The 1948 Chiles-Whitted sighting per Kevin Randle

Our friend Kevin Randle has a posting at his blog [KevinRandle.blogspot.com] which is a follow-up to his attempt to clarify skepticism and pseudo-skepticism.

The current posting is about the July 1948 Chiles-Whitted encounter/sighting of a rocket-like object or cigar shaped UFO.

Mr. Randle has come to the conclusion that the pilots, Chiles and Whitted, mistook a meteor for a craft, Mr. Randle relying on the misperception of the March 3,1968 re-entry of the Russian spacecraft Zond IV.

It seems some witnesses of that re-entry saw the glowing shower of pieces as a cigar-shaped craft with windows, much as Chile and Whitted described the “thing” they saw.

Mr. Randle further finds the afterward statements of buffeting that Chiles and Whitted reported as an addendum that has no validity.

(However that may be, psychologists and cops know that witnesses often provide additional material after an event, subsumed by the major event, and forgetting or dismissing other details they think are unimportant in the first rendition of what they observed or experienced, but coming to realize perhaps, that their remembered detail might be important after all.)

Mr. Randle’s acceptance of the bolide explanation is not irrational; actually it makes sense.

But I’m of the persuasion, again, that people report, rather accurately, what they see or experience, even as they often mess up minor details; the major observation or experience is pretty much accurate, unless we’re dealing with neurological or psychological malfeasance.

Chiles and Whitted were experienced pilots, often seeing meteors and perhaps some bolides.

And seeing something while flying an airplane offers a clearer view than what one sees from the ground, as was the case with the Zond IV sightings.

I’m leaning, and always have, that pilots Chiles and Whitted reported what they saw accurately and rather precisely.

To dismiss it as a misperceived observation of a meteor seems to me to be intellectually wanting.

RR

Ufology and the Facebook debacle

As some of you know, Facebook has become the place for UFO reports and commentary.

Once lively bloggers and web-siters filled pages with astute material about UFOs, offering their observations and opinions on the topic.

But now, many resort to posting a line or two at their Facebook accounts, satisfied by the inane likes and comments from Facebook “friends.”

A few have eschewed the Facebook route: Kevin Randle, Eric Ouellett, Eric Wargo, and several others, but many former UFO biggies have taken to the instant and banal gratifications offered by Facebookers.

This is killing debate that once raged at places like UFO UpDates and other UFO venues.

(Facebook has killed meaningful and/or serious discussion of the phenomenon among UFO buffs and in other areas of societal interests, UFOs a sliver of what we Earthlings should be dealing with, intellectually.)

I have a MediaWatch area on Facebook. It is rife with astounding stupidities, even from media professionals: baby pictures, selfies, and pictures of food that “friends” eat.

I get a few inserts there from UFO aficionados, but those are curt and superficial usually, links to crazy postings on the internet or cutesy stuff that has nothing to do with UFOs per se.

Facebook is a bane for the intellectual evolution of society, which opens the door to my persistence that AI will take over the world and destroy humanity eventually (as others like Kurzweil and Bostrom have it).

And since I see UFOs as AI instruments from other galaxies, time, or dimensions, apparently Facebook-like obtrusions may have already ruined the future or long-time civilizations far, far away.

RR