I think Mick tried to explain that the object itself is not rotating in the Gimbal video, but the ATFLIR is causing it. Heres the video, if youre intrested.
I have two major problems with his attempt to explain this footage:
1.) Neither the jet nor the target are making any dramatic course changes that we can observe or infer, so by Mick's own reasoning (and the wooden sticks that he used to demonstrate his point), the heat signature
should appear to rotate smoothly and continuously as the camera tracks the object. But it doesn't: we see
zero rotation as the ATFLIR pod tracks the object during the first half of the footage. Instead, it's steady as a rock and then suddenly rotates and stops, and then rotates and stops, in weird quick bursts. He doesn't even attempt to try to explain that, and yet that's exactly what makes the footage so interesting.
2.) If the mirror arrangement inside the ATFLIR pod routinely produced these kinds of weird, sudden rotations in the IR glare, then the pilot would be familiar with that, and he wouldn't exclaim: "Look at that thing - it's rotating!" Mick West seems to think that the pilot of a $70M weapons platform had never seen an image through his $3M ATFLIR pod before, and received no training in its operation before firing up his attack jet one fine day, and therefore he had no idea that it makes everything appear to rotate in freaky little bursts that look exactly like an object suddenly rotating in the sky. But certainly those pilots know those systems far better than Mick West does, and are far more qualified to know what they're looking at when they observe targets through that system. And again - if Black Aces fighter pilots saw that footage and the uproar it's caused, then why aren't they speaking out to tell people that the Gimbal video is just an instrumentation artifact? I posit a simple explanation for that: it isn't.
Also, hearing Mick West suggest that the title of the video supports his hypothesis - that the Gimbal video was named "Gimbal" because it's an artifact of a gimbal inside of the cutting-edge $3M Raytheon AN/ASQ-228 ATFLIR targeting pod, is a flagrant example of confirmation bias at work. It's far more likely that the video is called "Gimbal" because the goddamn object appears to rotate around a single axis....
just like a gimbal. He doesn't even mention that this explanation for the name is at least as logical as his own.
Yep! … Keith Basterfield is a sceptic, and James Oberg is a debunker. … guess which one I admire and respect, and which one I used to constantly deride on other sites until I realised it was like flogging a dead horse?
Cheers Buddy.
It's funny you should say that - I reached the same conclusion last year after debating with Robert Schaeffer and KKKorff and Mick West in facebook groups last year. The first two cowered from an honest debate every time, and Mick West would keep moving the goal posts while refusing to entertain the possibility that any of his interpretations might be incorrect. So really these people have no interest in an honest debate; they only participate in order to preach the gospel of disbelief, like the atheistic equivalent of a Jehovah's Witness who comes to your door to infect your mind with a banal delusion.
So I've been ignoring them, and enjoying much more productive conversations with people who are honestly looking for answers. But every once in awhile one of my friends on facebook gets annoyed with a patronizing post from one of the pseudoskeptics, and writes to ask me to respond to it. Apparently some of my friends agree with my logic regarding these topics, and they get a kick out of my "take no prisoners" debunking of the debunkers. It would seem discourteous to refuse such a request. And besides, it's a fun way to blow off some steam =)