"The lights were filmed on March 5 by pilots using infrared equipment. They appeared to be flying at an altitude of about 3,500 meters (11,480 feet), and allegedly surrounded the Air Force jet as it conducted routine anti-drug trafficking vigilance in Campeche. Only three of the objects showed up on the plane's radar." - CNN.com
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05-12-04, 12:52 PM
Sarai
From everything I've heard about this incident, there only seem to be two possible explanations. Either some country has super-top-secret unrecognizable aircraft that was flying over Mexican airspace without the permission or awareness of authorities, or else this is something extraterrestrial.

(insert Twilight Zone music here... nee noo nee noo nee noo nee noo...)
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05-17-04, 06:08 PM
DorianGreyed
Mexican UFOs called Ball Lightning - CNN.com

Oh, well, we still have the Yeti and Nessie.
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05-17-04, 08:41 PM
Sarai
I don't know if I buy it. I saw the footage, and these lights were perfectly lined up in what appeared to be a design, and they stayed in the same formation as they seemed to follow the airplane. I guess I could concede that the ball lightning was attracted to the airplane, but it seems very strange to me that lightning would take such an apparently organized shape. Also, I think it's strange that other pilots don't see this now and then, if it is a plausible explanation.
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05-25-04, 07:13 PM
JohnGalt

quote:Originally posted by Sarai:
I don't know if I buy it. I saw the footage, and these lights were perfectly lined up in what appeared to be a design, and they stayed in the same formation as they seemed to follow the airplane.


Straight lines can, and do, happen in nature. I'll never forget how lucky I was when my wife yelled for me to come outside one night several years back. A meteor had entered the atmosphere to our extreme left. It had broken up into 5 or 6 pieces. Each one was very bright and they all traveled in a perfectly straight line across the horizon in an orderly "train-like" fashion, each one, in what appeared to be a uniform distance to and from the one in front and back of it, until they went out of our sight on our far right. The next day in the paper, astronomers said the broken-up meteor traveled across several states before skimming off the atmosphere back out into space. Stranger things have happened. Even if they didn't truly travel in a perfectly straight line, and in a uniform fashion, they appeared to travel perfectly straight to our non-expert eyes. And in cases such as this, perception is reality in the eyes' of the witnesses.

Which is more probable:

Highly advanced alien life forms (who apparently still haven't figured out how to utilize the same stealth technology that U.S. stealth bombers and fighters on Earth routinely use) have traveled thousands of light years to the planet Earth just to buzz Mexican aircraft all without being seen approaching Earth by the tens of thousands of amateur and professional astronomers and meteorologists...

Or...

Highly advanced Earth bound aircraft (that also don't use current stealth radar blocking technology) buzz other Earth bound aircraft, putting not only the secret aircraft project at risk, but also the lives of people on both sets of aircraft in jeopardy by flying so close to one another without any pre-flight or in-flight warnings...

Or...

A natural, yet rare, phenomena occurred in front of fallible humans, who are very easy and inherently likely to misjudge situations with which they are not familiar?

Occam's Razor : "Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate" or "plurality should not be posited without necessity." In other words, when faced with several different possibilities, it's usually best to go with the the simple one rather than the overly complicated ones.

Pilots are pretty decent judges of ordinary situations that they will routinely encounter in their flights. But even a pilot can be fooled or misjudge things if he sees something outside his area of expertise. They're pilots, not meteorologists.
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05-25-04, 07:27 PM
Sarai
Oh, fine, John. Offer common sense. Be that way. Big Grin
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05-25-04, 07:32 PM
DorianGreyed
Good to see you back, John, and it's also nice to see someone use Occam's Razor. I have to admit I was disappointed when the explanation turned out to be ball lightning, but what little I know about the phenomenon seems to fit.
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05-25-04, 07:51 PM
JohnGalt

quote:Originally posted by Sarai:
Oh, fine, John. Offer _common sense. _ Be that way. Big Grin


Hey, common sense also says that a case can easily be made that Occam's Razor also says that of all the planets in all the solar systems in all the galaxies in all the Universe, our planet Earth couldn't possibly be the only one that has developed intelligent life.

Of all the planets out there, absolutely none of them, other than Earth, ever had life arise and become self-aware? Confused I think Occam's Razor would suggest the opposite - that other planets have done similar things that Earth has done. I just don't think they've ever been here. And if they ever do come, in the words of Carl Sagan, they'd call ahead first . Smile
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06-11-05, 05:30 PM
JohnGalt
UPDATE ON THE MEXICAN UFO FOOTAGE

National Geographic's television channel had an episode about UFOs this morning. They showed the actual infrared footage of the UFOs taken by the Mexican Air Force. I was in an out of the room during some of that segment, but from what I gather, another pilot flew the same route with similar infrared equipment to try and see if he could figure out what they were. His conclusion?

Drum roll please...

Fires (oil?) on the ocean nearly a hundred miles away! They were there the night the footage was taken, and apparently in the same number that appear on the footage.

This explains why the plane's pilots and crew could not see anything flying next to them and why radar didn't pick up any object other than the plane. But the infrared camera would see the heat from the fires and at such a distance produce some very illusory and strange footage. Everyone is familiar with the illusion of far away objects on the horizon appearing to keep pace with your car while closer objects zoom past your car. This was what was happening on the plane. The far off fires were out of human sight and radar could never pick them up because they weren't in the sky, but they were not out of sight of the infrared camera looking out the window.

They showed actual fires on the ocean and (apparently?) what they look like viewed from great distances with infrared equipment. Like I said, I was in and out of the room, so I don't know why there were fires on the ocean that night, but I think this case has pretty much conclusively been put to rest.

There's always a logical explanation. You just have to know where to look. Smile
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07-03-06, 10:53 PM
iseeu
strange
it too a photo of theses objects take a look and you decide on what these objects could be
http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g113/monty4444/000_0240_edited.jpg
http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g113/monty4444/000_0240_edited-1.jpg
http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g113/monty4444/000_0240_edited-2.jpg
http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g113/monty4444/000_0240.jpg
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07-03-06, 11:08 PM
DorianGreyed
The first three could be anything, and the last one is, I think, a picture of the sky with clouds and part of someone's hand in the lower left.
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07-04-06, 03:58 AM
tsaeb
I see cigarette smoke and an armchair. Big Grin
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07-04-06, 04:30 AM
Professor
Yeah, but what KIND of cigarette smoke...? Big Grin
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07-05-06, 12:55 AM
tsaeb
Second hand, eh? That photo also reminds me of those spontaneous combustion documentaries except that in them one sees the front view of the armchair with one human leg from the calf down standing before it.
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07-06-06, 07:29 AM
Elexina

quote:
you decide on what these objects could be

Bugs? Stars? Clouds?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: DorianGreyed,