As we have all come to expect, Tim has provided his readers with another fine edition. Again, Tim covers the latest in the world of UFOs and provides sorely needed context and rationale...poorly lacking in other venues in my opinion.
With no intentions of taking away from the rest of his articles in the current edition, Tim's article on Venus is a must read regardless if one is an opponent/proponent of UFOs.
Venus: The Debunker's Myth?
This topic comes at an appropriate time as I continue looking at the Minot 1968 incident. As most should know, Blue Book assigned a possible stellar component to their conclusions. I had mentioned before that this past October I had attempted to observe the night sky for BB's proposed stellar culprits. I came away with mixed results based on my geographical location and the local landscape. I'll elaborate in a future post.
With the above said, yes, I'm aware that Venus was not listed in BB's final conclusion, but Tim Printy's article does underscore that many observers do misidentify planets and stars as potential UFOs. To totally discount these forms of visual perceptions as a possibility of any night time observation seriously renders any investigation as flawed on its very foundation.
BTW, for the Roswell addicts, Tim has a good read in his "Roswell Corner" discussing Tony Bragalia's alien slides fiasco.
Venus is the lazy debunker's perpetual explanation. Trotting out this old chestnut convinces no intelligent person and gives the "true believers" more reason to shout about lies and cover ups.
ReplyDeleteLook. Venus is a familiar sight in the sky twice a year. It's almost as familiar as the Sun and Moon. Many people may not know it's Venus, but they know it's that star they always see in that part of the sky this time of year. It's appearance is as regular as the sun rising each day.
I'm by no means a "true believer" and lean very heavily toward the skeptical side because most cases are as full of holes as a moth-eaten sweater. But, even I find it very hard to swallow Venus as an explanation for many of the more bizarre of them.
If debunkers want to gain more traction, they need to go into recovery for their addiction to using Venus as an explanation for everything strange seen in the sky.
Thanks for your comment purrlgurrl! Hope all is well with you...I haven't seen you on the other sites in a while.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the possibilities of the mis-identification of Venus must be put in the proper context of any given case. Printy merely provided circumstances where Venus might have been the culprit.
I do agree with your over all premise. There is usually other data/facts that render an observation questionable without resorting to stellar components, but they should be taken into account and judged accordingly.
Good to hear from you!
Just taking a bit of a break from UFOs to focus on my real life. You didn't post anything for such a long time, I thought you shut down your blog. So stopped checking in. Glad to see it's still alive. There's so much crazy stuff posted about UFOs, both pro and con, it's good to know there's still sane voices out there. To quote my favorite Terminator, "I'll be back."
ReplyDeleteHey, UFOs don't pay the bills, plus I had a lot going on for the past few months...work and my daughter's wedding.
ReplyDeleteI do generally have periods of no posts, but that tends to be sanity breaks. I'll have more posts coming up, so the site not always dead, but left on auto pilot.
Tim-
ReplyDeleteA "fiasco"? I have no idea why you would say that. The investigation continues so what do you mean? Unless you are referring to Paul Kimball's disgraceful act in revealing a private email exchange and disgracing himself forevermore as untrustworthy?
AJB
Tony,
ReplyDeleteThe photos that you supposedly have access to, or knowledge of their existence, had caused a fire storm. You cannot deny that damage has been done to the reputation of numerous individuals...Kevin Randle is a good example, though he will bounce back.
Paul Kimball acted on your email out of conscience (his premise), I don't know if I'd have done the same, but Paul did it and appears to be doing quite well. But Paul did take his web site off-line due to the criticism from your supporters and other loopy out fliers...Paul paid a price in that regards and it would appear that he was willing to do so.
The above would appear to be a fiasco in my book. You can not deny that things blew up in your's and others faces...for the time being. UFOers tend to have a short memory, so the "fiasco" appears to be short-limited at this point.
Tony, some years ago, Robert Hastings taught me a valuable lesson about how private email correspondences really are...they are not, as Hastings had posted my private email conversations on a public forum in the vain attempt to ridicule me. Again, I learned a very valuable lesson.
Purrlgurrl - Nobody is saying that Venus explains all sightings. However, if you read the article, you would recognize that Venus DOES account for UFO sightings when it is visible (based on my evaluation of several databases - about 5-10%). I also demonstrated how Venus has fooled various people of the last 100 years. I think your belief in people being able to understand that it is just a planet or star is ignoring what we (UFOlogists and skeptics) know about how it is perceived by witnesses. Might I suggest you read the article before you take a negative attitude about it.
ReplyDeleteI did read the article. I'm stating that l believe that identifying something immediately unidentifiable as Venus is a lamentable knee jerk reaction on the part of far too many attempting to debunk sightings. If it was in the sky at the time, it's inevitable that someone will insist the witness was looking at Venus, even when Venus doesn't fit. I find that just as bad as claiming every light in the sky is an alien spacecraft. In so many cases there isn't enough to go on from the report to say anything cogent about the event. But both sides feel the need to rush in to claim it as their own, often with painfully tortured logic. The concept that what was reported is truly unidentifiable appears to be anathema to debunkers and believers alike.
ReplyDeleteIt's a damn shame more folks aren't familiar with what's up in the night sky. There were a couple recent newspaper articles where the UFO witnesses were clearly describing Venus, right location, time of day and so on. Jupiter can be a common culprit, Saturn a little less so, Mars is pretty small and Mercury is close to the sun and tough to spot. You're more likely to fry your retinas than you are to mistake Mercury for a UFO. Having said that, at least one of the planets is visible at some point on every clear night. Seeing the planets is not a rare astronomical incident. I have had some conversations with people who were taken aback by Sirius too. Get to know the sky, it's pretty cool. Then when you do see a UFO, you'll know it wasn't a planet. ;)
ReplyDeleteFrank, how are you? Haven't seen you on the sites in awhile. I chalked it up to the current NHL season or you were involved in a vicious cross check...
ReplyDeleteWell, perhaps you can post a similar comment on Rich Reynold's UFO Iconoclast(s) and see where that gets you. :)
Rich has been on the anti-Venus rage for the past month or so...
As always Frank, thanks for the comment which is pertinent and spot on from a fellow "looker" at the night time skies.
It seems to often take a lot less than a bright light in the sky to produce a sighting report.
ReplyDeleteI am also sceptical about Venus' responsibility in a lot of cases, but meteor showers, rocket re-entry, satellites, it's for a sceptic to find out what odd coincidences are spot-on for location and time. Once we raise these coincidences, many wont be convinced by them and sometimes there is good reason for that.
But a lot of study on the 'Venus effect' and de-orbiting satellites has been done. On top of the popular fascination with the subject, is there less room for alien space-craft yet? Or are we to ignore the painfully obvious mis-identifications that seem to be legion?
Still trying to figure out how you reach your conclusions about Rendlesham Forest. None of your explanations can account for the broad lateral movements and sometimes aerial location of the lights, reported live on Halt's tape and corroborated by witnesses. Your whole thing is that it was really just a lighthouse. How does a lighthouse fly? How does it start out being in front of you and then get behind you? How does it shoot beams of light front the sky down to the ground? And regarding Penniston, we know he was worked over by OSI, they messed with his memory, huh? Why bother doing that if he saw a lighthouse, a planet, or some other ordinary thing?
ReplyDelete