Spaceman spiff
Noble
Astronomer Phil Plait seems to be like Sean Carroll on any issue like this, hes been blocking some people on twitter that have simply offered counter arguments.
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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.
And yes if these videos were just by themselves without context, theyre not that impressive. But they arent. Theyve been now revealed as showing real unindentified phenomena, with multiple witnesses and other data. We cant simply throw the other things around them away and call them solved.
So what did they witness in the east or west coasts? UAP or just your regular planes, or seagulls, or balloons like Mick says? Only way to make sense of it in Micks way is to claim that either a huge mess of errors, glitches and baffling incompetence happened all at once in two cases and in their aftermaths(or as Skeptic Magazine snidely put it " a comedy of errors"), or that theres a conspiracy going on and all these pilots and other people have been coerced into it and are lying for whatever reason.
What we need is real Flir experts or people very familiar with them looking at these videos. Theres one guy already called Dave Falch and he has said these videos and the objects they depict are strange.
In a second attempt, I looked in Mick's video, this time more carefully :-(.
It's really strange, one can find arguments for both solid object and glare. What Mick did, he took into account maybe 5 out of 15 parameters that are at play. Another thing is that there are many "unknown knowns" which have a huge bearing on the conclusion, like movements of aircraft and distance to the object.
But it is really strange that "UFO" turned 90º exactly when that top-middle parameter had reached 0º L. Mick says that was because of the gimbal lock. On one hand that's correct, but "UFO" continued moving relative to the clouds in the background. That could be both because plane's and object's own movement. If object was 40 miles away that relative movement would be negligible if the object was 2 miles away it would be huge.
But a big one is that when top-middle dial gets to "0º L" the object continues moving to the left relative to the background. If "0º L" means that the axis of the gimbal is aligned with the axis of the plane, then all relative lateral motion of the object should have stopped. it's the same as when you are driving on a straight motorway towards a distant bridge, clouds in the background behind that bridge should not be moving relative to the bridge. Because the "UFO" object is moving relative to the background it can only mean that object has it's own independent motion. And if the object has it's own independent motion at the exact moment when the nose of the plane is on it, then object is not a glare.
But it's not clear what "0º L" means and could gimbal go pass that point, so it's unknown known.
Micks arguing with Chris Mellon now on twitter. He basically claims the experts that looked at this data all have a pro UFO confirmation bias and cant be trusted. That or are just mistaken probably.
Right and you ofc have no bias at all, Mick?
Right and you ofc have no bias at all, Mick?
This is exactly why I have zero respect for the cult of pseudoskeptics - I just had this debate about his gimbal lock hypothesis yesterday, and proved that it collapses on the basis of his own argument. And here he is today, blithely parroting the same argument as if it never happened. Here's how the debate went on facebook yesterday:
Mick West: Thomas Randolph Morrison Well, it would be great if Chad Underwood could clarify what he meant. In his interview, he seems to blur the line between what he saw, and what he's heard since them.
If someone could put me in contact with him, I'd love to delve into the details.
The sudden rotations in the GIMBAL video are gimbal lock (or gimbal "singularity") corrections. It's not smooth because there's a separate mechanism to do this that only comes into play around 3°. It's described in the patents, along with the derotation mechanism. See: Gimbal Lock and Derotation in FLIR/ATFLIR systems
View attachment 9600
Thomas Randolph Morrison: Mick West - You said: "Well, it would be great if Chad Underwood could clarify what he meant. In his interview, he seems to blur the line between what he saw, and what he's heard since them."
Yes it would be good to hear more specifics. But I think it's clear from his own words that it was the erratic "changes in altitude, air speed and aspect" that he said "caught my eye," indicating that he saw these maneuvers on his monitor:
“"The thing that stood out to me the most was how erratic it was behaving. And what I mean by “erratic” is that its changes in altitude, air speed, and aspect were just unlike things that I’ve ever encountered before flying against other air targets. It was just behaving in ways that aren’t physically normal. That’s what caught my eye.”
We don't know if he was aware of the object suddenly dropping down from 80K feet via the radar operator on the day of the intercept, or if he learned about it after his encounter. But that point doesn't call into question the salient details of his observations during the intercept that yielded the clip we've seen.
You said: "The sudden rotations in the GIMBAL video are gimbal lock (or gimbal "singularity") corrections. It's not smooth because there's a separate mechanism to do this that only comes into play around 3°. It's described in the patents, along with the derotation mechanism."
Stating a hypothesis as a fact doesn't help your case; it only indicates that you've convinced yourself (and your minions) that you're correct. If you were intellectually honest, you'd say "the sudden rotations could be gimbal lock corrections," not "are gimbal lock...corrections."
On the one hand, you may have a point, because the rotations do happen as the nose of the pilot's jet is more or less pointing toward the object.
But on the other hand, the nose of the jet smoothly swings past the object and yet the rotations happen in sudden and discrete bursts. I count five rotations, in fact, as the jet turns toward and then past the object:
14 deg L to 13 deg L - rotate and stop
7 deg L to 6 deg L - rotate and stop
3 deg L to 2 deg L - rotate and stop
2 deg L to 2 deg R - the field of view rotates
5 deg R to 6 deg right - final rotation and stop
Your hypothesis seems to explain the rotation of the horizon line quite nicely as the relative L-R angle to the target swings from 2 deg L to 2 deg R. But your hypothesis doesn't explain the three discrete rotate-and-stop motions that occur well beyond the 3-degree range that you cited from the patent - so by your own argument those rotations can't be explained via your hypothesis because they happen well beyond the 3-degree range that we see cited in the patent. And frankly the third rotation of the image from 3 deg L to 2 deg L also appears to be of the same nature as the other three rotations, rather than an imaging artifact like the rotation of the horizon line as the nose of the jet swings from 2 deg L to 2 deg R. In fact, as best as I can tell, the object doesn't appear to rotate at all as the horizon line is rotating. So your hypothesis seems to explain only the rotation of the field of view as the nose swings from 2 deg L to 2 deg R, and doesn't explain the apparent rotation of the object itself, which happens independently during the four discrete intervals of interest.
I tried to find Lacy G. Cook's email address (the inventor cited on that patent) online to ask him about this, but I had no luck. I wish that a Raytheon ATFLIR expert would come forward to talk about this footage.
But if these kinds of sudden and discrete rotations are indeed an artifact of the Raytheon ATFLIR targeting pod imaging systems, then you shouldn't have much trouble showing us another example of this. All of the IR glare rotations that I've seen in FLIR videos were smooth and continuous. So let's see it Mick.
Btw here's the full patent, which may or not be applicable to this case, and which may or may not help us understand the five discrete rotations that we see in the video:
US9121758B2 - Four-axis gimbaled airborne sensor having a second coelostat mirror to rotate about a third axis substantially perpendicular to both first and second axes - Google Patents
Mick West: The horizon rotating and the light pattern rotating are different things. The horizon rotating is not because of the gimbal correction, it's because the jet (the one taking the video) has changed its bank angle.
Thomas Randolph Morrison: I know that the rotation of the image and the rotation of the horizon are two different things, which is why I listed them separately. I just thought that your hypothesis was kinda nifty and I was hoping that it could explain *something* about that footage. Because 3 out of 4 of the noteworthy rotations happen well beyond the 3-degree range that you cited, so clearly your hypothesis doesn't explain the rotations of interest.
Therefore that footage remains unexplained and anomalous...an assessment that the DoD also shares. If somebody can find another example of those kinds of brief and discrete rotations of a target seen through that type of ATFLIR system, then I could be convinced that these kinds of rotations are an imaging system artifact and not a physical rotation of an unidentified object in the sky.
In the meantime I think you need to re-evaluate the likelihood of extraterrestrial civilizations sending probes and other craft to surveil the Earth. Because given what we now know about astrophysics and astrobiology and the prospects for gravitational field propulsion technology to enable hyperfast interstellar transit, the most likely scenario is that advanced technological life is common throughout the galaxies, and the distances between star systems only seem like an obstacle to human civilization because we're only a century or two into the advanced technology era. Most star systems similar to our own have a 2-3 billion-year head start on us, so trekking across a few light-years to have a closer look at a lush living world like our own is probably no more difficult for most civilizations than a trip to the grocery store is for us.
Prevalence of Sun-like stars (Yellow Dwarf Stars): 10%
Different Types of Stars in the Universe
Prevalence of rocky Earth-like exoplanets orbiting in the HZ of Sun-like stars: 22%
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1311.6806.pdf
The composition of other Earth-like worlds will closely match that our planet:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1512.08827.pdf
Atmospheric compositions of Earth-like worlds will be similar to our own planet:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1606.01103
A very conservative estimate for the prevalence of technological species arising in the universe: 10 billion
“A New Empirical Constraint on the Prevalence of Technological Species in the Universe,” A. Frank & W. T. Sullivan III, Astrobiology, 2016
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1510/1510.08837.pdf
The latest analyses of the exoplanetary data indicate that at least 2-3 billion Earth-like worlds are orbiting in the HZs of Sun-like stars within our galaxy alone, and the age of these worlds is on average 2-3 billion years older than our planet. So if sentient life arises on only one in a million planets like our own, then there are at least 2-3000 advanced technological civilizations in our galaxy, which are on average billions of years ahead of us.
Given this data, we should be expecting fairly common airspace intrusions from civilizations far more advanced than our own. Therefore, the stance that "any explanation is more probable than the ETH" is predicated on false assumptions and an erroneous understanding of modern scientific knowledge.
As you can see, his gimbal lock hypothesis fails because 3 out of the four rotations of interest happen well beyond the 3-degree gimbal lock singularity. In fact the object itself doesn't seem to rotate at all as the target shifts from 2 degrees left to 2 degrees right, relative to the jet, as the plane banks to the left causing the horizon line to rotate. So his hypothesis explains *nothing* about that footage.
Here's the footage so you can see for yourself. The L-R orientation of the target relative to the jet is at the top center of the display underneath the "IR" indicator:
You should post that on the comments of his videos, or on /UFO reddit, theres a thread now in there with Mellon vs Mick. Even if he doesnt want to take it on, at least other people can see the holes then.
I wouldnt celebrate yet. I may be a bit cynical, but ive seen that alot of times when something seems too good in life or Ufology, it probably is. Usually something happens or comes along soon that just sets everything back or ruins the party. Like the damn virus.
Im hoping im wrong.
I understand your reticence, but they can never put this genie back into the bottle. The DoD has officially admitted that UAP are real, and routinely violating US airspace with impunity, and they take these intrusions very seriously.I wouldnt celebrate yet. I may be a bit cynical, but ive seen that alot of times when something seems too good in life or Ufology, it probably is. Usually something happens or comes along soon that just sets everything back or ruins the party. Like the damn virus.
Im hoping im wrong.
I understand your reticence, but they can never put this genie back into the bottle. The DoD has officially admitted that UAP are real, and routinely violating US airspace with impunity, and they take these intrusions very seriously.
No matter what they say next, these statements which carry the full weight of the DoD, can't be denied or redacted: they're now a matter of public record and we'll always be able to point to these statements as official confirmation of the reality of UAP.
Hi Thomas, I was just wondering if your grandfather might have been thinking the same thing 73 years ago?I understand your reticence, but they can never put this genie back into the bottle. The DoD has officially admitted that UAP are real, and routinely violating US airspace with impunity, and they take these intrusions very seriously.
No matter what they say next, these statements which carry the full weight of the DoD, can't be denied or redacted: they're now a matter of public record and we'll always be able to point to these statements as official confirmation of the reality of UAP.
And if someone likes to watch, heres Mick again explaining why hes right and everyone else who were there when it happened is wrong, of course.
This is exactly why I have zero respect for the cult of pseudoskeptics - I just had this debate about his gimbal lock hypothesis yesterday, and proved that it collapses on the basis of his own argument. And here he is today, blithely parroting the same argument as if it never happened. Here's how the debate went on facebook yesterday:
Mick West: Thomas Randolph Morrison Well, it would be great if Chad Underwood could clarify what he meant. In his interview, he seems to blur the line between what he saw, and what he's heard since them.
If someone could put me in contact with him, I'd love to delve into the details.
The sudden rotations in the GIMBAL video are gimbal lock (or gimbal "singularity") corrections. It's not smooth because there's a separate mechanism to do this that only comes into play around 3°. It's described in the patents, along with the derotation mechanism. See: Gimbal Lock and Derotation in FLIR/ATFLIR systems
View attachment 9600
Thomas Randolph Morrison: Mick West - You said: "Well, it would be great if Chad Underwood could clarify what he meant. In his interview, he seems to blur the line between what he saw, and what he's heard since them."
Yes it would be good to hear more specifics. But I think it's clear from his own words that it was the erratic "changes in altitude, air speed and aspect" that he said "caught my eye," indicating that he saw these maneuvers on his monitor:
“"The thing that stood out to me the most was how erratic it was behaving. And what I mean by “erratic” is that its changes in altitude, air speed, and aspect were just unlike things that I’ve ever encountered before flying against other air targets. It was just behaving in ways that aren’t physically normal. That’s what caught my eye.”
We don't know if he was aware of the object suddenly dropping down from 80K feet via the radar operator on the day of the intercept, or if he learned about it after his encounter. But that point doesn't call into question the salient details of his observations during the intercept that yielded the clip we've seen.
You said: "The sudden rotations in the GIMBAL video are gimbal lock (or gimbal "singularity") corrections. It's not smooth because there's a separate mechanism to do this that only comes into play around 3°. It's described in the patents, along with the derotation mechanism."
Stating a hypothesis as a fact doesn't help your case; it only indicates that you've convinced yourself (and your minions) that you're correct. If you were intellectually honest, you'd say "the sudden rotations could be gimbal lock corrections," not "are gimbal lock...corrections."
On the one hand, you may have a point, because the rotations do happen as the nose of the pilot's jet is more or less pointing toward the object.
But on the other hand, the nose of the jet smoothly swings past the object and yet the rotations happen in sudden and discrete bursts. I count five rotations, in fact, as the jet turns toward and then past the object:
14 deg L to 13 deg L - rotate and stop
7 deg L to 6 deg L - rotate and stop
3 deg L to 2 deg L - rotate and stop
2 deg L to 2 deg R - the field of view rotates
5 deg R to 6 deg right - final rotation and stop
Your hypothesis seems to explain the rotation of the horizon line quite nicely as the relative L-R angle to the target swings from 2 deg L to 2 deg R. But your hypothesis doesn't explain the three discrete rotate-and-stop motions that occur well beyond the 3-degree range that you cited from the patent - so by your own argument those rotations can't be explained via your hypothesis because they happen well beyond the 3-degree range that we see cited in the patent. And frankly the third rotation of the image from 3 deg L to 2 deg L also appears to be of the same nature as the other three rotations, rather than an imaging artifact like the rotation of the horizon line as the nose of the jet swings from 2 deg L to 2 deg R. In fact, as best as I can tell, the object doesn't appear to rotate at all as the horizon line is rotating. So your hypothesis seems to explain only the rotation of the field of view as the nose swings from 2 deg L to 2 deg R, and doesn't explain the apparent rotation of the object itself, which happens independently during the four discrete intervals of interest.
I tried to find Lacy G. Cook's email address (the inventor cited on that patent) online to ask him about this, but I had no luck. I wish that a Raytheon ATFLIR expert would come forward to talk about this footage.
But if these kinds of sudden and discrete rotations are indeed an artifact of the Raytheon ATFLIR targeting pod imaging systems, then you shouldn't have much trouble showing us another example of this. All of the IR glare rotations that I've seen in FLIR videos were smooth and continuous. So let's see it Mick.
Btw here's the full patent, which may or not be applicable to this case, and which may or may not help us understand the five discrete rotations that we see in the video:
US9121758B2 - Four-axis gimbaled airborne sensor having a second coelostat mirror to rotate about a third axis substantially perpendicular to both first and second axes - Google Patents
Mick West: The horizon rotating and the light pattern rotating are different things. The horizon rotating is not because of the gimbal correction, it's because the jet (the one taking the video) has changed its bank angle.
Thomas Randolph Morrison: I know that the rotation of the image and the rotation of the horizon are two different things, which is why I listed them separately. I just thought that your hypothesis was kinda nifty and I was hoping that it could explain *something* about that footage. Because 3 out of 4 of the noteworthy rotations happen well beyond the 3-degree range that you cited, so clearly your hypothesis doesn't explain the rotations of interest.
Therefore that footage remains unexplained and anomalous...an assessment that the DoD also shares. If somebody can find another example of those kinds of brief and discrete rotations of a target seen through that type of ATFLIR system, then I could be convinced that these kinds of rotations are an imaging system artifact and not a physical rotation of an unidentified object in the sky.
In the meantime I think you need to re-evaluate the likelihood of extraterrestrial civilizations sending probes and other craft to surveil the Earth. Because given what we now know about astrophysics and astrobiology and the prospects for gravitational field propulsion technology to enable hyperfast interstellar transit, the most likely scenario is that advanced technological life is common throughout the galaxies, and the distances between star systems only seem like an obstacle to human civilization because we're only a century or two into the advanced technology era. Most star systems similar to our own have a 2-3 billion-year head start on us, so trekking across a few light-years to have a closer look at a lush living world like our own is probably no more difficult for most civilizations than a trip to the grocery store is for us.
Prevalence of Sun-like stars (Yellow Dwarf Stars): 10%
Different Types of Stars in the Universe
Prevalence of rocky Earth-like exoplanets orbiting in the HZ of Sun-like stars: 22%
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1311.6806.pdf
The composition of other Earth-like worlds will closely match that our planet:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1512.08827.pdf
Atmospheric compositions of Earth-like worlds will be similar to our own planet:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1606.01103
A very conservative estimate for the prevalence of technological species arising in the universe: 10 billion
“A New Empirical Constraint on the Prevalence of Technological Species in the Universe,” A. Frank & W. T. Sullivan III, Astrobiology, 2016
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1510/1510.08837.pdf
The latest analyses of the exoplanetary data indicate that at least 2-3 billion Earth-like worlds are orbiting in the HZs of Sun-like stars within our galaxy alone, and the age of these worlds is on average 2-3 billion years older than our planet. So if sentient life arises on only one in a million planets like our own, then there are at least 2-3000 advanced technological civilizations in our galaxy, which are on average billions of years ahead of us.
Given this data, we should be expecting fairly common airspace intrusions from civilizations far more advanced than our own. Therefore, the stance that "any explanation is more probable than the ETH" is predicated on false assumptions and an erroneous understanding of modern scientific knowledge.
As you can see, his gimbal lock hypothesis fails because 3 out of the 4 rotations of interest happen well beyond the 3-degree gimbal lock singularity. In fact the object itself doesn't seem to rotate at all as the target shifts from 2 degrees left to 2 degrees right, relative to the jet, as the plane banks to the left causing the horizon line to rotate. So his hypothesis explains *nothing* about that footage.
Here's the footage so you can see for yourself. The L-R orientation of the target relative to the jet is at the top center of the display underneath the "IR" indicator: