UK UFO files - latest batch

[IanR]

The next batch of UFO files goes live at The National Archives at midnight on Wednesday (August 10).

My Usually Reliable Sources tell me that they will contain some uncomfortable reading for Nick Pope.

Ian

[Deep Purple]

It seems strange that you may get a preview. Have data security laws been breached? perhaps you would like to confirm they havent or is this just a boyz club to smeer lawful interest in UFOs
A direct un ambigigous response would be nice.
It concerns me that you seem to have access to information already which is not in the public domain--- this may be unlawful

[Deep Purple]

Silence is golden. Read what you want to into this.
IanR does mind throwing shit, but stays quiet when it suits him ummmmmm

[IanR]

The National Archives have released the 8th tranche of Ministry of Defence UFO files (Thursday 11 August).

This collection contains 34 files containing 8,600 pages of sighting reports, press cuttings, Parliamentary correspondence and UFO Policy documents including, for the first time, several documents declassified from 'Secret.'

The files can be downloaded from the TNA UFO page along with a highlights guide, background briefing and an illustrated podcast, here:
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ufos

[webplodder]

Ian, as a matter of interest, do you think ALL cases of UFOs can be explained in conventional terms, at least in principle?

[IanR]

Ian, as a matter of interest, do you think ALL cases of UFOs can be explained in conventional terms, at least in principle?

In principle, yes. In some cases we simply don't have good enough evidence to come to any conclusion, so they have to remain unexplained. But it is certainly a defensible hypothesis that we would be able to explain all cases in conventional terms if we knew enough about them.

I have set out my views more fully here
http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/ufoindex.htm

Ian

[Frank]

But it is certainly a defensible hypothesis that we would be able to explain all cases in conventional terms if we knew enough about them.

Haha. I think you mean: But it is certainly a defensible hypothesis that we would be able to explain all cases in conventional terms if we ignore enough about them.

Like in the RFI:

This live audio recording can be explained away as stars if we completely ignore it:

LT COLONEL HALT: Three-a.m.-fifteen: Now we've got an object about ten degrees directly south...
LT COLONEL HALT: Ten degrees off the horizon, and the ones to the north are moving, one's moving away from us.
SGT BALL: Movin forward!
SGT NEVILLES: It's moving out fast!
LT COLONEL HALT: They're moving out fast.
SGT BALL: This one on the right's heading away too.
LT COLONEL HALT: Yeah, they're both heading north. Ok hey, here he comes from the south, he's coming in toward us now.
SGT BALL: Holy shit!
LT COLONEL HALT: Now were observing what appears to be a beam coming down to the ground.
SGT BALL: Look at the colours... shit
LT COLONEL HALT: This is unreal

The Blue Book investigation clearly shows that unexplainable cases are actually richer in data than the explained ones. That is exactly what makes them unexplained: They contain data that does not fit any “conventional” hypothesis. The only way to make this fit is by ignoring the data – something that is not allowed in science. I think this is the reason why most UFO skeptics are not scientists and most scientists who studied the UFO data are not skeptics.

[IanR]

I think you mean: But it is certainly a defensible hypothesis that we would be able to explain all cases in conventional terms if we ignore enough about them.

Actually I find it is the UFO believers who ignore the conventional explanations. Once you reject the explanation, any case becomes unidentified. Problem solved!

Ian

[webplodder]

But Frank, don't you accept that there may be things that exist in our atmosphere that science has not yet been able to identify that are perfectly natural, if mysterious? Why do we have to jump to the ET hypothesis?

[DaveW]

It does seem like some proponents of ufology are unwilling to except rational explanations, and would rather such reports were left unexplained just because the explanation isn't fantastical enough for them.

Assuming that most of these people were honestly reporting something that they saw, what they saw were almost certainly natural, if unfamiliar, phenomena.

The problem lies in them almost always being largely anecdoctal, and never evidential (something which gets increasingly more strange over time, as pretty much everyone now carries a camera with them nowadays). And when some people notice something in the sky, they can become irrational and unreliable witnesses - even supposedly reliable, professional pillars of the community.

Most of UFO sightings turn out to be unconventional aircraft, conventional aircraft with unusual lighting patterns, balloons, lanterns, insects, birds, planets seen under unusual atmospheric conditions, optical mirages, lenticular clouds, sundogs, meteors, and artificial satellites, and rocketry re-entries. (Or in the case of photography, any number of optical effects also come into play)

Rather than "unidentified", they are really more "misidentified".

[Frank]

Actually I find it is the UFO believers who ignore the conventional explanations. Once you reject the explanation, any case becomes unidentified. Problem solved!

Rejecting bad explanations is not what troubles me (that is what science is all about).

What troubles me is rejecting good data (in this case a live audio recording of several USAF personnel witnessing fast moving unidentified objects and a beam coming down to the ground – note that this is a live recording and not anecdotal evidence that has grown over the years).

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts.

[IanR]

What troubles me is rejecting good data (in this case a live audio recording of several USAF personnel witnessing fast moving unidentified objects and a beam coming down to the ground – note that this is a live recording and not anecdotal evidence that has grown over the years).

I can appreciate that the section of the tape you quote is the most difficult to understand for those who are unfamiliar with the ways in which celestial objects can be misidentified. I have tried to explain this as clearly as I can here -- see under the subhead Moving and Beaming onwards
http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/rendlesham3.htm
and point 14 onwards on this page
http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/halttape%20analysis2.htm

If, after having read and considered this, you still do not understand these explanations then I accept that and will try to clarify further if I can, but please do not accuse me of ignoring the data.

Ian

[webplodder]

What strikes me is that the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind had come out a few years earlier so that people would have been subject to the suggestion (albeit it at a subconscious level) that ETs were possibly visiting the earth. People are apt to interpret their experiences according to the ideas they have been exposed to at earlier occasions, especially unusual experiences. The whole event could have been exaggerated by mass hysteria. What tends to happen then is that people will rationalise what they thought they saw in order to support their belief, which colours what actually did occur.

[IanR]

What strikes me is that the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind had come out a few years earlier so that people would have been subject to the suggestion (albeit it at a subconscious level) that ETs were possibly visiting the earth.

Better than that, both the Special Edition of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and a "crashed saucer" film called Hangar 18 had been showing in Ipswich in the weeks leading up to the sightings, as pointed out by Adrian Frearson of this very Forum.

See the box headed "Coming to a forest near you..." on this page
http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/rendlesham1b.htm

Ian

[webplodder]

Yes, I think it's a bit like what happens when somebody is hypnotized. They are given suggestions which the subconscious mind absorbs so that the rational mind is bypassed. I think all the 'hype' about flying saucers about at the time may have acted in a similar way.

[Frank]

I can appreciate that the section of the tape you quote is the most difficult to understand for those who are unfamiliar with the ways in which celestial objects can be misidentified. I have tried to explain this as clearly as I can here

Twinkling stars ..? Come on, Ian, these were not six-year old boy-scouts!

These were military men that were trained in navigation. They give positions within a 5-10 degree accuracy throughout the tape (you use these directions yourself to defend the lighthouse theory). On the tape, they place the fast moving objects ‘directly north’ and ‘directly south’. The three bright stars you put forward as an explanation are in the south-west and east of north and you have to assume a mistake in their directional data to make these positions fit!

There are 5-6 people on the tape. Almost all of them have stated over the years they have seen something otherworldly. On the tape they clearly sound worried when the object from the south approaches them and when they see the beam coming down. Halt even wrote a memo about it to the MOD, putting his career on the line. Hardly something that was caused by minor effects like auto-kinesis.

Not very convincing ..

Why is it so hard for some people to call something "unidentified"? That is the only realistic conclusion in this case. Just learn to live with it..

[IanR]

Ah, the old "military/pilots/policemen wouldn't make a mistake like that" fallback, eh?

Well they can and they do, but you should see the arguments on UFO UpDates over this very issue.

Ian

[Ignis Fatuus]

Deja Vu

Col Ted Conrad
Lt Col Halt’s report of more lights both on the ground and in the sky brought quite a few people out of their houses at Woodbridge to see what was there. These people included myself, my wife, Lt Col Sawyer (the Director of Personnel), his wife, and several others listening to my radio and looking for the lights Halt was describing. Despite a sparkling, clear, cloudless, fogless night with a good field of view in all directions, we saw nothing that resembled Lt Col Halt’s descriptions either in the sky or on the ground. This episode ended in the early morning hours of [28 December 1980]

http://drdavidclarke.co.uk/secret-files/secret-files-4/
http://drdavidclarke.co.uk/2011/08/06/if-you-go-down-to-those-woods-again/
I'd rather be fooled by Stars than my own beacon light

[Ignis Fatuus]

Pssst
If Halt's Ready Made for TV story is F.O.S.....what to make of the other amazing stories that supposedly took place in the wee hours?

Such as the Airman running around with the premonition of 'they're back' and the claim from Larry's Ghost Writer that the same Airman was pinned to the ground and possibly went for a ride on the back of the beast.

If nothing was back - what was he up to? Helping validate his own 'sighting'?
Pantsing the Lt Col? Why didn't he immediately realise that Halt was in pursuit of the same Folly that he himself chased on Night 1?
Validating his parking eh.