In some comments recently, I've recommended Leslie Kean's book UFOs: Pilots, Generals and Government Officials Go On the Record. But admittedly I don't know very much about the UFO phenomenon, so it occurred to me that I ought to try to check the book's presentation against the efforts of skeptical debunkers. The case I chose to look into was the one that impressed me the most, the so-called "dogfight over Tehran" that took place in 1976. What follows is a series of excerpts from Kean's book interspersed with excerpts from the best debunking effort I could find online, along with my comments.
Chapter 9 of Kean's book is devoted to the incident. It was written by General Parviz Jafari (Ret.), formerly of the Iranian Air Force under the Shah. Presumably Jafari's account was translated into English and perhaps cleaned up a little, but it stands as the most thorough first-person report of the incident that I've seen.
For the debunking account, I chose "The Tehran 1976 UFO," by Brian Dunning, posted on the website Skeptoid. This article appears to be the primary source for Wikipedia's entry on the subject.
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Jafari: At about 11:00 PM on the evening of September 18, 1976, citizens were frightened by the circling of an unknown object over Tehran at a low altitude. It looked similar to a star, but bigger and brighter. Some called the air traffic control tower at Mehrebad Airport, where Houssain Pirouzi was the night supervisor in charge. After receiving four calls, he went outside and looked through his binoculars in the direction people had reported. He saw it, too – a bright object flashing colored lights, and changing positions at about 6000 feet up. It also appeared to be changing shapes.
Pirouzi knew there were no planes or helicopters in the vicinity that night. At around 12:30 AM, he alerted the Air Force command post. Deputy General Yousefi , who was in charge at the time, walked outside, and he also saw the object. He decided to scramble an Air Force Phantom F4 II jet …
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Skeptoid: The story goes that sometime before midnight on September 19, four Tehran residents began telephoning the local Mehrabad airport stating that they saw a bright light in the sky. Mehrabad's radar was under repair and was not operational, so General Yousefi phoned Shahrokhi Air Force Base at Hamadan, 275 kilometers west southwest of Tehran. They showed nothing on radar. Yousefi went outside and saw the bright light for himself. He then ordered a McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom fighter plane, piloted by Lt. Yaddi Nazeri plus a backseat weapons officer, to have a look.
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MP: The Skeptoid story makes no mention of flashing colored lights, changing positions or changing shapes, or "circling ... at a low altitude." It also omits the role of the night supervisor, Pirouzi, skipping up to chain of command to a deputy general.
But what was this bright light that resulted in calls to the Air Force base, and got the attention of the night supervisor and the deputy general, to the point where a fighter plane had to be scrambled?
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Skeptoid: [As for] that persistent light in the sky that prompted the phone calls, aroused Yousefi's curiosity, and led the pilots on their merry chase across the skies ... journalist Philip Klass suggested that it was the planet Jupiter, an explanation echoed by aerospace researcher James Oberg.... The F-4s ... saw the light just where Jupiter would have been.... Yousefi and the telephone witnesses all described the light as similar to a star but much brighter. Considering the fact that Jupiter was in the sky, my own conclusion is that it's almost certain that Jupiter was responsible for some percentage of what was reported that night, though not necessarily everything.
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MP: It should be pointed out that "journalist Philip Klass" and "aerospace researcher James Oberg" are both well-known as hard-core skeptical debunkers of UFOs. This doesn't mean we should ignore their opinions, but it might have been helpful if Skeptoid had pointed this out, rather than characterizing them in neutral terms.
In any event, I find it hard to believe that experienced pilots, ground personnel, and the deputy general would all mistake Jupiter for a possible enemy aircraft. But I suppose such things have happened.
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Jafari: When [the first flight crew] came within a closer distance to [the UFO], all of their instrumentation went out, the radio was garbled, and they lost communication. After the F-4 moved away again, it regained all the instruments and could resume communications.
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Skeptoid: [According to Klass, a] Westinghouse tech at Shahrokhi confirmed that only the second F-4 was reported to have experienced any electrical problems during the flight; the first F-4 was never sent in for maintenance.
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MP: Skeptoid, per Klass, says the first F-4 did not suffer a loss of instrumentation. Jafari says it did.
At any rate, Jafari and his "backseater," Lieutenant Jalal Damirian, took off at about 1:30 AM.
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Jafari: When we took off, the object looked just like what had been reported. It was so brilliant, flying at a low altitude over the city, and then it started climbing.… It was flashing with intense red, green, orange, and blue lights so bright that I was not able to see its body. The lights formed a diamond shape – just brilliant lights, no solid structure could be seen through or around them. The sequence of flashes was extremely fast, like a strobe light.
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Skeptoid: Jafari reported that its lights consisted of alternating strobes of blue, green, red, and orange, so fast that all four were visible at once.
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MP: Skeptoid's summary agrees with Jafari's up to a point, but Skeptoid never addresses the reported appearance of the UFO. The strobing varicolored lights are mentioned in this one sentence and never again. There is no mention at all of the intense brightness of the lights, which surely exceeds anything one would see from a normal celestial object. The diamond shape, which Jafari mentions more than once, also goes unmentioned in the Skeptoid piece.
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Jafari: All of a sudden, it jumped about 10 degrees to the right. In an instant! Ten degrees … And then again it jumped 10 degrees, and then again … I had to turn 98 degrees to the right from my heading of 70 degrees.…
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MP: There's nothing to quote from Skeptoid regarding this detail, which isn't mentioned, even though it appears to have impressed Jafari as much as any other aspect of his experience.
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Jafari: All of a sudden my backseater, Lieutenant Damirian, said, “Sir, I have it on radar.” I looked on the radar screen and saw the marker. I said, “Okay, brake lock and repaint it.” This was to make sure it wasn’t a ground effect or a mountain that we were picking up on radar. We now had a good return on the screen, and it was a 27 miles, 30 degrees left; our closing speed was 150 knots and in a climb.
We kept it locked on with radar. The size on the radar scope was comparable to that of a 707 tanker.
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Skeptoid: The compelling radar lock obtained by Jafari's backseat weapons officer [has been interpreted to mean] there had to be something up there. Maybe there was; most of what these pilots did was to intercept enemy MiG-25 fighters on surveillance missions, whether Jupiter was in the sky or not. But there were also two other possibilities. Note that Jafari's radar was known to be defective, or at least in need of adjustment. [A] McDonnell Douglas supervisor [at Shahrokhi] noted that the weapons officer "could have been in manual track or something like that and not really realized it." Whichever of the three possibilities was true, it's not necessarily a fact that a radar lock meant something was there. Maybe there was; maybe there wasn't....
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MP: Since I'm far from being an expert on radar, I don't know how plausible the alternate explanations are. I doubt that a MiG-25 would be anything close to the size of a 707 tanker, though. Later in his account, Jafari elaborates, "The radar was locked on the object and we could determine its size, because we practice refueling 707 tankers, and the return of the UFO on radar indicated they were about the same size."
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Jafari: At this moment, I thought this was my chance to fire at it. But when it – whatever it was – was close to me, my weapons jammed and my radio communications were garbled. We got closer, to 25 miles at our twelve o’clock position. All of a sudden it jumped back to 27 miles in an instant. I wondered what it was. I was still seeing that giant, brilliant diamond shape with pulsating, colored lights.
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Skeptoid: The McDonnell Douglas tech at Shahrokhi noted that the second F-4 had a long history of intermittent electrical outages that the IIAF had never been able to fix. He was personally called in to adjust that F-4's radar about a month after the event. Both techs stated that the Shahrokhi base was notorious for low quality work and poor record keeping.
So we have reason to expect that Jafari's F-4 would have had electrical problems regardless of whether he was under attack by a UFO or not....
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MP: Anything is possible, but what makes the equipment outages significant in this case is that they seemed to occur only when Jafari was getting ready to fire on the UFO, as we will see. It's the timing of the outages (assuming Jafari's account is accurate) that makes them so interesting. Skeptoid does not really address this issue. In fact, the debunking article does not even mention this first instance of Jafari's systems going out. The lines I just quoted address the second such instance, described below.
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Jafari: Then I was startled by a round object which came out of the primary object and started coming straight toward me at a high rate of speed, almost as if it were a missile. Imagine a brightly lit moon coming out over the horizon – that’s what it looked like.…
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Skeptoid: Twice a year, the Earth's orbit takes us through the debris trail left by Halley's Comet, causing meteor showers. We also pass through various other clouds and trails at the same time each year.... On September 19, we are at or near the maximums of two minor annual showers, the Gamma Piscids (PIE-sids) and Southern Piscids, and at the tail end of a third shower, the Eta Draconids. There was more than enough expected meteor activity to account for all of the reports of falling lights and rapidly moving bright objects.
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MP: So the "round object which came out of the primary object and started coming straight toward me at a high rate of speed," looking like "a brightly lit moon," was a meteor. This could be true only if Jafari is a remarkably poor observer.
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Jafari: I attempted to fire, and looked at the panel to confirm my selection of the missile. Suddenly, nothing was working. The weapons control panel was out, and I lost all the instruments, and the radio. The indicator dials were spinning around randomly, and the instruments were fluctuating.
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MP: Skeptoid presents this as the first time Jafari's systems went on the blink, when according to him it was the second time. Again, it's the coincidence of the systems failing whenever the plane poses a potential threat to the UFO that's most interesting.
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Jafari: I looked back at seven o’clock and there it was. I once again saw the main thing up there, too, and then the smaller objects flew gently underneath it and rejoined the primary one.
This all happened quickly, and I didn’t know what to think. But in a few seconds, another one came out! It started circling around us. Once again, all the instruments went out and the radio was garbled. Then, when it moved away, everything became operational again, and all the equipment look worked fine. This one, too, looked sort of like the moon – a round, bright light.
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MP: Skeptoid's meteorite explanation seems less persuasive when these details are considered. This third outage of Jafari's instruments isn't mentioned.
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Jafari: We started to head towards the military air base, and then I noticed that one of these objects was following us on our left side during the descent. I reported this to the base. As I made a turn for the final approach, I saw another object right ahead of me. I called the tower and asked, “I have traffic ahead of me, what is it?” He said, “We have no traffic.” I said, “I am looking at it right now; it’s at my twelve o’clock position at a low altitude.” He still insisted that I didn’t have any traffic, but there it was, looking like a thin rectangle with a light at each end and one in the middle.… My backseater kept watching and said, “As you were turning, I could see a round dome over it with a dim light inside of it.”...
I looked to my left side and saw the primary, diamond-shaped thing up there, and another bright object came out of it and headed directly toward the ground. I thought I would see a huge explosion any moment when it hit, but that did not happen. It seemed to slow down and land gently on the ground, radiating a bright light, so bright that I could see the sands on the ground from that far, about 15 miles.
I reported it to the tower and they said that they saw it, too…. As soon as I got about four or five miles from it, once again the radio was garbled and the panel went out; it was the exact same it was the same exact thing all over again.
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Skeptoid: Moments later another bright object came out and went straight down into the ground, leaving a bright trail, and lighting up a large 2-3 kilometer wide area....
Jafari prepared to land at Mehrabad rather than return to Shahrokhi, and during approach experienced further intermittent communications and navigation failures.
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MP: The first sentence quoted above apparently refers to the soft landing witnessed by Jafari, though it seems to be placed too early in the chronology. The claim that the object slowed down and landed gently (behavior hardly characteristic of a meteorite) is not mentioned. Later, Skeptoid describes this object as "the one that descended to the ground with a flash." A "flash" does not seem to match Jafari's description of "radiating a bright light," which I would take to mean a sustained output of light.
The second sentence is Skeptoid's entire summary of Jafari's return flight. There is no mention of the object ahead of Jafari, or on his left side, or of Lieutenant Damirian's observation, or of the control tower's verification of the soft landing.
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Jafari: We could hear emergency squawk coming from the location where the object had landed on the ground. A squawk sounds like the beeping from an ambulance or a police car, and its purpose is to help find people when they have ejected from an airplane, or if there is a crash landing. It’s a locator tone that says “I’m here.” In this case, the squawking from the UFO was reported by some civil airliners nearby.
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Skeptoid: [US Air Force Lt. Col. Olin] Mooy noted that the beeping transponder appeared to be from an American C-141. These large transport aircraft carried such transponders designed to be released in the event of a crash, but they'd been having problems with the beepers being ejected simply by turbulence over the mountains just north of Tehran.
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MP: In itself, this sounds reasonable enough, although again, the coincidence in timing is curious.
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Jafari: After landing, I went to the command post, and then we went to check in with the tower. They said the main thing in the sky had just disappeared, suddenly, in an instant.
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MP: This isn't mentioned in the Skeptoid article.
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Jafari: [A] document, dated October 12, 1976, by Major Colonel Roland Evans, provided an assessment of the case for the DIA. It said that “This case is a classic which meets all the criteria necessary for a valid study of the UFO phenomenon.”
To make that point, Evans listed some important facts in his DIA document: There were multiple highly credible witnesses to the objects from different locations; the objects were confirmed on radar; the loss of all instruments happened on three separate aircraft – a commercial jet as well as our 2F fours; and “an inordinate amount of maneuverability was displayed by the UFOs.” The evaluation form said that the reality without reliability of the information was “confirmed by other sources” and the value of the information was “high.”
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MP: Evans' report isn't mentioned by Skeptoid. I should point out that "Major Colonel" is not a rank in the US military, as far as I know. Other sources list Evans sometimes as a major, sometimes as a colonel. The report clearly exists, regardless of any confusion about the author's rank.
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Jafari: I can’t doubt what happened. It wasn’t only me. The pilot in my backseat, the two pilots in the first aircraft, the men in the tower, people from headquarters, General Yousefi who was on duty in the Air Force command post – they all saw it. Many people were concerned about us on the ground. And we also captured it on radar from our cockpit. Nobody can say I imagined it.
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Skeptoid: Once we look at all the story's elements without the presumption of an alien spaceship, the only thing unusual about the Tehran 1976 UFO case is that planes were chasing celestial objects and had equipment failures. There have been many cases where planes had equipment failures, and there have been many cases where planes misidentified celestial objects. Once in a while, both will happen on the same flight....
What was the Tehran 1976 UFO? I don't know, but there's insufficient evidence to convince me to get excited about it.
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MP: I'm not sure that Skeptoid has actually looked at "all the story's elements." Essentially, the skeptical position is that the pilots and some observers on the ground mistook Jupiter for an aircraft, and that Jafari and his weapons officer mistook meteorites for probes or weapons launched by an aircraft. The radar lock was probably some kind of technical malfunction. The repeated equipment failures that occurred whenever Jafari tried to fire on the UFO were another mechanical problem. The first plane that went up may not have suffered any equipment failures, even though Jafari reports that it did. Details such as the diamond-like appearance of the craft, or the soft landing of a very bright object ejected by the craft, or the strobing lights in different colors that were blindingly bright, are apparently not important enough to consider.
Skeptoid does make some good points. For instance, we're told, "Klass learned from the American technicians ... that the Shahrokhi pilots never flew at night [and] these two night sorties chasing the UFO were the only known night flights during the whole time the technicians were stationed there." A lack of nocturnal flying experience could call the pilots' observations into question.
Overall, though, Skeptoid's explanation strikes me as about as far-fetched as anything the most uncritical UFO enthusiasts might dream up. It's not quite on the level of Men in Black's famous "swamp gas from a weather balloon ... trapped in a thermal pocket [that] reflected the light from Venus," but ... it's getting there.
I think this superficial treatment comes from the fact a lot of Skeptics are absolutely uncomfortable with these types of topics so details that they cannot easily explain away are ignored or rationalized away. Combined with the tremendous bias they have going into this and combined with the contempt they have for " wooers" it creates an atmosphere where critical evaluation of the paranormal claim is the exception and not the rule.
Posted by: Kris | June 11, 2019 at 10:45 PM
It’s an approach that’s adopted when challenges are made to most areas outside the mainstream as far as I can see: ‘construct an argument that supports your position and ignore any elements that don’t fit’.
Posted by: Paul | June 12, 2019 at 03:38 AM
It reminds me of the skeptical explanation of the multiple UFO sightings around airbases in the 1950s and 1960s where it is put forward that these are misidentified 'Project Grab Bag' balloon launches, as well as other balloon launches.
However, once I delved a bit further into these cases, I discovered that the UFOs were spotted by pilots *while* they were flying and tracking Grab Bag balloons, at which point they were 'buzzed' by unknown disk shaped aircraft operating highly unconventionally, as with the Iranian encounter. So the pilots were reporting unidentified aircraft *at the same time* as they were tailing the balloons, so they were quite aware the UFOs were not the balloons, as they already had the balloons in their sights. Evidently something else was taking a keen interest in the balloon launches, but as to what, we still don't know!
Once again, an apparent 'debunking' which doesn't hold weight once you scratch beneath the surface, something that most people never bother doing.
As citizens, shouldn't we be concerned that there are unidentified aircraft flying around our airspace, 'buzzing' military and commercial flights, and yet we seem to be sticking our heads in the sand about it?
Posted by: Douglas | June 12, 2019 at 09:32 AM
Great analysis, Michael.
Yeah, the Skeptic comes across as a non-critical thinker in this case. No surprise.
Posted by: Matt Rouge | June 13, 2019 at 12:01 AM
I'd also like to point out, related to my recent guest post...
I have no doubt the observers saw what they saw. Jupiter? Pish.
But think about what they saw in terms of an actual spacecraft (with intelligent biological life inside) or even space probes and... it makes no sense.
This is the "Christmas tree" light show I was talking about. There is no mechanical, scientific, or military purpose for such equipment. Our own stealth bombers don't need to have lights on and do a pretty good job of not showing up on radar. Add whatever propulsion system the presumed ET craft use to our stealth bombers, and you already have better tech.
Further, not all UFOs have lights, and not all UFOs show up on radar, so ET tech already exists, presumably, if the ETs do not wish to be obvious.
The only purpose I can imagine for such Christmas tree UFOs is to put on such a show for humans to notice and react to.
Posted by: Matt Rouge | June 13, 2019 at 01:17 AM
\\"As citizens, shouldn't we be concerned that there are unidentified aircraft flying around our airspace, 'buzzing' military and commercial flights, and yet we seem to be sticking our heads in the sand about it?" Douglas//
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Not much we can do about it? I find it difficult enough to deal with my day to day problems let alone sitting around worrying about stuff that I have absolutely no control over? Until they land on the White House lawn and announce themselves to the world their presence here doesn't affect my life one way or another?
Unlike the question of death and what comes after - which I know for a fact that one day will happen to me - UFO's don't seem to have any effect whatsoever on my day to day life? It's fun and interesting to think about them once in a while but the truth of the matter is I've never seen one and it doesn't seem to affect me at all?
And it's not like we can do anything to them anyway? We can't shoot them down, we can't catch them, we can't communicate with them. Nothing. It's not the same as life after death where we have near death experiences and deathbed visions and other life after death evidence. UFO's are just a phenomena that seem to exist but we don't know what they are or why they are here?
Posted by: Art | June 13, 2019 at 09:17 AM
Its what some call "scientism" among the skeptics once again. Dogmatic belief in only the currently accepted way things are.
That spell won't be broken unless something major that can't be denied anymore happens. Like one of those reported giant UFOs crashing in a city and unable to be covered up by any measure.
Posted by: frith | June 13, 2019 at 02:43 PM
"This is the "Christmas tree" light show I was talking about. There is no mechanical, scientific, or military purpose for such equipment." - Matt
I think that you once again make an important observation. I'm inclined to agree with you. However, I still reserve a small amount of skepticism re; JV's and your point. Say, maybe 10% to 15% possible that what was seen is a nuts and bolts UFO that just happened to have glowing Christmas tree like lights for reasons unfathomable to us (or, perhaps, because it wanted to get our attention for motives unknown).
Posted by: Eric Newhill | June 13, 2019 at 04:05 PM
Some of the theoretical arguments against the ET hypothesis, like the zero knowledge of other life much less other intelligent life, or if it actually exists the apparent impossibility of getting here, or the apparent ridiculousness of some of the characteristics (like brilliant "advertising" lights), seem persuasive.
But real data, evidence, always trumps theory in my opinion. These cases were real events in the world occurring to real people that presented as described. The testimony and other evidence can't reasonably be dismissed just because they appear fantastic or theoretically preposterous. Especially with good observers like pilots and police officers whose testimony would otherwise be accepted in a court of law. The burden is on the skeptic to credibly demonstrate how these cases are actually misperceptions, hallucinations, errors, hoaxes, useless anecdotes, etc. And on the skeptic of the ETH to come up with a more credible general explanation for the many cases of physical interaction with physical apparent vehicles.
Some people have observed strange apparently structured material objects in the atmosphere that give the strong impression of being vehicles.
The best cases stand on their own merits as evidence that on some rare occasions what seem to be alien vehicles appear to humans, sometimes producing physical effects including radar returns, radio interference, ground traces and leaving images preserved on photographic film or electronic media. In my opinion the extraterrestrial hypothesis remains plausible as the explanation.
For a detailed summary scientific review and analysis of the various types of physical evidence related to UFOs, there was the Sturrock panel report, see https://ufoscoop.com/physical-evidence-related-to-ufos/.
The relatively recent (in 2004 and 2015) sightings and radar trackings of small UFOs shadowing US Navy carrier battle groups, featuring multiple pilot and ship radar reports and HUD video display recordings amount to some of the best data. Some of these HUD videos were released by the Defense Department a few months ago.
Just a sampling of some of the better older data:
- The 1947 Kenneth Arnold sighting
Except for the WWII "foo fighters", this begins the modern era of UFOs. A good analysis is at http://www.martinshough.com/aerialphenomena/Arnold%20analysis2.pdf . There do not seem to be any valid optical, geometric, geographical, psychological or other reasons to doubt the major features of Arnold's sighting as reported and they are internally consistent. The analysis results in a range of 16-20 miles, a minimum length of 70-90 feet, and a speed of 890 to 1200 mph. Arnold described the objects as trimmed-off in the rear thin shiny "saucer-like" discoids reflecting sunlight blindingly like metal at certain angles.
- The Chiles-Whitted Case - Montgomery, Alabama, United States - July 24, 1948
- The Nash-Fortenberry Sighting (aircraft encounter with formation of UFOs) - Virginia, United States - July 14, 1952
- The RB-47 UFO Encounter - Gulf Coast Area, United States - July 17, 1957
- Socorro / Zamora UFO Incident - Socorro, New Mexico, United States - April 24, 1964
- Coyne Helicopter Incident - Mansfield, Ohio, United States - October 18, 1973
- The Cash-Landrum Case - Huffman, Texas, United States - December 29, 1980
- Japan Air Lines Flight 1628 Over Alaska - Alaska, United States - November 17, 1986
- Belgium Triangle UFO Sightings - Belgium - October, 1989
- Illinois Triangle UFO Sighting (by multiple police officers) - Illinois, United States - January 5, 2000
The 1999 French Cometa committee report, summarized at https://www.ufocasebook.com/cometamain.html. This was an in-depth study of UFOs, covering many aspects of the subject, especially questions of national defense. The study was done over several years by an independent group at the Institute of Advanced Studies for National Defense, or IHEDN, and by other qualified experts from various fields. They took the extraterrestrial hypothesis very seriously when considering the many of the best French cases.
For an exhaustive analysis of electromagnetic effects generated by UFOs, see Fifty-Six Aircraft Pilot Sightings Involving E-M Effects - Haines (1992), at http://www.nicap.org/papers/92apsiee.htm.
Posted by: doubter | June 25, 2019 at 09:06 PM
Thanks, doubter. Very informative and interesting comment. I’ve only dipped a toe in UFO reports — you clearly know the subject thoroughly.
But how would you address the issues raised by Matt Rouge in his recent guest post? Issues like the abduction reports, in which the ETs use rather primitive medical methods and apparently lack the ability to erase or cloud people's memories (something even we humans can do with certain drugs), or the reports of dirigible-like UFOs in the era just before the first dirigible flights, or the similarities to apparitions of the Virgin Mary and other iconic figures?
For every nuts-and-bolts type of argument, there seems to be a contrasting thought-form or matrix-glitch type of argument. It’s what makes the subject so frustrating.
Posted by: Michael Prescot | June 26, 2019 at 08:56 AM
"For every nuts-and-bolts type of argument, there seems to be a contrasting thought-form or matrix-glitch type of argument. It’s what makes the subject so frustrating" - MP
The nuts and bolts type experiences follow a pattern and the abduction type experiences follow a different pattern. Agree, there is some overlap in pattern, but there is also sufficient non-overlap that I think we may be looking at two or more entirely different classes of phenomena.
I really don't know and I certainly haven't arrived at any conclusions; just that having professionally analyzed things for the better part of my adult life - and especially using advanced cluster analysis techniques, if you have constructed a cluster with weak associations within the cluster, then you probably should be breaking out into two or more clusters. Actually, the statistical software does that for you.
Of course we don't have data we are feeding into that kind of software (maybe we should!). So we have to rely on common sense. I think there is a risk that JV focused too much on the similarities (the overlap) between the abduction type phenomenon and the UFO as experienced by military personnel type phenomenon. He may have forced his conclusion.
Just for example,the abduction type phenomena do not have the physical evidence that the military sighting type do (radar capture, photos, multiple credible witnesses, etc). Abduction type have a dreamy quality to them. Mil sighting type happen in bright daylight and full alertness. Abduction type can happen to the same individual multiple times. Mil sighting type tend to be random one offs.
JV thinks it is significant that encounters of either type can leave the experiencers somehow changed physiologically, psychologically or even "spiritually". I think that is a red herring within his hypothesis. Any intense paradigm shattering experience can have those impacts on the experiencer (think PTSD or NDEs).
Matt does make some great points that can't be readily dismissed. However, many of those points rely on being able to assume the motives of what is, perhaps, an alien intelligence. I can't even figure out why the heck people I know do some of the things they do. I used to think I could "get inside their heads", but I long ago realized I was fooling myself in too many cases.
Also, breaking the UFO phenomena into at least two categories (nuts & bolts type and abduction type) does bring some enhanced explanatory power to the analysis. So, to my mind, it has merit. That said, a healthy debate is definitely worth while on this topic!
Posted by: Erich Newhill | June 26, 2019 at 11:03 AM
Michael, I agree that the subject is immensely frustrating. In the face of the various objections that this phenomenon is very reminiscent of psychic projections, apparitions, manifestations of the collective unconscious, tricksters coming from another level of reality, etc. etc., I usually obstinately insist that the best cases still exhibit very good evidence that there is sometimes the actual intrusion of "somebody else's" nuts and bolts physical hardware into our planet space and airspace.
There is no evidence that humanly generated psychic effects could generate the phenomena constituting the best cases, but it could be speculated that maybe they could be generated by extremely almost unlimitedly powerful interdimensional or inter-universal aliens bent of deceiving humanity for some fell purpose. Sure, but this is equivalent to any open ended arbitrary speculation impossible to verify - like, maybe there is a population of invisible omnipotent angels occupying the head of a pin, or invisible pink unicorns, or (ultimately), maybe our entire reality is a deception created by extremely powerful aliens for their own purposes.
My view is that this phenomenon is complicated, being composed of several different types of phenomena that interact in various ways. Both the modern "zeitgeist" and real physical alien vehicle encounters stimulate subconsciously generated fantasies like alien abductions and subconsciously generated fantastic or apparently ridiculous "occupant" encounters (like the Betty and Barney Hill case). The phenomenon is probably composed of many different components or levels, of disparate fundamental natures. Humans and their psychological and parapsychological nature, and also the physical universe including very advanced ETs from other planetary systems, are very extremely complicated and intertwined. So in answer to the question of which potential explanation is the real nature of the UFO phenomenon, it is probably "all of the above".
The final resort is the observation that this phenomenon involves a quintessential cognitive dissonance, that simply can't be resolved at our level of knowledge and wisdom. This is reminiscent of the cognitive dissonance involved in the reductive materialism versus spiritual reality debate, though in this latter case there is a strong body of evidence on both sides.
Posted by: doubter | June 26, 2019 at 12:21 PM
Eric wrote, "The nuts and bolts type experiences follow a pattern and the abduction type experiences follow a different pattern."
Yes, but how about a third type of experience — the "close encounter" type, where someone first witnesses a UFO aloft, then watches it land, then interacts with one or more of the occupants who emerge? Vallee recounts many stories of this general type (with plenty of variations, of course). He finds parallels with very old folkloric traditions such as tales of faerie folk, leprechauns, elves, and giants. See Vallee's "Passport to Magonia" for many examples.
There’s also the weird similarity between some UFO experiences and religious apparitions (notably but not exclusively the Marian type). These are not usually abduction accounts, but more like the close encounter scenario described above.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | June 27, 2019 at 01:51 AM
Hmm - OK. Three high level categories!
Posted by: Eric Newhill | June 28, 2019 at 10:26 AM
In 1948 or so some bigshot American general (Macarthur?) presided over a thorough review of the WW2 foo fighter evidence. His report was classified and never released. It ought to be by now. (Although it might just make things more complicated.)
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Eric said, "I can't even figure out why the heck people I know do some of the things they do. I used to think I could "get inside their heads", but I long ago realized I was fooling myself in too many cases."
I have a feeling that there's another dimension to personality that isn't considered by psychology, formal or informal. It isn't related to traits, background, motives, incentives, biases, etc. It's somehow akin to flavor. I suspect it affects everything, including happiness, and that it explains in part why certain other personalities attract or repel us. It also makes it hard to understand other people and predict what they'll do.
(If this resonates with you, MP, maybe you could do a thread on it.)
Posted by: Roger Knights | June 30, 2019 at 10:20 AM
Speaking of flavors of personality, here's an article from today's WaPo:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/our-politics-are-in-our-dna-thats-a-good-thing/2019/07/05/c4d8579e-984d-11e9-830a-21b9b36b64ad_story.html?utm_term=.da66a0591512&wpisrc=nl_rainbow&wpmm=1
By Sebastian Junger July 5
Sebastian Junger is the author of “Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging.”
"The effect of genetics is so strong, however, that according to empirical studies, identical twins who are raised apart are more likely to hold similar political views than fraternal twins who are raised together. According to Avi Tuschman, author of “Our Political Nature,” between 40 and 60 percent of the variance in our political attitudes is heritable, stemming from genetic differences between individuals; the rest comes from our environment, especially during our formative years. Political opinion also relates to brain structure: An experiment measuring the sizes of the anterior cingulate and the right amygdala accurately predicted a person’s political orientation 72 percent of the time. Some of these political proclivities appear to be connected to Chromosome 4 in a neurotransmitter receptor called NARG1."
Posted by: Roger Knights | July 07, 2019 at 01:32 PM
"An experiment measuring the sizes of the anterior cingulate and the right amygdala accurately predicted a person’s political orientation 72 percent of the time. Some of these political proclivities appear to be connected to Chromosome 4 in a neurotransmitter receptor called NARG1."
Kinda sounds like BS, don’t you think? I wonder how large the sample was.
Given that people often change their political views over time, it’s hard to believe chromosomes and brain structure have much to do with it. I’ve been a far-left guy, a libertarian, and a conservative, but I doubt either my genome or my amygdala has undergone any changes.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | July 09, 2019 at 12:47 PM
Hmmm. chromosomes in a “neurotransmitter receptor”?
Sounds like BS to me but maybe not!
The DNA of chromosomes in cells allows construction of proteins by producing amino acids. Perhaps there are hormones made of proteins by the amygdala and the anterior cingulate that cause certain behaviors or certain political proclivities in people.
Apparently the amygdala is involved with emotions including fear, hate and pleasure and the cingulate is involved with emotional processing and vocalization of emotions. There are also size, functional and structural differences between males and females, just naturally. I think there are certain behaviors and emotions including hatred, anger, promiscuity and the need to vocalize those emotions which seem to be more evident in individuals of one political party and not in individuals of the other party and in one gender more than the other.
I can see some sense to this theory but I don’t think it really relates to political proclivities but rather it relates to expressed feelings, thoughts, and behaviors associated with individuals in one particular political party or the other. It is not so much the political leanings which these biological structures relate to but rather personal emotions and behaviors of individuals attracted to those political groups. That is, ‘birds of a feather flock together’ so individuals with an innate proclivity towards hatred, anger and the pursuit of pleasure may be attracted to each other and thereby support and/or join a group or a political party with similar proclivities. - AOD
Posted by: Amos Oliver Doyle | July 09, 2019 at 09:54 PM
MP: "Given that people often change their political views over time, it’s hard to believe chromosomes and brain structure have much to do with it. I’ve been a far-left guy, a libertarian, and a conservative, but I doubt either my genome or my amygdala has undergone any changes."
Do they? Not many, and not much (I suspect).
I suspect there are basic, genetic predilections toward "tender-mindedness" that push persons towards socialism / humanitarianism / egalitarianism. And that there are inborn predilections toward tough-mindedness, which push persons toward the other end of the spectrum. In the aftermath of ruinous policies of one type of politician (e.g., Herbert Hoover), members of the electorate will override their inborn predilections and move in the opposite direction.
There has been a strong movement away from socialism in Brazil, as a result of the extreme incompetence and corruption of socialist governments there over almost 15 years, for instance. But I doubt that this reaction will last. As Kipling said, approximately, the (inborn) fool's burnt finger will wobble back to the flame.
Posted by: Roger Knights | July 10, 2019 at 10:19 AM
Every thought we have is filtered through our physical brain. Our brain is like a sieve, a big soft mush with its own hormones, proteins, fats, etc. and every thought we have lives in this brain. Regardless of whether consciousness is produced by the brain or comes from outside the brain, our thoughts are filtered through the brain and are affected by it. Our feelings and emotions and personality are all affected by the biochemistry of the brain and our thoughts, and how we feel about the world, are also affected by this chemical soup that we call "our brain." So much of who we are is the product of a myriad of the things we have been subjected to, the home we grew up in, our DNA, the school we attended the teachers we had, our parents, our friends, the books we have read, even the food we eat, and the language we grew up speaking affect the person we turn out to be. This is why I am deeply suspicious of free will and lean heavily towards fate and predestination.
Posted by: Art | July 10, 2019 at 01:54 PM
Art,
I can't really argue with anything you said. But, maybe there is an interplay between free will and fate or predestination. That is, to a certain extent maybe we do have free will within certain parameters and when by use of our free will we stray too far from a predetermined plan for our life something pulls us back on to the path we might have chosen for ourselves. I think there are people (maybe I am one) who thwart the direction they were destined to go and as a result never accomplish anything of worth. Perhaps those people will have another chance to complete what they were meant to do in another lifetime.- AOD
Posted by: Amos Oliver Doyle | July 11, 2019 at 01:09 PM
AOD said:
"Perhaps those people will have another chance to complete what they were meant to do in another lifetime."
Not the way to end a comment directed to Art, I'm afraid. :)
Posted by: Bruce L Siegel | July 12, 2019 at 01:42 AM
\\"But, maybe there is an interplay between free will and fate or predestination." - AOD//
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Is this free will an invisible little man that lives completely independently of the physical brain that he makes his home in? A little man that is not affected by the hormones, proteins, fats, DNA, and chemistry of the brain? Sort of a ghost in the brain that floats around in the brain and is not affected by the environment he lives nor the home he lives in?
Regardless of whether the thoughts are being generated by the brain or the universe is permeated by consciousness and we are a part of that consciousness and our brain is like a transmitter and receiver of information - who and what we are is the product of the station that our brain is tuned to. The information we pick up, the homes and environment we lived in, who our parents were, who our friends were, the books we read, the music we listened to, and the DNA that predestined us to become the people we are now.
Our brain tricks us into believing we have free will and that the thoughts that we have are our own, and somehow we are in charge but the truth is that our brain and what we are thinking is heavily influenced by its surroundings.
The thoughts that I have seem to change depending on where I am, who or what I am listening to, the books that I read, how I am feeling (which is influenced by my aches and pains and physical condition), the TV shows I watch, etc. They can change in an instant if something new enters my environment.
My thoughts are like a game of pool and there is a person standing on the outskirts of the table and every once in a while he throws a new ball on the table and it interferes with my game. I am not in charge of this invisible man and he seems to have his own agenda. He exists in a dimension that is outside of my influence but he is able to interfere in my life and I seem to have very little ability to stop him from doing so.
Posted by: Art | July 12, 2019 at 08:44 AM
My thoughts can change depending on what Michael Prescott decides to post on his blog. The direction that my thoughts take can be influenced by what I read on his blog and I can spend a good portion of my day thinking about what he is written.
Ever have a song get stuck in your head? You wonder "why am I spending so much time listening to this silly song?" You heard the song and now it is replaying inside your brain over and over again.
Posted by: Art | July 12, 2019 at 08:48 AM
Bruce,
I know! I thought of that when I wrote it. But, I like to tweak people a little bit just to get a rise out of them. It keeps the conversation going. = AOD
Posted by: Amos Oliver Doyle | July 12, 2019 at 11:37 PM
No Art, I think free will is the ability to choose and the conscious mind does that. I agree with you that free will might be influenced by other things as you have mentioned in making a choice, that is, our choices are directly influenced by what we know, what we have been taught either formally or informally through associations and interactions we experience in daily life. As we learn new things we grow and then our choices may change because of the new information we have learned. What we learn influences---perhaps directs---choices one makes. That is simply making use of what one has learned.
That “little man” of which you speak is our subconscious, the intellect or the soul which enters the body when we were born or thereabouts and to which we add information through our daily learning experiences channeled through the brain. It knows the plan for one’s life and influences the conscious mind to make choices perhaps according to a ‘life plan’, so to that extent ‘free will’ is not as “free” as we may think. That “ghost in the brain’ of which you speak is simply the subconscious mind. Frederic Myers first identified its presence in the late 19th century but called it the ‘subliminal mind’.
I think you have given an excellent description of the subconscious or subliminal mind in your last paragraph when you say,” He exists in a dimension that is outside of my influence but he is able to interfere in my life and I seem to have very little ability to stop him from doing so”. The subconscious mind can be mischievous sometimes and I think even malevolent bordering on an evil possession but I like to think that for the most part it provides positive direction for one’s life. (Actually I am being gracious here as my experience of the subconscious has proved to be a negative one.)
And yes, I hate those obnoxious song worms that play over and over in my conscious mind. - AOD
Posted by: Amos Oliver Doyle | July 13, 2019 at 12:28 AM
"Our brain tricks us into believing we have free will and that the thoughts that we have are our own, and somehow we are in charge but the truth is that our brain and what we are thinking is heavily influenced by its surroundings."
But to a considerable extent we can choose our surroundings, no? (At least as adults.) I like to think about the *balance* that permeates our lives. Yes, we are heavily influenced by factors that seem beyond our control. But much of my life is clearly made up of the acts and thoughts that this separate being—known as Bruce Siegel—chooses for himself.
If Bruce Siegel had no meaningful choices to make, why in the world would God put him here?
You like to stress our powerlessness, Art. Are you open to the beauty of the other side of the equation as well?
On a separate note, I'm re-reading Moody's memoir Paranormal. What a career! He trailblazed or helped to popularize so many of the cornerstones of consciousness research: NDE's, past lives, facilitated reunions with the departed, shared death experiences.
Who has done more to help us understand who and what we are? Who has done more to slay the great bogeyman, death, and make it our friend?
Posted by: Bruce L Siegel | July 14, 2019 at 04:27 PM
I think theories like "free will is an illusion" are often a rationalization for dissatisfaction with one’s own choices in life or a reluctance to make choices in the first place. Determinism is a form of fatalism, which excuses us from making any effort, since, after all, there’s nothing we can do. I see it as essentially giving up. And giving up usually entails depression and hopelessness.
There are probably exceptions — people who can go through life thinking that nothing matters and that their choices are meaningless, without being gloomy about it. But I think this mindset is unusual.
As for philosophical arguments for determinism, it’s always seemed to me that they’re self-defeating in two respects: First, why attempt to convince anyone of anything if we can’t help holding the beliefs we hold? And second, how can our own beliefs — including a belief in determinism — be regarded as valid if they are the result of purely deterministic (and therefore arbitrary) forces?
Posted by: Michael Prescott | July 15, 2019 at 12:32 AM
"I like to tweak people a little bit just to get a rise out of them."
You really should try to be more like me—I would never dream of disagreeing with anybody about anything.
Posted by: Bruce L Siegel | July 15, 2019 at 04:26 AM
Sarcasm 'ON' is suspect. I remember you, Bruce, in your old days - AOD
Posted by: Amos Oliver Doyle | July 15, 2019 at 12:49 PM
Michael,
At this page, download the PDF from the link at the bottom with the name "Shough" in it: http://www.nicap.org/760919tehran_dir.htm . It offers a long, careful demolition of the most important skeptical take on the Tehran incident, that of Phil Klass. Suffice it to say Shough makes mincemeat of Klass' argument. Dunning's critique is his typical derivative bilge: nothing new at all.
[Thanks, Matty. For the convenience of other readers, here’s a direct link to the PDF:
http://www.nicap.org/reports/NARCAP_Iran_Klass.pdf
— MP]
Posted by: Matty | July 16, 2019 at 04:51 AM
Michael,
Thanks for publishing my comment. It's important that people interested in this case consider Shough's work on it, which very few people know about unfortunately.
I want to recommend to you the 3rd edition of Jerome Clark's _The UFO Encyclopedia_, published late last year. It's expensive, but indispensable if one wants to really come to grips with the UFO phenomenon. The entries by Tom Tulien and Brad Sparks on highly evidential UFO cases (e.g. the 1968 Minot AFB incident--see also http://minotb52ufo.com/) are very compelling. Sparks' long critical essay on "Debunking and Debunkery" is also exceptional and worth a good chunk of money on its own.
Posted by: Matty | July 16, 2019 at 06:43 PM
Whoops, hadn't seen that there were a lot of great new comments.
As a general response to the assertion that, since UFOs influence physical reality, they must be or are more likely to be "nuts and bolts," Jacques Vallee recognized that they do from the start, and so did I in my guest post. Any explanation must indeed take this fact into consideration.
Eric wrote,
||However, many of those points rely on being able to assume the motives of what is, perhaps, an alien intelligence.||
I cover this in my guest post, however:
"Do all the ETs who are nonchalant about being seen from a distance have a program in place to prevent all of the thousands (per Vallée’s #1 argument above) of spacecraft visiting Earth each year from being photographed, videoed, captured on radar, etc., to an excessive degree?"
One can argue that ETs *intend* exactly what we are experiencing and never *too much* with mind-boggling discipline. Or does Occam's Razor apply, and is it easier simply to see the phenomenon as being *incapable* of doing too much (i.e., there is no actual craft to land on the White House lawn or crash and be retrievable). And is it easier to see the aforementioned disciple as coming from trans-physical origin (Trickster-esque entities, etc.) instead of physical beings that must inevitably screw beyond what such a program would allow?
doubter wrote,
||There is no evidence that humanly generated psychic effects could generate the phenomena constituting the best cases, but it could be speculated that maybe they could be generated by extremely almost unlimitedly powerful interdimensional or inter-universal aliens bent of deceiving humanity for some fell purpose. Sure, but this is equivalent to any open ended arbitrary speculation impossible to verify - like, maybe there is a population of invisible omnipotent angels occupying the head of a pin, or invisible pink unicorns, or (ultimately), maybe our entire reality is a deception created by extremely powerful aliens for their own purposes.||
This argument would apply to a *positive argument,* but it does not apply to my negative argument, which is (thus far) against the ETH. The ETH is *not* the null hypothesis; it is something that must be supported in its own right.
Posted by: Matt Rouge | July 19, 2019 at 02:12 AM
I don't comment on this blog much anymore, but I follow it closely and read every entry, plus comments. I simply don't usually have much to add to the discussion. When I do comment, it's usually off topic, and that's what this is.
I was watching a documentary on the assassination of Bobby Kennedy last night, and it detailed his last words to busboy Juan Romero before he slipped into an irreversible coma and died. I found them to be intriguing. They went as follows:
"Is everybody OK?" Kennedy asked. Romero said yes.
"Everything will be OK," the senator replied shortly before losing consciousness.
Okay, "Everything will be okay" is not as dramatic as Steve Job's "Wow! Wow! Wow!," but it does have an air of someone slipping into a transcendent state.
Or coma, if someone want's to get all hard nosed skeptical about it.
One of many sources:
https://www.10tv.com/article/man-who-heard-robert-kennedys-last-words-when-he-was-teen-dies-california
Posted by: Rabbitdawg | July 21, 2019 at 09:46 PM
"Our feelings and emotions and personality are all affected by the biochemistry of the brain and our thoughts, and how we feel about the world, are also affected by this chemical soup that we call "our brain.""
But also the biochemistry of our brain is affected by our thoughts and feelings, so the influence is in two ways and gives room for free will.
Posted by: Juan | August 16, 2019 at 04:47 AM