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Every single data point in isolation can be ridiculated and twisted in many ways and this is what Mick West is doing. it is another story when you have series of multiple data points through long timeline with recurring patterns and have to make sense of them. UAPs are raported since at least WWII (foo figters), some accounts are traced even to ancient times.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autokinetic_effect?wprov=sfla1

That may explain some of the sightings. That article specifically mentions foo fighters in the context of night flying. Were foo fighters seen during the day too? (I haven't researched them at all)

EDIT: Actually the foo fighters wiki article is pretty even handed I think: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo_fighter?wprov=sfla1

Do you mean tictac and go fast videos ? Many military personnel, ex f35 pilots and other researchers had validated Ryan Graves and David Fravor claims and the footage - they aren't part of US technology. They had debunked Mick west skewed analysis and they are more credible than him . He never had flied a fighter jet he is a game programmer totally different areas of expertise

Being a retired pilot doesn't make you an expert on quirks in very high tech camera systems either or provide some natural credibility that blurry phenomenon in the sky are credible evidence of anything.

It wasn’t only video. The reason the planes were scrambled in the first place was because of hits from the ship’s radar. The planes also saw them on radar. The pilots also made visual contact, and testified under oath before Congress as to what they saw.

I’m sorry, but West is not convincing. He has a predetermined outcome in mind, namely, that there is nothing but man-made vehicles in the sky, and that there is zero chance for it to be anything else. Ever.

This conclusion does not match the evidence, and symbolizes a tragic incuriosity about the possibilities the universe holds.

> It wasn’t only video. The reason the planes were scrambled in the first place was because of hits from the ship’s radar. The planes also saw them on radar. The pilots also made visual contact, and testified under oath before Congress as to what they saw.

Unfortunately eyewitness testimony (even from trained pilots) is notoriously unreliable, and none of the other supposed evidence seems to be available for analysis.

Mick doesn't seem to shy away from looking at any available evidence. It's not his fault that nothing incontrovertible has shown up yet.

You're right that eyewitness testimony can be unreliable, and that the supporting evidence - multiple independent radar traces from multiple different radar systems (ship and aircraft systems are built by different manufacturers, have different sensitivies, etc.), plus the video, plus the eyewitness testimony, plus the fact that while the raw data is not available to you to analyse the people who have analysed have sworn under oath that it all corroborates each other - may not be enough to meet your arbitrary bar, but I'm prepared to accept witness testimony which says "we don't know what that was, and perhaps we should figure that out some more", rather than your claim that because you can't independently verify it, we shouldn't figure out what it was because a guy on youtube can explain one single aspect of that evidence in a way that doesn't actually align with the entire scenario.

You’re going to need a lot more than video analysis and a handful of unverifiable eyewitness testimony (humans are famously fallible) to claim discovery of extra-terrestrial life.

Is anyone serious actually claiming extraterrestrial life is the main concern? My understanding is that the leading concern is some terrestrial military capability we don’t fully understand, but that could pose a military threat to US assets. The goal is to rule that out and then you can worry about aliens afterwards.

Unexplained phenomena as secret military tech is not controversial and never has been. It even meshes well with government denials -- of course, if it's an F-117 test during the Cold War or whatever.

People have been using this to imply ETs, even in this comments section, and it seems disingenuous to me to pretend otherwise or act surprised.

Since forever, the rational explanations for Groom Lake phenomena and similar, after filtering the obvious "bunch of liars trying to sell books", has been "top secret military tech" or "meteorological phenomena". Where's the news in that?

The news is that the US military is acting very much like they aren’t responsible for recent sightings, and they’re as interested in finding the source as the UFO enthusiasts are. A non-US military with advanced, unexplainable military capabilities (on US soil!) is every bit as interesting a story as actual ETs are.

A non-US actor would be interesting indeed, and it's also more likely than ETs.

However, let me point out that this:

> The news is that the US military is acting very much like they aren’t responsible for recent sightings

... has multiple prosaic interpretations that are also relatively likely. To name a few:

- "The news" is not the US military. You have at least one level of indirection there.

- The US military saying something doesn't make it what they truly believe. Disinformation is a real military thing. Even disinformation aimed at a third party (e.g. rival nations who could believe the US military is asking its own population [things]).

- Inter-agency rivalry is a thing. Top secret projects may not be known to everyone within a military.

- Drones are now widespread, so the US military encouraging the usual UFO believers to be on the lookout may help them spot actual threats. It doesn't have to be anything physics-defying, just true unidentified flying objects.

- Finally, though less likely in my opinion, it could be the US military believes in UAPs of physics-defying or even ET origin, but it's just another case of Men Staring at Goats. I mean, in their history they have believed all sorts of kooky things with zero backing evidence.

The recent interest in UAP phenomena goes well past the news media and has resulted in multiple Congressional hearings and an entirely new DoD office. You’re absolutely right that disinformation and internal confusion are all good explanations for what’s going on now; with that said, if the historical explanation was “the US military covering up its own test aircraft by discrediting witnesses with UFO rumors” it’s a little hard to explain the sudden shift in strategy.

> it’s a little hard to explain the sudden shift in strategy

Not really. Adversaries have caught up, with stealthy aircraft and drones.

We’re in the “huh, what was that?!” spot the Russians and Chinese and Syrians and whatnot are quite used to being in.

Nobody saying little green man here. Do you actually think you don't have life outside of US?

Not any life that violates the known laws of physics.

Some people in this comments section are implying ETs. Let's be honest here.

Nobody in official doc is saying it's evidence of ET life.

In fact, while evidence of intelligent ET life visiting this planet would be shocking to us a species philosophically, theologically and scientifically, it would in any many ways be better than the hypothesis they are actually trying to prove/disprove:

That an adversary has an advanced aircraft that can outrun allied aircraft with ease, and can embed itself into restricted airspace easily, at will, and we don't know what the intentions are.

This isn't an experiment in finding ET. This is an experiment in defending national and international airspace from an unknown phenomenon that could be a threat.

People hand-waving away the explorations of this stuff has done more harm to national and international security than any other train of thought from the scientific community. We're meant to be interested in learning new things, not just finding things that fit our existing models - especially when that new thing could be a weapon from some unknown adversary.

Consider the madness of a Chinese weather balloon not too long ago - why is this somehow not as important?

I feel like people will take the "UAP are real" comment completely out of context. They're only saying that "things exist that we can't (yet) explain", which we already knew to be the case. And if there were in fact footage from a short enough distance to see things clearly, then we'd already know what it is.

In other words, nobody (credible) is claiming that aliens or anything of the sort exist.

Unfortunately some people in this comments section are implying precisely that.

And unfortunately, yet more people seem to not understand -- surprisingly, in a forum such as HN -- that "things exist that we cannot yet understand" is completely normal for science and it has been since humans engaged in science as a way of understanding more about the universe.

"We don't understand this sensor data yet" is completely normal for science, it's not some shameful failure that must be covered up, the sure evidence that our models about everything are crumbling and secret 3 letter agencies must become involved to make sure Western civilization doesn't collapse.

Geez.

> Unfortunately some people in this comments section are implying precisely that.

I do not see anyone, let alone multiple people, making that claim. Can you link to one?

Easy peasy!

Here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42160277

And you here, though disguised so you have the easy way out of claiming you were just hypthesizing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42160930

Plus, if you are going to claim the two aren't conflated in general, i.e. that most conversations about UFOs are also about ETs, then I'll peg you for a dishonest person and will have nothing further to discuss with you.

I know you find it impossible to believe, but not everyone needs is as closed minded as that. I believe there is something going on worthy of the investigation. People like yourself inevitably jump to “lol you believe in aliens lol let me mock you”, when no such claim is or has been made.

And then you call them a liar.

So you can conflate all you like, and will, but that’s your problem. There is no evidence as to the source for UAPs, interplanetary or otherwise.

I do not know what is going on, and make zero claims that I do. The one and only claim I make is that something is going on, but what that exactly is is now.

You, on the other hand, can read minds.

That’s the more fantastical claim.

West believes strongly that all reported phenomena will eventually be determined to have a prosaic cause. Further, ridicule and a discouragement of curiosity on the subject are of tantamount importance.

Neil deGrasse Tyson is similar. They both approach the subject with a very unscientific, bad faith attitude.

I disagree with them both. I have experienced something that I do not believe has a prosaic explanation. Further, I do not believe that relativity is the end of physics as Tyson or west so strongly imply.

Curiosity in this subject should be encouraged, not ridiculed.

> I have experienced something that I do not believe has a prosaic explanation.

Many people have. I have a friend who credits God for helping her find the perfect pair of shoes for her wedding.

The range of what can be explained by a prosaic explanation is wider than most people like to admit.

how do you know He didn’t?

"God helped me find the perfect pair of shoes" is an untestable, unscientific claim.

Whether you believe or not in god (and that he will busy himself with finding shoes for you), everyone will agree this is firmly outside the realm of science. So if we're writing this kind of assertions in a conversation about UAPs/ETs, what does this say about the latter?

I don't think proponents of UAPs (especially UAPs-as-ETs) want them to be put side by side with "Jesus speaks to me".

Jesus doesn’t show up on radar.

Unfortunately for you I was responding to "how do you know [God] didn't help with finding your shoes?", so your statement reads like a non sequitur.

Sounds like a you problem.

I replied to something about God (that it's best not to conflate him with discussions about hard evidence for UAPs and/or ETs), you replied with a complete non sequitur and it's my problem? How, exactly?

I prefer not to believe in a deity that assists with shoe selection but not childhood cancer.

  >His reconstructions make it clear that these phenomena result from properties of the optical system used in the sensors as well as diffusion of infrared light through miles of atmosphere.

West's analysis is a shallow one masquerading as a deep one.

From his analysis on the (suggestively named) GIMBAL video, it's clear that the only thing his reconstruction proves is that the rotation ("It's rotating!") and outline is a result of the optics platform. I take no issue with that.

The DoD's claims about extraordinary flight characteristics are not, however, based on the silhouette or the rotation. They have all the flight data from multiple aircraft and ground systems. Their conclusion is based on, at least, additional information from the Situational Awareness display ("There's a whole fleet of them, look on the SA"), the longevity of their flight time (reportedly 12+ hours per Lt. Ryan Graves), and hypersonic flight maneuvers (simultaneously observed both visually and on radar, per Cmdr. David Fravor and SCPO Kevin Day).

Low-information UFO enthusiasts are the ones who got excited about the shape and rotation (which West focuses on), but the DoD never cared about that. Even the name GIMBAL suggests that they were already aware of those confounding effects prior to public release.

Everyone interested in the topic should watch the Mick West videos, but be careful not to make more of his videos than what's actually there (ie the subset of claims he can support with reconstruction data).

I've still yet to hear anyone who insists that "these phenomena result from properties of the optical system" explain artifacts created by an optical system could also be observed visually by multiple trained pilots. When looking at all of the data, there are only two plausible conclusions one can reach. Either Cmdr. Fravor and all of the other Air Force officers are lying and in cahoots with the Navy to manufacture these events, or there is something tangible going on here that we don't understand.

> it's clear that the only thing his reconstruction proves is that the rotation ("It's rotating!") and outline is a result of the optics platform.

In addition, I've found his demonstrations of airplane bodies appearing as wingless tic-tacs in atmosphere due to light scattering, a very similar effect in which jet exhausts infrared blows out the contrast making it difficult to see any detail at distance, demonstrations of bokeh lens flare in several videos, and his speed reconstructions in simulation to be really useful. Particularly several which seemed after analysis to be mylar balloons.

The process he demonstrates for looking up aircraft flight paths, loading them into Google Earth and interpolating through them is also really useful.

I really appreciate the data-driven occams razor approach he takes to analyzing all the available evidence.

The tie back to the pilots is important. These are people with thousands of hours looking through these sensors, and yes pilots can be cranks too but the reputational risk is such that I don’t believe multiple pilots would be able to keep a secret like that. They want to keep their seats, it’s one of the best jobs in the world. I’m sure they saw _something_ unusual, but where that fits on scale of Alien ship to secret project from some government… that will remain an open question. I sure wouldn’t trust at any time the US Government was being forthcoming and honest with the American People.

I'm absolutely sick of seeing Mick West's analyses get trotted out every time some of these more concrete pieces of evidence get presented.

For one thing, he makes arguments in bad faith and with poor use of honest analysis. Consequently, many people have done a pretty thorough job of debunking his own debunking efforts (you can easily find some of these through both a YouTube or a Google search).

West takes a very classic debunker approach (not that I don't say skeptic, but debunker specifically) of prima facie deciding that the inexplicable can't possibly be the case and thus guiding all of his arguments, rather dogmatically, to showing how it isn't the case, regardless of the quality or plausibility of what he argues. It's a dishonest and tedious way to view the world, but couched in enough rational sounding discourse to seem solid.

Many people give such arguments more weight than they deserve because, well, nearly any aspect of examining the UFO phenomenon is at least associated (often very unfairly) with the most extreme of quacks and cranks and thus bias tends towards giving more weight to a seemingly skeptical interpretation, regardless of its specific qualities.

I've communicated with West on this subject even and noticed quickly that when questioned on the weaknesses of specific arguments, he simply doubles down on his base statements, but without addressing the precise counter-skepticism being thrown at him. This does not make for honest reasoning and good faith..