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From: Bruce Maccabee <brumac@compuserve.com>
Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 17:58:36 -0400
Fwd Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 16:27:08 -0400
Subject: Re: Bruce Maccabee


 >From: Roger Evans <moviestuff@cyberjunkie.com>
 >Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 21:32:29 +0000
 >To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <updates@globalserve.net>
 >Subject: Kenneth Arnold's 'Flying Discs'


 >>From: Bruce Maccabee <brumac@compuserve.com>
 >>Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 17:07:57 -0400
 >>Fwd Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 10:38:45 -0400
 >>Subject: Re: Kenneth Arnold's 'Flying Discs'

 >Previously, Bruce had offered:

 >>>>What is more likely to be wrong: that his time
 >>>>estimate is too short or his estimate of initial distance is
 >>>>wrong? I vote for the initial distance estimate.

 >To which I had essentially questioned why it was okay for Bruce
 >or others to make assumtions about the validity and accuracy of
 >Arnold's statements to support their own theories; but not for
 >Easton to have the same right, regardless of what his theory
 >might be.

 >Bruce responded:

 ><much respected snip>

 >>Everyone is "selective" in deciding whether to
 >>accept ("believe") in the accuracy of certain values of
 >>quantities or certain descriptions by witnesses. The
 >>descriptions have to be rated on a scale of something like
 >>"probability of being correct" or "which is more likely to be
 >>correct."

<snip>

 >If it is allright for you to make assumptions, fill in the
 >blanks and disregard statements that don't fit your theory, then
 >why can't anyone else, including Easton?

Well, didn't I say "everybody does it"? I'm not surprised
that Easton has done it. The argument always comes down to
whether or not it is logical or at least "convincing" to reject
some data and accept some other data in order to arrive at a
solution.

Incidently, there is no "theory" of what a UFO should be, how
fast it could go, what it should look like and do. If we knew a
priori the characteristics of UFOs then we could attempt a
positive identification (if walks like a UFO, talks like a UFO
and looks like a UFO, then it's a UFO). Unfortunately without
this a priori knowledge we can only look for a "negative proof,"
that is, "this phenomenon has characteristics that match no
known phenomenon, therefore it is 'unidentified'... a UFO. In
this particular case, part of the negative proof that Arnold saw
UFOs would be that he didn't see pelicans. In other words, I
would claim "proof" that he didn't see:

(a) mirage,
(b) motes in the eye,
(c) normal aircraft glinting in the distance,
(d) reflections of bright objects in window glass,
(e) billowing clouds of snow,
(f) reflective wavy haze layers,
(g) orographic clouds,
(h) large aircraft nearby,
(i) water drops on his windshielf,
(j) swans,
(k) meteors and
(l) pelicans.

(All of the preceding have been proposed over the years.)

So, what did he see if none of these? Either come up with some
other explanation or conclude that Arnold saw "TRUFOs"... TRuely
Unidentifiable Flying Objects" where "unidentifiable" means
cannot be identified as a mundane/prosaic/known phenomenon (ET
craft, time travelers, etc., are assumed to be "unknown"
phenomena).

Now, in order to achieve this negative proof in regard to the PH
(pelican hypothesis) one must be able to show that the
characteristics of the POTENTIAL UFOs must be different from the
known characteristics of the pelicans. Maccabee's First Law of
Explanation is that any prosaic phenomenon that is suggested as
an explanation must, itself, obey known physical laws. Thus, for
example, it would be unphysical to attribute specularity
(reflective like a mirror or polished metal) to a pelican
because the feathers are finely divided reflecting surfaces
which can have a "sheen" or "gloss" under certain optimum
circumstances of lighting, but not a specular reflection. In
general they have a diffuse reflection (like paper, as compared
with a mirror). Hence it makes no physical sense to say that
Arnold could see the reflection from pelicans at a distance
beyond the distance at which he could see the pelicans
themselves.

Sorry, but this gets a bit complicated: a person can only detect
something "out there" if there is contrast with the background
(or foreground). White pelicans against a white sky would have
very little contrast. Even if there is contrast, the angular
size has to be large enough for the eye to detect at least a dot
(otherwise it might be lost in the "noise" in an eyeball; if you
think there is no such optical "noise", just go outside and
stare at the bright sky for a while, preferably a uniform blue
or a uniform white) . Hence the bottom line is that the pelicans
must make an angular size of about 0.5 milliradians and have
some contrast against the sky to be seen. If a pelican average
size is 5 ft. the maximum distance is on the order 5/0.0005 = of
10,000 ft or nearly 5 miles. (Hence in my reconstruction in a
previous message my use of 4 miles distance is likely an
exaggeration.... BUT this is to be determined by experiment)

Not so with a specular reflector in the sun. The specular
reflection can be seen a LOT farther than the mirror itself can
be seen because it is reflects the sun. It is like looking at a
small piece of the sun (the angular size of the reflector
divided by the angular size of th sun). The contrast between the
bright sky and a small piece of the sun can be huge (as anyone
who has seen a reflection from a car window at a distance will
know). In other words, a mirror reflection of the sun can be
seen at a distance greater than the distance at which a diffuse
reflector of the same size could be seen.

For those quantitatively minded here are some numbers: according
to a table published many years ago in Astronomy Magazine, we
can let the relative brightness of the sun (solar disc) be
10,000,000= 1E7 and the relative brightness of the sky be 1,000
= 1E3..

"Laws of visibility" generally indicate that, to be detectable,
a "compact" object (like a bird or disc, but not a thin rod)
must have at least a 2% difference or contrast between its
brightness and the sky brightness. Furthermore, its angular
size should be about 0.5 milliradian or larger

2% contrast means the object brightness would have to be 1.02 x
1E3 = 1,020 (or if darker than the sky, 0.98 x 1000 = 980). The
actual difference is 1,020 - 1,000 = 20 (or , if darker, 1,000 -
980 = 20).

Assume Arnold's eye could barely detect an object of
1/2 milliradian size, 0.0005 radian, against the
bright sky. The solar disc is about 0.0085 rad in diameter.
Hence the fraction of sun reflected by a mirror 0.0005
rad in diameter is (0.0005/0.0085)^2 = 3.5E-3.
Multiply this by 1E7, the solar brightness, and get
3.5E4. This is the relative brightness of a mirror surface
which subtends (there's a good geometric word!)
0.5 milliradians of angle.

Since the relative brightness of a white (or dark) object or
0.5 milliradian angular size against the bright sky is 20 units,
the brightness of the mirror surface of the same angular size is
about 3.5E4/20 = 1,730 times greater than the brightness of the
white diffuse surface.

Naturally it can therefore be seen farther. How much farther?
The angular size of the mirror shrinks with distance and so the
fraction of the reflected solar disc shrinks as 1/r^2. To find
the maximum distance, r2, at which a mirror surface could be
seen, as compared to the distance r1 for a white diffuse
surface, we need (r2/r1)^2 = 1,730 or r2 = 41 times r1. Thus, if
a bird could be seen at 10,000 ft, a mirror could be seen at
410,000 ft (77 miles) IF THERE WERE NO ATMOSPHERIC ATTENUATION.

This calculation is not correct because there is exponential
attenuation of the light in the atmosphere, so the visibility
distance is determined not only be the inverse square law, but
also by an attenuation law. However, the point still is valid:
the mirror will be detected a lat farther than the diffuse
reflector.

Back to the Arnold case: Easton has argued vociferously that
pelicans, being white, can be quite bright in the sun. So he
chooses as part of his data Arnold's claim that the objects were
seen against the snow of Mt. Rainier, and hence must have been
brighter than the snow (Mt. Rainier was 20 miles away... the
atmospheric haze over this distance reduced the apparent
brightness of the snow; the reflection from the HP -
hypothetical pelicans - was not similarly reduced because they
were within a few miles). He then OVERLOOKS, or tries to "argue
away" Arnold's claim of bright flashes, because this would
conflict with his PH theory.

Let's now test his hypothesis/theory (which he didn't do): (a)
ASSUME Arnold first saw the pelicans when they were barely
visible. That means that Arnold would not detect the pelicans
until they were close enough so that the combined effects of
angular size (large enough) and diffuse reflective brightness
(bright enough) made them visible against the sky background.
BUT... at this distance their BODIES would be visible as dots
with a several percent contrast against the sky, not as bright
flashes. He would not be able to initially see their shapes,
however,.

Their apparent brightness would increase as they got closer, and
he would see more and more details, but he would always be
seeing them by diffuse reflection and they would never appear to
be reflecting the sun like polished metal. He could not see them
farther than the distance at which he could first see their
bodies as dots (whereas objects with mirror like reflections
COULD be detected at distances greater than the "dot" distance).

(b) ASSUME the pelicans got close enough to be at least
"startlingly bright" before Arnold realized they were there. In
this case their angular size would be quite large...they would
be close....and he would likely recognize them as birds. (If the
angular size isf 5 times that of the minimum angular size for
detection, then the observer can generally determine shape.) Of
course, they would still not flash like mirrors. But, how bright
could they be? Backlit by the sun, their white feathers would
probably still be only some percent greater than the sky
background, but we really have no way of knowing at this late
date. What we do know, is if they were close enough to be bright
that (1) Arnold should have been able to determined the shape
and (b) at the very least he should have been able to turn his
plane and follow them and outrun them.

Now, after this long dissertation (which I wanted to enter into
the public record), back to your point.

 >If it is allright for you to make assumptions, fill in the
 >blanks and disregard statements that don't fit your theory, then
 >why can't anyone else, including Easton?

Of course Easton can choose his data. BUT, he's got to be able
to make his choices stick.....he's got to prove by using ALL
POSSIBLE TESTS that his hypothesis fits the details of the
sighting. His approach, like that of most skeptics, has been to
pick a few details that fit his hypothesis and then argue away
the others by saying they are incorrect statements on Arnold's
part, or they have been interpreted incorrectly. I have no
problem with this approach in principle, as long as the person
can provide convincing arguments for rejecting certain data and
accepting other data. Since I have no "theory" of what a UFO
should be, I do not have to pick and choose data to fit a theory
in the same way that Easton has to pick data to fit his
PH/theory. However, whenever I pick data that I claim
CONTRADICTS a theory, such as the PH, I should be able to argue
why those data should not be disregarded. I have tried to do
that. Naturally, if enough data can be thrown out "any"
hypothesis can be satisfied. Hence we have more than half a
dozen explanations proposed by people who have rejected various
portions of the data

 >For the record, I don't believe that what Arnold saw was
 >Pelicans. My own reasoning is less than scientific; I'd simply
 >like to believe what he was were UFO's.

Yes, unscientific. I would rather there be no UFOs. we've got
enough to worry about already without interlopers from"out
there" messing around. UFOs introduce another uncertainty into
life, which is already uncertain enough (what with population
growth, pollution growth, the coming "immortality" and medical
bills that will make the medicare arguments of today seem like
child's play)

 >However, I offer this
 >info regarding the "dissapearance" of the pelicans behind
 >mountain peaks. I have some video that I shot of my relative's
 >kids playing frisbee. On more than one occasion, the frisbee
 >flatened out to the point that it "dissappeared" behind a tree
 >almost a hundred feet in the distance. The effect was quite
 >startling. I have no doubt this was the effect Easton was
 >talking about. Considering we lose our sense of three
 >dimensional perception beyond about 35 feet or so, it would be
 >easy to be fooled by this effect in mid air. Just a thought.

I certainly understand what you are saying and have considered
it. The argument here is that Arnold saw the objects "disappear"
for short times (this is the observation) and then reported that
they went behind mountain peaks (this is the interpretation). As
usual the ufologist is confronted with separating the
observation from the interpretation. Clealy if Arnold's
interpretation were correct the PH fails. However, if one can
logically and convincingly show that Arnold misinterpreted what
he saw, then the PH IS NOT YET PROVED.... it has to pass other
hurdles. IN other words, one detail of observation could
disprove a hypothesis, but it cannot prove a hypothesis. Hence
it is not sufficient (but it is necessary) to argue that the
objects did not go behind mountain peaks-- that Arnold was wrong
in this interpretation. But then to prove the PH one must also
show that the flashing can be explained, the shapes can be
explained and that the dynamics of the situation as portrayed on
my map in another message (or someone else's map) can be
explained.

For example, Arnold says he turned his plane and rolled down his
window so there would be no glass between him and the objects,
yet he still wasn't able to see aircraft-like tails on the
object. If in turning the plane he chanced to fly parallel to
the objects, and if they were pelicans a mile or less away, it
seems reasonable to assume that he would immediately have
noticed that he was catching up with them... or passing them...
but AT LEAST that he was going faster than they and not the
other way around. Although Arnold didn't state explicitly which
way he turned, we do know he was sitting on the left side and
was therefore closest to the left window. We also (apparently)
agree that the objects passed between him and Rainier so,
assuming he turned AFTER they passed Rainier, it is MOST LIKELY
that he turned to the right and headed south and opened the left
hand window.

Easton's explanation of why Arnold failed to realize he was
traveling faster has basically been to argue that Arnold did not
report accurately what happened.. or that the interpretations of
what Arnold did report have been wrong. Easton has recently
suggested that maybe he turned to the left and opened the window
on the other side of the plane so he could have a better view of
the rear ends of these objects. This makes little sense, of
course, since they were going so rapidly... whether pelicans of
UFOs.... that all had to do was wait a little and they would be
south of him and he could see their rear ends clearly.