"The first named victim was 17-year-old student Megan Bell, who has a “lifelong fear of clowns” and was chased down the street by one at night. Soon, more clowns began to pop up: in Wales, Manchester, Sheffield and Liverpool. Then just about everywhere. Concerned parents made Facebook pages about clowns, thus inadvertently helping to spread the meme. The Metropolitan police advised schoolchildren to call 999 if they saw a “killer clown”."
It's vital to know how to research... practicing due diligence. It amazes me the short term memory of most people. There was a nationally televised US Congressonal hearings featuring tapes, live testimony of USAF member in front of the Congress that supported the military's observations of UFO, I listen. Audio tapes were played. When the subject has, in any way, been connected to the US military AND Congress at the same time, I listen. It was not a sensationalized telecast. And the US audience didn't go wacko.
Someone just pointed this out to me as well: it's such a good example because it shows how humans don't attend to things (windshields) but then, when triggered to attend, they suddenly see all this unexpected and surprising detail (all these pits and cracks!). The analogy to the night sky is... obvious.
What amazes me is how many highly educated people don't know that you can see other planets with the naked eye. Our society has terrible priors for viewing the sky. Anyway, thank you for posting this. It's been a missed opportunity for many science communicators.
Speculation and gossip is a form of communal entertainment. I’ve found it easy to spoil the fun in my freind group by asking why no fantastic claim about aliens, UFOs, Cryptids or whatever, has ever been supported with indisputable evidence, or even independently verifiable evidence.
Isn’t it convenient that any evidence brought forth is always ambiguous enough to generate a combative debate about its veracity but never good enough to resolve that debate?
It’s like that meme about camera quality and surveillance surface area increasing exponentially over time, but photographs or video of anything claiming to be proof of the extraordinary always look like it was captured on a flip phone from 2002.
Show me something that doesn’t require speculation or interpretation. It shouldn’t be a hard bar to clear. And while gossip is fun, serious people should hold a hard line on standards for being taken seriously.
Oh Mr Hoel, all these down-to-earth facts and mathematics! People don't want that stuff! They want excitement and fantasy and conspiracy theories! There were of course the massive panics about vampires and werewolves in Europe 4 or 5 hundred years ago, too. (UFOs are a bit more interesting than that, though, even ignoring the hypothetical extrapolations of Eric Weinstein, when people start to understand that they are not actually about aliens and physics, but on the contrary, associated with deep psychological matters - see Jung, or the writings of Jacques Vallee, or ask people with genuine distressing experience of psychotic breakdown, such as Brett Andersen.)
Oh you're 100% right. Being skeptical is not the way to generate attention on the internet. There are a ton of people with really big audiences who have built them via alarmism and sensationalism. Some just word that alarmism more carefully than others.
"Either something very strange is going on, which is what people have told me, somewhere, in ways I can't say, or everyone believes something strange is going, which is also evidence for something strange going on, it's just a different something strange."
THE FIRST dragon to show itself during the Yuan dynasty did so in 1292. This was the dynasty's twenty-second year; and two years before the death of its founder, Khubilai Khan (1215—1294). The dragon appeared at the edge of Lake Tai, the large body of water that occupies the heart of the Yangzi River delta and, like a heart, pumps water through the network of rivers and canals that crisscross this great alluvial deposit extending from the first Ming capital, Nanjing, down to the coastal port of Shanghai. As the dragon rose into the air, it unleashed a flood that submerged the fields clustered around the margins of the lake. Rich farmland turned into marshy waste.
I live near La Guardia and depending on conditions we see as many as 8 sets of brights lights lined up in the darkness for landings. During daylight we see them up close and can easily read their corporate logos as they fly by. For numerous reasons, the human mind is degenerating.
There is certainly an element of mass hysteria in what is happening here. However, I think it should be noted that high ranking public officials have noted that there have been unidentified objects interfering with military operations and these same officials are stating that they do not know their origin and who they belong to. Maybe these officials do or do not know, and maybe they are trying to hide their own military operations. It does seem difficult for the public to tell. These comments also seem to add fuel to the hysteria and it is unclear why government officials would be doing this.
I think the key to understanding that is that it's not really the government's job to tell the public exactly what they really think. It's their job to cover their butts with vague language. E.g., in the NJ situation Jack Kirby of the National Security Council, in the recent Times article about this (luckily, much more grounded than their previous work on the subject), said something like "Yes, we have observed some drones over military installations, but this is nothing new." Effectively, what he is saying is that hobby drones are real. Very occasionally, a hobby drone makes its way onto a military base (and there are often legal repercussions for that).
Speaking as a New Jersey resident in an area with multiple drone sightings, I agree with Eric Kruger. It is too facile to dismiss these sightings as mass hysteria or conspiracy-theorizing, although, because of the flat-footed official response, there is now some element of that. We needed the various agencies not to dismiss public worries, but to say that they have received X sightings, investigated Y of them, and found that Z are misidentified commercial aircraft, W are hobbyist drones, or what have you. It would also have helped if they had cited the baseline rate for past reports. Without such an accounting, we don’t know what to make of official assurances, and it is entirely legitimate to wonder whether something is being hidden. And if you want to draw a line to past UFO flaps, consider that scientists missed out for years on genuine atmospheric phenomena such as sprites because observers framed them in terms of alien spacecraft. A good empiricist should separate the reported phenomena from the attending theorizing.
What's your best guess as to the explanation for the "tic tac" sighting, David Grusch's statements, and the other claims from credible sources that can't just be misidentifications of terrestrial technology?
Just that they absolutely can be misidentifications of terrestrial technology. E.g., the tic tac only looks like it's moving so fast because the zoom changes on the layout aren't synched with the actual changes, and because the camera stops tracking it at one point so it looks like it suddenly accelerates in ways supposed to be impossible - but it doesn't, it's just the camera combined with a constant (utterly terrestrial) rate of motion.
As for credibility here are some things David Grusch has claimed:
- beyond wreckage of multiple different craft, the government has in its possession the bodies of the “dead pilots.”
- that there’s been a flying saucer spaceship hidden away since 1933, which was found in Italy and kept secret by Mussolini until the US government retrieved it.
- Grusch said, in an interview, that he’d be briefed on “malevolent events” that have occurred wherein live aliens have killed or injured humans.
- Grusch’s “disclosure” appears to have come together at a Star Trek convention with people who make their living promoting stories about UFOs, like Jeremy Corbell (who amplifies things like a story about a Las Vegas couple who reported saw nine-foot tall aliens on their lawn).
Actually, former Maryland Gov., Larry Hogan, almost certainly saw the constellation Orion, not the Orion Nebula. The bright "belt" of the Orion constellation consists of three stars that are nearly equally spaced and in a line. The two bright stars in the constellation, Betelgeuse and Rigel, also are nearby and appear to shimmer and move, especially when seen by video with a smart phone. (The Orion Nebula appears as a relatively faint star located in the "sword" of Orion, with nebulosity revealed only with the aid of the telescope.)
there is alot the public doesn't know. I've listened to military pilots testimony, to scientists... etc etc.. I believe it's foolish to believe were're the living organims. in the universes. What seems to be most likely is, based on rmilitary reports, esp. the USAF, that, we're being observed from time to time. My cousin was in the USAF, a radar operator who listened to plenty of pilots speaking about aircraft operating with a speed they couldn't match. There are many in the military that believe we're being observed from time to time. That interest in our vviolent, messy society, with constant wars, the death and destruction on a massive scale of nature has made Planet Earth unappealing.. Makes sense to me! There was a congressional public hearing on the issue some years ago. It was on natonal tv. As I recall, it's not that hard to research the reporting done by the military.. It's real and we're not all that interesting.
One needs access to military reports on sitings to truly understand that UFOs have been seen. The most interesting observation I was told about the overall situation is that UFOS are merely observing Earth. That what is happening here proves that we are a planet in trouble that needs to be observed. Not at all a place to be occupied, esp. with the ongoing mess we're in. Knowing mlitary pilots and high ranking officers and their reports we're under observation. Period.
Let's not forget the "Great Clown Panic" of 2016, where people all over the world thought that there were evil clowns out to get them. https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/oct/31/the-great-clown-panic-of-2016-a-volatile-mix-of-fear-and-contagion
"The first named victim was 17-year-old student Megan Bell, who has a “lifelong fear of clowns” and was chased down the street by one at night. Soon, more clowns began to pop up: in Wales, Manchester, Sheffield and Liverpool. Then just about everywhere. Concerned parents made Facebook pages about clowns, thus inadvertently helping to spread the meme. The Metropolitan police advised schoolchildren to call 999 if they saw a “killer clown”."
It's vital to know how to research... practicing due diligence. It amazes me the short term memory of most people. There was a nationally televised US Congressonal hearings featuring tapes, live testimony of USAF member in front of the Congress that supported the military's observations of UFO, I listen. Audio tapes were played. When the subject has, in any way, been connected to the US military AND Congress at the same time, I listen. It was not a sensationalized telecast. And the US audience didn't go wacko.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/are-5-memorable-moments-congress-ufo-hearing-rcna96476. One of the main concerns of the military is the public's reactin to the data... You're looking at sensationalist reportage in hte press which is notorious for that.. another way to make money.
There's also the epidemic of windshield-pitting that hit Portland, WA back in 1954. Lots of crazy stories like this. https://www.npr.org/sections/npr-history-dept/2015/05/28/410085713/the-windshield-pitting-mystery-of-1954
Someone just pointed this out to me as well: it's such a good example because it shows how humans don't attend to things (windshields) but then, when triggered to attend, they suddenly see all this unexpected and surprising detail (all these pits and cracks!). The analogy to the night sky is... obvious.
Small correction - the former governor mistaking Orion Nebula for a drone was from Maryland (not Jersey)
Ty, good catch
What amazes me is how many highly educated people don't know that you can see other planets with the naked eye. Our society has terrible priors for viewing the sky. Anyway, thank you for posting this. It's been a missed opportunity for many science communicators.
All this has happened before...
Shoot Them Down! - The Flying Saucer Air Wars Of 1952: https://www.amazon.com/Shoot-Them-Down-Flying-Saucer/dp/0615155537
Speculation and gossip is a form of communal entertainment. I’ve found it easy to spoil the fun in my freind group by asking why no fantastic claim about aliens, UFOs, Cryptids or whatever, has ever been supported with indisputable evidence, or even independently verifiable evidence.
Isn’t it convenient that any evidence brought forth is always ambiguous enough to generate a combative debate about its veracity but never good enough to resolve that debate?
It’s like that meme about camera quality and surveillance surface area increasing exponentially over time, but photographs or video of anything claiming to be proof of the extraordinary always look like it was captured on a flip phone from 2002.
Show me something that doesn’t require speculation or interpretation. It shouldn’t be a hard bar to clear. And while gossip is fun, serious people should hold a hard line on standards for being taken seriously.
Oh Mr Hoel, all these down-to-earth facts and mathematics! People don't want that stuff! They want excitement and fantasy and conspiracy theories! There were of course the massive panics about vampires and werewolves in Europe 4 or 5 hundred years ago, too. (UFOs are a bit more interesting than that, though, even ignoring the hypothetical extrapolations of Eric Weinstein, when people start to understand that they are not actually about aliens and physics, but on the contrary, associated with deep psychological matters - see Jung, or the writings of Jacques Vallee, or ask people with genuine distressing experience of psychotic breakdown, such as Brett Andersen.)
Oh you're 100% right. Being skeptical is not the way to generate attention on the internet. There are a ton of people with really big audiences who have built them via alarmism and sensationalism. Some just word that alarmism more carefully than others.
"Either something very strange is going on, which is what people have told me, somewhere, in ways I can't say, or everyone believes something strange is going, which is also evidence for something strange going on, it's just a different something strange."
Conspiracy theorists are the biggest conspiracy of all. The irony is that they don't even consider it.
Obviously, when one sees dragons in the sky, we have lost the Mandate of Heaven.
From "The Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties"
https://amzn.to/3VJ28Pf
DRAGON SPOTTING
THE FIRST dragon to show itself during the Yuan dynasty did so in 1292. This was the dynasty's twenty-second year; and two years before the death of its founder, Khubilai Khan (1215—1294). The dragon appeared at the edge of Lake Tai, the large body of water that occupies the heart of the Yangzi River delta and, like a heart, pumps water through the network of rivers and canals that crisscross this great alluvial deposit extending from the first Ming capital, Nanjing, down to the coastal port of Shanghai. As the dragon rose into the air, it unleashed a flood that submerged the fields clustered around the margins of the lake. Rich farmland turned into marshy waste.
Thank you for explaining this phenomenon so well.
I live near La Guardia and depending on conditions we see as many as 8 sets of brights lights lined up in the darkness for landings. During daylight we see them up close and can easily read their corporate logos as they fly by. For numerous reasons, the human mind is degenerating.
Now going down a rabbit hole about dancing in Strasbourg. Thanks for “the facts, just the facts”(love the illustration at top)
There is certainly an element of mass hysteria in what is happening here. However, I think it should be noted that high ranking public officials have noted that there have been unidentified objects interfering with military operations and these same officials are stating that they do not know their origin and who they belong to. Maybe these officials do or do not know, and maybe they are trying to hide their own military operations. It does seem difficult for the public to tell. These comments also seem to add fuel to the hysteria and it is unclear why government officials would be doing this.
I think the key to understanding that is that it's not really the government's job to tell the public exactly what they really think. It's their job to cover their butts with vague language. E.g., in the NJ situation Jack Kirby of the National Security Council, in the recent Times article about this (luckily, much more grounded than their previous work on the subject), said something like "Yes, we have observed some drones over military installations, but this is nothing new." Effectively, what he is saying is that hobby drones are real. Very occasionally, a hobby drone makes its way onto a military base (and there are often legal repercussions for that).
Speaking as a New Jersey resident in an area with multiple drone sightings, I agree with Eric Kruger. It is too facile to dismiss these sightings as mass hysteria or conspiracy-theorizing, although, because of the flat-footed official response, there is now some element of that. We needed the various agencies not to dismiss public worries, but to say that they have received X sightings, investigated Y of them, and found that Z are misidentified commercial aircraft, W are hobbyist drones, or what have you. It would also have helped if they had cited the baseline rate for past reports. Without such an accounting, we don’t know what to make of official assurances, and it is entirely legitimate to wonder whether something is being hidden. And if you want to draw a line to past UFO flaps, consider that scientists missed out for years on genuine atmospheric phenomena such as sprites because observers framed them in terms of alien spacecraft. A good empiricist should separate the reported phenomena from the attending theorizing.
Super read, thank you.
Sadly, the people who should probably read this post likely won't.
What's your best guess as to the explanation for the "tic tac" sighting, David Grusch's statements, and the other claims from credible sources that can't just be misidentifications of terrestrial technology?
Just that they absolutely can be misidentifications of terrestrial technology. E.g., the tic tac only looks like it's moving so fast because the zoom changes on the layout aren't synched with the actual changes, and because the camera stops tracking it at one point so it looks like it suddenly accelerates in ways supposed to be impossible - but it doesn't, it's just the camera combined with a constant (utterly terrestrial) rate of motion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1di0XIa9RQ
As for credibility here are some things David Grusch has claimed:
- beyond wreckage of multiple different craft, the government has in its possession the bodies of the “dead pilots.”
- that there’s been a flying saucer spaceship hidden away since 1933, which was found in Italy and kept secret by Mussolini until the US government retrieved it.
- Grusch said, in an interview, that he’d be briefed on “malevolent events” that have occurred wherein live aliens have killed or injured humans.
- Grusch’s “disclosure” appears to have come together at a Star Trek convention with people who make their living promoting stories about UFOs, like Jeremy Corbell (who amplifies things like a story about a Las Vegas couple who reported saw nine-foot tall aliens on their lawn).
With regards to the tic tac one, I mean the statements, not the video. I agree the videos are all extremely unconvincing.
"They're all lying" certainly seems like a plausible explanation to me, but I find it unsatisfying.
Actually, former Maryland Gov., Larry Hogan, almost certainly saw the constellation Orion, not the Orion Nebula. The bright "belt" of the Orion constellation consists of three stars that are nearly equally spaced and in a line. The two bright stars in the constellation, Betelgeuse and Rigel, also are nearby and appear to shimmer and move, especially when seen by video with a smart phone. (The Orion Nebula appears as a relatively faint star located in the "sword" of Orion, with nebulosity revealed only with the aid of the telescope.)
https://ground.news/article/drones-seen-in-new-jersey-were-authorized-by-faa-for-research-white-house-says_a34a5d?utm_source=mobile-app&utm_medium=article-share
there is alot the public doesn't know. I've listened to military pilots testimony, to scientists... etc etc.. I believe it's foolish to believe were're the living organims. in the universes. What seems to be most likely is, based on rmilitary reports, esp. the USAF, that, we're being observed from time to time. My cousin was in the USAF, a radar operator who listened to plenty of pilots speaking about aircraft operating with a speed they couldn't match. There are many in the military that believe we're being observed from time to time. That interest in our vviolent, messy society, with constant wars, the death and destruction on a massive scale of nature has made Planet Earth unappealing.. Makes sense to me! There was a congressional public hearing on the issue some years ago. It was on natonal tv. As I recall, it's not that hard to research the reporting done by the military.. It's real and we're not all that interesting.
One needs access to military reports on sitings to truly understand that UFOs have been seen. The most interesting observation I was told about the overall situation is that UFOS are merely observing Earth. That what is happening here proves that we are a planet in trouble that needs to be observed. Not at all a place to be occupied, esp. with the ongoing mess we're in. Knowing mlitary pilots and high ranking officers and their reports we're under observation. Period.