UFOs are fun to think about

 

reader comments under a SLATE article about government UFO report

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    ~  Interesting to see the level of emotion in these comments, on all sides.  A couple of observations:

1) the "laws" of physics are not immutable.  To quote one of my favorite movies, "the law is a human institution."  In other words, these "laws" are just our current best guesses.  The universe doesn't care what we hypothesize.  For all we know, the human laws of Physics are "more what you'd call 'guidelines' than actual rules."  Read a little intellectual history to see how often the immutable rules of science have turned out to be, well, mutable.

2) conversely, the reason we refer to the "laws" of physics is that we have come up with some descriptions of what can and cannot happen that seem to be fairly accurate.  Given that, there's a huge burden of proof on those claiming that those rules are just wildly wrong.  Some short video and radar clips are not going to convince anyone--or at least, they shouldn't.

3) so, overall, these are interesting observations and recordings, many by highly trained and highly professional people.  More investigation is warranted.  But we simply don't have enough data to draw any conclusions beyond acknowledging that UAPs are a persistent issue, and that some sightings are difficult to explain.

OK, end of intermission.  You may resume quarreling.

    ~  Like the article says, this is not some guy seeing lights in the sky and pulling out his phone.  This is trained professional pilots with sensor equipment costing millions of dollars.  Most importantly, the sensor equipment agrees that what the pilot saw was real.  We just don't know what it is.

    ~  We have no idea what the sensor data actually says because it is classified.

    ~  Most science type people think that they are weather phenomena.  UFOs are real, but nobody who knows stuff thinks it's extraterrestrials.

    ~  Well, it's the battle of dudes on Youtube.  I don't find observations by pilots particularly compelling.  And there are plenty of astronomers who are skeptical that these unidentified phenomena add up to anything.  I mean, UFOs are fun to think about, but the report does not actually say much.

    ~  Well, I suppose I was being diplomatic.  I think that it is a fun puzzle to try to figure out the source of these optical aberrations, but not much more than that.  And puzzles are fun.

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