Did Bruce Maccabee really make this tremendous error?

[Creepy Green Light]

Does anybody know anything else besides what's stated in the article? I'd be curious to hear Bruce's side. And if this is 100% accurate, this is why I always take "expert analysis" with a grain of salt (or an entire salt packet);

The Lawton Triangle Hoax

 

[withoutlimits09]

I have no idea, but he did say the "Guardian UFO footage" was the best video evidence of ET visitation he had seen. I find this laughable and it immediately made me question any of his other "scientific conclusions."

 

[Creepy Green Light]

I have no idea, but he did say the "Guardian UFO footage" was the best video evidence of ET visitation he had seen. I find this laughable and it immediately made me question any of his other "scientific conclusions."

Agreed. I believe that McMinnville is 100% hoax as well. Yet he's got a 5000 page report that says otherwise.

 

[mike]

Poor Bruce, he got caught up and suckered in this case too

Ufology Exopolitics Special: Source A Exposed! « Reality Uncovered

 

[Goggs Mackay]

We must bear in mind that any photograph in isolation is scant evidence at best. In military intelligence it is called 'photographic interpretation,' not 'photographic determination.' So I think that in any career of looking at photos of UFOs to TRY and determine whether they MAY be real or not, it is absolutely inevitable to get, I'd guess, actually a fair number totally wrong. I suppose it is up to the person doing the analysis to be honest enough with themselves and others to word conclusions very carefully in such a way as to be very clear that 'on the basis of available evidence.....no obvious signs of hoaxing were visible' etc.

At the end of the day, even a well-taken photo is a poor 2-D representation of a real-world 3-D event. I'm not at all surprised that it is so difficult to be correct all of the time. It also takes a bit of 'cajones' to publicly state an opinion on a photo, knowing that some time in the future facts may become known that negate your conclusions, perfect example being the Belgian Triangle photo hoax. I would guess most people, myself included, really thought that might have been the real deal. People forget that the triangle photo came out over a year after the bulk of the sightings and played no part in them whatsoever. The debunkers jumped on the announcement of it being fake to gleefully claim people were pre-loaded with it's image prior to their 'sightings' when that was impossible.

 

[TheBitterOne]

Urggh.

I almost dread weighing into this 'debate'.

What are you saying?!?

That some analysis of a light blob on a black screen automatically renders the Trent photos fake?

I don't have any interest in arguing about light blobs on black screens but I did see that one guy above try to link some such thing to the Trent photos in a seemingly disingenuous way. I've seen that same guy's dark, disturbing "I've just had a cold shower in hell" avatar head do similarly disingenuous things to established UFO cases before.

To be clear:

1. I couldn't care less if the McMinnville photos turn out to be fake.

2. There is no sensible evidence that the McMinnville photos are fake.

 

[Creepy Green Light]

Urggh.

I almost dread weighing into this 'debate'.

What are you saying?!?

That some analysis of a light blob on a black screen automatically renders the Trent photos fake?

I don't have any interest in arguing about light blobs on black screens but I did see that one guy above try to link some such thing to the Trent photos in a seemingly disingenuous way. I've seen that same guy's dark, disturbing "I've just had a cold shower in hell" avatar head do similarly disingenuous things to established UFO cases before.

To be clear:

1. I couldn't care less if the McMinnville photos turn out to be fake.

2. There is no sensible evidence that the McMinnville photos are fake.

It's ok. We know they're fake.

 

[Burnt State]

We must bear in mind that any photograph in isolation is scant evidence at best. In military intelligence it is called 'photographic interpretation,' not 'photographic determination.' So I think that in any career of looking at photos of UFOs to TRY and determine whether they MAY be real or not, it is absolutely inevitable to get, I'd guess, actually a fair number totally wrong. I suppose it is up to the person doing the analysis to be honest enough with themselves and others to word conclusions very carefully in such a way as to be very clear that 'on the basis of available evidence.....no obvious signs of hoaxing were visible' etc.

At the end of the day, even a well-taken photo is a poor 2-D representation of a real-world 3-D event. I'm not at all surprised that it is so difficult to be correct all of the time. It also takes a bit of 'cajones' to publicly state an opinion on a photo, knowing that some time in the future facts may become known that negate your conclusions, perfect example being the Belgian Triangle photo hoax. I would guess most people, myself included, really thought that might have been the real deal. People forget that the triangle photo came out over a year after the bulk of the sightings and played no part in them whatsoever. The debunkers jumped on the announcement of it being fake to gleefully claim people were pre-loaded with it's image prior to their 'sightings' when that was impossible.

What photographic evidence is actually convincing of anything certain? What universal UFO photo exists that everyone can agree on it being visual evidence of an intelligently controlled non-human craft? Ironically the oes I'm most partial to are the blobs of light images and their correlated on the ground stories. Capturing an image of a UFO strikes me as being mostly impossible for many different reasons.

I thought Ouelett's comments regarding only half the Belgian sightings in that wave being triangles was quite interesting. We tell a specufic narrative that then led to that human produced "proof" of their reality. Popular delusions and crowd experiences are other ways of understanding how beliefs in certain idease can cause people to see angels, the virgin Mary or UFO's.

When experts confirm that these hoaxed photos are absolutely a sizable craft in the sky you have to ask questions about what can in fact be gleaned from Real UFO Photos, especially when they are low res? These experts all plot detailed math with patches of grayscale of very small areas within these photos. Maybe it's not always as certain a pactice. Experts are wrong for a signifucant percentage of the time are they not?

The very clear craft images for me are the most suspicious now, though those very same photos captivated my grade four mind. Trent, McMinnville, Trindade - how these place names once rang loud with certainty inside my head.

 

[Creepy Green Light]

The very clear craft images for me are the most suspicious now, though those very same photos captivated my grade four mind. Trent, McMinnville, Trindade - how these place names once rang loud with certainty inside my head.

Agreed. I think I went from about 1979 until recently believing the Trent photos, Trindade & Heflin photos. In my mind, all 3 of those cases are hoaxes. As I said in an earlier post, the UFO field would make light years of progress if JUST ONE of the famous cases from the past - took present today. And you can take your pick; Westall, Ariel School, etc. etc. I say that because if that took place nowadays, between everyone having an iPhone and then all the security cameras that a school has - it would be impossible to not capture the event. Forget the children - could you imagine if even 10 faculty members were able to pull out the iphones and hit "record"?

 

[Burnt State]

The Petit-Rechain Photo, Leslie Kean, Debunkers, and Why Photo Evidence Will Always Be “The Straw-Man”

CGL as you brought up that infamous Belgian photo you might be interested in this article which is more pro-ufo but accurately highlights the negative impact on ufology from a debunking perspective that these hoaxed photos can have. It's an interesting observation on those pro/con tensions in the ufo world.

 

[Creepy Green Light]

The Petit-Rechain Photo, Leslie Kean, Debunkers, and Why Photo Evidence Will Always Be “The Straw-Man”

CGL as you brought up that infamous Belgian photo you might be interested in this article which is more pro-ufo but accurately highlights the negative impact on ufology from a debunking perspective that these hoaxed photos can have. It's an interesting observation on those pro/con tensions in the ufo world.

Thanks Burnt, I'm checking it out right now. BTW - I made an error in one of my sentences on my last post. I didn't mean all UFO cases are hoaxes (I'm a believer - but just extra hard on the proof). I meant to say that I believe all 3 of those cases are hoaxes (Trent, Heflin, Trindade) - I since went back and corrected it.

 

[Creepy Green Light]

I agree with the article (That B.S. provided a link to). It makes complete sense and thank you for sharing

 

[Constance]

The Petit-Rechain Photo, Leslie Kean, Debunkers, and Why Photo Evidence Will Always Be “The Straw-Man”

CGL as you brought up that infamous Belgian photo you might be interested in this article which is more pro-ufo but accurately highlights the negative impact on ufology from a debunking perspective that these hoaxed photos can have. It's an interesting observation on those pro/con tensions in the ufo world.

Since we all know the limitations of photographs as evidence of ufo reality (even before CGI became an opportunity for sociopathic individuals to play games with the subject rather than seriously pursue it), I wonder why y'all want to spend your time playing one-up games with trained photographic analysts such as Bruce Maccabee (an optical physicist) when there's more reliable ufo evidence available to read and discuss -- electromagnetic anomalies, radar-visual cases, physical trace cases, and the testimony of military pilots of their close encounters with ufos in the air. No serious ufo researcher has ever made his or her case solely on the basis of photographs. Maybe you should become more serious in your attempts to debunk ufos if you want an argument.

 

[Burnt State]

Agreed. I think I went from about 1979 until recently believing the Trent photos, Trindade & Heflin photos. In my mind, all 3 of those cases are hoaxes. As I said in an earlier post, the UFO field would make light years of progress if JUST ONE of the famous cases from the past - took present today. And you can take your pick; Westall, Ariel School, etc. etc. I say that because if that took place nowadays, between everyone having an iPhone and then all the security cameras that a school has - it would be impossible to not capture the event. Forget the children - could you imagine if even 10 faculty members were able to pull out the iphones and hit "record"?

Confession Time: i find it interesting that you highlight the two school cases, as in the top ten list in my mind those two figure prominently along with other types of human UFO experiences. there's something so surreal about these cases where someone walks into their backyard, or around the corner, and whadda ya know there's a damn silver, or glass or metallic disc sitting right there, or spinning above the ground and oh, there in the distance are two figures in silver suits. one carries a wand and the other has a flashing light on their chest. they are gliding over the ground and now they're beckoning you into their craft. Damn perplexing.

what do you do with all these stories? a certain percentage could be a delusional form of Ouelett-Kirby syndrome - the mad visions of a sensitized psycho-socially affected populous, but in other cases these people have no real connection to the cult of the UFO, such as children in Africa or Australia, or the rural farmer in Poland, and they see not just ships but humanoids as well. Damn perplexing.

while none of the photgraphy is certain, and those that are interesting contain obscure blobs of light & smears of emulsion, these isolate cases really point to a strange set of occurrences that insist on portraying themselves as visiting/invading/capturing aliens from another world on a familiar science expedition, or they fade in and out of reality like ghosts & zip around in objects that appear to belong to an intelligence fully versed in how to utilize the gravitons and other forces of the universe. are they just showing off? are they playing jokes? are they indifferent? are they lost? are they bored? are they malicious? are they teachers? are they artists? are they the dead? Damn perplexing.

 

[Burnt State]

Since we all know the limitations of photographs as evidence of ufo reality (even before CGI became an opportunity for sociopathic individuals to play games with the subject rather than seriously pursue it), I wonder why y'all want to spend your time playing one-up games with trained photographic analysts such as Bruce Maccabee (an optical physicist) when there's more reliable ufo evidence available to read and discuss -- electromagnetic anomalies, radar-visual cases, physical trace cases, and the testimony of military pilots of their close encounters with ufos in the air. No serious ufo researcher have ever made his or her case solely on the basis of photographs. Maybe you should become more serious in your attempts to debunk ufos if you want an argument.

If you read the article, Constance, you'll see that its focus, as I also stated, is to identify how hoaxed photos have a negative impact on ufology because of the strawmen that they create for debunkers to use as ammunition. The emphasis here is the fact that the optical physicist has made a number of mistakes over the years, as experts will do. There's no one-upmanship going on here. Mistakes were made plain and simple, as there always will be in trying to collect evidence for the existence of UFO's. That this evidence exists is not in dispute. That there is faulty evidence is the problem and the focus of the discussion.

This constant premise of UFO's are real or not real is getting boring. You should know by now that my own perplexity towards the UFO mystery is both personal and one that I've reasoned for myself based on indisputable aspects of the phenomena as I've understood them. Can we please move towards the more interesting aspects of UFO discussion and how they are interacting wth our physics and our consciousness? There's no doubt of their existence, but their paranormality continues to confuse as to origin and intentionality. Let's pick up the pace. This has got nothing to do with trying to debunk UFO's. Are you looking for that argument as I lost it long ago along the way.

What's been learned about how they betray our physics and interact with our consciuosness from that constantly dividing C&P thread?

 

[Burnt State]

Addenum: that blog post by Banias has got a response from Bruce Maccabee now.

 

[Constance]

This constant premise of UFO's are real or not real is getting boring. You should know by now that my own perplexity towards the UFO mystery is both personal and one that I've reasoned for myself based on indisputable aspects of the phenomena as I've understood them. Can we please move towards the more interesting aspects of UFO discussion and how they are interacting wth our physics and our consciousness? There's no doubt of their existence, but their paranormality continues to confuse as to origin and intentionality. Let's pick up the pace. This has got nothing to do with trying to debunk UFO's. Are you looking for that argument as I lost it long ago along the way.

I agree that the question "of UFOs are real or not real is getting boring." This 'question' has been vexed by six+ decades of government secrecy and efforts to marginalize private inquiry through influence on public media and programs of disinformation. It has been further vexed by the development of photoshop and the inclination of many people to play games with it to further marginalize the ufo subject. And it is further vexed by the current inclination of people who recognize the actual and historical presence of ufos in our planet's skies (and often on the ground) to attempt to dismantle case after case as being explainable either as a hoax or a misunderstanding by witnesses and analysts. Yes, there have been hoaxes, including hoaxes performed by our government and military, and yes we should dismiss cases actually proved to have been hoaxes, and cases in which interpretations of data can be proved to have been flawed. But doing this kind of thing has become an unfortunate pasttime on the internet to the exclusion of equivalent consideration of the many strong cases for ufo reality that have been witnessed and investigated over these last six decades and into the present. The net effect on an uninformed and interested public is to dilute their interest. I don't see this as beneficial in the long run if the ufo phenomena in our time are real and need to be taken seriously by the public and the media that primarily shape opinion.

You write: "This has got nothing to do with trying to debunk UFO's. Are you looking for that argument as I lost it long ago along the way."

No, I'm not looking for 'that argument'. You will have noted, perhaps, my rare participation in ufo theads here. I'm sick to death of the fence-sitting, the willingness to consider any other 'explanation' of ufos than that they are real in the full sense of the term, not figments of our imaginations.

You also ask: "What's been learned about how they betray our physics and interact with our consciuosness from that constantly dividing C&P thread?

What makes you think that ufos "betray our physics"? Their behavior and capabilities betray only the limitations of our understanding of physics, as many physicists recognize and have stated. Re how ufos "interact with our consciousness," do you mean our individual consciousnesses (as affected by our accumulated personal experiences) or the public consciousness concerning ufos which has been far more affected by governmental and media attitudes re ufos (in sync since the Robertson Panel) and by sci-fi notions re ufos propagated by the entertainment industries?

In the Consciousness and the Paranormal thread we have rarely if ever contemplated the ufo subject, and only occasionally contemplated paranormal experiences such as telepathy and precognition. As I recall, before Tyger initiated that thread, she suggested to me the title
"Consciousness and the Occult" and I suggested instead the title "Consciousness and the Paranormal." {@Tyger, if I'm misremembering, please correct this.} My reason for suggesting 'C and the Paranormal' was that the long history of psychical and parapsychological research provides considerable evidence of nonlocal connections in consciousness, which for me is one of the primary subjects that needs investigation. The two-year history of the P&C thread has rarely engaged that issue for long, instead returning again and again to the debate in Consciousness Studies concerning the attempt by traditional neuroscientists to account for consciousness as a physically determined production of neurons and neural nets or still more abstractly 'information' (a term itself still in dispute). So in fact our discussions in C&P are yet to turn to a serious and extended effort to account for phenomena indicating nonlocality in consciousness.

 

[Constance]

Addenum: that blog post by Banias has got a response from Bruce Maccabee now.

Where? Do you have a link to it?

 

[mike]

There's no doubt of their existence, but their paranormality continues to confuse

Personally I think the problem is primarily ours. just because the evidence is confusing doesn't by default mean the answer is paranormal or supernatural. I think that's the point Streiber is making in his new book. Its a view ive long espoused too. the universe is mechanistic. Not understanding a mechanism is OK. Ascribing a superstitious or supernatural explanation is not. Nor is denialism a valid answer

classic example

The platypus is so weird that scientists thought the first specimen was a hoax

That's not to say deliberate deception isn't a factor in the UFO mystery, but the platypus didn't need to engage in deliberate deception to invoke what strikes me as the same response dynamic.

It took 100 years to prove it laid eggs. there is nothing paranormal about this critter, yet it created the same cries of hoax the same confusion we see in this enigma.

If UFO's are no more unnatural than the platypus, and it took 100 years to settle the egg issue.............

Of course today there is no confusion about the platypus and its reproductive habits. I suggest the same process that got us there can and will apply to this matter.

The question re the eggs wasn't resolved by saying since I don't know, since the whole thing is strange it must ergo be a hoax

It was resolved by scientific study and research and yes 100 years worth of patience and perserverance

Perhaps even more significant

Two hundred years after its first encounter with Western scientists, a genome analysis helped to unravel more questions surrounding how the platypus came to be: researchers determined, for instance, that venomous reptiles and the venomous male platypus developed the characteristic independently of each other, but from the same set of genes.

Our own level of technological knowledge took 200 years of advancement before we had the tools to answer some of the questions this strange thing presented us with.

If UFO's are themselves advanced technology, the same may apply

The trap here is to make the same mistake many made when presented with the evidence of the platypus, simply write it of as hoax since it fell outside the experience of those examining that evidence. Even those who kept and open mind didn't live long enough to see the scientific tools developed to answer some of the questions definitively.

Just because something is weird, or falls outside our experience or understanding, doesn't make it a hoax. That's the lazy way out

 

[Burnt State]

I agree that the question "of UFOs are real or not real is getting boring." This 'question' has been vexed by six+ decades of government secrecy and efforts to marginalize private inquiry through influence on public media and programs of disinformation. It has been further vexed by the development of photoshop and the inclination of many people to play games with it to further marginalize the ufo subject. And it is further vexed by the current inclination of people who recognize the actual and historical presence of ufos in our planet's skies (and often on the ground) to attempt to dismantle case after case as being explainable either as a hoax or a misunderstanding by witnesses and analysts. Yes, there have been hoaxes, including hoaxes performed by our government and military, and yes we should dismiss cases actually proved to have been hoaxes, and cases in which interpretations of data can be proved to have been flawed. But doing this kind of thing has become an unfortunate pasttime on the internet to the exclusion of equivalent consideration of the many strong cases for ufo reality that have been witnessed and investigated over these last six decades and into the present. The net effect on an uninformed and interested public is to dilute their interest. I don't see this as beneficial in the long run if the ufo phenomena in our time are real and need to be taken seriously by the public and the media that primarily shape opinion.

You write: "This has got nothing to do with trying to debunk UFO's. Are you looking for that argument as I lost it long ago along the way."

No, I'm not looking for 'that argument'. You will have noted, perhaps, my rare participation in ufo theads here. I'm sick to death of the fence-sitting, the willingness to consider any other 'explanation' of ufos than that they are real in the full sense of the term, not figments of our imaginations.

You also ask: "What's been learned about how they betray our physics and interact with our consciuosness from that constantly dividing C&P thread?

What makes you think that ufos "betray our physics"? Their behavior and capabilities betray only the limitations of our understanding of physics, as many physicists recognize and have stated. Re how ufos "interact with our consciousness," do you mean our individual consciousnesses (as affected by our accumulated personal experiences) or the public consciousness concerning ufos which has been far more affected by governmental and media attitudes re ufos (in sync since the Robertson Panel) and by sci-fi notions re ufos propagated by the entertainment industries?

In the Consciousness and the Paranormal thread we have rarely if ever contemplated the ufo subject, and only occasionally contemplated paranormal experiences such as telepathy and precognition. As I recall, before Tyger initiated that thread, she suggested to me the title
"Consciousness and the Occult" and I suggested instead the title "Consciousness and the Paranormal." {@Tyger, if I'm misremembering, please correct this.} My reason for suggesting 'C and the Paranormal' was that the long history of psychical and parapsychological research provides considerable evidence of nonlocal connections in consciousness, which for me is one of the primary subjects that needs investigation. The two-year history of the P&C thread has rarely engaged that issue for long, instead returning again and again to the debate in Consciousness Studies concerning the attempt by traditional neuroscientists to account for consciousness as a physically determined production of neurons and neural nets or still more abstractly 'information' (a term itself still in dispute). So in fact our discussions in C&P are yet to turn to a serious and extended effort to account for phenomena indicating nonlocality in consciousness.

It's inevitable that ufo culture has hoaxes, liars, misinterpreters, snake oil salesman, self-declared prophets etc. as a part of its core history. Sidestepping this is not always easy as unquestioning belief in ufo's as ET or as Demons etc. supports the confabulated history. Look at what's on ufo TV - this is the junk the masses want apparently so I do not see that ethic changing anytime soon.

But as far as ufo reality goes it is easily one of the most complex mysteries of our times offering itself open to interpretation from a wide array of disciplines and interdisciplinary approaches. It interacts with both our collective and individual consciousness in ways we don't fully comprehend.

Re: physics semantics: betray, break, beyond our limitations - all the same thing to me. They behave like ghosts, tree spirits, transforming creatures, blobs of energy and structured craft from outerspace. They may as well be a platypus. It wears masks over masks with only the ETH narrative, that it has wrapped itself in, as the most consistent aspect of its history.

The question to consider in light of all this is how much of the ufo phenomena is humanity responsible for based on the many true and untrue stories told, exaggerated and retold? Can we even separate the core phenomena from the dross at this point in time when everyone has the power to broadcast a story?