Except you failed to think about what if the lights weren't lit the whole time, but were pulsating? Like say strobe lights on the wingtips of commercial airliners?

I don't know if I would phrase it that way, but I'm interested in seeing it as well. I was interviewed for it, sort of: I got a few phone calls, and they asked for my advice on some topics. Given the atrocious job I heard ABC did on the "John of God" segment last week, this UFO should be interesting.

if 70.000 thousand witnesses of a predicted to the exact moment (which implies intelligence and control) aerial phenomena isnt enough, then i dont think anything besides a UFO landing on their heads will be enough.

this happened in a time when there were no meteorological balloons and airplanes flying around. so there are no excuses, besides over critical skepticism, to wipe the evidence under the carpet.

I guess you won't accept mass hysteria?
On a related note, sadly the last of the three original Fatima children just died.

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Well, they'd have to be pulsating so fast that that they didn't appear to move at all within the shutter time, which seems unlikely. Also, the lights shown are different colors. And, there would have to be no lights on the craft that are on constantly, and I don't know much about military craft, but conventional craft I've seen have both blinking and constant lights. The lack of streaking of any lights strikes me as a dead give away of a hoax, and the ragged edges seem suspicious as well.

In any case, nothing about this photo strikes me as a compelling case for an unconventional craft or phenomenon.

Does anyone have links to video footage of unidentified objects? I would love to find that stuff online, since I can't share my ufo videotape to discuss. I'm especially interested in zigzagging manuevers like those NC More and I have witnessed, because that particular manuever is very hard to explain by conventional models, and would be a lot of fun to debate.

Strobe lights can have extremely short duration of flash; a few milliseconds or so. Apparently some aircraft strobes flash several times in short duration in order to create a longer visible flash; these pulses would appear as single points of light on a long exposure.

So I would tend to accept this as a conventional aircraft captured on a long exposure. Pretty fast, though; if the cars on the ground are moving at twenty or thirty miles an hour the duration must be something less than half a second.

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no, of course not. [-X

but wait... was that another joke? 8)

Cool, BA.

I'm anxious to see how "mainstream media" will present the evidence.
And of course I'm interested in hearing the skeptical views on the matter; will they "cite" you and our excellent community here, do you know?

If so, very cool. 8)

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I'm willing to "wait and see" how ABC handles it, but somehow I don't imagine it being objective. After all, ABC is not a science channel...it's an entertainment
channel.

I'm afraid all we can expect is the usual whimsical appeal to "unexplained mysteries" partly balanced with the obligatory skeptical counter sound bite. Don't expect this mockumentary to break new ground or change anyone's opinion. Believers will feel disappointed but somewhat reinforced, skeptics will be less than satisfied.

As I have said before, this "debate," such as it is, won't end anytime soon. It will wax and wane with the latest Discovery channel special. My advice is to put it aside until and unless real evidence of something unequivocally extraterrestrial origin that can be independently verified by multiple parties is found. Frankly, I doubt that something of that quality will ever be found. Why? Because E.T. stayed home.

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does ABC have a history of pseudoscientific shows?

ps: this is a honest question with no irony involved

Well, just this last week, ABC made a mess of their "John of God" Primetime Live special.

Here's where it was being discussed.

Then again...the same producers (that are doing the UFO special) are responsible for the "Who killed Kennedy" special, and concluded that Oswald was the "lone gunman". So they didn't go for the BIG conspiricy that time.

Like I said...I'll wait and see...if I don't forget to watch it.

I don't think we'll see anything new that hasn't already been brought up by both sides of the UFO debate .. we'll see.

HEY! Archer's back...cool!

Holy Cow! Archer is back! Nice to see you here again.

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Nice to be back. Things have changed around here, including the board format.

Here is the ABC News preview on the program:

UFOS: Seeing is Believing

If Jennings says there is "something" to UFOs, he will of course provide proof, satisfying us skeptics and go down in history as the man that finally fired the elusive "smoking gun." I will then set up a web-cam and eat crow live while muttering in Klingon. Something tells me that I don't have to worry about what goes good with crow. :wink:

What would really be entertaining is if Jennings said all UFOs were "bunk." We know he won't because, how do you prove a negative, let alone the next sighting? But if he did ..

Bottom line: Only those with minimal knowledge of the subject will be impacted by this show .. if they bother to watch it. My only curiosity is how this "talking head" spins it.

Well, we wouldn’t have proof of the existence of neutrons either, if we hadn’t troubled ourselves to conduct a proper investigation.

As long as the consensus of the scientific establishment bars a careful investigation utilizing the right tools and protocols for the job, we’ll be hard-pressed to prove the existence of any rare and fleeting phenomena in the sky. I think it’s nigh miraculous that we discovered that ball lightning was a ‘real’ phenomenon. If the things hadn’t turned out to have a propensity for discharging down household drains, we’d probably still be mocking the people who reported those too ;)

I don't think UFOs can be compared to neutrons or ball lightning that goes down household drains scourge and also think the onus for investigation falls on those that believe UFOs have merit, not on those that don't. That aside, I have yet to see a realistic investigative mechanism proposed for something that is "rare and fleeting." As I've said before, after the fact investigation is speculative and the only agency that could best document aerial intrusions, the military, won't play ball. Besides, when pressed, most advocates claim ET just isn't ready to come out of the closet yet. If that's really the case, why would "they" be expected to play ball?

As long as there are people seeing things they can't explain who believe it's part of a "phenomenon," we'll have debates like the one here I missed. Unless ET would make official "first contact" there's no way for advocates to prove their case, nor for skeptics like myself to prove a negative. Even if there was a way to investigate this topic and it was determined that there's nothing there, people will continue to see things that they can't explain and the beat would go on.

Darn it, Archer...when you make arguments like that...what's left for "others" to say???