[lend000]

> Whenever an actual event occurs (meteor, explosion, and so on) we have video footage from multiple angles uploaded almost immediately.

There are a few problematic assumptions in this line of thinking: you assume the event is as dramatic as a meteor or explosion, occurs in a highly populated area, and involves no discretion on the part of the object. This is typically not the case, although you could argue that people recalling the same specific details in smaller witness groups, but across many different incidents, could constitute the same idea. Even with this in mind, I can think of a few truly mass sightings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Lights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_UFO_wave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrozavodsk_phenomenon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1561_celestial_phenomenon_over... https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29342407

And you should read these if you are interested in an account where either the Navy fabricated this weird hoax, fake data and got a squadron of pilots to lie about it very convincingly, or the whole event is real. Multiple radar, multiple pilot visuals, multiple angles.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/26/us/politics/ufo-sightings... https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/33371/here-are-the-det...

[peteretep]

> I can think of a few truly mass sightings

All of which occured before the advent of ubiquitous hand-held cameras, security camera footage, and dash-cams. Can't help but feel had these been captured we'd have found simple explanations for each, and people's memories of them would be less malleable.

Re the naval sightings, the article you've linked to says "experts emphasize that earthly explanations can generally be found for such incidents".

Most interestingly, the captioned video:

"That footage, published previously but with little context, shows an object tilting like a spinning top moving against the wind. A pilot refers to a fleet of objects, but no imagery of a fleet was released."

A kernel of truth + some imagination.

[soco]

Apparently as soon as we mass produced portable camera devices, the aliens ran away...

[BuildTheRobots]

Lack of digital footage doesn't seem incongruous. If we accept that aliens are capable of travelling vast distances to be able to visit the planet then they're capable of technology significantly advanced from where Humanity currently is. With 'magic' levels of technology, the ability to disrupt a CCD sensor doesn't seem beyond the pale.

(I don't think I actually believe aliens are here and walking amongst us, but I'm not sure I can see a lack of evidence as being evidence of them not being here either).

[krapp]

It would be ironic if the aliens were here all along but were using cloaking devices, and the UFOs people were seeing really were swamp gas, Venus, etc.

[soco]

And they gave the same technology to Nessie, Bigfoot and everybody else.

[peteretep]

Ghosts too

[godelski]

What the user above is saying is about smartphones. To give an example, with one of SpaceX's initial launches I had a bunch of friends send me photos (I was working as a rocket scientist at the time). I literally got a dozen photos. The same thing happened with an unannounced Navy missile test. I got tons of messages and Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, etc was littered with photos. All the links you listed are from the pre-cellphone era. This is fine, but not what the parent was talking about, so the response isn't great. Personally I'm not aware of a UFO phenomena that took place with the criteria the parent listed (multiple angles and recordings). But I have personally seen that criteria for claims of UFOs but in reality be explainable man made phenomena.

As to the Navy stuff Occam's razor would say that these are edge cases where the instruments fail. Having viewed these videos this seems like a reasonable explanation. Sure, it could be aliens, but sensors being wrong is an extremely common occurrence so it is a much simpler answer. Edge cases where sensors fail are also cases where human sensors are likely to fail too (this should be unsurprising if you've studied a bit of computer vision). So

> either the Navy fabricated this weird hoax, fake data and got a squadron of pilots to lie about it very convincingly, or the whole event is real

Is a false dichotomy. Sure, those are two options, but a third option is that people simply don't know what they saw but it was a natural phenomena. Ignoring that case isn't helpful to the discussion and more likely to convince people that you're a crackpot (I don't mean this in an offensive way, just trying to help you set up your argument better. I want you to have the strongest argument you can make because that's how we find answers).

[mekkkkkk]

What's interesting about the Nimitz incident is that sensor malfunction seems unlikely given that a number of different sensors placed at different ships and aircraft registered the same thing. Now, that thing was probably not an alien spacecraft, but dismissing it as a "visual artifact", "sensor malfunction" etc. seems dishonest based on what I've read about it. Something was there, and it didn't move like anything man made.

[godelski]

Is it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Le7Fqbsrrm8

[mekkkkkk]

Thanks! Those explanations seem reasonable. Certainly more reasonable than extraterrestrials. I was under the impression that the radar data that concluded insane speeds was aggregated from multiple sources. If that's not the case (as Mick seems to suggest), then I suppose it could be a radar glitch. And since the speeds and maneuvering of the object is the only thing that made it seem not man made to me, that falls too.

My point about "something was there" still stands though. I've heard other debunking comments that simply dismiss it as a video issue, and that is what grinds my gears.

[godelski]

> My point about "something was there" still stands though. I've heard other debunking comments that simply dismiss it as a video issue, and that is what grinds my gears.

Forgive me if I was a bit defensive in the before comment, but I did not make the claim that nothing was there. I made the claim that there were better explanations. It is important that we try to characterize arguments individually and not group as "them". All that leads to is frustration and fighting. I'll say it takes two to tango but we should all work on not stoking the flames. I think this is a big lesson we as a society need to learn from recent events.

[mekkkkkk]

I somehow missed the fact that you were the same person I replied to initially. That in itself is almost poetic in regard to the state of society that you allude to.

[lend000]

Also a response to the sibling comment: at a certain point you need to actually look into it yourself/read linked articles before commenting. If you look at the truly mass sightings throughout history (that I know of), most of them have occurred decades or centuries apart. It's the sheer volume of less prominent activity that compels me. I certainly hope we will eventually get one with a hundred different angles with the newest 2025 smartphone cameras. Although keep in mind even the newest iPhones can't take a great photo of a jumbo jet at cruising altitude.

And if, hypothetically, there was an intelligence, and it was intentionally being discreet, it doesn't take a lot of creativity to imagine they might be smart enough to go about their business while doing a decent job of avoiding the situation that would provide incontrovertible proof. While that seems like a cop out, so is claiming the Nimitz incident could be explained by some mysterious natural phenomena, without actually offering an explanation. If you actually put in the effort to consume all the information available on just that specific incident, it leaves little room for alternatives between the two options.

[godelski]

With the time thing, that would suggest that these events are uncommon. In that case it would be reasonable that the gov doesn't know what's going on either and that these visitors aren't here for the long hull. Of course, assuming these are visitors and not natural or man made phenomena. But I'll wait for the cell phone events. You suggest it should happen within my lifetime.

As was posted in another comment I'm going to post this video. And don't dare claim someone hasn't looked up the links and articles just because they don't agree with you. Do it if they demonstrate that they didn't (there's a big difference and the former is going to piss someone off and is against HN's good faith rules).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Le7Fqbsrrm8

[lend000]

Posting the Mick West explanation is the go-to response for critics who have done the bare minimum research. And I have to give him credit -- his explanation of parallax as it pertains to Go-Fast is compelling and probably accurate. We don't have a whole verified narrative with multiple angles/witnesses (besides the two pilots) to enrich that incident.

I'm referring to the Nimitz incident. I don't mean to offend you, but I can say confidently there is information you have yet to consume on that incident. Taken alone and with no context, the IR video isn't convincing proof of anything, and West points that out, while ignoring that there is other information. But there is more verified info from the original NYT piece that makes this case special [0]. How do you explain the fact that passive radar from the ship was tracking this object on and off for two weeks before they finally deployed a squadron to investigate it? How do you explain the fascinating pilot testimony (they had multiple angles, by the way) of the white round object flying around erratically, then mirroring their descent, then shooting off into the sky [1]? Or the fact that their primary radars were being jammed (technically an act of war)?

Any of these pieces of information taken alone could be inconclusively explained away, but as you compound them, forcing a "normal" explanation looks more and more like the Catholic church telling Galileo that the cosmos orbit around the Earth.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/26/us/politics/ufo-sightings... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ

[risk000]

Just look into crop circles on YouTube. It's plainly obvious to me anyway what is going on here.

But if a person doesn't want to see or believe, it's almost like a magical shield goes over their eyes - they simply won't see it, or won't be able to acknowledge it.

[user-the-name]

> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/26/us/politics/ufo-sightings...

This one is a great example: The video linked here has been thoroughly explained to be very dull, boring things that were misinterpreted by the people filming them.

For instance, the second video, with the supposed fast-moving object over water, is very clearly just a regular bird, plus parallax effects from filming from a moving plane.

See https://www.metabunk.org/threads/go-fast-footage-from-tom-de... for more.