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    Transients in the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS-I) may be associated with nuclear testing and reports of unidentified anomalous phenomena
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    Transients in the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS-I) may be associated with nuclear testing and reports of unidentified anomalous phenomena

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    1. YsoL8 on

      A whole bunch of ufo nonsense having a single natural and real source would certainly be a result

      I can imagine how the true believer community will crusade against the wrongthink though

    2. jdkdmmernnen on

      At this point it should be obvious to anyone who isn’t living in their imagination that UAP reports are dumb nonsense from dumb people. I’m so sick of people playing games and I don’t see any evidence that encouraging these fantasies benefits society or improves life in any way. 

    3. ReasonablyConfused on

      Im reading that UAP are observed significantly more frequently near the date of a nuclear test, both before and after the time of the test.

      That seems to point towards three possible explanations:

      UAP, observed both before and after tests, are broadly caused by the test itself. IE the military program produces both the nuclear test and the UAP.

      The UAP are not controlled by the military, but another intelligent system is interested in observing the nuclear test.

      An unknown cause is responsible for both the nuclear tests and the UAP.

      I’m trying my best to apply causation logic here. A causes B, or B causes A, or C causes both A and B.

      To me, this study doesn’t clarify that UAP are man made.

    4. Andromeda321 on

      Astronomer here- note this particular survey took place in the early 1950s, nuclear testing is still very illegal.

      But that’s kind of a problem for a report like this- you have plenty of transients in astronomical data, caused by things like passing asteroids, supernovae, random noise in your instrument, etc, and a LOT of manmade stuff. This survey was not really designed to identify those transients, and we can’t go back in time to rerun the experiment and figure it out.

      In the absence of evidence though, the simplest explanation is usually the right one. Wanna know a simple explanation? Palomar is based in Southern California, as is a significant fraction of the United States military. You think they’re sitting idle during a nuclear test? No, they’re monitoring the hell out of it, not only with aircraft but launching many high altitude balloons with instrument payloads (particularly in the era before satellites). Are you ever gonna figure out those details and trace it to a specific Palomar image 70+ years old? Also no.

    6. ramriot on

      I find this paper statistically & observationally uncompelling because among other failings there is no sigma comparisons to null sets as a sanity check.

      Also in the introduction they talk about these transients existing for periods of less than an hour, which is only realisable if one assumes the transient is a broad spectrum object. This is because while the blue & red plate sets are correlated in time & position to the duration of a single exposure the repeat observation of the same area is over a much longer time-frame.

      Thus it seems likely that a transient with a restricted spectral signature (all red & little blue) could have been bright for an indeterminate period (months, years, centuries) & was captured on the primary run on the red but not blue plates. Then months later it had dimmed (perhaps for as little as a few hours) when it was no longer seen on the follow up plates.

    7. Ras_Thavas on

      More than 100,000 transients detected from this 1 location over a 9 year period. Sounds like the sky is teeming with UAP. How likely is it that these would be alien spacecraft? That’s a whole bunch of ships! I think not likely.

      I’m often wondering if UAP are some kind of life form we don’t understand. Not “ships” with a few aliens in them, but each an individual “alien”. My guess is it’s something we can’t yet understand.

      Now, when people have seen a metallic craft with landing gear in their back yard… well, that’s something different and not what I’m talking about.