Someone should tell CNN that Edgar Mitchell claiming the US government is concealing evidence for contact with extraterrestrial life is not news. I know it makes for eye-catching headlines, and of course that is the point, but really - Mitchell has been going around to UFO groups making the same claims for years.
The only thing that separates Mitchell from your average UFO believer is that he is a former astronaut. This gives his claims a superficial air of authority, but when you actually examine his claims you find that they are not based upon his tenure as an astronaut. It is not as if he met aliens while he was in orbit. He has been a bit coy about how his time at NASA plays into his claims. He leaves open the suggestion that he was privy to inside information about UFOs in NASA, but has nothing concrete to give. (NASA, of course, denies any cover up.)
Uncorroborated second-hand anecdotes. That is just what UFO claims need to gain credibility. And that is really all he has - second-hand stories. No evidence. He explains the lack of evidence by invoking the big, dark, government conspiracy, involving at least NASA and the Pentagon.
[CNI News comments: James Oberg is regarded by many as heir-apparent to the crown of "world's greatest UFO debunker," following in the footsteps of Philip Klass with diligence, intelligence and style. This article is a classic study in the art of debunkery. Oberg is a master and deserves respect as such. Here he shows how effective debunkery manages to disarm while devastating, even sounds affectionate toward its subject -- in this case, astronaut Gordon Cooper -- while craftily tearing it down. Read, study, and learn!]
The challenge has appeared in OMNI magazine and in tiny UFO newsletters, in letters and private conversations: "If you skeptics are so smart, how come you can't explain Gordon Cooper's UFOs?"
Could the Cooper UFOs be accounted for in terms of prosaic phenomena? Were Cooper's published recollections of the incidents, often after decades of hindsight, reasonably accurate? Were there any lessons about contemporary UFO research standards which an analysis of the Cooper cases could define? Those were questions well worth asking. Those were answers well worth seeking.
In OMNI, Cooper summarized the whole mythology: "To my knowledge, the only astronaut on any of the Mercury, Gemini, or Apollo missions who ever saw anything that might have been a UFO was Jim McDivitt, but he didn't get enough pictures to prove anything substantial.That's the only case, in spite of all the stories you hear" -- stories from the books and articles by Edwards, Vallee and Hynek, Don Wilson and Robert Anton Wilson, Sachs, Stringfield, Fawcett, and many others. So the famous Mercury-9 story is false -- it never happened.
Whatever the true identity of the 1957 Edwards AFB "balloon/UFO", it is clear that the "Cooper UFO legend" is quite inaccurate here. No coverup or information loss was involved. The "UFO" never landed. Cooper had nothing to do with the incident (he was not connected with the film crew in any official capacity, and they had never heard of him) but was only an accidental bystander. But as a certified hero, his persona has been exploited by others who spread the legend for excitement, for ego, or for profit. That's a theme that far predates the space age!
Cooper was telling some sort of UFO story privately for years. The account also suggests that Cooper's story has undergone considerable evolution over the years, as well.
So the "fleets of UFOs" story must remain "unsolved", in large part because the story's reliability must be judged highly questionable. The popular version of the legend, placing the action in Germany in 1951, simply cannot have occurred as Cooper has described it -- if the vast majority of the witnesses are to be believed.
One allegedly well-documented report stems from an interview in which astronaut Buzz Aldrin describes seeing a UFO during the Apollo 11 mission. In an interview on the Science Channel (left, top), Aldrin stated that he, Neil Armstrong, and Mike Collins saw unidentified objects that appeared to follow their Apollo spacecraft.
To get the story straight, I called Buzz Aldrin, who was happy to explain what happened. He said that his remarks were taken out of context to reverse his meaning. It is true that the Apollo 11 crew spotted an unidentified object moving with the spacecraft as they approached the Moon. After they verified that this mystery object was not Apollo 11’s large rocket upper stage, which was about 6,000 miles away by then, they concluded that they were seeing one of the small panels that had linked the spacecraft to the upper stage (any part of the spacecraft’s rocket upper stage will continue to move alongside the spacecraft, as both are floating in free-fall). These panels were too small to track from Earth and were relatively close to the Apollo spacecraft. Aldrin told me that they chose not to discuss this on the open communications channel since they were concerned that their comments might be misinterpreted. His entire explanation about identifying the panels was cut from the broadcast interview, giving the impression that the Apollo 11 crew had seen a UFO. Aldrin told me that he was angry about the deceptive editing and asked the Science Channel to correct the intentional twisting of his remarks, but they refused. Later, Aldrin explained what happened on CNN’s Larry King Live (left, bottom) but was nearly cut off by the host before he could finish.
With the popularity of YouTube, this same question is addressed to me repeatedly, as in: “Check out this video on YouTube with Buzz Aldrin saying he saw a UFO on Apollo 11. Who is fibbing? NASA or the great American hero, Buzz Aldrin?” My answer was that the fibbing was being done by the producers of the video, who omitted the second half of the interview.
Last edited by troutman; 04-22-2009 at 02:31 PM.
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One allegedly well-documented report stems from an interview in which astronaut Buzz Aldrin describes seeing a UFO during the Apollo 11 mission. In an interview on the Science Channel (left, top), Aldrin stated that he, Neil Armstrong, and Mike Collins saw unidentified objects that appeared to follow their Apollo spacecraft.
To get the story straight, I called Buzz Aldrin, who was happy to explain what happened. He said that his remarks were taken out of context to reverse his meaning. It is true that the Apollo 11 crew spotted an unidentified object moving with the spacecraft as they approached the Moon. After they verified that this mystery object was not Apollo 11’s large rocket upper stage, which was about 6,000 miles away by then, they concluded that they were seeing one of the small panels that had linked the spacecraft to the upper stage (any part of the spacecraft’s rocket upper stage will continue to move alongside the spacecraft, as both are floating in free-fall). These panels were too small to track from Earth and were relatively close to the Apollo spacecraft. Aldrin told me that they chose not to discuss this on the open communications channel since they were concerned that their comments might be misinterpreted. His entire explanation about identifying the panels was cut from the broadcast interview, giving the impression that the Apollo 11 crew had seen a UFO. Aldrin told me that he was angry about the deceptive editing and asked the Science Channel to correct the intentional twisting of his remarks, but they refused. Later, Aldrin explained what happened on CNN’s Larry King Live (left, bottom) but was nearly cut off by the host before he could finish.
With the popularity of YouTube, this same question is addressed to me repeatedly, as in: “Check out this video on YouTube with Buzz Aldrin saying he saw a UFO on Apollo 11. Who is fibbing? NASA or the great American hero, Buzz Aldrin?” My answer was that the fibbing was being done by the producers of the video, who omitted the second half of the interview.
Yay, I'm a subscriber to that, also Free Inquiry, Skeptic Magazine and Discovery.
Even UFO sightings turn out to be reserved (for the most part) for those who have not studied the sky in any serious way. Although the world’s supply of professional astronomers is not much larger than the population of Wasilla, Alaska, the world has many tens of thousands of active amateur astronomerss who spend a great deal of time observing the sky. You would think that if UFOs really are alien spacecraft, a large majority of reported sightings would come from this group. Yet, unsurprising to astronomers, you almost never get UFO reports from experienced amateurs whose understanding of what they see in the sky is much more sophisticated than that of the average person.
Actually a lot of "sky watchers" do report and film UFO's or does he mean astronomers with telescopes? If so does one really hope to see one looking threw a telescope?
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The problem is that the stars are fantastically far away.
He's living in the proverbial human bubble, only 100 years ago it took man over a month to go from Toronto to Hong Kong, now it's possible to do it in 5 hours.
At the rate humans are advancing,a 100 years from now that far away distance may not seem so fantastic at all.
Sometimes these Skeptic's are kookier then the people who claim to see little green men.
Actually a lot of "sky watchers" do report and film UFO's or does he mean astronomers with telescopes? If so does one really hope to see one looking threw a telescope?
The writer is trying to say laypeople mistake comets, Venus, Jupiter etc as "ufos".
He's living in the proverbial human bubble, only 100 years ago it took man over a month to go from Toronto to Hong Kong, now it's possible to do it in 5 hours.
You chopped off the rest of the writer's statement:
The problem is that the stars are fantastically far away. If our Sun was the size of a basketball (instead of 864,000 miles across), Earth would be a small apple seed about thirty yards away from the ball. On that scale, the nearest star would be some 4,200 miles (7,000 km) away, and all the other stars would be even farther! This is why astronomers are skeptical that aliens are coming here, briefly picking up a random individual or two, and then going back home. It seems like an awfully small reward for such an enormous travel investment.
The laws of physics are consistent across the universe, not just inside this "human bubble".
Location: A simple man leading a complicated life....
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Originally Posted by troutman
I should not be amazed anymore that all these things can be debunked with 1-2 minutes of research, yet the legends live on.
The US Air Force needs your assistance
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Between 1948 and 1969 the Air Force investigated 12,618 reported UFO sightings. Of these, 11,917 were found to have been caused by material objects such as balloons, satellites, and aircraft; immaterial objects such as lightning, reflections, and other natural phenomena; astronomical objects such as stars, planets, the sun, and the moon; weather conditions; and hoaxes. Only 701 reported sightings remain unexplained.
Actually a lot of "sky watchers" do report and film UFO's or does he mean astronomers with telescopes? If so does one really hope to see one looking threw a telescope?
This is quite true, the ones capturing UFOs and sighting them is by vast majority people that stumble upon it and capture it with cell phones, cameras and shaky video with spooky music.
People that spend their lives looking up don't report UFOs, and believe me they would LOVE to be able to find something extra worldly in their lifetime.
Its the human observer affect, we are terrible eye witnesses. For one thing humans take things they can't make sense of and their brains try to make them into familiar or understandable images. We see faces in fires, clouds, we see shapes and figures in the dark.
People who study the stars and are either professionally looking up or even the amateurs often understand more about whats up there and would look very differently at a UFO than your average joe.
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He's living in the proverbial human bubble, only 100 years ago it took man over a month to go from Toronto to Hong Kong, now it's possible to do it in 5 hours.
At the rate humans are advancing,a 100 years from now that far away distance may not seem so fantastic at all.
While our speed of travel increases, there is a tipping point we are reaching in regards to speed. Einstein 80-90 years ago now told us already this barrier is there and so far only theoretical physics has some possible ideas around which that barrier can be surpassed.
So its not that he's living in a bubble, he and physicists are all under the same massive wall in regards to faster than the speed of light travel, they know the massive massive complex problem ahead and other than folding space, wormholes, theres little hope for distant travel to become practical.
I know we have lots to learn but these are no small barriers, even if we could say travel much faster than the speed of life and not be turned into energy doing it, the big dilemma is that you will experience passage of time drastically different than people back on earth, making that type of travel quite pointless since when you return to earth from our nearest star 100 years have passed.
So our only real hope it seems is travel like folding space/wormholes that would theoretically allow us to go from point to point in the Universe without that passage of time. But to say these 2 forms of travel are exceedingly difficult to fathom or to become reality for actual travel is only putting that lightly.
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Sometimes these Skeptic's are kookier then the people who claim to see little green men.
I'll take the skeptical guy over the crazy alien sightings people any day, evidence is not a lot to ask for when you make such massive claims.
