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Article by Brian Thompson
Brian Thompson is a professor of amateur science at a major imaginary university and a regular blogger at CHUD. He has been able to read and write for over seventeen years. 5 Comments
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One of my anthro proffs at college was one of the first radar operators on Greenland shortly after Cuba. The radar dishes were enormous (for the time). So enormous that a blip could reach the moon and back before the disk would finish its scan, which meant the radar read blips. Blips which Cheyenne Mtn read as Russian jets streaking toward US over Greenland. My proff and assoc had one hell of a time convinving the oxymoronic “Military Intelligence” the blips were only blips and not the Russians. He said we were only 1/2 hr from war. I know this relly has nothing to do with UFOs, but it does bear some resembalance to the overall intelligance in Washington.
It’s obvious you consulted no original sources for your blog on the ’52 Washington National Airport sightings nor bothered with the conclusions of subsequent scientists who looked into the events–this might involve too much work on your part. The CAA conclusions were discredited by Dr. James E. McDonald (an atmospheric physicist from the Univ. of Arizona) in the 1960s as well as by a USAF ETAC report in 1969. This latter concluded the alleged optical illusions would have required atmospheric temperatures of “several thousand Kelvins” and “a few mirages would likely be the least spectacular aspect of such a feature of the atmosphere.” I don’t know what transpired over Washington those two weekends in July of 1952, but it wasn’t the nonsense you’ve presented.–Rob Swiatek
Rob:
Dr. James E. McDonald was a UFO nut first and a physicist second. I don’t use that term lightly, either. He really was a nut. Hence, the suicide attempt and the psychiatric committal. And even still, one physicist’s opinion does not make a compelling case. Without a body of research or consensus, it’s not science. And even if he had made a compelling case against the temperature inversion hypothesis, it still doesn’t mean that an extraterrestrial explanation is any more likely. Any suggestion to the contrary is just bad science.
And regarding the USAF report, it was published seventeen years after the incident in question and dealt with atmospheric explanations for alleged eyewitness accounts of UFO activity. It did not dispute the temperature inversion hypothesis in relation to the radar blips. Instead, it concluded only that temperature inversion could not have created lights in the sky. But as I said in my column, these eyewitness reports are spurious by their very nature, and in this particular case, they’re self-contradictory, unverified, and largely sourceless.
In the future, try doing your own research from a book that doesn’t feature on its cover the acronym “UFO” in green smudgy typewriter font.
Damn dude, AmateurScientist slammed your ass hard. You gonna take that? Say something else Rob. Something smart. Like the first thing.
Actually “Amateur Scientist” (I love this–it sums you up perfectly), I don’t know to which book you’re referring in your last paragraph. I did my research from original Air Force documents and the written testimony of Harry Barnes, who knew he wasn’t dealing with temperature inversions even as the blips were appearing on his screen. Assuming my sources is an amateur’s mistake.
Nice touch using an ad hominem attack on an outstanding scientist, whose technical analysis you didn’t–probably couldn’t–critique. But it’s easier this way, isn’t it, Amateur Scientist? Just call someone a nut and that ends all debate. I’m sure the fact his research was published years before his sad end probably wouldn’t make any difference to you, however, as you “know” what happened back there in ’52.–Rob Swiatek