[itsanaccount]

Since we all know what this is actually commenting on, I'll answer that directly. The noise on the UFO topic has reached a massed hysteria pitch. When that happens, the overall signal to noise ratio of internet sourced sightings goes from "very poor" to "nearly invisible." I blame a lot of that on the recent congressional hearings bringing stories to the public's front of mind.

But. And I think its a very very important but, these sightings of phenomena go back decades, and just because the public at large is not a reliable reporter, does mean there are not many, many kernels of truth of an unexplained, repeated phenomena.

And otherwise you can always, always be skeptical, but at what point does skepticism stretch into denial?

IR cameras recording rocket impacts aren't mass hysteria. 2011 https://old.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1gsdwl6/full_10_minut...

^ maybe those are targeting drones and the rocket missed. but then why are they dripping?

2 days ago: https://old.reddit.com/r/InterdimensionalNHI/comments/1hfkcg...

^ maybe those are targeting flares, and thats why they're dripping, but if they're flares why does the second one seem to fly away when the first is struck?

meanwhile 7 days ago https://old.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1hcfaqw/glowing_orb_f...

^ maybe thats just a commercial drone modified to be super bright. But why fly it there, as a hoax? (so, so many orb videos to repeat this logic with, you get the idea.)

If you're interested in finding more, you need to get very used to seeing lots of balloons, planes, commercial drones, planets, stars, satellites, flares, skydivers, lens flare, insects and birds and there's common examples of all of them. The ones we should be interested in are usually uniformly luminous, follow non linear flight paths, exhibit extraordinary acceleration (for which you need size to estimate distance which is tough with only one camera), and/or exhibit extraordinary altitude. Whether they're controlled by a non-human intelligence or some government, they do exist and are super interesting to watch. You're just gonna have to wade through an absolute mountain of bullshit.

[ceejayoz]

> maybe those are targeting drones and the rocket missed. but then why are they dripping?

They're balloons carrying flares for target practice. You can see lots of falling embers in https://youtu.be/XHDXk9THJZM?si=CKSBB3AuslBizXxh&t=179 from a military flare.

> if they're flares why does the second one seem to fly away when the first is struck?

Because that's the maneuvering target drone (something like a QF-16, probably; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting...) that's dropping the flares.

> maybe thats just a commercial drone modified to be super bright. But why fly it there, as a hoax?

Asked and answered. We live in a world where "flashlight enthusiast" is a real niche thing; "bright drone" is not an implausible thing. https://www.reddit.com/r/flashlight/

[itsanaccount]

And what I'm saying is I understand that perspective. I think you can do that song and dance going back 80 years. You can watch all these people, all these witnesses, all these videos and pictures (and a complete and stunning absence of military radar data) and you can explain to them, each and every single one of them how they're wrong, how its swamp gas reflected off Venus, and in each individual case you might be right. When the video gets too good you can blame it on computer generated graphics.

But that doesn't match my experience, of pilots, of lifetime military officers, of people as a whole, that they're all incompetent or crazy or hoaxers. At some point I think that level of myopic-skepticism moves towards the absurd and cannot be maintained any longer.

[ceejayoz]

Being competent in one thing doesn't make you competent in everything.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease

Each of the videos you linked to have extremely plausible, fairly mundane explanations other than "aliens". That fits the pattern. That you find them compelling as evidence of extraterrestrials is not a great sign.

> When the video gets too good you can blame it on computer generated graphics.

The corollary here is the unfortunate fact that as soon as everyone got a camera in their pocket, aliens stopped landing in random cornfields to say hi to lonely farmers.

[itsanaccount]

> That you find them compelling as evidence of extraterrestrials is not a great sign.

That I post here a few easily accessible videos of interest on what is an enormous history that I have spent the past few years reading about tells me more about the lack of respect you immediately have for anyone on the topic.

> to lonely farmers.

That the public's UFO hysteria of the 1940s and 50s was originated entirely within the US military is similarly a fact of history I wouldn't expect you to know.

I think the thing watching the UFO topic has taught more more than any other is how aggressively and reflexively people of all levels of intelligence will hug their worldview.

[ceejayoz]

Respect is earned. If I claim to be able to fly, and send you several links to me flying that are easily explicable, conclusions can be drawn.

> That the public's UFO hysteria of the 1940s and 50s was originated entirely within the US military is similarly a fact of history I wouldn't expect you to know.

The 1940s military had a hell of a lot of former farmers in it. The days of fighter pilots needing college degrees came in the 70s/80s; Chuck Yeager was a farm (!) kid who became a mechanic with the war.

That the UFO hysteria coincides with the rise of commercial air travel is both known to me and entirely unsurprising, and no more compelling to me than witch hysteria in the 1600s, which often came with similarly compelling witness testimony.

[Aloisius]

> pilots, of lifetime military officers, of people as a whole, that they're all incompetent or crazy or hoaxers.

You don't have to be incompetent, crazy or a hoaxer to be confused, fooled or mistaken.

[ceejayoz]

Or "haven't slept in 24 hours taking amphetamines to stay awake in combat". https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7661838/

[montjoy]

I’ve come to few conclusions about this recently.

1. Most people will never believe in UFOs until they see one for themselves in an unambiguous way or hear a report from someone in person that they believe is credible. There is too much stigma around this topic.

2. There is a very large amount, probably 1000s records, of credible and consistent evidence out there. However 99% of it is circumstantial and will never be viewed by the public at large.

3. The military, after years of reporting and chasing, can’t be bothered investigating anymore. This seems to be cyclical.

4. A culture/civilization/whatever that has these kind of technologies would have immense power if they wanted it. It’s just too terrifying to believe in, especially if we don’t know what they want.

[itsanaccount]

I think you're right on all points, though I don't find the concept of a higher technological power terrifying. If they? it? wanted to harm us they could/would.

I make my posts about the subject on the idea that its important for people to have some warning, that its not something to dismiss, so they aren't surprised if/when something happens in our life time. For those who don't have the hobby of reading through those thousands of credible reports.

Not that I have any idea what I'm looking at, I don't think anymore than any ape on this planet. But those orbs exist and do very weird things, and probably have for a very long time, and isn't that neat.

[montjoy]

> If they? it? wanted to harm us they could/would.

But how do we know they aren’t doing harm in subtle ways? Thus I’m embracing cognitive dissonance. I think the evidence points to something but I refuse to decide it’s real.