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UFO UpDates Mailing List

From: Mark Cashman <mcashman@ix.netcom.com>
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 10:38:28 -0400
Fwd Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 16:55:57 -0400
Subject: Re: IFOs


 >Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 16:37:59 +0100
 >To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <updates@globalserve.net>
 >From: John Rimmer <jrimmer@magonia.demon.co.uk>
 >Subject: Re: Sheffield UFO Incident 2?

 >We can play with statistics as long as we like. I could argue
 >that if Jim Deardorff is only able to explain 50% to 75% of the
 >UFO reports he comes across then he's not doing his job
 >properly! Other investigators find they can explain 95%. Maybe
 >they're being over-zealous in explaining cases, maybe they're
 >just more thorough in getting the facts.

Or maybe the set of cases is not filtered toward paydirt cases,
but includes a lot of chaff like LITS, distant reflections, and
other small angular size, small strangeness events.

Investigative resources are scarce and should be spent on cases
likely to lead to advances, not on events which are likely to be
identifiable.

Let me put it this way. Suppose we have a disc shaped UFO
of complex external structure, at a distance of a hundred feet,
at night. Then, let's take that object, luminosity and
all, and move it to a distance of, say four miles. How much
data are we going to gain from the second observation
compared to the first? How many of the characteristics of
the first observation are going to be lost in the distance,
thus causing the appearance of the object in the second
observation to be closer to that of a simple landing light?

In short, even if a distant light isn't an IFO, it isn't very
interesting.

Let's look at it a different way.

If we have any initial report, the chances of misidentification
by the witness _must_ drop rapidly with increasing angular size,
and especially with occlusion of more distant objects by the
reported object, or with increased proximity to some known
reference point. Thus, some cases are intrinsically less likely
to be UFOs than others. Why would we study those which aren't
likely to be UFOs? If they are not identified, but the liklihood
of misidentification is high, then such a case merely clutters
up the database. If they are identified after man-hours of
labor, then that labor was wasted, since even if the case were
not identified, the result would provide a meager number of data
points.

As investigators, I believe that if we have a 95% IFO rate, then
it is more likely we are investigating the wrong cases, not that
we aren't looking hard enough for the answers.

------
Mark Cashman, creator of The Temporal Doorway at
http://www.temporaldoorway.com
- Original digital art, writing, music and UFO research -