger point I'm making, there are a number of extremely reliable and often qualified observers who have reported observations that cannot be ruled out as a cloud in the sky or marsh gas or whatever. As these collate together, they form a body of observational data that I think is extremely interesting, particularly as you look at similarities in the reports. Outside of a smoking gun of actually being handed the keys to Area 51 or whatever, all we have to go on is witness evidence that must of course be sifted and critically examined. I do not think it a large leap of logic or feasibility to suggest a hypothesis that these witnesses may in fact have seen man-made craft of types relatively unknown to the public, rather than them being liars, crazy or simply dismissed as kooks. Clearly you think differently, I accept that.

[Joe_the_Lion]

assuming for the sake of our hypothetical Kenny witness that he was neither drunk, blind or a lunatic,

Kenny McBride

[Kenny McBride]

Joe the Lion and Momoe - The Axis of UKFF Racism.

[Surf Digby]

I've never heard any conspiracy theories regarding Challenger or anything specific about Apollo 1 (apart from one of the astronaut's sons claiming it was murder). Anybody know of anything?

[Ro_y Disco]

I've never heard any conspiracy theories regarding Challenger or anything specific about Apollo 1 (apart from one of the astronaut's sons claiming it was murder). Anybody know of anything?

I believe the theory goes that Virgil Ivan 'Gus' Grissom, one of the crew on Apollo 1, 'knew too much' and so the fire was orchestrated to make sure the truth, whatever ever it was, didn't get out. He was quite outspoken about something, but I don't remeber what. There's no evidence of foul play that I know of, but his family was looking for someone to blame after his death.The other theory goes that after that tragedy, NASA made the call that it was too dangerous to send someone too the moon and instead faked the whole thing.For my money, I partially believe the Apollo conspiracies. There's too much evidence and NASA have done a pretty poor job of arguing their corner. I believe that, although the rocket went into space, some or all of the moon footage was recorded else where, or, at the very least, the footage recorded on the moon was severly tampered with.Even as a child looking at the photos and videos of the landings, they've always looked fake and 'not quite right' to me. All the equiptment they used, from the moon lander, to the buggies, seemed far too flimsy to be practical.

[Surf Digby]

I've never heard any conspiracy theories regarding Challenger or anything specific about Apollo 1 (apart from one of the astronaut's sons claiming it was murder). Anybody know of anything?

I believe the theory goes that Virgil Ivan 'Gus' Grissom, one of the crew on Apollo 1, 'knew too much' and so the fire was orchestrated to make sure the truth, whatever ever it was, didn't get out. He was quite outspoken about something, but I don't remeber what. There's no evidence of foul play that I know of, but his family was looking for someone to blame after his death.The other theory goes that after that tragedy, NASA made the call that it was too dangerous to send someone too the moon and instead faked the whole thing.

He was outspoken about the lack of escape facilities on the command module. NASA agreed to implement his suggestions on subsequent missions, but Apollo 1 still had a hatch that consisted of three layers that were bolted shut.The cause of the fire was never fully concluded as the investigation showed over a hundred possible causes.Here's another one. I read in an article aaaages ago a story that credited Buzz Aldrin himself as the source, which would imply credibility.Apparently, Aldrin was the original choice to be the first to step out onto the Moon's surface. On the trip up there, NASA changed their mind and decided Armstrong should be the one. Aldrin had a bit of a hissy fit, and stropped around the Moon, refusing to be in any photo's. All the photo's we've seen of Aldrin are in fact Armstrong, with Aldrin's name badge superimposed.Okay, some cursery research confirms that Aldrin was originally going to be the first to step out. NASA's given different "official" reasons for this though, from the seating arrangements of the module being a factor, to it being because Armstrong was the mission commander.However, I only know of one photo that shows Armstrong, and it's not one that it widely used as it's underexposed.[EDIT] It's this one.If this were the case though, why would they modify EVERY usable photo of Armstrong to portray Aldrin? Surely if they did, then Armstrong would have said something? Then again, if Armstrong was indeed mission commander, why was only one photo taken of him? Surely there should have been several of him next to the flag, next to "his" spaceship, etc...If name badge superimposition was going on, and all the photo's are who they say they are, why not make some of them into Armstrong to balance it out? Edited October 25, 2008 by surf_digby

[Seratonin]

What the fuck is this?

[Loki]

A large bunch of childrens' balloons?

[Astro Hollywood]

In light of Most Haunted Live's week long Halloween entertainmentfest, here's an amusing clip from a BBC3 show featuring MH's Ciaran exposing some mediums - http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=u4qGfNViVN8&...feature=related

[Steve Justice]

Oooooh!

 

Crazy red beam shoots out of white orb.