Sorry for being snippy earlier today. I was in a bad mood, although that is no valid excuse.

On this video: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=377_1214130431

I think the video is so blurry, out of focus, and unsteady that it would be hard to recognise branches moving in a breeze, especially because the camera follows the object.

I sometimes try to gauge amount of wind while I'm driving (a leftover from my younger days when windsurfing was what I lived for) by looking at trees along the road, or a little further away. It's very difficult when driving 80mph, have to be lucky to see some bending treetops or branches along with something not bending as a reference. Unless it really storms of course. Trying to judge windspeeds from the blurry background in this shaky zoomed-in video seems impossible to me.

Still, the way it seems to twist and turn a little, gleaming surface, apparent dented shape, and how it floats reminds me most of one of those metallic helium balloons, like they sell in hospitals for kids.

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BTW, nice to see that my old pal Maussan is also in this clip. Ring those alarm bells when you see Mexico's leading UFO conman up there endorsing something.

Maussan had endorsed the Mexico City August 6th 1997 video.
http://www.jman5.com/mexufo.htm

Whatever silly fancy people come up with then "they" start playing into it.

It's scary how you don't realize just how illogical that is. You're simply tossing in purely conjectural theories for why the evidence points to something entirely different than what you're claiming.

There is an almost endless stream of BS fed to abduction victims.

No, you've misidentified the direction of flow.

So-called abudctees largely ignore and belittle those who suggest their experiences are not alien-abduction scenarios. There's no sign that the abductees' plight is a symptom of adverse reaction to criticism. Yet the abductees have no problem standing in front of cheering, awestruck audiences and dispensing copious amounts of unscientific, conjectural hogwash.

The FAA investigator was told to keep it quiet and the materials taken. Obviously somebody in defense is taking it seriously, kudos to them.

Oh, right; that can only ever be the reason.

Make the balloon bigger and further away. Now it is picking up speed.

How much bigger? How much farther away? How do you know? Show your work!

Yet we see no evidence of anything else waving in a stiff wind.

Making it very unparsimonious to dismiss the balloon hypothesis on the basis of conjectural exaggerations of size. A small balloon in an ordinary wind produces the visual effect, coupled with quiescent trees. All those observations are easily explained by one very plausible hypothesis. You're trying to posit an implausible hypothesis, whose proof is made by indirect reasoning enabled by still more implausible theories that reject the high-probability cause.

You are quite obviously groping frantically for the "mysterious object" hypothesis, no matter what gyrations you have to perform.

They only thing that makes any sense is that we are being played like a fiddle.

Well, one of us is.

But they eyewitness accounts, vids, and pixs just keep coming.

Because there's a market for it.

But some are real phenomena...

Real what? You aren't especially interested in the real phenomena that explain the sightings without involving space aliens. You seem to think that all you need to do is substantiate that something is not a hoax in order to be able to thumb your nose at skeptics and cling to your wild speculation for what it might be. The real world doesn't work that way.

...and if they were to be accepted at face value then reality starts coming unravled.

Cue eerie music.

None of us is really interested or impressed by pseudoscience hyperbole. I have people telling me a dozen times a day how my world is going to come up apart at the seams. It gets old.

The only practical solution that covers all the bases, including the abduction thing, is that we are being spoofed. The purpose is to make it easier to take advantage of us.

Perfectly circular. Absolutely no extrinsic involvement whatsoever.

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So that Jay does not have to continuosly (with no apparent success) point out logical fallicies, the BAUT has provided this link with all the pertinent information:

Logical Fallacies

This is the only sensible thing you have posted. You just don't see that it's the people pushing the books and Vids who are taking advantage of you.

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Still, the way it seems to twist and turn a little, gleaming surface, apparent dented shape, and how it floats reminds me most of one of those metallic helium balloons, like they sell in hospitals for kids.

Everybody has had one of those and released it. Filming one would be of little interest. These people saw something that was of interest to film. The problem with hand held cameras is that they autofocus on the average and do not focus well on moving objects. Because of this they are a;most always out of focus.

The point is that trying to do an analysis of speed, size, and distance is nearly impossible from a vid unless one of the three is known. But there were multiple witnesses who though it was something unusual. You have a lot more visual reference being there than from the vid.

These kinds of things are being seen all around the world and many at cloud level. Those little balloons just don't stay up and hold helium that long. And that would be an awful lot of them.

How long do you think they hold Helium? How high do you think they have to go to be at 'cloud level'?

What altitude do you think 'cloud level' is?

I hope the way they decided that things are at 'cloud level' is better than your estimation of range and speed.

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Then why didn't you give that important information in the first place? Or did I miss it earlier? Now it seems strange, you offer a link to a video saying what's this, can't be balloon? We say, that's a balloon. Then suddenly witnesses enter the scene, apparently commenting that it's something unusual. Anyway, seeing such a balloon would be unusual for me too, don't see those floating loose every day.

Not every video needs to have the same prosaic explanation. Maybe it's ten or twenty different kinds of things that appear to look as blobs floating in the air. (How they are determined to be at cloud level is something else. Cloud level can be zero feet )

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"Your right to hold an opinion is not being contested. Your expectation that it be taken seriously is." -- Jason Thompson
Meet the OOONG TOE.

I am also confused as to how a human-scale crop circle, human-scale etchings in a "hard surface" (we can etch diamonds too, you know), and humans admitting to doing all of it somehow translates to aliens in your mind, Bart. Etch these things on the moon on a scale we can see with the naked eye and then you have some evidence that humans were NOT to blame.

We are nothing if not creative creatures. Art is everywhere - as far back as humans were humans. And if a field of corn or wheat is what some humans consider a canvas then so be it. Some people consider their own body a canvas. Tattoo designs are insanely complex and can be done with tools as simple as bones and bamboo. Does this mean that some tattoos are the work of aliens since aliens could potentially also do that to people?

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---"Why do things have to suck so bad?" a friend once asked me.
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Filming one would be of little interest.

Begging the question.

These people saw something that was of interest to film.

I take pictures of my cat. That doesn't make it a space alien. You're trying to trump up reasons why this footage must necessarily be odd or suspicious.

The point is that trying to do an analysis of speed, size, and distance is nearly impossible from a vid unless one of the three is known.

Yet despite all that difficulty, you were able immediately to rule out that it was a balloon, based on an estimation of speed, size, and distance. Imagine that.

But there were multiple witnesses who though it was something unusual.

A balloon not easily recognized as such would be unusual. Doesn't make it a space alien.

These kinds of things are being seen all around the world and many at cloud level.

Which "cloud level" would that be? Around my parts clouds range in altitude from 45,000 feet MSL to 0 ft AGL.

Those little balloons just don't stay up and hold helium that long.

Mylar balloons are exceedingly adept at holding helium. Unlike Latex balloons, they are not very gas-permeable.

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Clavius Moon Base

I tried to watch the video that is said to show a balloon:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=377_1214130431
but all I got was audio. No error message. Does the video have sound
of people talking, including a little girl, and a TV going, with a little snippet
of morse code at the end? I couldn't make out much of what anyone was
saying, but I didn't hear anything that sounded like conversation regarding
the object in the sky. It definitely sounds like it was recorded indoors.

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

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My wife received a bouquet of Mylar ballloons for her birthday, on the 6th. She threw them out on the 21st and all were still quite bouyant. One of them even got away from her in the kitchen, making a trip up the ladder necessary.

Wrong again, Bart.

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Peters Creek, Alaska
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It's scary how you don't realize just how illogical that is. You're simply tossing in purely conjectural theories for why the evidence points to something entirely different than what you're claiming.
I disagree. I am looking for some commen thread of reason in so many different things that seem to have no coherent resaon, yet there they are.


No, you've misidentified the direction of flow.

So-called abudctees largely ignore and belittle those who suggest their experiences are not alien-abduction scenarios. There's no sign that the abductees' plight is a symptom of adverse reaction to criticism. Yet the abductees have no problem standing in front of cheering, awestruck audiences and dispensing copious amounts of unscientific, conjectural hogwash.

Assumption of motive not in evidence and clearly in error. Most of the abduction victims desire to remain anonymous. When doing research and citing cases most authors change the names to hide identity. Very few victims get in front of the audience. It is the exception, not the rule.

The FAA investigator was told to keep it quiet and the materials taken. Obviously somebody in defense is taking it seriously, kudos to them.

Oh, right; that can only ever be the reason.

Previously you denied that anything was being hidden or covered up at all. All that I stated was they felt sufficient cause to avoid disclosure. Only those electing to classify would know exactly why.

Make the balloon bigger and further away. Now it is picking up speed.
How much bigger? How much farther away? How do you know? Show your work!

I dont know and neither do you, that is the point. The further away it is the faster it has to be moving. At the velocity it appears to be moving, if it were only doing thirty miles an hour, it would be close enough that its identity would be clear. So it had to be further and faster or it would not be worth the attention.

Yet we see no evidence of anything else waving in a stiff wind.

Making it very unparsimonious to dismiss the balloon hypothesis on the basis of conjectural exaggerations of size. A small balloon in an ordinary wind produces the visual effect, coupled with quiescent trees. All those observations are easily explained by one very plausible hypothesis. You're trying to posit an implausible hypothesis, whose proof is made by indirect reasoning enabled by still more implausible theories that reject the high-probability cause.

You are quite obviously groping frantically for the "mysterious object" hypothesis, no matter what gyrations you have to perform.

If it were small and close then it would be easy to identify as a balloon. Being larger and further away is what makes it difficult to identify and made the camera operator go through gyrations to follow it.

The one filmed by the hellicopter is even more fascinating. On the infrared cam it looks round because it is hot. On the visual cam it is a vertical cylender. Both helecopter and object moving so speed could only be judged from the people in the chopper. Military chopper so we do not have that information. Still they thought it worth their chasing and filming it and they still lost it. Motion was fast and steady, very unlike the wobbly erratic motion of a balloon.

Every odd object in the sky seems to be a baloon for you. I don't know what they are. But if the sky were as full of baloons as these are being reported they would start littering the landscape and pilling up because the average cheap baloon just dosn't stay up that long. a years worth of sightings would be an awfull lot of litter.

It seems that your hypotheses is the one without foundation.

They only thing that makes any sense is that we are being played like a fiddle.

Well, one of us is.

No clear point of argument. What? Huh?

But they eyewitness accounts, vids, and pixs just keep coming.

Because there's a market for it.

Of course there is. Thats why most of them are posted online for free. It seems the market is more one of interest and not money. A lot of people would like a clear answer as to what is happening.

But some are real phenomena...

Real what? You aren't especially interested in the real phenomena that explain the sightings without involving space aliens. You seem to think that all you need to do is substantiate that something is not a hoax in order to be able to thumb your nose at skeptics and cling to your wild speculation for what it might be. The real world doesn't work that way.

I am quite aware of how the real world works. Every effect has a cause. Some of these effects have a cause that is clearly not in evidence. Like the 13.5 acre design cut three inches into hardpan.

Two guys seeking glory claimed to have done it with a hand plow over many weeks. Yet pilots flying over it as a matter of routine saw no partial construction, until it was suddenly noticed as a complete work.

When asked to demonstrate how it was done they barly managed to scratch a quarter inch deep line only a short distance that they couldn't keep straight, before giving up.

...and if they were to be accepted at face value then reality starts coming unravled.

Cue eerie music.

I don't hear the erie music in your head. I refuse to accept these things at face value. I seek a reasonable explenation. The stranger they are the more I see hoax. That some seem to defy reasonable human works then the hoaxers are a little more technicly adept.

A hoax is perpetrated to foster false beliefs, regardless of the source.

None of us is really interested or impressed by pseudoscience hyperbole. I have people telling me a dozen times a day how my world is going to come up apart at the seams. It gets old.

Thats the point. The world is not coming apart at the seams, it just keeps on turning no matter what crazy beliefs people attach to what they do not understand. Just because the phenomena seems to defy logic is no need to cry the sky is falling. Find a better logic to explain the seemingly impossible is the clear answer.

The only practical solution that covers all the bases, including the abduction thing, is that we are being spoofed. The purpose is to make it easier to take advantage of us.

Perfectly circular. Absolutely no extrinsic involvement whatsoever.

No it's not. Misdirection is a perfectly valid action against an opponent. It is key in strategy games like chess. It is even employed in war. When the Normandy invasion was staged misdirection as to location and date was planned and employed to great effectiveness.

Most notable is that misdirection, spoof, and hoax is most effective to lead the opponent into believing he is up against a stronger foe than might be the actual case. Make the target believe they are powerless. Even better to make the ones controlling the most powerful defense believe the enimy does not exist. Make the opponent disbelieve among themselves.

I think part of the confusion regarding this video is some misunderstandings regarding video lenses and limitations therein. You cannot, based on a video like that, judge size or distance of an object. There are too many variables and using a variable-zoom lens with incredibly shoddy camera work makes matters even worse. All that can be said for sure is that it was between the lens and the hills in the distance. Beyond that you would need to know more information than that video could possibly give you: lens size and focal length at every point during the video - true distance from position of camera to known fixed land point in video, etc etc. It could be a birthday balloon anywhere from 3 inches across to 3 feet.

__________________
---"Why do things have to suck so bad?" a friend once asked me.
"Because space is a vacuum and that's a lot of suck." I replied.
(Actual quote)---

My wife received a bouquet of Mylar ballloons for her birthday, on the 6th. She threw them out on the 21st and all were still quite bouyant. One of them even got away from her in the kitchen, making a trip up the ladder necessary.

Wrong again, Bart.

We have all had those baloons. Within a few days they start losing boyancy. After a while they sink to the floor and will only rise again when the weight of the ribbon is removed. One in ten might have enough boyancy to still climb to the ceiling after a few days.

Everyone here reading this knows how they behave. So don't try to extend it far enough to support your argument. It fails.

I am looking for some commen thread of reason in so many different things...

And that's the most common mistake made by non-investigators trying to investigate. You want there to be a common thread, so you look for one -- even invent one.

Do not presume that effects have common causes, even if they seem superficially similar.

Most of the abduction victims desire to remain anonymous.

Then how, pray-tell, is the alleged BS fed to them? They are either around to receive it as you say, or they aren't.

Previously you denied that anything was being hidden or covered up at all.

Perhaps in your imagination I did.

I dont know and neither do you, that is the point.

The point is exactly that you made a knee-jerk claim that would have required knowledge you now say you didn't have.

At the velocity it appears to be moving...

And here you repeat your conjecture.

If it were small and close then it would be easy to identify as a balloon.

Begging the question.

Every odd object in the sky seems to be a baloon for you.

Um, no. Straw man. I'm not talking about "every odd object." Again you make the error of generalizing a specific answer to make it seem to apply wrongly to a general question.

It seems that your hypotheses is the one without foundation.

Actually I expressed a foundation for it that you've simply brushed aside.

Of course there is. Thats why most of them are posted online for free.

"Market" doesn't necessarily mean money.

I refuse to accept these things at face value. I seek a reasonable explenation.

No, you don't. The "curious onlooker" persona doesn't work for you anymore. Not when you start spewing blatantly circular hogwash about how the space aliens are controlling our minds.

You demand explanations so that you can invoke a straw-man approach as you're doing in this post. Most of us are on to you by now.

Find a better logic to explain the seemingly impossible is the clear answer.

And your "better logic" is that space aliens are making us all believe that the sightings of their spacecraft are just hoaxes or optical illusions.

Right.

No it's not [circular]. Misdirection is a perfectly valid action against an opponent.

Converted conditional. If there existed an opponent, then such a strategy would be advisable. Prove the existence of the opponent without circularly referring to the effects you attribute to him.

You're either very entrenched in this tight cycle of illogic or very skilled at the rhetorical wind-up.

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but all I got was audio. No error message. Does the video have sound
of people talking, including a little girl, and a TV going, with a little snippet
of morse code at the end? I couldn't make out much of what anyone was
saying, but I didn't hear anything that sounded like conversation regarding
the object in the sky. It definitely sounds like it was recorded indoors.

You need the correct browser plug in to see the video. If the liveleak site recognizes this they prompt you to install it. Sorry cannot diagnose from here.

Everyone here reading this knows how they behave.

Appeal to the gallery. My experience with Mylar balloons concurs with PetersCreek's.

__________________
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The "gyrations" are the camera operator trying to track a moving target with a handheld camera whose zoom lens is creating a narrow field of view. You cannot infer actual object motion from it.

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Additionally I see that object floating for the time of the video - not weeks on end. A plastic bag could pull that off.

__________________
---"Why do things have to suck so bad?" a friend once asked me.
"Because space is a vacuum and that's a lot of suck." I replied.
(Actual quote)---

So let's not try, instead let's put a number on it. How many of those balloons are sold world wide per year? What's the percentage of that amount that may be expected to become .. loose (for lack of better word, sorry it's late) accidentally or intentionally? Take 10% of that number, or lets be generous and take 1%, how many long (many days) duration floating balloons have you left? How many might float into the viewfinder of a camera, per year? How many of those camera owners may misjudge what they're seeing due to distance and/or bad eyesight and/or "believer bias" and/or disadvanteous lighting and/or being intoxicated and/or whatever else one might think of? I feel we're getting close to a Drake Equation for Balloons

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Meet the OOONG TOE.

jsut curious ,why is that all the people who have claimed to abducted ,why isn't there no proof without a shadow of a doubt other than their word.

this is a time and era where proof is required for such wild speculation
have you ever asked yourself why these people you believe in say the things they say,remember if they never said it at all ,you would never know who they are,also these people need you and others so they can rock the boat,that way THEY don't have to worry about sinking

and the fair and honest thing to do is answer the questions put forth to you

Lets dispense with the posturing and meanigless debate and cut to the chase shall we?

The existance of and argument for ufo aliens is of little import. They are not attacking or invading so if they do a little spying or do not exist at all does not really matter much in the long run.

It is the abduction of, and experimentation on, human beings that is the only issue of more import than just an opinion.

Budd Hopkins is a PHD in the relevent field and he clearly states his opinion that the abduction phenomena is real. I am no authority on this and I suspect very few of you are as well.

If the abduction phenomena is not real then the rest of this debate is nothing more than an acedemic excercise that is unlikely to change anyones mind about UFO's.

If it is a real phenomena then it becomes a matter of serious concern that does have clear defense significance.

Is there anyone here who is qualified to dispute Budd Hopkins as to the reality of this?

Are there any studies that can be cited as to this issue?

I have heard the sleep paralysis argument and have seen no studies of people claiming abduction establishing this as a cause. As far as I have been able to deternmine it is proposed as a cause but the connection is not established.

People are claiming injury and psychological trauma. Don't you think a full and comprehensive study should be conducted to ascertain the cause of these complaints?

All the other issues pale in comparison to this complaint. The issue will certainly not be settled here on this forum.

And once again you move on without addressing questions.

Belated happy birthday, PetersCreek's wife!

__________________
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" -- Charles Darwin
"Your right to hold an opinion is not being contested. Your expectation that it be taken seriously is." -- Jason Thompson
Meet the OOONG TOE.

bart , 1 thing is for sure ,,..IF they come down and spy or abduct as you seem to think is the case
well then my friend

d.o.d is absolutly powerless in my opinion wit such cases as for the aliens would be way more superior than us so their defense would be of lil thought considering that they have reached us ...so if your claims were true ....than theres no need worry ,cause they would be in control.....remember we cannot even get half way out of our system but they could reach us ????????????

Maussan also endorse videos taken of Venus durng a solar eclipse back in July 1991 as a UFO. He made his name with this case but for some reason astronomers missed the UFO. Not one mention of it was made in any astronomical journal. Must have been part of the conspiracy, right?

Yet you claimed that the object was moving too fast to be wind blown. How did you determine that if it is "nearly impossible" to do so? Are you that much better than actual measurements and calculations? I stand in awe of your vast intellect and abilities.

Exactly how close does an object have to be to be resolved to what it really is? What equipment was used? You are grasping at straws. A 1 foot balloon 200 feet away in the wind can easily appear strange. BTW, there are lots of these videos being peddled by your pal Maussan. Many have been identified as balloons. So far you have not provided good evidence that it is not a balloon. Until you can do so with more information (such as the type of equipment used and calculations) then it is very plausible that it is just a balloon being carried aloft in a mild wind.

The point of my little exercise was to demonstrate a small balloon could move at the angular speed shown in the video. I admit I made some assumptions that may be a bit off. However, the claim that it would be moving in a wind that would knock trees down is shown to be false if one assumes a size for the balloon being about a foot across. Even three feet produces a speed that appears to be within normal range.

Everyone here reading this knows how they [Mylar balloons] behave. So don't try to extend it far enough to support your argument. It fails.

Are you accusing me of lying, Bart? I expect that you will support or withdraw such an accusation immediately.

Whether you accept the longevity of Mylar balloons or not, your contention that they don't last long enough didn't have much merit to begin with. If you think there's a substantial difference between a balloon released two hours ago rather than two days, please kindly present it.

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Peters Creek, Alaska
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