For generations, UFO enthusiasts have longed for claims of aliens visiting Earth to be seriously investigated by scientists. Now they are getting their wish. This month prominent peer-reviewed journals have published two papers that link apparent flashes of light seen by a telescope 70 years ago to potential artificial objects in space. But there are many simpler explanations, providing an opportunity for UFO enthusiasts to see how extraordinary claims are tested—and often undone—by ordinary science.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/did-astronomers-photograph-ufos-orbiting-earth-in-the-1950s/
17 Comments
Deny, deny, deny. It’s truly unfortunate the current public opinion of UFO’s. The disinformation campaign and negative stigma associated with this topic needs to end.
If you’re saying “UFO” to literally mean an object that’s not identitied, cool.
If you’re using it to mean “alien life and spacecraft” then stop.
Flat earthing , as time is cyclical, right from the start. Again.
Non sense! The scientific consensus right now (according to the “experts”) is that any consideration of non-natural origins of celestial observations are not scientific and should not be taken seriously. It doesn’t matter how many stars and planets are out there that we couldn’t observe and reach, everything must be natural, trust me bro.
But we know it’s not plate defects because they disappear in the earth’s shadow
Idk this article seems to be very dismissive and seemingly without having read the paper
Is it Ari Loeb again? It usually is when a scientist finds aliens.
Sure bud, and next you’re going to tell me the History Channel at 3 am wasn’t real history? Outrageous!
Well, let’s see scientists prove Villarroel wrong then? Sounds like it should be easy enough if they review the data, which I believe is exactly what she’s calling for.
>Derived from digital scans of photographic plates from the Palomar Sky Survey and color-inverted to emphasize detail
This bothers me. The images shown are negatives as is the standard in astronomical studies. The original plates were negatives. If the images shown were “color inverted” from scans of the original plates they should be positives. If they can’t get this detail correct, I worry about the accuracy of the rest.
I’m tired of everyone’s attitude on this subject. It’s either the people being extremely gullible or the toxic people being so dismissive of everything they don’t like the idea of to the point that an alien could be probing their cat in front of them that they’d still deny the mere possibility of aliens existing. Good science does not dismiss unlikely possibilities because a group of people that annoys you wants that possibility to be true.
It’s a peer reviewed paper published by the Nature publications. As opposed to silly speculation about what she has or hasn’t found, I will wait for other scientists to refute or confirm her findings with the scientific method. If there were “many simpler” explanations I assume the peer reviewers, also scientists, would have pointed them out and the paper would not have been published. Since it was, it’s my assumption that Nature wants more eyes on it.
I didn’t see anything linked that was referencing the study about the alleged transients on the pre-sputnik plates.
alien lifeforms have been to earth for the past few hundred thousand years at the least. to think they would have stopped at the peak of human technology is asinine. after all, where do you think humans really came from, monkeys that just stayed in the water? yeah right, it was from aliens fucking monkeys a few hundred thousand years ago. sheesh
Material science cope. It’s the predictable teeter-totter of extreme positions and politicization of the topic. If you’re really curious, and not dismissive, there is a ton of reading you can do on the topic. I’m certain if people of good faith read through the obvious noise with a critical mind, there is actually a ton of compelling data for the phenomenon (without jumping to any conclusions about origin).
Anything possibly relating to aliens sure does bring out the cranks
Its not aliens unless you can prove it is. And overwhelming proof is required
The study’s conclusions linking sky transients to nuclear tests and UAPs are shaky. The main issue is that the statistical link found is extremely weak. It was only detected because the study used a massive amount of data, but the small effect size means these factors don’t really explain why most transients happen. Furthermore, the UAP sighting data used is admitted to be unreliable and “noisy,” with sightings reported on almost 90% of all days, making it hard to prove a real connection.
The study’s physical reasoning is also questionable. For instance, transients were most common one day after a nuclear test. The authors dismiss a simple atmospheric cause (like fallout) because they argue any atmospheric effect would create a “streak” on the long-exposure photo, not the “point source” (a dot) they saw. This is a major logical leap. Instead of searching for a more complex natural explanation for the 24-hour delay, the paper jumps to the highly speculative idea of “artificial, reflective objects” (UAPs) in orbit. This is confusing a weak correlation with causation and jumping to an extraordinary conclusion just because the simplest explanation didn’t fit.