Smartphones vs. UFO's

[lpetrich]

There’s always an excuse by PZ Myers, noting Our Skies Are More Watched Than Ever, So Why Are Reported UFO Sightings on the Decline?

“There definitely has been a fall off of late,” MUFON statistician David C. Korts told Gizmodo. “It hasn’t been a straight line. But in looking at those numbers, it was a peak in 2012 and it’s been a 30 to 40 percent drop from 2012 to 2017.”

That's the Mutual UFO Network.

Korts isn’t the only one who has noticed the shift. Cheryl Costa—a writer who was named International UFO Congress’s 2018 Researcher of the Year—recently reviewed reported sightings data from both MUFON and the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC) over the last 17 years, and reported her findings in the Syracuse New Times. Her analysis showed that after a steady increase in sighting reports from 2001 to 2012, reports have been on the decline.

Later in the article,

While there are still hundreds of reports each month, that data doesn’t include many clear photos. Harzan had an explanation for why so many of the UFO photos are blurry: “UFOs are basically manipulating space-time. And when they do that, it requires a high electromagnetic field. That distorts the images.”

Harzan did have some tips for anyone who wants to see a UFO. “Just being outdoors, being in a quiet place, and thinking about it tends to be one way you could attract these crafts,” Harzan said. “There appears to be some kind of a consciousness connection.”

As PZ Myers noted, that is a very convenient excuse.

 

[lpetrich]

Back in 2013, TWILIGHT OF THE GULLIBLE | More Intelligent Life

There used to be many reported sightings of UFOs, but modern life has not been kind to them. Charles Nevin finds out why

At a conference organized by the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena (ASSAP), UFO skeptic Ian Ridpath noted a great variety of things that have been reported as Unidentified Flying Objects: Venus, garbage-bag balloons, blurred birds, meteorites, ...

The ASSAP has noted not only a sharp drop of claimed UFO sightings, but also a fall-off in the popularity of UFO-investigation groups.

Ridpath gave an assured performance, received with applause. He stressed that there had been no classic UFO sightings since the advent of the new generation of technology, and, especially, the mobile-phone camera, whose ubiquity, it might have been thought, should almost have guaranteed convincing photographic evidence of the inquisitive green men and their conveyances.

The cameras are still in action, and while we have lots of photographic evidence of incoming extraterrestrial rocks, we don't have anything similar for extraterrestrial spacecraft.

 

[lpetrich]

Some UFOlogists have compared UFO's and meteorites, noting that the scientific community tended to reject the extraterrestrial hypothesis of meteorites back in the eighteenth century. In effect, skepticism about Unidentified Flying Objects is an unwarranted as skepticism about Unidentified Falling Objects, and that as extraterrestrial rocks were vindicated, extraterrestrial spacecraft will some day be.

18th cy. scientists recognized that these rocks existed and had fallen from the sky, but they had several alternative hypotheses:

• Rocks struck by lightning
• Rocks ejected by volcanoes
• Rocks picked up by windstorms
• Condensations in the upper atmosphere, sort of like hailstones

But on 1803 April 26, some meteorites fell onto L'Aigle, in northern France, and the French Academy of Sciences dispatched Jean-Baptiste Biot to investigate that event. He found numerous witnesses across all of society, he found physical evidence like broken branches, and he found some rocks that were atypical of the area. He wrote a report on his investigation in a nice sort of style, and it was widely reprinted. It convinced the scientific community that meteorites are extraterrestrial.

But where is the L'Aigle of UFOlogy?

 

[Peez]

 

[Max Rockatansky]

....The cameras are still in action, and while we have lots of photographic evidence of incoming extraterrestrial rocks, we don't have anything similar for extraterrestrial spacecraft.

Because they don't exist. If they did, we'd know about it. Sure, the conspiracy theorists would claim "the government" is hiding their existence, but every government with technological expertise, and there are dozens, would have to be in on the conspiracy. That's highly unlikely and unsustainable.