ParaNet BBS/manbio

ParaNet BBS/manbio

File Name:	manbio.txt
Author:	Unknown
Date:	Unknown
Posting BBS:	Unknown
BBS Main Page:	ParaNet Main Page
Key Words:	ParaNet, UFO, Ufology

(635)   Sun 1 Dec 91  2:33a     Rcvd: Sun 1 Dec  3:01a
By: Uucp, ParaNet(sm) Information Servi (104/422)
To: Michael Corbin
Re: Belgian UFOs
St: Pvt  Kill  Rcvd
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Original: TO ... Michael Corbin of 1:104/422
* ReDirected Using ReDirect Version 1.00 (C)1989 David Nugent

From  scicom!ncar!CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU!BLIULG11.BITNET!U2141LT
From: U2141LT%BLIULG11.bitnet@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU ("J. Manfroid")
To:   mcorbin@scicom.alphacdc.com
Date: Sun, 01 Dec 91 09:46:12 +0100

Michael,

Thanks for having posted our report on ParaNet.
Here follow a few more comments.
Jean Manfroid

Biographies:
We are professional astronomers at the University of Liege. One
of us is, among other things, former General Secretary of the
International Astronomical Union. Of course, all of us have at
least a PhD in physics/astrophysics. Our global scientific
output (in observational and theoretical astrophysics, cosmology
and general relativity) amounts to several hundreds of
publications in high-level, "refereed", astrophysical and
physical journals, not to mention countless presentations in
colloquia and other scientific publications. All this without
UMMIT help.

                       * * *

We have no ideas about the reason of the involvement of the army
in this UFO story (didn't the US Air Force also do something
years ago?).  As to J.M. Petit, we only know of his role as the
writer of the preface, a fact that can hardly been downplayed.
Competent cosmologists concur to find that UMMITs would have to
work pretty hard to catch up with modern, terrestrial, science.

What we denounce is the unfounded claim that, with the SOBEPS
report, scientists have proven the extraterrestrial origin of
UFOs. The SOBEPS report does not support such a conclusion.

We seriously analyze the many reports we continuously receive,
and which cover a much larger time span than those appearing in
the SOBEPS book. During the so-called "campaigns" organized by
the SOBEPS we made special "field" studies and interviews.
Nothing unusual came out. Some of the reports concerned strange
lights rapidly disappearing. They proved to be aircraft
headlights which disappeared when the plane turned away.  Hence
the Eupen reports left us rather skeptical. The more so because
the very evening mentioned at the TV news for the sightings, I
observed an AWACS aircraft making round trips between Liege and
eastern Belgium (Eupen area).

Distance and size are necessarily linked and, often, the values
quoted by witnesses show the fragility of their reports. There
is no immediate way of measuring the distance to an unidentified
object in the sky (the distance to Venus has been estimated at
less than 50 meters). An object cannot be said to be close
before it has been identified. Last week we received reports
respectively concerning the star Arcturus, a sphere attached to
an aerial high-voltage line, and a small balloon floating at a
few tens of meters in the air (and illuminated with a flashlight
by facetious kids).  Before being correctly identified those
objets could have been at any distance from a few meters up to
light-years. Honesty, sincerity and other moral qualities of
witnesses are qualities much praised in UFO investigations. But
they only give some guaranties against lies. They do not give
competence, and the fact is that competent observers of the sky
do not see UFO. Experienced observers identify most curious
phenomena in a fraction of a second, but it often takes them
minutes or hours (or eternity) to make the same identification
when interviewing honest, casual witnesses.  When the interviews
are conducted by investigators having themselves no knowledge of
the sky, messy results are guaranteed.

Being accustomed to such "phenomena" we think the media make
much fuss about nothing. There is an overwhelming number of
possible explanations to the few remaining "unexplained" UFO
sightings. Beside astronomical, meteorological or other natural
explanations, there is a lot of possible man-made causes
(planes, satellites, balloons, light-beams reflected by clouds,
smoke or fog patches, false reports, and crop-circle-like
mystifications with light-projecting device).  To invoke an
extraterrestrial cause would need a serious argumentation, which
is totally lacking.

@Redirected Via Node 1:104/422 : Sun, Dec  1, 1991 2:35am