HOW AUTHORS ARE FOOLED BY UFOS

Authors are often fooled by UFO cases in the following ways:

Authors are fooled by witnesses.

The author recounts everything the witness reports as the absolute truth. Examples of "facts" that the witness can't possibly know:

• The witness cannot know the true size, distance, speed, or altitude of an unknown object seen against the sky through visual observation alone, when that object is more than 30 feet away. Without other clues to at least one of these values, the human visual system is unable to accurately provide any of these values. The values provided by witnesses are usually erroneous, distorted by witness guesses about the identity of the object.
• A witness assumes that the UFO was a vehicle able to carry beings.
• The witness assumes that anything the object does has a definite purpose.
• A witness assumes that the maneuvers of the object require a great amount of power.
• The witness thinks that the UFO is reacting to the presence or actions of the witness.
• The witness sees the UFO as being at the same distance away as an airplane or some nearby tall object.
• The witness thinks the UFO was an alien spacecraft because nothing else makes sense.
• The witness offers effects he experienced that he attributes to the UFO. Such effects include effects commonly experienced whenever a human comes across anything strange: heightened awareness, slowing of time, tingling, enhanced hearing, and other effects on the body. The presence of the UFO has no bearing on these effects, other than it is the strange event that triggers these instinctive reactions.
• Witnesses report sounds and smells, thinking the object produced them. But strange sounds and smells could have many other sources.
• They report the reactions of animals to the presence of the UFO. But many witnesses report that animals reacted to the presence of a UFO, even when the UFO is later identified as Venus. If the UFO didn't cause the reaction of the animal, then possibly the animal reacted to the agitation of the witness. The animal might also have reacted to unrelated scents or sounds.
• A UFO witness with a Geiger counter reported a dangerous level of radiation when a UFO hovered half a mile away. But if the report was real, then people in the houses closer to the UFO should have had radiation sickness. Yet, there were no such cases of sickness.
• Witnesses are often fooled by such atmospheric or astronomical effects as meteors, sundogs, scintillating stars, lenticular clouds, ice crystal cloud effects, and other natural effects.
• Witnesses are also often fooled by such man-made effects as satellites, advertising planes, aircraft seen under unusual conditions, sun reflections from aircraft, experimental clouds released by satellites or rockets, prank fire balloons and sky lanterns, kites, ultralight aircraft, balloons, wind-turbine kites, flares, and other unusual objects in the sky.
• Witnesses are often fooled by UFOlogists into thinking that they saw an extraterrestrial spacecraft.
• Some "witnesses" fake a UFO experience to make others believe that UFOs are extraterrestrial spacecraft.

Authors are fooled by their own UFO sightings.

General reasons, plus two famous cases:

• When an author sees a UFO, he makes assumptions about its identity that hinder correct identification:
  • A wrong assumption of the size, distance, speed, or altitude of the object
  • The unwarranted belief that the UFO was a vehicle able to carry beings
  • Assuming that anything the object does has a definite purpose
  • Assuming that the maneuvers of the object require a great amount of power
  • Thinking that the UFO is reacting to the presence or actions of the witness
  • Assuming that a UFO was at the same distance as an airplane or some nearby tall object
  • Thinking the UFO was an alien spacecraft because nothing else makes sense
  • Wanting the UFO to be an alien spacecraft.
• Case #1: The Frank Edwards Sighting

  On 10/12/1961, TV Commentator Frank Edwards reported that he saw a UFO over the southeastern part of Indianapolis, Indiana from his office building in downtown Indianapolis. He reported that it looked like a sphere with a band of lights rotating around its equator and colored lights on the top and bottom. After he was fired from his TV job for repeatedly talking about this, he wrote books about UFOs. His first book was titled:

  Flying Saucers - Serious Business.

  On 10/12/1961, the author of this page was at the Twin Aire drive in theater in the southeast part of Indianapolis. He saw something that looked like a sphere with a band of lights rotating around its equator and colored lights on the top and bottom. But it came closer, passing directly over the theater. Then the page author identified it as an advertising airplane with an electric sign hung under the wings. The lettering moved bulb to bulb from one wingtip to the other.

  Advertising - Serious Business ... (About the sighting)

• Case #2: John Fuller saw a jet chasing a UFO (from Incident at Exeter pp. 109-110)

  In the one sighting Fuller witnessed in this investigation, he saw what appeared to be a jet fighter chasing an orange round object (which he called a disk). He reported that the jet couldn't get anywhere near it.

  But all of the theories Fuller and Kimball thought of were based on the assumption that the UFO and the jet were at the same altitude. One of their theories was that a plane that was not showing any running lights, but had an afterburner making the orange light, was flying ahead of the jet. They dismissed it as a violation of safety regulations.

  It is possible that this could have been a drill practicing intercepting an unlighted airplane. But they would not hold such a drill over a populated area.

  The color orange is significant here. Most of the UFOs in the cases Fuller was investigating were low, slow, and orange. In fact, they had all of the characteristics of fire balloons. Apparently Fuller never heard of fire balloons (or didn't believe that they caused the other sightings).

  The page author believes that the plane and the UFO were not at the same altitude, and that they seemed to be related to each other only from the location where the witnesses were standing. The UFO was probably a fire balloon much closer to Fuller than the plane, and was coincidentally moving in the same direction.

Authors are fooled by the press.

Where they put the story can determine whether or not the author sees it:

• While a new UFO case is still a mystery, people go outside to see if they can see one. This increases the number of UFO sightings. As soon as the primary sighting is identified as something ordinary, the UFO sightings die off, because people quit looking for them.
• UFO sightings increase the sales of newspapers. As soon as the UFO sightings die off, the sales of newspapers drop to where they were before the sightings occurred.
• Sometimes reporters try to keep the mystery going, to keep the increased sales going.
• While a new UFO case is still a mystery, the stories are on the front page. Many people see the stories, and buy the papers. When the sighting is identified as something ordinary, the story about that is buried in the interior of the paper. Many times, UFO authors see only the front-page articles.
• The press often makes wild suggestions about what the UFOs were.

Authors are fooled by tabloid magazines.

What tabloids publish is not always the truth. They publish what sells magazines:

• While a new UFO case is still a mystery, people go outside to see if they can see one. Many tabloid reporters give them objects to see by launching fire balloons, fireworks, lighted kites, flares or other objects that people will think are UFOs.
• UFO sightings increase sales of tabloids. As soon as the sightings die off, sales fall.
• Some tabloid reporters pretend to be government officials. They intimidate witnesses and try to obtain original photos and evidence of the sighting. This is probably the origin of the "men in black" stories.
• Tabloid magazines have embellished UFO cases to the point where the original witnesses don't recognize them.
• Tabloid magazines have invented UFO cases that never happened.

Authors are fooled by UFOlogists.

Science is not always what UFOlogists do:

• When a new UFO case is still a mystery, UFOlogists try to find proof that the UFO was an extraterrestrial spacecraft, rather than trying to find out what it really was. So they ask leading questions, expecting the UFO to be extraterrestrial.
• Witnesses are often fooled by UFOlogists into thinking that they saw an extraterrestrial spacecraft.
• UFOlogists bring in special "scientific" equipment to investigate the area of the sighting with. What science they are actually performing is unclear.
• When the primary sighting is identified as something ordinary, many UFOlogists who want the UFO to be an extraterrestrial spacecraft try to disprove the identification.
• When a witness reports an experience of "missing time" (when the witness reports a period of time the witness can't remember what happened), UFOlogists bring in their own hypnotists. These hypnotists use regression hypnotherapy to try to recover missing time. But they often ask leading questions that expect an encounter with alien beings. This causes the subject's subconscious to create a false memory to please the hypnotist. Thus, a witness who never had an encounter with alien beings ends up believing that such an encounter occurred.

Authors combine unrelated material into the UFO story.

Examples:

• After a UFO has been reported in the media, authors tend to combine into the UFO story any reports of probably unrelated events (e.g. power failures, radio or TV interference, cars that quit running, etc).
• After a power failure occurs, authors tend to combine into this story any UFO reports that occur in the area during the same time.
• Authors also tend to include anything any crackpot says about UFOs.

Authors often don't know their science.

Examples:

• Many authors do not understand wind direction. They think the wind direction is the direction the air is moving.

  The correct definition of wind direction is the direction the wind is coming from. This is the direction that is important to sailors and farmers.

  Misled by this, many authors have concluded that specific UFOs could not have been balloons because they would have been moving into the wind. Coral Lorenzen did this in many of her books.

• Most authors do not know or understand astronomy. They do not understand the basic behaviors of the sun, the moon, stars, planets, comets, and meteors.
• Most authors do not know about or understand atmospheric phenomena. They do not understand the basic behaviors of auroras, solar and lunar halo phenomena, mirages, lenticular clouds, and other things seen in the air.
• Many authors are not familiar with the properties of ordinary aircraft. They are also often not aware of specialized aircraft, such as advertising planes, helicopters, ultralights, drones, and model aircraft. Toy aircraft can also fool them. Several kinds of flying UFO toys and spinning kites now exist.
• Most authors do not understand the science of human perception, including the human visual system's inability to determine the size, distance, speed, or altitude of any object seen against the sky which is more than 30 feet away. They are also unaware of the effects of the nervous system when the witness perceives that something strange is happening.

Authors often don't check all of the sources.

Examples:

• They call one airport, and then report that the UFO could not have been a plane. But they fail to understand that:
  1. Military air bases don't have any information on commercial and private flights.
  2. Commercial airports don't have any information on military and private flights.
  3. Each Private airport knows about only those flights that actually use that airport.
  4. Many private flights are not known to any airports in the area.
  5. Before 9/11/2001, many flights were known to only the pilots who were flying them.
• After a rash of UFO sightings in 1965, an author called one aerial advertising company. When they said their planes were not in the air at the time, the author concluded that aerial advertising did not cause the sightings. But he didn't check to see if other companies also did aerial advertising in the area. He didn't even check to see if any other such companies existed.
• After a police officer saw a landed UFO, investigators checked military sources, but did not check for other users of the air.

Authors tend to ignore negative evidence.

Often there is evidence or testimony that the UFO event did not happen. Authors tend to ignore it.

Examples:

• A UFO was said to have landed in an area where many other people were outside, such as a park. Nobody else saw the object.
• During a wave of UFO sightings in a locality, a trained observer observed the sky all around and over the location he chose to observe from. He didn't see anything. But others farther west claimed they saw UFOs over the area where the trained observer was observing. This indicates that either the reports were false, or the reported distances from the observers to the object were wrong.
• A photographer saw and photographed a UFO hovering close to a freeway. But nobody riding in a car on the busy freeway saw the UFO.

Authors think "UFO" whenever something unusual happens.

Whenever some unusual event happens, some authors think UFOs might be responsible:

• During the 1965 Northeast Blackout, two authors speculated that UFOs might have done something to cause it - even before any UFO reports were received. The same thing happened in the 1977 and 2003 northeast blackouts.
• Several books or chapters of books were written implicating UFOs and alien beings about the 1967 fall of the Silver Bridge carrying US-35 between Point Pleasant WV and Gallipolis OH.
• When Jimmy Hoffa could not be found in 1975, someone suggested he was abducted by a UFO. Two years later, the witness of alleged beings coming out of a UFO said he heard a voice come out of the UFO. It yelled, "I am Jimmy Hoffa!" three times.
• The 6/1/2009 Air France Flight 447 disappearance was suggested to be UFO related before it was found in the ocean.
• In 2014, newsmen suggested that a UFO abducted the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which disappeared on 3/8/2014.

Honest authors can be fooled by many different events.