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Will Johnson remain an MP after September 6th? – politicalbetting.com

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  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 10,061
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Is the Calvine UFO photo actually just a mountain-top?


    https://twitter.com/gordonhudsonnu/status/1559136861616046080?s=20&t=_Y4lIvDowIRhR6LDX_hj1Q


    This *feels* quite convincing. But then the "rock in a loch" hypothesis felt equally convincing

    So I wonder if there is - as I suggested before - a human urge to believe the least weird explanation for something weird, to the extent that you will mentally overrule what your eyes are seeing

    What the photo shows is a whacking big weird thing hanging in the sky. What my brains tells me I am seeing is just a rock in a puddle! No, it's just a mountain!

    Never "it's a really big weird thing hanging in the sky"

    Whatever is going on in that photograph is very very unlikely to be a temperature inversion (cloud sea). I've seen quite a few of these in Scotland.

    For a start they usually have a clear sky above, and although you can occasionally see layers during fronts these are normally very local and you can't see distant objects.

    What definition there is in the sky in the photograph is also visible both above and below the 'object'. Layered cloud of any kind would be visible as a line across the image.
    Interesting. So that rules out the mountain hypothesis?
    Well, I don't buy it, anyway. For what that's worth.
    All opinions are worth something, and yours is quite persuasive here


    I tend to agree. The shape being so similar to a mountaintop is probably coincidence. Nothing else supports this thesis. How could it happen, photographically? Psychologically? How come the plane is in the photo but no other landscape features? Nor does this hypothesis remotely square with the eye-witness accounts (which might all be lies, of course)

    I'm down to three explanations


    1. A long elaborate hoax
    2. Surprising human tech
    3. Aliens!???!
    I'm suspicious of those branches at the top: suggests they've hung something - perhaps some symmetrical stone object - from them with transparent thread.
    If you were going to hang something, you'd make very sure there was no visible means of support, surely!

    Anyway, here's a cropped picture of Schiehallion (being a suitable hill for an EXPERIMENT) in a cloud inversion. I took this in January, not August, but you get the idea. The location is only a few miles from Calvine (in the Drumochter hills).



    Even with a serious overexposure I think you'd struggle to get something similar to the mystery image.

    I still think it is a reflection but am prepared to be convinced.


    I totally understand the obsession with ALIENS. Are we alone? It is a fundamental question which will shape how we see the universe if it can ever answered in the negative.

    I doubt we'll discover them in this way, though.
    The mountain top/stone in loch theories ignore the backstory to the photo. They would be great if there were none, and this was just a photo of unknown provenance bought at a car boot sale. But there is, there's the statement of the guys who took the photo (or at least provided it) who say it was a thing in the sky, which shot upwards after 10 minutes. So if they are lying, what's the theory? That a stone in a loch is the best way of faking the UAP or that they took a picture of an uninteresting lochstone and later looked at it and said Hey, that looks like a spaceship? Neither sems likely. The photo is 1 of 6 by the way, so the mountain in clouds claim looks a non starter unlessly they were spookily static clouds.

    What it is, it's the USAF Aurora project.
    There is also the plentiful evidence that the MoD took this seriously, and decided the photos showed a real object, hanging in the sky. Not a rock or a mountain

    Nick Pope has been a much derided figure in Fortean UFOlogical circles, but he has been adamant for years that these photos existed and they were lost/hidden, and after all that derision, here indeed is one of the photos, and it is a very close match to what he has described all along. He's been entirely consistent. He is vindicated

    He is particularly interesting because, in his opinion and those of some colleagues- it seems - this is NOT American tech
    Have you eve4 wondered why we never see the same UFO in other reports? If this is an alien craft, and an example of the ones that have been visiting for 60 years, why is there no consistency?

    On this particular case, and Nick Pope in particular, I have never doubted the existence of at least one photo, that likely spooked someone in the RAF. But Pope has a new career to push, and books to sell, and a living to make. He is skin in the game.
    There are other photos and videos with similar shaped craft, same with 'saucer' shaped, triangles etc. There are other eye witness cases with similar shaped craft - Todmorden Yorks in the 70s for example.

    Yes. Another common shape is the sphere or "orb", gliding along serenely

    Here's one. Bristol Channel. Only visible on thermal camera, and flying steadily against the wind


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LN_lQ8N2K8
    Yes, orbs too.
    Theres plenty of potential evidence out there to chew over if the mood takes you.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,747
    Calvine: if this was a rock or a mountain, what is the reason why a letter was written to the US Air Force warning that an article was to be written by the Glasgow Daily Record on the matter? This was after all over UK air space not American and does not obviously concern the Americans.

    The negatives were said to be returned to the Record and yet they never ran the story. Why?

    There’s only two plausible explanations for this one I think. The most likely is a black ops accidentally seen by two members of the public and the article was blocked by D-Notice. Or, the Americans knew it wasn’t there’s either and it was by deduction “exotic”.

    People in this country are not paying close enough attention to the US govt formally advising congress that there are physical objects in controlled airspace that are not of American origin and that they may need to further their understanding of physics to explain. This should trouble rationalist national security hawks deeply because it implies at a minimum that the US has lost its technological primacy (and did so decades ago, formally at least as far back as 2004 but probably further).

    But because that’s an implausible conclusion which invites other uncomfortable questions, people are flat out ignoring it. World changing black ops tech kept away from all democratic oversight for decades? Eek. Or as the pentagon calls it, “Other”. Eek.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,309
    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Is the Calvine UFO photo actually just a mountain-top?


    https://twitter.com/gordonhudsonnu/status/1559136861616046080?s=20&t=_Y4lIvDowIRhR6LDX_hj1Q


    This *feels* quite convincing. But then the "rock in a loch" hypothesis felt equally convincing

    So I wonder if there is - as I suggested before - a human urge to believe the least weird explanation for something weird, to the extent that you will mentally overrule what your eyes are seeing

    What the photo shows is a whacking big weird thing hanging in the sky. What my brains tells me I am seeing is just a rock in a puddle! No, it's just a mountain!

    Never "it's a really big weird thing hanging in the sky"

    Whatever is going on in that photograph is very very unlikely to be a temperature inversion (cloud sea). I've seen quite a few of these in Scotland.

    For a start they usually have a clear sky above, and although you can occasionally see layers during fronts these are normally very local and you can't see distant objects.

    What definition there is in the sky in the photograph is also visible both above and below the 'object'. Layered cloud of any kind would be visible as a line across the image.
    Interesting. So that rules out the mountain hypothesis?
    Well, I don't buy it, anyway. For what that's worth.
    All opinions are worth something, and yours is quite persuasive here


    I tend to agree. The shape being so similar to a mountaintop is probably coincidence. Nothing else supports this thesis. How could it happen, photographically? Psychologically? How come the plane is in the photo but no other landscape features? Nor does this hypothesis remotely square with the eye-witness accounts (which might all be lies, of course)

    I'm down to three explanations


    1. A long elaborate hoax
    2. Surprising human tech
    3. Aliens!???!
    I'm suspicious of those branches at the top: suggests they've hung something - perhaps some symmetrical stone object - from them with transparent thread.
    If you were going to hang something, you'd make very sure there was no visible means of support, surely!

    Anyway, here's a cropped picture of Schiehallion (being a suitable hill for an EXPERIMENT) in a cloud inversion. I took this in January, not August, but you get the idea. The location is only a few miles from Calvine (in the Drumochter hills).



    Even with a serious overexposure I think you'd struggle to get something similar to the mystery image.

    I still think it is a reflection but am prepared to be convinced.


    I totally understand the obsession with ALIENS. Are we alone? It is a fundamental question which will shape how we see the universe if it can ever answered in the negative.

    I doubt we'll discover them in this way, though.
    The mountain top/stone in loch theories ignore the backstory to the photo. They would be great if there were none, and this was just a photo of unknown provenance bought at a car boot sale. But there is, there's the statement of the guys who took the photo (or at least provided it) who say it was a thing in the sky, which shot upwards after 10 minutes. So if they are lying, what's the theory? That a stone in a loch is the best way of faking the UAP or that they took a picture of an uninteresting lochstone and later looked at it and said Hey, that looks like a spaceship? Neither sems likely. The photo is 1 of 6 by the way, so the mountain in clouds claim looks a non starter unlessly they were spookily static clouds.

    What it is, it's the USAF Aurora project.
    There is also the plentiful evidence that the MoD took this seriously, and decided the photos showed a real object, hanging in the sky. Not a rock or a mountain

    Nick Pope has been a much derided figure in Fortean UFOlogical circles, but he has been adamant for years that these photos existed and they were lost/hidden, and after all that derision, here indeed is one of the photos, and it is a very close match to what he has described all along. He's been entirely consistent. He is vindicated

    He is particularly interesting because, in his opinion and those of some colleagues- it seems - this is NOT American tech
    Have you eve4 wondered why we never see the same UFO in other reports? If this is an alien craft, and an example of the ones that have been visiting for 60 years, why is there no consistency?

    On this particular case, and Nick Pope in particular, I have never doubted the existence of at least one photo, that likely spooked someone in the RAF. But Pope has a new career to push, and books to sell, and a living to make. He is skin in the game.
    Is that true tho? Two of the best photos ever taken of UFOs are Costa Rica, and now Calvine

    Let's compare them

    Costa Rica:




    Calvine:



    Those could be exactly the same "craft" seen from two angles. One from above, one from the side
    There is 'string' in the CR photo (possibly scratches from the camera or development); and the thing is in focus as is the far-distant landscape. Not sure if the latter is plausible.
    As far as I know the Costa Rica photo has never been debunked (and many have tried, as there is a living to be made from debunking, as there is in UFO claims)


    Happy to be proven wrong, however

  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,567

    Labour leads by 7%.

    Westminster Voting Intention (14 August):

    Labour 41% (+1)
    Conservative 34% (-1)
    Liberal Democrat 12% (–)
    Green 5% (–)
    Scottish National Party 4% (-)
    Reform UK 3% (–)
    Plaid Cymru 1% (-)
    Other 2% (+1)

    Changes +/- 7 August

    Summer holiday churn.
  • Labour leads by 7%.

    Westminster Voting Intention (14 August):

    Labour 41% (+1)
    Conservative 34% (-1)
    Liberal Democrat 12% (–)
    Green 5% (–)
    Scottish National Party 4% (-)
    Reform UK 3% (–)
    Plaid Cymru 1% (-)
    Other 2% (+1)

    Changes +/- 7 August

    Summer holiday churn.
    Removal vans outside no 10 today is a sure sign Johnson is going to stay on holiday for the next 3 weeks before he walks away down Downing Street on the 6th September

  • Labour leads by 7%.

    Westminster Voting Intention (14 August):

    Labour 41% (+1)
    Conservative 34% (-1)
    Liberal Democrat 12% (–)
    Green 5% (–)
    Scottish National Party 4% (-)
    Reform UK 3% (–)
    Plaid Cymru 1% (-)
    Other 2% (+1)

    Changes +/- 7 August

    Summer holiday churn.
    Key thing is that it's another poll where getting rid of Boris hasn't led to a Conservative poll lead. It may still happen once Liz is installed, but for now... tick, tock.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,939

    Labour leads by 7%.

    Westminster Voting Intention (14 August):

    Labour 41% (+1)
    Conservative 34% (-1)
    Liberal Democrat 12% (–)
    Green 5% (–)
    Scottish National Party 4% (-)
    Reform UK 3% (–)
    Plaid Cymru 1% (-)
    Other 2% (+1)

    Changes +/- 7 August

    Summer holiday churn.
    Key thing is that it's another poll where getting rid of Boris hasn't led to a Conservative poll lead. It may still happen once Liz is installed, but for now... tick, tock.
    Truss leads Starmer as preferred PM 41% to 37% while Starmer leads Sunak 41% to 34%. So if Truss becomes PM she should get a bounce and take the lead, the question is how long for

    https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1559215896337555458?s=20&t=RH4R77-ArLpS4a39JZ1izw
  • Labour leads by 7%.

    Westminster Voting Intention (14 August):

    Labour 41% (+1)
    Conservative 34% (-1)
    Liberal Democrat 12% (–)
    Green 5% (–)
    Scottish National Party 4% (-)
    Reform UK 3% (–)
    Plaid Cymru 1% (-)
    Other 2% (+1)

    Changes +/- 7 August

    @bigjohnowls please explain!
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,309
    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Is the Calvine UFO photo actually just a mountain-top?


    https://twitter.com/gordonhudsonnu/status/1559136861616046080?s=20&t=_Y4lIvDowIRhR6LDX_hj1Q


    This *feels* quite convincing. But then the "rock in a loch" hypothesis felt equally convincing

    So I wonder if there is - as I suggested before - a human urge to believe the least weird explanation for something weird, to the extent that you will mentally overrule what your eyes are seeing

    What the photo shows is a whacking big weird thing hanging in the sky. What my brains tells me I am seeing is just a rock in a puddle! No, it's just a mountain!

    Never "it's a really big weird thing hanging in the sky"

    Whatever is going on in that photograph is very very unlikely to be a temperature inversion (cloud sea). I've seen quite a few of these in Scotland.

    For a start they usually have a clear sky above, and although you can occasionally see layers during fronts these are normally very local and you can't see distant objects.

    What definition there is in the sky in the photograph is also visible both above and below the 'object'. Layered cloud of any kind would be visible as a line across the image.
    Interesting. So that rules out the mountain hypothesis?
    Well, I don't buy it, anyway. For what that's worth.
    All opinions are worth something, and yours is quite persuasive here


    I tend to agree. The shape being so similar to a mountaintop is probably coincidence. Nothing else supports this thesis. How could it happen, photographically? Psychologically? How come the plane is in the photo but no other landscape features? Nor does this hypothesis remotely square with the eye-witness accounts (which might all be lies, of course)

    I'm down to three explanations


    1. A long elaborate hoax
    2. Surprising human tech
    3. Aliens!???!
    I'm suspicious of those branches at the top: suggests they've hung something - perhaps some symmetrical stone object - from them with transparent thread.
    If you were going to hang something, you'd make very sure there was no visible means of support, surely!

    Anyway, here's a cropped picture of Schiehallion (being a suitable hill for an EXPERIMENT) in a cloud inversion. I took this in January, not August, but you get the idea. The location is only a few miles from Calvine (in the Drumochter hills).



    Even with a serious overexposure I think you'd struggle to get something similar to the mystery image.

    I still think it is a reflection but am prepared to be convinced.


    I totally understand the obsession with ALIENS. Are we alone? It is a fundamental question which will shape how we see the universe if it can ever answered in the negative.

    I doubt we'll discover them in this way, though.
    The mountain top/stone in loch theories ignore the backstory to the photo. They would be great if there were none, and this was just a photo of unknown provenance bought at a car boot sale. But there is, there's the statement of the guys who took the photo (or at least provided it) who say it was a thing in the sky, which shot upwards after 10 minutes. So if they are lying, what's the theory? That a stone in a loch is the best way of faking the UAP or that they took a picture of an uninteresting lochstone and later looked at it and said Hey, that looks like a spaceship? Neither sems likely. The photo is 1 of 6 by the way, so the mountain in clouds claim looks a non starter unlessly they were spookily static clouds.

    What it is, it's the USAF Aurora project.
    There is also the plentiful evidence that the MoD took this seriously, and decided the photos showed a real object, hanging in the sky. Not a rock or a mountain

    Nick Pope has been a much derided figure in Fortean UFOlogical circles, but he has been adamant for years that these photos existed and they were lost/hidden, and after all that derision, here indeed is one of the photos, and it is a very close match to what he has described all along. He's been entirely consistent. He is vindicated

    He is particularly interesting because, in his opinion and those of some colleagues- it seems - this is NOT American tech
    Have you eve4 wondered why we never see the same UFO in other reports? If this is an alien craft, and an example of the ones that have been visiting for 60 years, why is there no consistency?

    On this particular case, and Nick Pope in particular, I have never doubted the existence of at least one photo, that likely spooked someone in the RAF. But Pope has a new career to push, and books to sell, and a living to make. He is skin in the game.
    Is that true tho? Two of the best photos ever taken of UFOs are Costa Rica, and now Calvine

    Let's compare them

    Costa Rica:




    Calvine:



    Those could be exactly the same "craft" seen from two angles. One from above, one from the side
    There is 'string' in the CR photo (possibly scratches from the camera or development); and the thing is in focus as is the far-distant landscape. Not sure if the latter is plausible.
    A deeper dive on the Costa Rica photo

    Mick West HAS tried to debunk it. You decide if he is right

    https://www.metabunk.org/threads/1971-lake-cote-lago-de-cote-ufo-aerial-photo.11729/

    Others say he has failed

    https://medium.com/on-the-trail-of-the-saucers/costa-rica-ufo-photo-c0b1eb07c5e7


    It's certainly not his best debunk ever
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    moonshine said:

    Calvine: if this was a rock or a mountain, what is the reason why a letter was written to the US Air Force warning that an article was to be written by the Glasgow Daily Record on the matter? This was after all over UK air space not American and does not obviously concern the Americans.

    The negatives were said to be returned to the Record and yet they never ran the story. Why?

    There’s only two plausible explanations for this one I think. The most likely is a black ops accidentally seen by two members of the public and the article was blocked by D-Notice. Or, the Americans knew it wasn’t there’s either and it was by deduction “exotic”.

    People in this country are not paying close enough attention to the US govt formally advising congress that there are physical objects in controlled airspace that are not of American origin and that they may need to further their understanding of physics to explain. This should trouble rationalist national security hawks deeply because it implies at a minimum that the US has lost its technological primacy (and did so decades ago, formally at least as far back as 2004 but probably further).

    But because that’s an implausible conclusion which invites other uncomfortable questions, people are flat out ignoring it. World changing black ops tech kept away from all democratic oversight for decades? Eek. Or as the pentagon calls it, “Other”. Eek.

    ...the UAPTF concentrated its review on reports that occurred between
    2004 and 2021, the majority of which are a result of this new tailored process to
    better capture UAP events through formalized reporting.

    Most of the UAP reported probably do represent physical objects given that a
    majority of UAP were registered across multiple sensors, to include radar, infrared,
    electro-optical, weapon seekers, and visual observation.

    In a limited number of incidents, UAP reportedly appeared to exhibit unusual flight
    characteristics. These observations could be the result of sensor errors, spoofing, or
    observer misperception and require additional rigorous analysis.

    https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,640

    Labour leads by 7%.

    Westminster Voting Intention (14 August):

    Labour 41% (+1)
    Conservative 34% (-1)
    Liberal Democrat 12% (–)
    Green 5% (–)
    Scottish National Party 4% (-)
    Reform UK 3% (–)
    Plaid Cymru 1% (-)
    Other 2% (+1)

    Changes +/- 7 August

    Summer holiday churn.
    Key thing is that it's another poll where getting rid of Boris hasn't led to a Conservative poll lead. It may still happen once Liz is installed, but for now... tick, tock.
    He hasn’t gone yet and remember that the average person who doesn’t follow things that closely thinks Sunak is most likely to take over.
  • Nigelb said:

    Cheery new study into the global effects of various nuclear war scenarios.

    https://phys.org/news/2022-08-nuclear-war-global-famine-billions.html
    ...These data then were entered into the Community Earth System Model, a climate forecasting tool supported by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The NCAR Community Land Model made it possible to estimate productivity of major crops (maize, rice, spring wheat and soybean) on a country-by-country basis. The researchers also examined projected changes to livestock pasture and in global marine fisheries.

    Under even the smallest nuclear scenario, a localized war between India and Pakistan, global average caloric production decreased 7% within five years of the conflict. In the largest war scenario tested—a full-scale U.S.-Russia nuclear conflict—global average caloric production decreased by about 90% three to four years after the fighting.

    Crop declines would be the most severe in the mid-high latitude nations, including major exporting countries such as Russia and the U.S., which could trigger export restrictions and cause severe disruptions in import-dependent countries in Africa and the Middle East.

    These changes would induce a catastrophic disruption of global food markets, the researchers conclude. Even a 7% global decline in crop yield would exceed the largest anomaly ever recorded since the beginning of Food and Agricultural Organization observational records in 1961. Under the largest war scenario, more than 75% of the planet would be starving within two years...

    "Wouldn't you prefer a nice game of chess?"
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,497
    The essence: This is an excellent opposition party policy about a short term issue for which they will never have to do anything. It means nothing and achieves its end by being discussed.

  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    Labour leads by 7%.

    Westminster Voting Intention (14 August):

    Labour 41% (+1)
    Conservative 34% (-1)
    Liberal Democrat 12% (–)
    Green 5% (–)
    Scottish National Party 4% (-)
    Reform UK 3% (–)
    Plaid Cymru 1% (-)
    Other 2% (+1)

    Changes +/- 7 August

    @bigjohnowls please explain!
    LONDON, Jan. 13 [1995] -- Britain's opposition Labour Party has increased its lead over the ruling Conservatives to a record 43.5 percentage points despite recent internal disputes, said an opinion poll published Friday.

    43.5% lead vs 41% voteshare. Explanation certainly required.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,447
    rcs1000 said:

    FPT: Very interesting thread (and associated article) from Neil O’Brien MP in which he notes that the “Johnson government” actually increased immigration, seemingly by swapping Europeans with those from poorer countries “who pay less tax”.

    https://twitter.com/neildotobrien/status/1559058038736277506

    I don’t know how this squares with the labour shortages. You could argue we now have the “worst of both worlds”.

    His graph comparing GDP growth per capita and net migration doesn't support the oft repeated claim that immigration boosts productivity.

    image
    You are slightly straw manning, no?

    The oft repeated claim on PB is that immigration discourages capital investment, and therefore depresses productivity growth.

    Now, that may or may not be true, but that chart basically tells you that in 2008/9, GDP per Capita growth basically shifted down a gear.

    Here's the thing: that's true in pretty much every developed country, irrespective of whether they are high immigration, low immigration, or net emigration.
    Why?
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,526
    Leon said:

    It would be quite dismaying if the aliens really have arrived.... and they've decided to hook up with Putin

    Indeed. I was playing an alien in this a couple of months ago:

    https://www.megagameassembly.com/uk-europe-megagames/first-contact-2035-0622

    My faction was into communitarian hivemind living, so we decided China were our natural allies (Putin seemed a bit too elitist for our taste). We agreed with them that they would allow us to settle our huge alien amphibious domes in the South China Sea, in return for which we would defend it against the Americans or any other low-tech (compared to our scary alien tech) opponents.

    Sadly, we didn't actually have any advanced weapons tech, but I, um, forgot to mention that to them. However, since everyone, including the American players, thought that we had, it was a perfectly good deterrent.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,434

    Labour leads by 7%.

    Westminster Voting Intention (14 August):

    Labour 41% (+1)
    Conservative 34% (-1)
    Liberal Democrat 12% (–)
    Green 5% (–)
    Scottish National Party 4% (-)
    Reform UK 3% (–)
    Plaid Cymru 1% (-)
    Other 2% (+1)

    Changes +/- 7 August

    Summer holiday churn.
    Removal vans outside no 10 today is a sure sign Johnson is going to stay on holiday for the next 3 weeks before he walks away down Downing Street on the 6th September

    It would be nice if he'd come to an agreement with Truss, Sunak and the 1922 committee to leave early and truncate the leadership election.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405

    Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Is the Calvine UFO photo actually just a mountain-top?


    https://twitter.com/gordonhudsonnu/status/1559136861616046080?s=20&t=_Y4lIvDowIRhR6LDX_hj1Q


    This *feels* quite convincing. But then the "rock in a loch" hypothesis felt equally convincing

    So I wonder if there is - as I suggested before - a human urge to believe the least weird explanation for something weird, to the extent that you will mentally overrule what your eyes are seeing

    What the photo shows is a whacking big weird thing hanging in the sky. What my brains tells me I am seeing is just a rock in a puddle! No, it's just a mountain!

    Never "it's a really big weird thing hanging in the sky"

    Whatever is going on in that photograph is very very unlikely to be a temperature inversion (cloud sea). I've seen quite a few of these in Scotland.

    For a start they usually have a clear sky above, and although you can occasionally see layers during fronts these are normally very local and you can't see distant objects.

    What definition there is in the sky in the photograph is also visible both above and below the 'object'. Layered cloud of any kind would be visible as a line across the image.
    Interesting. So that rules out the mountain hypothesis?
    Well, I don't buy it, anyway. For what that's worth.
    All opinions are worth something, and yours is quite persuasive here


    I tend to agree. The shape being so similar to a mountaintop is probably coincidence. Nothing else supports this thesis. How could it happen, photographically? Psychologically? How come the plane is in the photo but no other landscape features? Nor does this hypothesis remotely square with the eye-witness accounts (which might all be lies, of course)

    I'm down to three explanations


    1. A long elaborate hoax
    2. Surprising human tech
    3. Aliens!???!
    I'm suspicious of those branches at the top: suggests they've hung something - perhaps some symmetrical stone object - from them with transparent thread.
    If you were going to hang something, you'd make very sure there was no visible means of support, surely!

    Anyway, here's a cropped picture of Schiehallion (being a suitable hill for an EXPERIMENT) in a cloud inversion. I took this in January, not August, but you get the idea. The location is only a few miles from Calvine (in the Drumochter hills).



    Even with a serious overexposure I think you'd struggle to get something similar to the mystery image.

    I still think it is a reflection but am prepared to be convinced.


    I totally understand the obsession with ALIENS. Are we alone? It is a fundamental question which will shape how we see the universe if it can ever answered in the negative.

    I doubt we'll discover them in this way, though.
    The mountain top/stone in loch theories ignore the backstory to the photo. They would be great if there were none, and this was just a photo of unknown provenance bought at a car boot sale. But there is, there's the statement of the guys who took the photo (or at least provided it) who say it was a thing in the sky, which shot upwards after 10 minutes. So if they are lying, what's the theory? That a stone in a loch is the best way of faking the UAP or that they took a picture of an uninteresting lochstone and later looked at it and said Hey, that looks like a spaceship? Neither sems likely. The photo is 1 of 6 by the way, so the mountain in clouds claim looks a non starter unlessly they were spookily static clouds.

    What it is, it's the USAF Aurora project.
    There is also the plentiful evidence that the MoD took this seriously, and decided the photos showed a real object, hanging in the sky. Not a rock or a mountain

    Nick Pope has been a much derided figure in Fortean UFOlogical circles, but he has been adamant for years that these photos existed and they were lost/hidden, and after all that derision, here indeed is one of the photos, and it is a very close match to what he has described all along. He's been entirely consistent. He is vindicated

    He is particularly interesting because, in his opinion and those of some colleagues- it seems - this is NOT American tech
    Have you eve4 wondered why we never see the same UFO in other reports? If this is an alien craft, and an example of the ones that have been visiting for 60 years, why is there no consistency?

    On this particular case, and Nick Pope in particular, I have never doubted the existence of at least one photo, that likely spooked someone in the RAF. But Pope has a new career to push, and books to sell, and a living to make. He is skin in the game.
    There are other photos and videos with similar shaped craft, same with 'saucer' shaped, triangles etc. There are other eye witness cases with similar shaped craft - Todmorden Yorks in the 70s for example.
    Todmorden - the ex policeman who wrote a story and then pretended it was real? With some startling similarities to other stories? That Todmorden?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,309
    Looks like the exact spot where the Calvine photo was taken has been found: fence, trees, location, it all tallies, and matches the eye-witness reports


    https://twitter.com/Not_a_botski/status/1559221981119057920?s=20&t=RJEvJ4rUnAI7APBFPJNUAw

    That rules out "rock in a loch", pretty much (unless of course the entire thing is a highly elaborate hoax extending over decades). Still a chance it is mountain-in-cloud, but I agree with other PB-ers that seems far fetched, photographically

    So we are left with this *thing* hanging in the grey Scottish sky. Or a hoax
  • Leon said:

    Looks like the exact spot where the Calvine photo was taken has been found: fence, trees, location, it all tallies, and matches the eye-witness reports


    https://twitter.com/Not_a_botski/status/1559221981119057920?s=20&t=RJEvJ4rUnAI7APBFPJNUAw

    That rules out "rock in a loch", pretty much (unless of course the entire thing is a highly elaborate hoax extending over decades). Still a chance it is mountain-in-cloud, but I agree with other PB-ers that seems far fetched, photographically

    So we are left with this *thing* hanging in the grey Scottish sky. Or a hoax

    Hoax.
  • IshmaelZ said:

    Labour leads by 7%.

    Westminster Voting Intention (14 August):

    Labour 41% (+1)
    Conservative 34% (-1)
    Liberal Democrat 12% (–)
    Green 5% (–)
    Scottish National Party 4% (-)
    Reform UK 3% (–)
    Plaid Cymru 1% (-)
    Other 2% (+1)

    Changes +/- 7 August

    @bigjohnowls please explain!
    LONDON, Jan. 13 [1995] -- Britain's opposition Labour Party has increased its lead over the ruling Conservatives to a record 43.5 percentage points despite recent internal disputes, said an opinion poll published Friday.

    43.5% lead vs 41% voteshare. Explanation certainly required.
    Different methodology. Next!
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,309

    Leon said:

    Looks like the exact spot where the Calvine photo was taken has been found: fence, trees, location, it all tallies, and matches the eye-witness reports


    https://twitter.com/Not_a_botski/status/1559221981119057920?s=20&t=RJEvJ4rUnAI7APBFPJNUAw

    That rules out "rock in a loch", pretty much (unless of course the entire thing is a highly elaborate hoax extending over decades). Still a chance it is mountain-in-cloud, but I agree with other PB-ers that seems far fetched, photographically

    So we are left with this *thing* hanging in the grey Scottish sky. Or a hoax

    Hoax.
    Yes, quite possibly so

    But if it is, it is quite a strange hoax. What is in it for the hoaxers? Fame? They remain anonymous. Money? The MoD took their photos, and the papers never ran with them. No money

    So: just a prank that got out of hand, perhaps. How did they completely fool the MoD with a rock in a loch? Odd

  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 10,061

    Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Is the Calvine UFO photo actually just a mountain-top?


    https://twitter.com/gordonhudsonnu/status/1559136861616046080?s=20&t=_Y4lIvDowIRhR6LDX_hj1Q


    This *feels* quite convincing. But then the "rock in a loch" hypothesis felt equally convincing

    So I wonder if there is - as I suggested before - a human urge to believe the least weird explanation for something weird, to the extent that you will mentally overrule what your eyes are seeing

    What the photo shows is a whacking big weird thing hanging in the sky. What my brains tells me I am seeing is just a rock in a puddle! No, it's just a mountain!

    Never "it's a really big weird thing hanging in the sky"

    Whatever is going on in that photograph is very very unlikely to be a temperature inversion (cloud sea). I've seen quite a few of these in Scotland.

    For a start they usually have a clear sky above, and although you can occasionally see layers during fronts these are normally very local and you can't see distant objects.

    What definition there is in the sky in the photograph is also visible both above and below the 'object'. Layered cloud of any kind would be visible as a line across the image.
    Interesting. So that rules out the mountain hypothesis?
    Well, I don't buy it, anyway. For what that's worth.
    All opinions are worth something, and yours is quite persuasive here


    I tend to agree. The shape being so similar to a mountaintop is probably coincidence. Nothing else supports this thesis. How could it happen, photographically? Psychologically? How come the plane is in the photo but no other landscape features? Nor does this hypothesis remotely square with the eye-witness accounts (which might all be lies, of course)

    I'm down to three explanations


    1. A long elaborate hoax
    2. Surprising human tech
    3. Aliens!???!
    I'm suspicious of those branches at the top: suggests they've hung something - perhaps some symmetrical stone object - from them with transparent thread.
    If you were going to hang something, you'd make very sure there was no visible means of support, surely!

    Anyway, here's a cropped picture of Schiehallion (being a suitable hill for an EXPERIMENT) in a cloud inversion. I took this in January, not August, but you get the idea. The location is only a few miles from Calvine (in the Drumochter hills).



    Even with a serious overexposure I think you'd struggle to get something similar to the mystery image.

    I still think it is a reflection but am prepared to be convinced.


    I totally understand the obsession with ALIENS. Are we alone? It is a fundamental question which will shape how we see the universe if it can ever answered in the negative.

    I doubt we'll discover them in this way, though.
    The mountain top/stone in loch theories ignore the backstory to the photo. They would be great if there were none, and this was just a photo of unknown provenance bought at a car boot sale. But there is, there's the statement of the guys who took the photo (or at least provided it) who say it was a thing in the sky, which shot upwards after 10 minutes. So if they are lying, what's the theory? That a stone in a loch is the best way of faking the UAP or that they took a picture of an uninteresting lochstone and later looked at it and said Hey, that looks like a spaceship? Neither sems likely. The photo is 1 of 6 by the way, so the mountain in clouds claim looks a non starter unlessly they were spookily static clouds.

    What it is, it's the USAF Aurora project.
    There is also the plentiful evidence that the MoD took this seriously, and decided the photos showed a real object, hanging in the sky. Not a rock or a mountain

    Nick Pope has been a much derided figure in Fortean UFOlogical circles, but he has been adamant for years that these photos existed and they were lost/hidden, and after all that derision, here indeed is one of the photos, and it is a very close match to what he has described all along. He's been entirely consistent. He is vindicated

    He is particularly interesting because, in his opinion and those of some colleagues- it seems - this is NOT American tech
    Have you eve4 wondered why we never see the same UFO in other reports? If this is an alien craft, and an example of the ones that have been visiting for 60 years, why is there no consistency?

    On this particular case, and Nick Pope in particular, I have never doubted the existence of at least one photo, that likely spooked someone in the RAF. But Pope has a new career to push, and books to sell, and a living to make. He is skin in the game.
    There are other photos and videos with similar shaped craft, same with 'saucer' shaped, triangles etc. There are other eye witness cases with similar shaped craft - Todmorden Yorks in the 70s for example.
    Todmorden - the ex policeman who wrote a story and then pretended it was real? With some startling similarities to other stories? That Todmorden?
    Godfreys book was written long after what he reported (and covered his experience, the Adamski case he had investigated as an officer and Travis Walton amongst others) and obviously like any report you can believe, dismiss or scoff as pleases you. Its an example, before the 1990 Calvine photo, of diamond shaped craft in ufo lore. No more, no less.
  • Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Looks like the exact spot where the Calvine photo was taken has been found: fence, trees, location, it all tallies, and matches the eye-witness reports


    https://twitter.com/Not_a_botski/status/1559221981119057920?s=20&t=RJEvJ4rUnAI7APBFPJNUAw

    That rules out "rock in a loch", pretty much (unless of course the entire thing is a highly elaborate hoax extending over decades). Still a chance it is mountain-in-cloud, but I agree with other PB-ers that seems far fetched, photographically

    So we are left with this *thing* hanging in the grey Scottish sky. Or a hoax

    Hoax.
    Yes, quite possibly so

    But if it is, it is quite a strange hoax. What is in it for the hoaxers? Fame? They remain anonymous. Money? The MoD took their photos, and the papers never ran with them. No money

    So: just a prank that got out of hand, perhaps. How did they completely fool the MoD with a rock in a loch? Odd

    Why haven't the aliens buzzed Camden? Or Ilford, if they're feeling on the adventurous side?
  • EPGEPG Posts: 6,652
    Leon said:

    Looks like the exact spot where the Calvine photo was taken has been found: fence, trees, location, it all tallies, and matches the eye-witness reports


    https://twitter.com/Not_a_botski/status/1559221981119057920?s=20&t=RJEvJ4rUnAI7APBFPJNUAw

    That rules out "rock in a loch", pretty much (unless of course the entire thing is a highly elaborate hoax extending over decades). Still a chance it is mountain-in-cloud, but I agree with other PB-ers that seems far fetched, photographically

    So we are left with this *thing* hanging in the grey Scottish sky. Or a hoax

    But what's the w3w?
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    IshmaelZ said:

    Labour leads by 7%.

    Westminster Voting Intention (14 August):

    Labour 41% (+1)
    Conservative 34% (-1)
    Liberal Democrat 12% (–)
    Green 5% (–)
    Scottish National Party 4% (-)
    Reform UK 3% (–)
    Plaid Cymru 1% (-)
    Other 2% (+1)

    Changes +/- 7 August

    @bigjohnowls please explain!
    LONDON, Jan. 13 [1995] -- Britain's opposition Labour Party has increased its lead over the ruling Conservatives to a record 43.5 percentage points despite recent internal disputes, said an opinion poll published Friday.

    43.5% lead vs 41% voteshare. Explanation certainly required.
    Different methodology. Next!
    Correct, Blair's methodology revolved around not being completely shit at politics

    I see Sir Useless has returned from hols with his usual look of stray dog desperate to complete having its crap before someone kicks it out of the way, but with added grace notes of "I don't know what sunscreen is for."

    Why not say "outlier"?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,839
    edited August 2022

    Leon said:

    Looks like the exact spot where the Calvine photo was taken has been found: fence, trees, location, it all tallies, and matches the eye-witness reports


    https://twitter.com/Not_a_botski/status/1559221981119057920?s=20&t=RJEvJ4rUnAI7APBFPJNUAw

    That rules out "rock in a loch", pretty much (unless of course the entire thing is a highly elaborate hoax extending over decades). Still a chance it is mountain-in-cloud, but I agree with other PB-ers that seems far fetched, photographically

    So we are left with this *thing* hanging in the grey Scottish sky. Or a hoax

    Hoax.
    How close is the match to trees and fence as they were, what is it, 32 years ago? That fence was looking pretty manky in the old photo. An exact match to the fence in a modern photo would be startling. You'd more likely get a partly fallen fence, or a modern replacement.
  • Labour leads by 7%.

    Westminster Voting Intention (14 August):

    Labour 41% (+1)
    Conservative 34% (-1)
    Liberal Democrat 12% (–)
    Green 5% (–)
    Scottish National Party 4% (-)
    Reform UK 3% (–)
    Plaid Cymru 1% (-)
    Other 2% (+1)

    Changes +/- 7 August

    Summer holiday churn.
    Removal vans outside no 10 today is a sure sign Johnson is going to stay on holiday for the next 3 weeks before he walks away down Downing Street on the 6th September

    It would be nice if he'd come to an agreement with Truss, Sunak and the 1922 committee to leave early and truncate the leadership election.
    The 1922 should take action but they wont
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405
    Leon said:

    Looks like the exact spot where the Calvine photo was taken has been found: fence, trees, location, it all tallies, and matches the eye-witness reports


    https://twitter.com/Not_a_botski/status/1559221981119057920?s=20&t=RJEvJ4rUnAI7APBFPJNUAw

    That rules out "rock in a loch", pretty much (unless of course the entire thing is a highly elaborate hoax extending over decades). Still a chance it is mountain-in-cloud, but I agree with other PB-ers that seems far fetched, photographically

    So we are left with this *thing* hanging in the grey Scottish sky. Or a hoax

    So where is the land in the Calvine photo?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,309

    Leon said:

    It would be quite dismaying if the aliens really have arrived.... and they've decided to hook up with Putin

    Indeed. I was playing an alien in this a couple of months ago:

    https://www.megagameassembly.com/uk-europe-megagames/first-contact-2035-0622

    My faction was into communitarian hivemind living, so we decided China were our natural allies (Putin seemed a bit too elitist for our taste). We agreed with them that they would allow us to settle our huge alien amphibious domes in the South China Sea, in return for which we would defend it against the Americans or any other low-tech (compared to our scary alien tech) opponents.

    Sadly, we didn't actually have any advanced weapons tech, but I, um, forgot to mention that to them. However, since everyone, including the American players, thought that we had, it was a perfectly good deterrent.
    There are some terrifying speculations by quite serious people positing the theory that aliens, should they be visiting us, might be actively malign - or appear so to us, in their indifference

    I guess I always presume that if aliens did ever arrive, they'd be kinda friendly if vastly superior, or neutral observers of our funny ways. ET in the movie

    What if they want to hurt us? Or toy with us for sport?

    omg I'M GOING TO THE GYM



  • kyf_100kyf_100 Posts: 4,945
    Leon said:

    Looks like the exact spot where the Calvine photo was taken has been found: fence, trees, location, it all tallies, and matches the eye-witness reports


    https://twitter.com/Not_a_botski/status/1559221981119057920?s=20&t=RJEvJ4rUnAI7APBFPJNUAw

    That rules out "rock in a loch", pretty much (unless of course the entire thing is a highly elaborate hoax extending over decades). Still a chance it is mountain-in-cloud, but I agree with other PB-ers that seems far fetched, photographically

    So we are left with this *thing* hanging in the grey Scottish sky. Or a hoax

    As many, many, many people have pointed out already, the thing looks like - and is in the right time period for - the top secret SR-91 Aurora spy plane.

    Big, black, fast moving triangular thing in the sky, escorted by a conventional plane of the time? It's Aurora.
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeff_head/albums/72157641823649863/

    D notice in newspaper? US government notified someone's been taking pictures of their secret spy plane? Colour me surprised. It's Aurora.

    Case closed. How many more days are we going to spend on this?
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Looks like the exact spot where the Calvine photo was taken has been found: fence, trees, location, it all tallies, and matches the eye-witness reports


    https://twitter.com/Not_a_botski/status/1559221981119057920?s=20&t=RJEvJ4rUnAI7APBFPJNUAw

    That rules out "rock in a loch", pretty much (unless of course the entire thing is a highly elaborate hoax extending over decades). Still a chance it is mountain-in-cloud, but I agree with other PB-ers that seems far fetched, photographically

    So we are left with this *thing* hanging in the grey Scottish sky. Or a hoax

    Hoax.
    Yes, quite possibly so

    But if it is, it is quite a strange hoax. What is in it for the hoaxers? Fame? They remain anonymous. Money? The MoD took their photos, and the papers never ran with them. No money

    So: just a prank that got out of hand, perhaps. How did they completely fool the MoD with a rock in a loch? Odd

    What’s in it for any hoaxer? The sheer fun and defilement of having fooled people. See also crop circles and Derren Brown.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405

    Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Is the Calvine UFO photo actually just a mountain-top?


    https://twitter.com/gordonhudsonnu/status/1559136861616046080?s=20&t=_Y4lIvDowIRhR6LDX_hj1Q


    This *feels* quite convincing. But then the "rock in a loch" hypothesis felt equally convincing

    So I wonder if there is - as I suggested before - a human urge to believe the least weird explanation for something weird, to the extent that you will mentally overrule what your eyes are seeing

    What the photo shows is a whacking big weird thing hanging in the sky. What my brains tells me I am seeing is just a rock in a puddle! No, it's just a mountain!

    Never "it's a really big weird thing hanging in the sky"

    Whatever is going on in that photograph is very very unlikely to be a temperature inversion (cloud sea). I've seen quite a few of these in Scotland.

    For a start they usually have a clear sky above, and although you can occasionally see layers during fronts these are normally very local and you can't see distant objects.

    What definition there is in the sky in the photograph is also visible both above and below the 'object'. Layered cloud of any kind would be visible as a line across the image.
    Interesting. So that rules out the mountain hypothesis?
    Well, I don't buy it, anyway. For what that's worth.
    All opinions are worth something, and yours is quite persuasive here


    I tend to agree. The shape being so similar to a mountaintop is probably coincidence. Nothing else supports this thesis. How could it happen, photographically? Psychologically? How come the plane is in the photo but no other landscape features? Nor does this hypothesis remotely square with the eye-witness accounts (which might all be lies, of course)

    I'm down to three explanations


    1. A long elaborate hoax
    2. Surprising human tech
    3. Aliens!???!
    I'm suspicious of those branches at the top: suggests they've hung something - perhaps some symmetrical stone object - from them with transparent thread.
    If you were going to hang something, you'd make very sure there was no visible means of support, surely!

    Anyway, here's a cropped picture of Schiehallion (being a suitable hill for an EXPERIMENT) in a cloud inversion. I took this in January, not August, but you get the idea. The location is only a few miles from Calvine (in the Drumochter hills).



    Even with a serious overexposure I think you'd struggle to get something similar to the mystery image.

    I still think it is a reflection but am prepared to be convinced.


    I totally understand the obsession with ALIENS. Are we alone? It is a fundamental question which will shape how we see the universe if it can ever answered in the negative.

    I doubt we'll discover them in this way, though.
    The mountain top/stone in loch theories ignore the backstory to the photo. They would be great if there were none, and this was just a photo of unknown provenance bought at a car boot sale. But there is, there's the statement of the guys who took the photo (or at least provided it) who say it was a thing in the sky, which shot upwards after 10 minutes. So if they are lying, what's the theory? That a stone in a loch is the best way of faking the UAP or that they took a picture of an uninteresting lochstone and later looked at it and said Hey, that looks like a spaceship? Neither sems likely. The photo is 1 of 6 by the way, so the mountain in clouds claim looks a non starter unlessly they were spookily static clouds.

    What it is, it's the USAF Aurora project.
    There is also the plentiful evidence that the MoD took this seriously, and decided the photos showed a real object, hanging in the sky. Not a rock or a mountain

    Nick Pope has been a much derided figure in Fortean UFOlogical circles, but he has been adamant for years that these photos existed and they were lost/hidden, and after all that derision, here indeed is one of the photos, and it is a very close match to what he has described all along. He's been entirely consistent. He is vindicated

    He is particularly interesting because, in his opinion and those of some colleagues- it seems - this is NOT American tech
    Have you eve4 wondered why we never see the same UFO in other reports? If this is an alien craft, and an example of the ones that have been visiting for 60 years, why is there no consistency?

    On this particular case, and Nick Pope in particular, I have never doubted the existence of at least one photo, that likely spooked someone in the RAF. But Pope has a new career to push, and books to sell, and a living to make. He is skin in the game.
    There are other photos and videos with similar shaped craft, same with 'saucer' shaped, triangles etc. There are other eye witness cases with similar shaped craft - Todmorden Yorks in the 70s for example.
    Todmorden - the ex policeman who wrote a story and then pretended it was real? With some startling similarities to other stories? That Todmorden?
    Godfreys book was written long after what he reported (and covered his experience, the Adamski case he had investigated as an officer and Travis Walton amongst others) and obviously like any report you can believe, dismiss or scoff as pleases you. Its an example, before the 1990 Calvine photo, of diamond shaped craft in ufo lore. No more, no less.
    I’d suggest nothing actually happened at Todmorden. He initially wrote a piece of fiction, that somehow mutated into a report of true events. The Adamski link is the giveaway.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Looks like the exact spot where the Calvine photo was taken has been found: fence, trees, location, it all tallies, and matches the eye-witness reports


    https://twitter.com/Not_a_botski/status/1559221981119057920?s=20&t=RJEvJ4rUnAI7APBFPJNUAw

    That rules out "rock in a loch", pretty much (unless of course the entire thing is a highly elaborate hoax extending over decades). Still a chance it is mountain-in-cloud, but I agree with other PB-ers that seems far fetched, photographically

    So we are left with this *thing* hanging in the grey Scottish sky. Or a hoax

    Hoax.
    How close is the match to trees and fence as they were, what is it, 32 years ago? That fence was looking pretty manky in the old photo. An exact match to the fence in a modern photo would be startling. You'd more likely get a partly fallen fence, or a modern replacement.
    Not really, I know lots of manky auld fences which look like they looked 50 years ago (and haven't been replaced). Back in those days you could impregnate posts with utterly lethal arsenic based preservatives. They worked.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,567
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    It would be quite dismaying if the aliens really have arrived.... and they've decided to hook up with Putin

    Indeed. I was playing an alien in this a couple of months ago:

    https://www.megagameassembly.com/uk-europe-megagames/first-contact-2035-0622

    My faction was into communitarian hivemind living, so we decided China were our natural allies (Putin seemed a bit too elitist for our taste). We agreed with them that they would allow us to settle our huge alien amphibious domes in the South China Sea, in return for which we would defend it against the Americans or any other low-tech (compared to our scary alien tech) opponents.

    Sadly, we didn't actually have any advanced weapons tech, but I, um, forgot to mention that to them. However, since everyone, including the American players, thought that we had, it was a perfectly good deterrent.
    There are some terrifying speculations by quite serious people positing the theory that aliens, should they be visiting us, might be actively malign - or appear so to us, in their indifference

    I guess I always presume that if aliens did ever arrive, they'd be kinda friendly if vastly superior, or neutral observers of our funny ways. ET in the movie

    What if they want to hurt us? Or toy with us for sport?

    omg I'M GOING TO THE GYM
    Would they be much different to Victorian gentlemen explorers, who bagged specimens with a rifle to take back to London museums? If their mission is to assess Earth's alien life-forms, they might recognise us as apex predators, but so far adrift from themselves technologically that they consider the specimens of us they collect little different to some slugs and sloths they acquired too....
  • IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Labour leads by 7%.

    Westminster Voting Intention (14 August):

    Labour 41% (+1)
    Conservative 34% (-1)
    Liberal Democrat 12% (–)
    Green 5% (–)
    Scottish National Party 4% (-)
    Reform UK 3% (–)
    Plaid Cymru 1% (-)
    Other 2% (+1)

    Changes +/- 7 August

    @bigjohnowls please explain!
    LONDON, Jan. 13 [1995] -- Britain's opposition Labour Party has increased its lead over the ruling Conservatives to a record 43.5 percentage points despite recent internal disputes, said an opinion poll published Friday.

    43.5% lead vs 41% voteshare. Explanation certainly required.
    Different methodology. Next!
    Correct, Blair's methodology revolved around not being completely shit at politics

    I see Sir Useless has returned from hols with his usual look of stray dog desperate to complete having its crap before someone kicks it out of the way, but with added grace notes of "I don't know what sunscreen is for."

    Why not say "outlier"?
    No Tory poll leads for EIGHT MONTHS and NINE DAYS!

    @IshmaelZ please explain!
  • Labour leads by 7%.

    Westminster Voting Intention (14 August):

    Labour 41% (+1)
    Conservative 34% (-1)
    Liberal Democrat 12% (–)
    Green 5% (–)
    Scottish National Party 4% (-)
    Reform UK 3% (–)
    Plaid Cymru 1% (-)
    Other 2% (+1)

    Changes +/- 7 August

    Summer holiday churn.
    Key thing is that it's another poll where getting rid of Boris hasn't led to a Conservative poll lead. It may still happen once Liz is installed, but for now... tick, tock.
    He hasn’t gone yet and remember that the average person who doesn’t follow things that closely thinks Sunak is most likely to take over.
    Sure. But think back to 1990. The announcement of Maggie's resignation was enough to produce a massive turnaround in the polls. Roughly a Labour lead of 6 becoming a Conservative lead of 6 in a matter of days. That has happened a bit with Boris, but not enough to get the Conservatives ahead. Putting a new face in Downing Street may seal the deal, but it hasn't happened yet.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,309
    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    Looks like the exact spot where the Calvine photo was taken has been found: fence, trees, location, it all tallies, and matches the eye-witness reports


    https://twitter.com/Not_a_botski/status/1559221981119057920?s=20&t=RJEvJ4rUnAI7APBFPJNUAw

    That rules out "rock in a loch", pretty much (unless of course the entire thing is a highly elaborate hoax extending over decades). Still a chance it is mountain-in-cloud, but I agree with other PB-ers that seems far fetched, photographically

    So we are left with this *thing* hanging in the grey Scottish sky. Or a hoax

    As many, many, many people have pointed out already, the thing looks like - and is in the right time period for - the top secret SR-91 Aurora spy plane.

    Big, black, fast moving triangular thing in the sky, escorted by a conventional plane of the time? It's Aurora.
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeff_head/albums/72157641823649863/

    D notice in newspaper? US government notified someone's been taking pictures of their secret spy plane? Colour me surprised. It's Aurora.

    Case closed. How many more days are we going to spend on this?
    Because it was my understanding that many experts believe Aurora is as much science fiction as Star Wars

    Does it definitely exist? And did it exist in 1990? And why the F would the Americans fly it around Scotland in public view? Doesn't make sense. But, as always, I am happy to be persuaded

    It's fascinating that there are SO many explanations
  • Jim_MillerJim_Miller Posts: 2,999
    Sorry, I have nothing on flying saucers, but this story might interest a few of you:
    "Oil prices tumbled Monday after China’s central bank unexpectedly cut rates after data showed economic activity slowed broadly in July, including consumer spending and factory output, reigniting concerns of a global downturn.

    Signs of further cooling in the world’s second-largest economy, already under strain from China’s zero-covid policy and a real estate crisis, alarmed energy markets. The prospect of lower demand sent oil prices sliding 3.2 percent — pushing West Texas Intermediate crude to $89 a barrel."
    source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/15/china-economy-rate-cut/
  • Whatever happened to that moron CorrectHorseBattery
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    Looks like the exact spot where the Calvine photo was taken has been found: fence, trees, location, it all tallies, and matches the eye-witness reports


    https://twitter.com/Not_a_botski/status/1559221981119057920?s=20&t=RJEvJ4rUnAI7APBFPJNUAw

    That rules out "rock in a loch", pretty much (unless of course the entire thing is a highly elaborate hoax extending over decades). Still a chance it is mountain-in-cloud, but I agree with other PB-ers that seems far fetched, photographically

    So we are left with this *thing* hanging in the grey Scottish sky. Or a hoax

    As many, many, many people have pointed out already, the thing looks like - and is in the right time period for - the top secret SR-91 Aurora spy plane.

    Big, black, fast moving triangular thing in the sky, escorted by a conventional plane of the time? It's Aurora.
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeff_head/albums/72157641823649863/

    D notice in newspaper? US government notified someone's been taking pictures of their secret spy plane? Colour me surprised. It's Aurora.

    Case closed. How many more days are we going to spend on this?
    Again, refer hon memb to https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/reports-publications/reports-publications-2021/item/2223-preliminary-assessment-unidentified-aerial-phenomena

    Hundreds of US Forces reports from 2004-2021 evidencing inexplicable stuff.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405
    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    Looks like the exact spot where the Calvine photo was taken has been found: fence, trees, location, it all tallies, and matches the eye-witness reports


    https://twitter.com/Not_a_botski/status/1559221981119057920?s=20&t=RJEvJ4rUnAI7APBFPJNUAw

    That rules out "rock in a loch", pretty much (unless of course the entire thing is a highly elaborate hoax extending over decades). Still a chance it is mountain-in-cloud, but I agree with other PB-ers that seems far fetched, photographically

    So we are left with this *thing* hanging in the grey Scottish sky. Or a hoax

    As many, many, many people have pointed out already, the thing looks like - and is in the right time period for - the top secret SR-91 Aurora spy plane.

    Big, black, fast moving triangular thing in the sky, escorted by a conventional plane of the time? It's Aurora.
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeff_head/albums/72157641823649863/

    D notice in newspaper? US government notified someone's been taking pictures of their secret spy plane? Colour me surprised. It's Aurora.

    Case closed. How many more days are we going to spend on this?
    I thought Aurora was a myth?
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,747
    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Is the Calvine UFO photo actually just a mountain-top?


    https://twitter.com/gordonhudsonnu/status/1559136861616046080?s=20&t=_Y4lIvDowIRhR6LDX_hj1Q


    This *feels* quite convincing. But then the "rock in a loch" hypothesis felt equally convincing

    So I wonder if there is - as I suggested before - a human urge to believe the least weird explanation for something weird, to the extent that you will mentally overrule what your eyes are seeing

    What the photo shows is a whacking big weird thing hanging in the sky. What my brains tells me I am seeing is just a rock in a puddle! No, it's just a mountain!

    Never "it's a really big weird thing hanging in the sky"

    Whatever is going on in that photograph is very very unlikely to be a temperature inversion (cloud sea). I've seen quite a few of these in Scotland.

    For a start they usually have a clear sky above, and although you can occasionally see layers during fronts these are normally very local and you can't see distant objects.

    What definition there is in the sky in the photograph is also visible both above and below the 'object'. Layered cloud of any kind would be visible as a line across the image.
    Interesting. So that rules out the mountain hypothesis?
    Well, I don't buy it, anyway. For what that's worth.
    All opinions are worth something, and yours is quite persuasive here


    I tend to agree. The shape being so similar to a mountaintop is probably coincidence. Nothing else supports this thesis. How could it happen, photographically? Psychologically? How come the plane is in the photo but no other landscape features? Nor does this hypothesis remotely square with the eye-witness accounts (which might all be lies, of course)

    I'm down to three explanations


    1. A long elaborate hoax
    2. Surprising human tech
    3. Aliens!???!
    I'm suspicious of those branches at the top: suggests they've hung something - perhaps some symmetrical stone object - from them with transparent thread.
    If you were going to hang something, you'd make very sure there was no visible means of support, surely!

    Anyway, here's a cropped picture of Schiehallion (being a suitable hill for an EXPERIMENT) in a cloud inversion. I took this in January, not August, but you get the idea. The location is only a few miles from Calvine (in the Drumochter hills).



    Even with a serious overexposure I think you'd struggle to get something similar to the mystery image.

    I still think it is a reflection but am prepared to be convinced.


    I totally understand the obsession with ALIENS. Are we alone? It is a fundamental question which will shape how we see the universe if it can ever answered in the negative.

    I doubt we'll discover them in this way, though.
    The mountain top/stone in loch theories ignore the backstory to the photo. They would be great if there were none, and this was just a photo of unknown provenance bought at a car boot sale. But there is, there's the statement of the guys who took the photo (or at least provided it) who say it was a thing in the sky, which shot upwards after 10 minutes. So if they are lying, what's the theory? That a stone in a loch is the best way of faking the UAP or that they took a picture of an uninteresting lochstone and later looked at it and said Hey, that looks like a spaceship? Neither sems likely. The photo is 1 of 6 by the way, so the mountain in clouds claim looks a non starter unlessly they were spookily static clouds.

    What it is, it's the USAF Aurora project.
    There is also the plentiful evidence that the MoD took this seriously, and decided the photos showed a real object, hanging in the sky. Not a rock or a mountain

    Nick Pope has been a much derided figure in Fortean UFOlogical circles, but he has been adamant for years that these photos existed and they were lost/hidden, and after all that derision, here indeed is one of the photos, and it is a very close match to what he has described all along. He's been entirely consistent. He is vindicated

    He is particularly interesting because, in his opinion and those of some colleagues- it seems - this is NOT American tech
    Have you eve4 wondered why we never see the same UFO in other reports? If this is an alien craft, and an example of the ones that have been visiting for 60 years, why is there no consistency?

    On this particular case, and Nick Pope in particular, I have never doubted the existence of at least one photo, that likely spooked someone in the RAF. But Pope has a new career to push, and books to sell, and a living to make. He is skin in the game.
    Is that true tho? Two of the best photos ever taken of UFOs are Costa Rica, and now Calvine

    Let's compare them

    Costa Rica:




    Calvine:



    Those could be exactly the same "craft" seen from two angles. One from above, one from the side
    There is 'string' in the CR photo (possibly scratches from the camera or development); and the thing is in focus as is the far-distant landscape. Not sure if the latter is plausible.
    A deeper dive on the Costa Rica photo

    Mick West HAS tried to debunk it. You decide if
    he is right

    https://www.metabunk.org/threads/1971-lake-
    cote-lago-de-cote-ufo-aerial-photo.11729/

    Others say he has failed

    https://medium.com/on-the-trail-of-the-
    saucers/costa-rica-ufo-photo-c0b1eb07c5e7

    It's certainly not his best debunk
    ever
    Mick West always comes across as a polite and likeable chap. There is a recurrent problem with his work though, which is that he starts from the position that any event must be mundane and he seeks to “debunk” rather than consider what is most plausible. As a result, he ignores wider evidence and context.

    For example on the Nimitz 2004, he ignores that the carrier group’s radar picked up objects over several days, which was Command’s motivation to send Fravor on his mission in the first place. He completely discounts the public testimony from pilots from not one but two sorties who visually observed the object, as well as the on flight radar, which matched the ship radar. And he then focuses just on the video and says “parallax, bird”.

  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    Whatever happened to that moron CorrectHorseBattery

    Turned out he was wrong about the staple.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,835
    ping said:

    Well that’s just wonderful.

    Wholesale gas up another 12% today (Sept ‘22 contract) to 443p/therm.

    Futures;

    December ‘22 contract 592p

    Winter ‘23 contract 458p

    https://www.theice.com/products/910/UK-Natural-Gas-Futures/data?marketId=5253323

    That market is astonishingly volatile. Increases or decreases of 10%+ are pretty common. I suspect that it is entirely a speculative market with very little gas actually changing hands. It is certainly not a market we want to base any planning on that we expect to apply beyond lunchtime.
  • Jim_MillerJim_Miller Posts: 2,999
    Almost on topic: When Obama and Trump were criticized for playing too much golf, I defended both of them, saying it was, on the whole, better for the nation to have them on a golf course than in the Oval Office.

    Could it be better for your nation to have Boris Johnson taking more foreign holidays?
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    Sorry, I have nothing on flying saucers, but this story might interest a few of you:
    "Oil prices tumbled Monday after China’s central bank unexpectedly cut rates after data showed economic activity slowed broadly in July, including consumer spending and factory output, reigniting concerns of a global downturn.

    Signs of further cooling in the world’s second-largest economy, already under strain from China’s zero-covid policy and a real estate crisis, alarmed energy markets. The prospect of lower demand sent oil prices sliding 3.2 percent — pushing West Texas Intermediate crude to $89 a barrel."
    source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/15/china-economy-rate-cut/

    They are all selling their rolexes

    Luxury watch prices plummet on weak Chinese consumer confidence

    https://www.ft.com/content/3b6559e1-1659-40ea-b12d-0263da809191
  • This is interesting.

  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,309

    Leon said:

    Looks like the exact spot where the Calvine photo was taken has been found: fence, trees, location, it all tallies, and matches the eye-witness reports


    https://twitter.com/Not_a_botski/status/1559221981119057920?s=20&t=RJEvJ4rUnAI7APBFPJNUAw

    That rules out "rock in a loch", pretty much (unless of course the entire thing is a highly elaborate hoax extending over decades). Still a chance it is mountain-in-cloud, but I agree with other PB-ers that seems far fetched, photographically

    So we are left with this *thing* hanging in the grey Scottish sky. Or a hoax

    So where is the land in the Calvine photo?
    It's a good question. If the photographers are at the bottom of a slope looking up past the fence, that might be why?

    The reason I trust this source is that it is metabunk. A bunch of internet obsessives who are skeptical of all this stuff, and go to great lengths to debunk everything. They are forensic, but self correcting

    If they say this is the likely spot of the photo (if the whole thing is not hoaxed), then I believe them

    Their thread is here:

    https://www.metabunk.org/threads/claim-original-calvine-ufo-photo.12571/page-5

  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,939
    edited August 2022

    Labour leads by 7%.

    Westminster Voting Intention (14 August):

    Labour 41% (+1)
    Conservative 34% (-1)
    Liberal Democrat 12% (–)
    Green 5% (–)
    Scottish National Party 4% (-)
    Reform UK 3% (–)
    Plaid Cymru 1% (-)
    Other 2% (+1)

    Changes +/- 7 August

    Summer holiday churn.
    Key thing is that it's another poll where getting rid of Boris hasn't led to a Conservative poll lead. It may still happen once Liz is installed, but for now... tick, tock.
    He hasn’t gone yet and remember that the average person who doesn’t follow things that closely thinks Sunak is most likely to take over.
    Sure. But think back to 1990. The announcement of Maggie's resignation was enough to produce a massive turnaround in the polls. Roughly a Labour lead of 6 becoming a Conservative lead of 6 in a matter of days. That has happened a bit with Boris, but not enough to get the Conservatives ahead. Putting a new face in Downing Street may seal the deal, but it hasn't happened yet.
    The Tories still led in all but 1 poll in 2007 until Brown took over from Blair as PM, after Brown took over in late June Labour led in every poll until the end of August and in most polls until October
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2010_United_Kingdom_general_election

    Labour led in most polls in June and early July 2019 after May resigned but after Boris took over in late July the Conservatives led in all but 1 poll until the December general election

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2019_United_Kingdom_general_election
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,309
    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Is the Calvine UFO photo actually just a mountain-top?


    https://twitter.com/gordonhudsonnu/status/1559136861616046080?s=20&t=_Y4lIvDowIRhR6LDX_hj1Q


    This *feels* quite convincing. But then the "rock in a loch" hypothesis felt equally convincing

    So I wonder if there is - as I suggested before - a human urge to believe the least weird explanation for something weird, to the extent that you will mentally overrule what your eyes are seeing

    What the photo shows is a whacking big weird thing hanging in the sky. What my brains tells me I am seeing is just a rock in a puddle! No, it's just a mountain!

    Never "it's a really big weird thing hanging in the sky"

    Whatever is going on in that photograph is very very unlikely to be a temperature inversion (cloud sea). I've seen quite a few of these in Scotland.

    For a start they usually have a clear sky above, and although you can occasionally see layers during fronts these are normally very local and you can't see distant objects.

    What definition there is in the sky in the photograph is also visible both above and below the 'object'. Layered cloud of any kind would be visible as a line across the image.
    Interesting. So that rules out the mountain hypothesis?
    Well, I don't buy it, anyway. For what that's worth.
    All opinions are worth something, and yours is quite persuasive here


    I tend to agree. The shape being so similar to a mountaintop is probably coincidence. Nothing else supports this thesis. How could it happen, photographically? Psychologically? How come the plane is in the photo but no other landscape features? Nor does this hypothesis remotely square with the eye-witness accounts (which might all be lies, of course)

    I'm down to three explanations


    1. A long elaborate hoax
    2. Surprising human tech
    3. Aliens!???!
    I'm suspicious of those branches at the top: suggests they've hung something - perhaps some symmetrical stone object - from them with transparent thread.
    If you were going to hang something, you'd make very sure there was no visible means of support, surely!

    Anyway, here's a cropped picture of Schiehallion (being a suitable hill for an EXPERIMENT) in a cloud inversion. I took this in January, not August, but you get the idea. The location is only a few miles from Calvine (in the Drumochter hills).



    Even with a serious overexposure I think you'd struggle to get something similar to the mystery image.

    I still think it is a reflection but am prepared to be convinced.


    I totally understand the obsession with ALIENS. Are we alone? It is a fundamental question which will shape how we see the universe if it can ever answered in the negative.

    I doubt we'll discover them in this way, though.
    The mountain top/stone in loch theories ignore the backstory to the photo. They would be great if there were none, and this was just a photo of unknown provenance bought at a car boot sale. But there is, there's the statement of the guys who took the photo (or at least provided it) who say it was a thing in the sky, which shot upwards after 10 minutes. So if they are lying, what's the theory? That a stone in a loch is the best way of faking the UAP or that they took a picture of an uninteresting lochstone and later looked at it and said Hey, that looks like a spaceship? Neither sems likely. The photo is 1 of 6 by the way, so the mountain in clouds claim looks a non starter unlessly they were spookily static clouds.

    What it is, it's the USAF Aurora project.
    There is also the plentiful evidence that the MoD took this seriously, and decided the photos showed a real object, hanging in the sky. Not a rock or a mountain

    Nick Pope has been a much derided figure in Fortean UFOlogical circles, but he has been adamant for years that these photos existed and they were lost/hidden, and after all that derision, here indeed is one of the photos, and it is a very close match to what he has described all along. He's been entirely consistent. He is vindicated

    He is particularly interesting because, in his opinion and those of some colleagues- it seems - this is NOT American tech
    Have you eve4 wondered why we never see the same UFO in other reports? If this is an alien craft, and an example of the ones that have been visiting for 60 years, why is there no consistency?

    On this particular case, and Nick Pope in particular, I have never doubted the existence of at least one photo, that likely spooked someone in the RAF. But Pope has a new career to push, and books to sell, and a living to make. He is skin in the game.
    Is that true tho? Two of the best photos ever taken of UFOs are Costa Rica, and now Calvine

    Let's compare them

    Costa Rica:




    Calvine:



    Those could be exactly the same "craft" seen from two angles. One from above, one from the side
    There is 'string' in the CR photo (possibly scratches from the camera or development); and the thing is in focus as is the far-distant landscape. Not sure if the latter is plausible.
    A deeper dive on the Costa Rica photo

    Mick West HAS tried to debunk it. You decide if
    he is right

    https://www.metabunk.org/threads/1971-lake-
    cote-lago-de-cote-ufo-aerial-photo.11729/

    Others say he has failed

    https://medium.com/on-the-trail-of-the-
    saucers/costa-rica-ufo-photo-c0b1eb07c5e7

    It's certainly not his best debunk
    ever
    Mick West always comes across as a polite and likeable chap. There is a recurrent problem with his work though, which is that he starts from the position that any event must be mundane and he seeks to “debunk” rather than consider what is most plausible. As a result, he ignores wider evidence and context.

    For example on the Nimitz 2004, he ignores that the carrier group’s radar picked up objects over several days, which was Command’s motivation to send Fravor on his mission in the first place. He completely discounts the public testimony from pilots from not one but two sorties who visually observed the object, as well as the on flight radar, which matched the ship radar. And he then focuses just on the video and says “parallax, bird”.

    Yes, he is notably eager to dismiss almost any eye-witness testimony. You could say too eager

    You know he is an ex believer? He was deeply into UFOs. So he has the zeal of the deconverted

    I note that he is struggling a bit with Calvine, that does not mean he won't come up with a good explanation in the end
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,447

    This is interesting.

    I'm not sure it's that interesting.

    I think polling against privatisation has been pretty consistent for decades.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,103

    This is interesting.

    I thought it was fairly consistent that the public generally state they want utilities to be run in the public sector. Nationalisation is not inherently unpopular, far from it.

    I think with rail and mail people are easily persuadable that private works ok, but energy and water the service people experience is often pretty bad, the costs are high and we cannot really see how we are supposed to benefit, and there is literally no difference other than than the name on the bill, so I suspect the polling is probably more enduring for those two even though the scoring is about the same for all of them.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Labour leads by 7%.

    Westminster Voting Intention (14 August):

    Labour 41% (+1)
    Conservative 34% (-1)
    Liberal Democrat 12% (–)
    Green 5% (–)
    Scottish National Party 4% (-)
    Reform UK 3% (–)
    Plaid Cymru 1% (-)
    Other 2% (+1)

    Changes +/- 7 August

    @bigjohnowls please explain!
    LONDON, Jan. 13 [1995] -- Britain's opposition Labour Party has increased its lead over the ruling Conservatives to a record 43.5 percentage points despite recent internal disputes, said an opinion poll published Friday.

    43.5% lead vs 41% voteshare. Explanation certainly required.
    Different methodology. Next!
    Correct, Blair's methodology revolved around not being completely shit at politics

    I see Sir Useless has returned from hols with his usual look of stray dog desperate to complete having its crap before someone kicks it out of the way, but with added grace notes of "I don't know what sunscreen is for."

    Why not say "outlier"?
    No Tory poll leads for EIGHT MONTHS and NINE DAYS!

    @IshmaelZ please explain!
    No Tory poll leads September 1992 to GE 1997. @Sunil_Prasannan please explain!

    Sometimes you have to ask the smaller vs further away question.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,939
    edited August 2022

    This is interesting.

    I'm not sure it's that interesting.

    I think polling against privatisation has been pretty consistent for decades.
    Apart from the privatisations of BA and BT the public have long wanted to keep the utilities and railways etc nationalised even when they were privatised yes
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,839
    edited August 2022

    This is interesting.

    I'm not sure it's that interesting.

    I think polling against privatisation has been pretty consistent for decades.
    Surely this is interesting, on the contrary. It's showing a difference between privatization in theory and specific examples.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405
    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Is the Calvine UFO photo actually just a mountain-top?


    https://twitter.com/gordonhudsonnu/status/1559136861616046080?s=20&t=_Y4lIvDowIRhR6LDX_hj1Q


    This *feels* quite convincing. But then the "rock in a loch" hypothesis felt equally convincing

    So I wonder if there is - as I suggested before - a human urge to believe the least weird explanation for something weird, to the extent that you will mentally overrule what your eyes are seeing

    What the photo shows is a whacking big weird thing hanging in the sky. What my brains tells me I am seeing is just a rock in a puddle! No, it's just a mountain!

    Never "it's a really big weird thing hanging in the sky"

    Whatever is going on in that photograph is very very unlikely to be a temperature inversion (cloud sea). I've seen quite a few of these in Scotland.

    For a start they usually have a clear sky above, and although you can occasionally see layers during fronts these are normally very local and you can't see distant objects.

    What definition there is in the sky in the photograph is also visible both above and below the 'object'. Layered cloud of any kind would be visible as a line across the image.
    Interesting. So that rules out the mountain hypothesis?
    Well, I don't buy it, anyway. For what that's worth.
    All opinions are worth something, and yours is quite persuasive here


    I tend to agree. The shape being so similar to a mountaintop is probably coincidence. Nothing else supports this thesis. How could it happen, photographically? Psychologically? How come the plane is in the photo but no other landscape features? Nor does this hypothesis remotely square with the eye-witness accounts (which might all be lies, of course)

    I'm down to three explanations


    1. A long elaborate hoax
    2. Surprising human tech
    3. Aliens!???!
    I'm suspicious of those branches at the top: suggests they've hung something - perhaps some symmetrical stone object - from them with transparent thread.
    If you were going to hang something, you'd make very sure there was no visible means of support, surely!

    Anyway, here's a cropped picture of Schiehallion (being a suitable hill for an EXPERIMENT) in a cloud inversion. I took this in January, not August, but you get the idea. The location is only a few miles from Calvine (in the Drumochter hills).



    Even with a serious overexposure I think you'd struggle to get something similar to the mystery image.

    I still think it is a reflection but am prepared to be convinced.


    I totally understand the obsession with ALIENS. Are we alone? It is a fundamental question which will shape how we see the universe if it can ever answered in the negative.

    I doubt we'll discover them in this way, though.
    The mountain top/stone in loch theories ignore the backstory to the photo. They would be great if there were none, and this was just a photo of unknown provenance bought at a car boot sale. But there is, there's the statement of the guys who took the photo (or at least provided it) who say it was a thing in the sky, which shot upwards after 10 minutes. So if they are lying, what's the theory? That a stone in a loch is the best way of faking the UAP or that they took a picture of an uninteresting lochstone and later looked at it and said Hey, that looks like a spaceship? Neither sems likely. The photo is 1 of 6 by the way, so the mountain in clouds claim looks a non starter unlessly they were spookily static clouds.

    What it is, it's the USAF Aurora project.
    There is also the plentiful evidence that the MoD took this seriously, and decided the photos showed a real object, hanging in the sky. Not a rock or a mountain

    Nick Pope has been a much derided figure in Fortean UFOlogical circles, but he has been adamant for years that these photos existed and they were lost/hidden, and after all that derision, here indeed is one of the photos, and it is a very close match to what he has described all along. He's been entirely consistent. He is vindicated

    He is particularly interesting because, in his opinion and those of some colleagues- it seems - this is NOT American tech
    Have you eve4 wondered why we never see the same UFO in other reports? If this is an alien craft, and an example of the ones that have been visiting for 60 years, why is there no consistency?

    On this particular case, and Nick Pope in particular, I have never doubted the existence of at least one photo, that likely spooked someone in the RAF. But Pope has a new career to push, and books to sell, and a living to make. He is skin in the game.
    Is that true tho? Two of the best photos ever taken of UFOs are Costa Rica, and now Calvine

    Let's compare them

    Costa Rica:




    Calvine:



    Those could be exactly the same "craft" seen from two angles. One from above, one from the side
    There is 'string' in the CR photo (possibly scratches from the camera or development); and the thing is in focus as is the far-distant landscape. Not sure if the latter is plausible.
    A deeper dive on the Costa Rica photo

    Mick West HAS tried to debunk it. You decide if
    he is right

    https://www.metabunk.org/threads/1971-lake-
    cote-lago-de-cote-ufo-aerial-photo.11729/

    Others say he has failed

    https://medium.com/on-the-trail-of-the-
    saucers/costa-rica-ufo-photo-c0b1eb07c5e7

    It's certainly not his best debunk
    ever
    Mick West always comes across as a polite and likeable chap. There is a recurrent problem with his work though, which is that he starts from the position that any event must be mundane and he seeks to “debunk” rather than consider what is most plausible. As a result, he ignores wider evidence and context.

    For example on the Nimitz 2004, he ignores that the carrier group’s radar picked up objects over several days, which was Command’s motivation to send Fravor on his mission in the first place. He completely discounts the public testimony from pilots from not one but two sorties who visually observed the object, as well as the on flight radar, which matched the ship radar. And he then focuses just on the video and says “parallax, bird”.

    Yes, he is notably eager to dismiss almost any eye-witness testimony. You could say too eager

    You know he is an ex believer? He was deeply into UFOs. So he has the zeal of the deconverted

    I note that he is struggling a bit with Calvine, that does not mean he won't come up with a good explanation in the end
    I don’t think it’s fair to say he is struggling. It’s one, grainy photo after all. Any number of plausible possibilities. My favourite is the object thrown in the air and snapped with the plane in the shot. See also Gordon Faulkner, Warminster. The big clue is there is only ever one photo. If you were watching a huge ufo and had film in your camera you would shoot the whole reel. The claim that there were 6 photos is the weak point. I note that the recreation photo is very similar to this one, and strongly suspect that it was done on the basis of it. So why were there not 5 other recreated shots of different angles?
  • Beibheirli_CBeibheirli_C Posts: 8,163
    HYUFD said:

    FF43 said:

    HYUFD said:

    FF43 said:

    carnforth said:

    https://twitter.com/jdportes/status/1559068863509274624

    A debunking of that thread on immigration from (remainer) Jonathan Portes.

    Portes in turn ignores the quid-pro-quo for previously allowing migration from the EU: we had reciprocal freedoms of movement and trade with EU countries, which we haven't substituted with non-EU freedoms. Immigration from non-EU countries has always been available in the same way as now.

    At best, we are now choosing to allow immigration from non-EU countries when we chose not to do so before, at the cost of losing our liberties. It doesn't seem a good exchange.

    No, just now applying the same points system non EU migrants had to EU migrants
    Do you think people voted Brexit so they could have a point system? Immigration is a legitimate area of discussion with people having a range of views. But what Brexit has enabled is the possibility of having fewer Europeans -only that.
    Yes, that was one of the key manifesto pledges of the Vote Leave campaign. Replace free movement from the EU with a points system

    http://www.voteleavetakecontrol.org/restoring_public_trust_in_immigration_policy_a_points_based_non_discriminatory_immigration_system.html
    "They" do not like Europeans. Asian migrants are easy to spot (brown!!), but a Leave voter could be down the pub spouting off about bl**dy forriners to a white guy drinking beer who, until he opens his mouth and speaks with an accent, looks just like a bloke from Essex / Surrey / etc.

    It must have been an incredibly worrying situation for bigots to deal with, but now they can keep the white forriners out. Sorted!! :+1:
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 10,061

    Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Is the Calvine UFO photo actually just a mountain-top?


    https://twitter.com/gordonhudsonnu/status/1559136861616046080?s=20&t=_Y4lIvDowIRhR6LDX_hj1Q


    This *feels* quite convincing. But then the "rock in a loch" hypothesis felt equally convincing

    So I wonder if there is - as I suggested before - a human urge to believe the least weird explanation for something weird, to the extent that you will mentally overrule what your eyes are seeing

    What the photo shows is a whacking big weird thing hanging in the sky. What my brains tells me I am seeing is just a rock in a puddle! No, it's just a mountain!

    Never "it's a really big weird thing hanging in the sky"

    Whatever is going on in that photograph is very very unlikely to be a temperature inversion (cloud sea). I've seen quite a few of these in Scotland.

    For a start they usually have a clear sky above, and although you can occasionally see layers during fronts these are normally very local and you can't see distant objects.

    What definition there is in the sky in the photograph is also visible both above and below the 'object'. Layered cloud of any kind would be visible as a line across the image.
    Interesting. So that rules out the mountain hypothesis?
    Well, I don't buy it, anyway. For what that's worth.
    All opinions are worth something, and yours is quite persuasive here


    I tend to agree. The shape being so similar to a mountaintop is probably coincidence. Nothing else supports this thesis. How could it happen, photographically? Psychologically? How come the plane is in the photo but no other landscape features? Nor does this hypothesis remotely square with the eye-witness accounts (which might all be lies, of course)

    I'm down to three explanations


    1. A long elaborate hoax
    2. Surprising human tech
    3. Aliens!???!
    I'm suspicious of those branches at the top: suggests they've hung something - perhaps some symmetrical stone object - from them with transparent thread.
    If you were going to hang something, you'd make very sure there was no visible means of support, surely!

    Anyway, here's a cropped picture of Schiehallion (being a suitable hill for an EXPERIMENT) in a cloud inversion. I took this in January, not August, but you get the idea. The location is only a few miles from Calvine (in the Drumochter hills).



    Even with a serious overexposure I think you'd struggle to get something similar to the mystery image.

    I still think it is a reflection but am prepared to be convinced.


    I totally understand the obsession with ALIENS. Are we alone? It is a fundamental question which will shape how we see the universe if it can ever answered in the negative.

    I doubt we'll discover them in this way, though.
    The mountain top/stone in loch theories ignore the backstory to the photo. They would be great if there were none, and this was just a photo of unknown provenance bought at a car boot sale. But there is, there's the statement of the guys who took the photo (or at least provided it) who say it was a thing in the sky, which shot upwards after 10 minutes. So if they are lying, what's the theory? That a stone in a loch is the best way of faking the UAP or that they took a picture of an uninteresting lochstone and later looked at it and said Hey, that looks like a spaceship? Neither sems likely. The photo is 1 of 6 by the way, so the mountain in clouds claim looks a non starter unlessly they were spookily static clouds.

    What it is, it's the USAF Aurora project.
    There is also the plentiful evidence that the MoD took this seriously, and decided the photos showed a real object, hanging in the sky. Not a rock or a mountain

    Nick Pope has been a much derided figure in Fortean UFOlogical circles, but he has been adamant for years that these photos existed and they were lost/hidden, and after all that derision, here indeed is one of the photos, and it is a very close match to what he has described all along. He's been entirely consistent. He is vindicated

    He is particularly interesting because, in his opinion and those of some colleagues- it seems - this is NOT American tech
    Have you eve4 wondered why we never see the same UFO in other reports? If this is an alien craft, and an example of the ones that have been visiting for 60 years, why is there no consistency?

    On this particular case, and Nick Pope in particular, I have never doubted the existence of at least one photo, that likely spooked someone in the RAF. But Pope has a new career to push, and books to sell, and a living to make. He is skin in the game.
    There are other photos and videos with similar shaped craft, same with 'saucer' shaped, triangles etc. There are other eye witness cases with similar shaped craft - Todmorden Yorks in the 70s for example.
    Todmorden - the ex policeman who wrote a story and then pretended it was real? With some startling similarities to other stories? That Todmorden?
    Godfreys book was written long after what he reported (and covered his experience, the Adamski case he had investigated as an officer and Travis Walton amongst others) and obviously like any report you can believe, dismiss or scoff as pleases you. Its an example, before the 1990 Calvine photo, of diamond shaped craft in ufo lore. No more, no less.
    I’d suggest nothing actually happened at Todmorden. He initially wrote a piece of fiction, that somehow mutated into a report of true events. The Adamski link is the giveaway.
    Its quite possible nothing did happen and Godfrey made it up, yes, its also possible he saw something weird. Im not sure where this 'wrote a piece of fiction' comes from? He had never written anything, his alleged encounter was reported by him at the time in 1980?
    Adamski is just odd regardless. Guy disappears and turns up on top of a coal pile, dead. But its just an unsolved possible murder mystery, theres no indication of paranormal involvement imo.
  • EPGEPG Posts: 6,652

    This is interesting.

    I'm not sure it's that interesting.

    I think polling against privatisation has been pretty consistent for decades.
    People want stuff and think they can get cheaper stuff if some politician can be instructed. Do they want to pay the capital cost of the stuff infrastructure? Not really.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,143

    Labour leads by 7%.

    Westminster Voting Intention (14 August):

    Labour 41% (+1)
    Conservative 34% (-1)
    Liberal Democrat 12% (–)
    Green 5% (–)
    Scottish National Party 4% (-)
    Reform UK 3% (–)
    Plaid Cymru 1% (-)
    Other 2% (+1)

    Changes +/- 7 August

    Summer holiday churn.
    Key thing is that it's another poll where getting rid of Boris hasn't led to a Conservative poll lead. It may still happen once Liz is installed, but for now... tick, tock.
    He hasn’t gone yet and remember that the average person who doesn’t follow things that closely thinks Sunak is most likely to take over.
    Sure. But think back to 1990. The announcement of Maggie's resignation was enough to produce a massive turnaround in the polls. Roughly a Labour lead of 6 becoming a Conservative lead of 6 in a matter of days. That has happened a bit with Boris, but not enough to get the Conservatives ahead. Putting a new face in Downing Street may seal the deal, but it hasn't happened yet.
    I think they have less chance of winning the election with Truss than they'd have had with Johnson.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,640

    Labour leads by 7%.

    Westminster Voting Intention (14 August):

    Labour 41% (+1)
    Conservative 34% (-1)
    Liberal Democrat 12% (–)
    Green 5% (–)
    Scottish National Party 4% (-)
    Reform UK 3% (–)
    Plaid Cymru 1% (-)
    Other 2% (+1)

    Changes +/- 7 August

    Summer holiday churn.
    Key thing is that it's another poll where getting rid of Boris hasn't led to a Conservative poll lead. It may still happen once Liz is installed, but for now... tick, tock.
    He hasn’t gone yet and remember that the average person who doesn’t follow things that closely thinks Sunak is most likely to take over.
    Sure. But think back to 1990. The announcement of Maggie's resignation was enough to produce a massive turnaround in the polls. Roughly a Labour lead of 6 becoming a Conservative lead of 6 in a matter of days. That has happened a bit with Boris, but not enough to get the Conservatives ahead. Putting a new face in Downing Street may seal the deal, but it hasn't happened yet.
    I don't think it's comparable. When Maggie went it was the end of an era, and the leadership election was wrapped up incredibly quickly. Thatcher resigned on November 22nd, and Major became leader on November 27th.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,103
    edited August 2022

    Labour leads by 7%.

    Westminster Voting Intention (14 August):

    Labour 41% (+1)
    Conservative 34% (-1)
    Liberal Democrat 12% (–)
    Green 5% (–)
    Scottish National Party 4% (-)
    Reform UK 3% (–)
    Plaid Cymru 1% (-)
    Other 2% (+1)

    Changes +/- 7 August

    Summer holiday churn.
    Removal vans outside no 10 today is a sure sign Johnson is going to stay on holiday for the next 3 weeks before he walks away down Downing Street on the 6th September

    It really does seem likely he only hung about as long as he did so he could pass May's tenure.

    In turn, she probably only hung on as long as she did to beat Brown and pass 3 years.

    He looks like he will end up just behind Henry Addington (me neither) - who later returned as Home Secretary, if he is looking for a future gig.
  • This is interesting.

    I'm not sure it's that interesting.

    I think polling against privatisation has been pretty consistent for decades.
    I think it’s interesting! Has the polling always been so high, across multiple sectors?
  • Almost on topic: When Obama and Trump were criticized for playing too much golf, I defended both of them, saying it was, on the whole, better for the nation to have them on a golf course than in the Oval Office.

    Could it be better for your nation to have Boris Johnson taking more foreign holidays?

    I think the point that is being made by those who are critical of Johnson taking extended period off at this time is simply that it's indicative of his attitude. He's going to be on enforced, indefinite leave in a few weeks anyway. So he could, in theory, try to leave his successor and the country in a good position by at least working with ministers and civil servants on contingency plans for the coming storm. Or he could wave two fingers at everyone and f*** off to spend his remaining days "in office" lazing around on the beach. His choice says a lot about his character.

    It isn't really a question of whether, more broadly, serving senior politicians should have downtime including a summer holiday. On that, I'd agree they should.
  • HYUFD said:

    Labour leads by 7%.

    Westminster Voting Intention (14 August):

    Labour 41% (+1)
    Conservative 34% (-1)
    Liberal Democrat 12% (–)
    Green 5% (–)
    Scottish National Party 4% (-)
    Reform UK 3% (–)
    Plaid Cymru 1% (-)
    Other 2% (+1)

    Changes +/- 7 August

    Summer holiday churn.
    Key thing is that it's another poll where getting rid of Boris hasn't led to a Conservative poll lead. It may still happen once Liz is installed, but for now... tick, tock.
    He hasn’t gone yet and remember that the average person who doesn’t follow things that closely thinks Sunak is most likely to take over.
    Sure. But think back to 1990. The announcement of Maggie's resignation was enough to produce a massive turnaround in the polls. Roughly a Labour lead of 6 becoming a Conservative lead of 6 in a matter of days. That has happened a bit with Boris, but not enough to get the Conservatives ahead. Putting a new face in Downing Street may seal the deal, but it hasn't happened yet.
    The Tories still led in all but 1 poll in 2007 until Brown took over from Blair as PM, after Brown took over in late June Labour led in every poll until the end of August and in most polls until October
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2010_United_Kingdom_general_election

    Labour led in most polls in June and early July 2019 after May resigned but after Boris took over in late July the Conservatives led in all but 1 poll until the December general election

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2019_United_Kingdom_general_election
    Well quite.

    A new leader ought to give a party a bounce in the polls. If Truss doesn't get a decent lead in September, that's probably it, absent a war or something.

    The first shoe dropping, the one labelled "Boris out" didn't do enough. The "Liz in" shoe might, but there's quite a bit still to be done.

    So tick, tock.
  • This is interesting.

    I'm not sure it's that interesting.

    I think polling against privatisation has been pretty consistent for decades.
    I think it’s interesting! Has the polling always been so high, across multiple sectors?
    Yes
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405

    Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Is the Calvine UFO photo actually just a mountain-top?


    https://twitter.com/gordonhudsonnu/status/1559136861616046080?s=20&t=_Y4lIvDowIRhR6LDX_hj1Q


    This *feels* quite convincing. But then the "rock in a loch" hypothesis felt equally convincing

    So I wonder if there is - as I suggested before - a human urge to believe the least weird explanation for something weird, to the extent that you will mentally overrule what your eyes are seeing

    What the photo shows is a whacking big weird thing hanging in the sky. What my brains tells me I am seeing is just a rock in a puddle! No, it's just a mountain!

    Never "it's a really big weird thing hanging in the sky"

    Whatever is going on in that photograph is very very unlikely to be a temperature inversion (cloud sea). I've seen quite a few of these in Scotland.

    For a start they usually have a clear sky above, and although you can occasionally see layers during fronts these are normally very local and you can't see distant objects.

    What definition there is in the sky in the photograph is also visible both above and below the 'object'. Layered cloud of any kind would be visible as a line across the image.
    Interesting. So that rules out the mountain hypothesis?
    Well, I don't buy it, anyway. For what that's worth.
    All opinions are worth something, and yours is quite persuasive here


    I tend to agree. The shape being so similar to a mountaintop is probably coincidence. Nothing else supports this thesis. How could it happen, photographically? Psychologically? How come the plane is in the photo but no other landscape features? Nor does this hypothesis remotely square with the eye-witness accounts (which might all be lies, of course)

    I'm down to three explanations


    1. A long elaborate hoax
    2. Surprising human tech
    3. Aliens!???!
    I'm suspicious of those branches at the top: suggests they've hung something - perhaps some symmetrical stone object - from them with transparent thread.
    If you were going to hang something, you'd make very sure there was no visible means of support, surely!

    Anyway, here's a cropped picture of Schiehallion (being a suitable hill for an EXPERIMENT) in a cloud inversion. I took this in January, not August, but you get the idea. The location is only a few miles from Calvine (in the Drumochter hills).



    Even with a serious overexposure I think you'd struggle to get something similar to the mystery image.

    I still think it is a reflection but am prepared to be convinced.


    I totally understand the obsession with ALIENS. Are we alone? It is a fundamental question which will shape how we see the universe if it can ever answered in the negative.

    I doubt we'll discover them in this way, though.
    The mountain top/stone in loch theories ignore the backstory to the photo. They would be great if there were none, and this was just a photo of unknown provenance bought at a car boot sale. But there is, there's the statement of the guys who took the photo (or at least provided it) who say it was a thing in the sky, which shot upwards after 10 minutes. So if they are lying, what's the theory? That a stone in a loch is the best way of faking the UAP or that they took a picture of an uninteresting lochstone and later looked at it and said Hey, that looks like a spaceship? Neither sems likely. The photo is 1 of 6 by the way, so the mountain in clouds claim looks a non starter unlessly they were spookily static clouds.

    What it is, it's the USAF Aurora project.
    There is also the plentiful evidence that the MoD took this seriously, and decided the photos showed a real object, hanging in the sky. Not a rock or a mountain

    Nick Pope has been a much derided figure in Fortean UFOlogical circles, but he has been adamant for years that these photos existed and they were lost/hidden, and after all that derision, here indeed is one of the photos, and it is a very close match to what he has described all along. He's been entirely consistent. He is vindicated

    He is particularly interesting because, in his opinion and those of some colleagues- it seems - this is NOT American tech
    Have you eve4 wondered why we never see the same UFO in other reports? If this is an alien craft, and an example of the ones that have been visiting for 60 years, why is there no consistency?

    On this particular case, and Nick Pope in particular, I have never doubted the existence of at least one photo, that likely spooked someone in the RAF. But Pope has a new career to push, and books to sell, and a living to make. He is skin in the game.
    There are other photos and videos with similar shaped craft, same with 'saucer' shaped, triangles etc. There are other eye witness cases with similar shaped craft - Todmorden Yorks in the 70s for example.
    Todmorden - the ex policeman who wrote a story and then pretended it was real? With some startling similarities to other stories? That Todmorden?
    Godfreys book was written long after what he reported (and covered his experience, the Adamski case he had investigated as an officer and Travis Walton amongst others) and obviously like any report you can believe, dismiss or scoff as pleases you. Its an example, before the 1990 Calvine photo, of diamond shaped craft in ufo lore. No more, no less.
    I’d suggest nothing actually happened at Todmorden. He initially wrote a piece of fiction, that somehow mutated into a report of true events. The Adamski link is the giveaway.
    Its quite possible nothing did happen and Godfrey made it up, yes, its also possible he saw something weird. Im not sure where this 'wrote a piece of fiction' comes from? He had never written anything, his alleged encounter was reported by him at the time in 1980?
    Adamski is just odd regardless. Guy disappears and turns up on top of a coal pile, dead. But its just an unsolved possible murder mystery, theres no indication of paranormal involvement imo.
    There was a piece in Fortean Times recently about this. That’s when I was struck by the similarity of the name Adamski and George Adamski. Very fishy.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,309

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Is the Calvine UFO photo actually just a mountain-top?


    https://twitter.com/gordonhudsonnu/status/1559136861616046080?s=20&t=_Y4lIvDowIRhR6LDX_hj1Q


    This *feels* quite convincing. But then the "rock in a loch" hypothesis felt equally convincing

    So I wonder if there is - as I suggested before - a human urge to believe the least weird explanation for something weird, to the extent that you will mentally overrule what your eyes are seeing

    What the photo shows is a whacking big weird thing hanging in the sky. What my brains tells me I am seeing is just a rock in a puddle! No, it's just a mountain!

    Never "it's a really big weird thing hanging in the sky"

    Whatever is going on in that photograph is very very unlikely to be a temperature inversion (cloud sea). I've seen quite a few of these in Scotland.

    For a start they usually have a clear sky above, and although you can occasionally see layers during fronts these are normally very local and you can't see distant objects.

    What definition there is in the sky in the photograph is also visible both above and below the 'object'. Layered cloud of any kind would be visible as a line across the image.
    Interesting. So that rules out the mountain hypothesis?
    Well, I don't buy it, anyway. For what that's worth.
    All opinions are worth something, and yours is quite persuasive here


    I tend to agree. The shape being so similar to a mountaintop is probably coincidence. Nothing else supports this thesis. How could it happen, photographically? Psychologically? How come the plane is in the photo but no other landscape features? Nor does this hypothesis remotely square with the eye-witness accounts (which might all be lies, of course)

    I'm down to three explanations


    1. A long elaborate hoax
    2. Surprising human tech
    3. Aliens!???!
    I'm suspicious of those branches at the top: suggests they've hung something - perhaps some symmetrical stone object - from them with transparent thread.
    If you were going to hang something, you'd make very sure there was no visible means of support, surely!

    Anyway, here's a cropped picture of Schiehallion (being a suitable hill for an EXPERIMENT) in a cloud inversion. I took this in January, not August, but you get the idea. The location is only a few miles from Calvine (in the Drumochter hills).



    Even with a serious overexposure I think you'd struggle to get something similar to the mystery image.

    I still think it is a reflection but am prepared to be convinced.


    I totally understand the obsession with ALIENS. Are we alone? It is a fundamental question which will shape how we see the universe if it can ever answered in the negative.

    I doubt we'll discover them in this way, though.
    The mountain top/stone in loch theories ignore the backstory to the photo. They would be great if there were none, and this was just a photo of unknown provenance bought at a car boot sale. But there is, there's the statement of the guys who took the photo (or at least provided it) who say it was a thing in the sky, which shot upwards after 10 minutes. So if they are lying, what's the theory? That a stone in a loch is the best way of faking the UAP or that they took a picture of an uninteresting lochstone and later looked at it and said Hey, that looks like a spaceship? Neither sems likely. The photo is 1 of 6 by the way, so the mountain in clouds claim looks a non starter unlessly they were spookily static clouds.

    What it is, it's the USAF Aurora project.
    There is also the plentiful evidence that the MoD took this seriously, and decided the photos showed a real object, hanging in the sky. Not a rock or a mountain

    Nick Pope has been a much derided figure in Fortean UFOlogical circles, but he has been adamant for years that these photos existed and they were lost/hidden, and after all that derision, here indeed is one of the photos, and it is a very close match to what he has described all along. He's been entirely consistent. He is vindicated

    He is particularly interesting because, in his opinion and those of some colleagues- it seems - this is NOT American tech
    Have you eve4 wondered why we never see the same UFO in other reports? If this is an alien craft, and an example of the ones that have been visiting for 60 years, why is there no consistency?

    On this particular case, and Nick Pope in particular, I have never doubted the existence of at least one photo, that likely spooked someone in the RAF. But Pope has a new career to push, and books to sell, and a living to make. He is skin in the game.
    Is that true tho? Two of the best photos ever taken of UFOs are Costa Rica, and now Calvine

    Let's compare them

    Costa Rica:




    Calvine:



    Those could be exactly the same "craft" seen from two angles. One from above, one from the side
    There is 'string' in the CR photo (possibly scratches from the camera or development); and the thing is in focus as is the far-distant landscape. Not sure if the latter is plausible.
    A deeper dive on the Costa Rica photo

    Mick West HAS tried to debunk it. You decide if
    he is right

    https://www.metabunk.org/threads/1971-lake-
    cote-lago-de-cote-ufo-aerial-photo.11729/

    Others say he has failed

    https://medium.com/on-the-trail-of-the-
    saucers/costa-rica-ufo-photo-c0b1eb07c5e7

    It's certainly not his best debunk
    ever
    Mick West always comes across as a polite and likeable chap. There is a recurrent problem with his work though, which is that he starts from the position that any event must be mundane and he seeks to “debunk” rather than consider what is most plausible. As a result, he ignores wider evidence and context.

    For example on the Nimitz 2004, he ignores that the carrier group’s radar picked up objects over several days, which was Command’s motivation to send Fravor on his mission in the first place. He completely discounts the public testimony from pilots from not one but two sorties who visually observed the object, as well as the on flight radar, which matched the ship radar. And he then focuses just on the video and says “parallax, bird”.

    Yes, he is notably eager to dismiss almost any eye-witness testimony. You could say too eager

    You know he is an ex believer? He was deeply into UFOs. So he has the zeal of the deconverted

    I note that he is struggling a bit with Calvine, that does not mean he won't come up with a good explanation in the end
    I don’t think it’s fair to say he is struggling. It’s one, grainy photo after all. Any number of plausible possibilities. My favourite is the object thrown in the air and snapped with the plane in the shot. See also Gordon Faulkner, Warminster. The big clue is there is only ever one photo. If you were watching a huge ufo and had film in your camera you would shoot the whole reel. The claim that there were 6 photos is the weak point. I note that the recreation photo is very similar to this one, and strongly suspect that it was done on the basis of it. So why were there not 5 other recreated shots of different angles?
    The guy who found the photo and who has investigated it more than anyone, Prof David Clarke, has gone from saying he thinks it is a hoax - as of last year - to saying he thinks it is Aurora - since he's seen the photo

    Sure, he might have financial interest in a more interesting story, but he is also risking his entire career and reputation if he has been fooled by someone "throwing an object in the air", or a rock in a loch, foggy mountain, and so on

    Hmm

    How hard can it be to find the actual eye witnesses? One was apparently a chef in a nearly posh hotel. That can't be so difficult to trace?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,103
    kinabalu said:

    Labour leads by 7%.

    Westminster Voting Intention (14 August):

    Labour 41% (+1)
    Conservative 34% (-1)
    Liberal Democrat 12% (–)
    Green 5% (–)
    Scottish National Party 4% (-)
    Reform UK 3% (–)
    Plaid Cymru 1% (-)
    Other 2% (+1)

    Changes +/- 7 August

    Summer holiday churn.
    Key thing is that it's another poll where getting rid of Boris hasn't led to a Conservative poll lead. It may still happen once Liz is installed, but for now... tick, tock.
    He hasn’t gone yet and remember that the average person who doesn’t follow things that closely thinks Sunak is most likely to take over.
    Sure. But think back to 1990. The announcement of Maggie's resignation was enough to produce a massive turnaround in the polls. Roughly a Labour lead of 6 becoming a Conservative lead of 6 in a matter of days. That has happened a bit with Boris, but not enough to get the Conservatives ahead. Putting a new face in Downing Street may seal the deal, but it hasn't happened yet.
    I think they have less chance of winning the election with Truss than they'd have had with Johnson.
    That's possible, though it is a hard thing to estimate given he has more strengths with the voters (or had), but also probably greater weaknesses - how many more scandals and outrages would have occurred to diminish his chances vs Truss?

    What's certain is if she fails it will become fact that he would have won but for traitors in the party.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,664
    EPG said:

    This is interesting.

    I'm not sure it's that interesting.

    I think polling against privatisation has been pretty consistent for decades.
    People want stuff and think they can get cheaper stuff if some politician can be instructed. Do they want to pay the capital cost of the stuff infrastructure? Not really.
    What's that got to do with privatisation/nationalisation?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,143
    HYUFD said:

    This is interesting.

    I'm not sure it's that interesting.

    I think polling against privatisation has been pretty consistent for decades.
    Apart from the privatisations of BA and BT the public have long wanted to keep the utilities and railways etc nationalised even when they were privatised yes
    Utilities as sexy businesses delivering big bucks for shareholders and senior execs feels wrong to people, I think.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,103

    Almost on topic: When Obama and Trump were criticized for playing too much golf, I defended both of them, saying it was, on the whole, better for the nation to have them on a golf course than in the Oval Office.

    Could it be better for your nation to have Boris Johnson taking more foreign holidays?

    I think the point that is being made by those who are critical of Johnson taking extended period off at this time is simply that it's indicative of his attitude. He's going to be on enforced, indefinite leave in a few weeks anyway. So he could, in theory, try to leave his successor and the country in a good position by at least working with ministers and civil servants on contingency plans for the coming storm. Or he could wave two fingers at everyone and f*** off to spend his remaining days "in office" lazing around on the beach. His choice says a lot about his character.

    It isn't really a question of whether, more broadly, serving senior politicians should have downtime including a summer holiday. On that, I'd agree they should.
    A fair way of putting it. He really could have waited, and PMs (even outgoing ones) have responsibilities. Sure, he'd have faced criticisim for any holiday he ever took, but he'd also be defended in doing so by people who are by no means fans.
  • EPGEPG Posts: 6,652

    EPG said:

    This is interesting.

    I'm not sure it's that interesting.

    I think polling against privatisation has been pretty consistent for decades.
    People want stuff and think they can get cheaper stuff if some politician can be instructed. Do they want to pay the capital cost of the stuff infrastructure? Not really.
    What's that got to do with privatisation/nationalisation?
    The stuff = water, etc. The cheap stuff = politicians holding the price down by running working losses and recapitalising it and borrowing against your kids' tax bill. The capital cost = paying for the water treatment, generating plants, sorting offices, etc.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    HYUFD said:

    FF43 said:

    HYUFD said:

    FF43 said:

    carnforth said:

    https://twitter.com/jdportes/status/1559068863509274624

    A debunking of that thread on immigration from (remainer) Jonathan Portes.

    Portes in turn ignores the quid-pro-quo for previously allowing migration from the EU: we had reciprocal freedoms of movement and trade with EU countries, which we haven't substituted with non-EU freedoms. Immigration from non-EU countries has always been available in the same way as now.

    At best, we are now choosing to allow immigration from non-EU countries when we chose not to do so before, at the cost of losing our liberties. It doesn't seem a good exchange.

    No, just now applying the same points system non EU migrants had to EU migrants
    Do you think people voted Brexit so they could have a point system? Immigration is a legitimate area of discussion with people having a range of views. But what Brexit has enabled is the possibility of having fewer Europeans -only that.
    Yes, that was one of the key manifesto pledges of the Vote Leave campaign. Replace free movement from the EU with a points system

    http://www.voteleavetakecontrol.org/restoring_public_trust_in_immigration_policy_a_points_based_non_discriminatory_immigration_system.html
    "They" do not like Europeans. Asian migrants are easy to spot (brown!!), but a Leave voter could be down the pub spouting off about bl**dy forriners to a white guy drinking beer who, until he opens his mouth and speaks with an accent, looks just like a bloke from Essex / Surrey / etc.

    It must have been an incredibly worrying situation for bigots to deal with, but now they can keep the white forriners out. Sorted!! :+1:
    Do you seriously think people "spout off" in pubs to other people without enough of a preliminary exchange for their accents to be known to one another? Or are you a racist snob?
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,747
    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Is the Calvine UFO photo actually just a mountain-top?


    https://twitter.com/gordonhudsonnu/status/1559136861616046080?s=20&t=_Y4lIvDowIRhR6LDX_hj1Q


    This *feels* quite convincing. But then the "rock in a loch" hypothesis felt equally convincing

    So I wonder if there is - as I suggested before - a human urge to believe the least weird explanation for something weird, to the extent that you will mentally overrule what your eyes are seeing

    What the photo shows is a whacking big weird thing hanging in the sky. What my brains tells me I am seeing is just a rock in a puddle! No, it's just a mountain!

    Never "it's a really big weird thing hanging in the sky"

    Whatever is going on in that photograph is very very unlikely to be a temperature inversion (cloud sea). I've seen quite a few of these in Scotland.

    For a start they usually have a clear sky above, and although you can occasionally see layers during fronts these are normally very local and you can't see distant objects.

    What definition there is in the sky in the photograph is also visible both above and below the 'object'. Layered cloud of any kind would be visible as a line across the image.
    Interesting. So that rules out the mountain hypothesis?
    Well, I don't buy it, anyway. For what that's worth.
    All opinions are worth something, and yours is quite persuasive here


    I tend to agree. The shape being so similar to a mountaintop is probably coincidence. Nothing else supports this thesis. How could it happen, photographically? Psychologically? How come the plane is in the photo but no other landscape features? Nor does this hypothesis remotely square with the eye-witness accounts (which might all be lies, of course)

    I'm down to three explanations


    1. A long elaborate hoax
    2. Surprising human tech
    3. Aliens!???!
    I'm suspicious of those branches at the top: suggests they've hung something - perhaps some symmetrical stone object - from them with transparent thread.
    If you were going to hang something, you'd make very sure there was no visible means of support, surely!

    Anyway, here's a cropped picture of Schiehallion (being a suitable hill for an EXPERIMENT) in a cloud inversion. I took this in January, not August, but you get the idea. The location is only a few miles from Calvine (in the Drumochter hills).



    Even with a serious overexposure I think you'd struggle to get something similar to the mystery image.

    I still think it is a reflection but am prepared to be convinced.


    I totally understand the obsession with ALIENS. Are we alone? It is a fundamental question which will shape how we see the universe if it can ever answered in the negative.

    I doubt we'll discover them in this way, though.
    The mountain top/stone in loch theories ignore the backstory to the photo. They would be great if there were none, and this was just a photo of unknown provenance bought at a car boot sale. But there is, there's the statement of the guys who took the photo (or at least provided it) who say it was a thing in the sky, which shot upwards after 10 minutes. So if they are lying, what's the theory? That a stone in a loch is the best way of faking the UAP or that they took a picture of an uninteresting lochstone and later looked at it and said Hey, that looks like a spaceship? Neither sems likely. The photo is 1 of 6 by the way, so the mountain in clouds claim looks a non starter unlessly they were spookily static clouds.

    What it is, it's the USAF Aurora project.
    There is also the plentiful evidence that the MoD took this seriously, and decided the photos showed a real object, hanging in the sky. Not a rock or a mountain

    Nick Pope has been a much derided figure in Fortean UFOlogical circles, but he has been adamant for years that these photos existed and they were lost/hidden, and after all that derision, here indeed is one of the photos, and it is a very close match to what he has described all along. He's been entirely consistent. He is vindicated

    He is particularly interesting because, in his opinion and those of some colleagues- it seems - this is NOT American tech
    Have you eve4 wondered why we never see the same UFO in other reports? If this is an alien craft, and an example of the ones that have been visiting for 60 years, why is there no consistency?

    On this particular case, and Nick Pope in particular, I have never doubted the existence of at least one photo, that likely spooked someone in the RAF. But Pope has a new career to push, and books to sell, and a living to make. He is skin in the game.
    Is that true tho? Two of the best photos ever taken of UFOs are Costa Rica, and now Calvine

    Let's compare them

    Costa Rica:




    Calvine:



    Those could be exactly the same "craft" seen from two angles. One from above, one from the side
    There is 'string' in the CR photo (possibly scratches from the camera or development); and the thing is in focus as is the far-distant landscape. Not sure if the latter is plausible.
    A deeper dive on the Costa Rica photo

    Mick West HAS tried to debunk it. You decide if
    he is right

    https://www.metabunk.org/threads/1971-lake-
    cote-lago-de-cote-ufo-aerial-photo.11729/

    Others say he has failed

    https://medium.com/on-the-trail-of-the-
    saucers/costa-rica-ufo-photo-c0b1eb07c5e7

    It's certainly not his best debunk
    ever
    Mick West always comes across as a polite and likeable chap. There is a recurrent problem with his work though, which is that he starts from the position that any event must be mundane and he seeks to “debunk” rather than consider what is most plausible. As a result, he ignores wider evidence and context.

    For example on the Nimitz 2004, he ignores that the carrier group’s radar picked up objects over several days, which was Command’s motivation to send Fravor on his mission in the first place. He completely discounts the public testimony from pilots from not one but two sorties who visually observed the object, as well as the on
    flight radar, which matched the ship radar. And he then focuses just on the video and says “parallax, bird”.

    Yes, he is notably eager to dismiss almost any eye-witness testimony. You could say too eager

    You know he is an ex believer? He was deeply into UFOs. So he has the zeal of the deconverted

    I note that he is struggling a bit with Calvine, that does not mean he won't come up with a good explanation in the end
    Yes I had heard him say that about himself, fascinated as a child but grew disillusioned as an adult. He has nothing to say at all about the comments from those who have seen classified evidence.

    Ex DNI Ratcliffe that “we have satellite images of them breaking the sound barrier with no sonic boom”.

    The ex head of French intelligence intimating that it’s an open secret among the nations with nuclear subs that their sonars pick up sun sea “hyper sonic objects” all the time.

    Nasa Administrator Bill Nelson, who has seen the classified files as a Senator and is now repurposing nasa orbital hardware to try and observe UAP in the earth’s atmosphere because one of their mandates is to look for life beyond earth. Marco “Gang of Eight” Rubio “I sure hope they’re not Russian”. Etc…

    All he says is, “well I can only look at these videos”. Rather than instead asking the broader question of whether it is necessary for all this apparent other data to be kept out of the public domain and opened to rigorous academic research.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,310
    Aliens. Bah!

    I think I'd probably die laughing if these aliens popped out of their saucers, announced they were in fact angels, there is a God and He just wanted to have a few more reports on how we were all getting on and, oh dear, things are in a bit of a mess. Oh and BTW He really doesn't like being called a sky fairy. Or having that Musk character visit his other planets, thanks all the same.

    Still the forthcoming floods would probably sort some things out.

    And then they buzz off again for a few more millennia.

  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,720
    Latest snowflake news...

    Now Thomas Hardy gets a trigger warning: Warwick university students are told 'Far from the Madding Crowd' contains 'upsetting scenes' about the 'cruelty of nature' and 'rural life'

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11112325/Warwick-students-told-Thomas-Hardys-Far-Madding-Crowd-contains-upsetting-scenes.html


    FFS.

    I did this book for 'o' level english at 15/16. Are these academics seriously saying an 18 or 19 year old cannot cope with some of the stuff in this classic novel?

    How are young people going to handle what actually happens in the real world if they are constantly protected from its depiction in art?

    The whole world's gone stark bonkers mad.

  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,664
    EPG said:

    EPG said:

    This is interesting.

    I'm not sure it's that interesting.

    I think polling against privatisation has been pretty consistent for decades.
    People want stuff and think they can get cheaper stuff if some politician can be instructed. Do they want to pay the capital cost of the stuff infrastructure? Not really.
    What's that got to do with privatisation/nationalisation?
    The stuff = water, etc. The cheap stuff = politicians holding the price down by running working losses and recapitalising it and borrowing against your kids' tax bill. The capital cost = paying for the water treatment, generating plants, sorting offices, etc.
    I ask once again, what has any of that got to do with privatisation/nationalisation?
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    edited August 2022

    Latest snowflake news...

    Now Thomas Hardy gets a trigger warning: Warwick university students are told 'Far from the Madding Crowd' contains 'upsetting scenes' about the 'cruelty of nature' and 'rural life'

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11112325/Warwick-students-told-Thomas-Hardys-Far-Madding-Crowd-contains-upsetting-scenes.html


    FFS.

    I did this book for 'o' level english at 15/16. Are these academics seriously saying an 18 or 19 year old cannot cope with some of the stuff in this classic novel?

    How are young people going to handle what actually happens in the real world if they are constantly protected from its depiction in art?

    The whole world's gone stark bonkers mad.

    Don't remember much about it except thinking Bathsheba was a complete c--- and Gabriel deserved better. But the one about the Oxford stonemason is as disturbing as it gets.

    Jude the Obscure.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 10,061

    Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Is the Calvine UFO photo actually just a mountain-top?


    https://twitter.com/gordonhudsonnu/status/1559136861616046080?s=20&t=_Y4lIvDowIRhR6LDX_hj1Q


    This *feels* quite convincing. But then the "rock in a loch" hypothesis felt equally convincing

    So I wonder if there is - as I suggested before - a human urge to believe the least weird explanation for something weird, to the extent that you will mentally overrule what your eyes are seeing

    What the photo shows is a whacking big weird thing hanging in the sky. What my brains tells me I am seeing is just a rock in a puddle! No, it's just a mountain!

    Never "it's a really big weird thing hanging in the sky"

    Whatever is going on in that photograph is very very unlikely to be a temperature inversion (cloud sea). I've seen quite a few of these in Scotland.

    For a start they usually have a clear sky above, and although you can occasionally see layers during fronts these are normally very local and you can't see distant objects.

    What definition there is in the sky in the photograph is also visible both above and below the 'object'. Layered cloud of any kind would be visible as a line across the image.
    Interesting. So that rules out the mountain hypothesis?
    Well, I don't buy it, anyway. For what that's worth.
    All opinions are worth something, and yours is quite persuasive here


    I tend to agree. The shape being so similar to a mountaintop is probably coincidence. Nothing else supports this thesis. How could it happen, photographically? Psychologically? How come the plane is in the photo but no other landscape features? Nor does this hypothesis remotely square with the eye-witness accounts (which might all be lies, of course)

    I'm down to three explanations


    1. A long elaborate hoax
    2. Surprising human tech
    3. Aliens!???!
    I'm suspicious of those branches at the top: suggests they've hung something - perhaps some symmetrical stone object - from them with transparent thread.
    If you were going to hang something, you'd make very sure there was no visible means of support, surely!

    Anyway, here's a cropped picture of Schiehallion (being a suitable hill for an EXPERIMENT) in a cloud inversion. I took this in January, not August, but you get the idea. The location is only a few miles from Calvine (in the Drumochter hills).



    Even with a serious overexposure I think you'd struggle to get something similar to the mystery image.

    I still think it is a reflection but am prepared to be convinced.


    I totally understand the obsession with ALIENS. Are we alone? It is a fundamental question which will shape how we see the universe if it can ever answered in the negative.

    I doubt we'll discover them in this way, though.
    The mountain top/stone in loch theories ignore the backstory to the photo. They would be great if there were none, and this was just a photo of unknown provenance bought at a car boot sale. But there is, there's the statement of the guys who took the photo (or at least provided it) who say it was a thing in the sky, which shot upwards after 10 minutes. So if they are lying, what's the theory? That a stone in a loch is the best way of faking the UAP or that they took a picture of an uninteresting lochstone and later looked at it and said Hey, that looks like a spaceship? Neither sems likely. The photo is 1 of 6 by the way, so the mountain in clouds claim looks a non starter unlessly they were spookily static clouds.

    What it is, it's the USAF Aurora project.
    There is also the plentiful evidence that the MoD took this seriously, and decided the photos showed a real object, hanging in the sky. Not a rock or a mountain

    Nick Pope has been a much derided figure in Fortean UFOlogical circles, but he has been adamant for years that these photos existed and they were lost/hidden, and after all that derision, here indeed is one of the photos, and it is a very close match to what he has described all along. He's been entirely consistent. He is vindicated

    He is particularly interesting because, in his opinion and those of some colleagues- it seems - this is NOT American tech
    Have you eve4 wondered why we never see the same UFO in other reports? If this is an alien craft, and an example of the ones that have been visiting for 60 years, why is there no consistency?

    On this particular case, and Nick Pope in particular, I have never doubted the existence of at least one photo, that likely spooked someone in the RAF. But Pope has a new career to push, and books to sell, and a living to make. He is skin in the game.
    There are other photos and videos with similar shaped craft, same with 'saucer' shaped, triangles etc. There are other eye witness cases with similar shaped craft - Todmorden Yorks in the 70s for example.
    Todmorden - the ex policeman who wrote a story and then pretended it was real? With some startling similarities to other stories? That Todmorden?
    Godfreys book was written long after what he reported (and covered his experience, the Adamski case he had investigated as an officer and Travis Walton amongst others) and obviously like any report you can believe, dismiss or scoff as pleases you. Its an example, before the 1990 Calvine photo, of diamond shaped craft in ufo lore. No more, no less.
    I’d suggest nothing actually happened at Todmorden. He initially wrote a piece of fiction, that somehow mutated into a report of true events. The Adamski link is the giveaway.
    Its quite possible nothing did happen and Godfrey made it up, yes, its also possible he saw something weird. Im not sure where this 'wrote a piece of fiction' comes from? He had never written anything, his alleged encounter was reported by him at the time in 1980?
    Adamski is just odd regardless. Guy disappears and turns up on top of a coal pile, dead. But its just an unsolved possible murder mystery, theres no indication of paranormal involvement imo.
    There was a piece in Fortean Times recently about this. That’s when I was struck by the similarity of the name Adamski and George Adamski. Very fishy.
    Well he was called Zigmund Adamski and he turned up dead on top of a coal pile. The coroner who examined his body was called James Turnbull. It was reported on in the national press at the time. Its an interesting mystery, there is no need for paranormal extras on that one. The surname is a common enough Polish surname. He was Polish.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,103
    Cyclefree said:

    Aliens. Bah!

    I think I'd probably die laughing if these aliens popped out of their saucers, announced they were in fact angels, there is a God and He just wanted to have a few more reports on how we were all getting on and, oh dear, things are in a bit of a mess. Oh and BTW He really doesn't like being called a sky fairy. Or having that Musk character visit his other planets, thanks all the same.

    Still the forthcoming floods would probably sort some things out.

    And then they buzz off again for a few more millennia.

    Given the general pace of human development I like to think He took his off the ball for awhile (it's a big universe after all) and would be like 'wow, things have really changed around here!'
  • EPGEPG Posts: 6,652

    EPG said:

    EPG said:

    This is interesting.

    I'm not sure it's that interesting.

    I think polling against privatisation has been pretty consistent for decades.
    People want stuff and think they can get cheaper stuff if some politician can be instructed. Do they want to pay the capital cost of the stuff infrastructure? Not really.
    What's that got to do with privatisation/nationalisation?
    The stuff = water, etc. The cheap stuff = politicians holding the price down by running working losses and recapitalising it and borrowing against your kids' tax bill. The capital cost = paying for the water treatment, generating plants, sorting offices, etc.
    I ask once again, what has any of that got to do with privatisation/nationalisation?
    People think you can nationalise water or mail and you convince Boris to hold down the price by telling pollsters you'll vote Labour, so they borrow to keep it cheap.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,103

    Latest snowflake news...

    Now Thomas Hardy gets a trigger warning: Warwick university students are told 'Far from the Madding Crowd' contains 'upsetting scenes' about the 'cruelty of nature' and 'rural life'

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11112325/Warwick-students-told-Thomas-Hardys-Far-Madding-Crowd-contains-upsetting-scenes.html


    FFS.

    I did this book for 'o' level english at 15/16. Are these academics seriously saying an 18 or 19 year old cannot cope with some of the stuff in this classic novel?

    How are young people going to handle what actually happens in the real world if they are constantly protected from its depiction in art?

    The whole world's gone stark bonkers mad.

    Well, presumably it thinks they can handle it, but only if they have a warning about it first.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 10,061
    IshmaelZ said:

    Latest snowflake news...

    Now Thomas Hardy gets a trigger warning: Warwick university students are told 'Far from the Madding Crowd' contains 'upsetting scenes' about the 'cruelty of nature' and 'rural life'

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11112325/Warwick-students-told-Thomas-Hardys-Far-Madding-Crowd-contains-upsetting-scenes.html


    FFS.

    I did this book for 'o' level english at 15/16. Are these academics seriously saying an 18 or 19 year old cannot cope with some of the stuff in this classic novel?

    How are young people going to handle what actually happens in the real world if they are constantly protected from its depiction in art?

    The whole world's gone stark bonkers mad.

    Don't remember much about it except thinking Bathsheba was a complete c--- and Gabriel deserved better. But the one about the Oxford stonemason is as disturbing as it gets.

    Jude the Obscure.
    Done because we are too menny

    One of the most depressing lines in literature
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,822

    Latest snowflake news...

    Now Thomas Hardy gets a trigger warning: Warwick university students are told 'Far from the Madding Crowd' contains 'upsetting scenes' about the 'cruelty of nature' and 'rural life'

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11112325/Warwick-students-told-Thomas-Hardys-Far-Madding-Crowd-contains-upsetting-scenes.html


    FFS.

    I did this book for 'o' level english at 15/16. Are these academics seriously saying an 18 or 19 year old cannot cope with some of the stuff in this classic novel?

    How are young people going to handle what actually happens in the real world if they are constantly protected from its depiction in art?

    The whole world's gone stark bonkers mad.

    Perhaps it started when their grandparents became addicted to a gossip newspaper that specialises in taking offence and causing offence.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,434

    Almost on topic: When Obama and Trump were criticized for playing too much golf, I defended both of them, saying it was, on the whole, better for the nation to have them on a golf course than in the Oval Office.

    Could it be better for your nation to have Boris Johnson taking more foreign holidays?

    Broadly speaking, yes. Not strictly holidays though - Boris could have been quite effective constantly flying around the world on his Borisjet, waving the flag, and leaving the Governing to others. Covid got in the way.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,664
    EPG said:

    EPG said:

    EPG said:

    This is interesting.

    I'm not sure it's that interesting.

    I think polling against privatisation has been pretty consistent for decades.
    People want stuff and think they can get cheaper stuff if some politician can be instructed. Do they want to pay the capital cost of the stuff infrastructure? Not really.
    What's that got to do with privatisation/nationalisation?
    The stuff = water, etc. The cheap stuff = politicians holding the price down by running working losses and recapitalising it and borrowing against your kids' tax bill. The capital cost = paying for the water treatment, generating plants, sorting offices, etc.
    I ask once again, what has any of that got to do with privatisation/nationalisation?
    People think you can nationalise water or mail and you convince Boris to hold down the price by telling pollsters you'll vote Labour, so they borrow to keep it cheap.
    I think you underestimate people. They just don't see how privatisation has helped improve these services.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,103

    Latest snowflake news...

    Now Thomas Hardy gets a trigger warning: Warwick university students are told 'Far from the Madding Crowd' contains 'upsetting scenes' about the 'cruelty of nature' and 'rural life'

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11112325/Warwick-students-told-Thomas-Hardys-Far-Madding-Crowd-contains-upsetting-scenes.html


    FFS.

    I did this book for 'o' level english at 15/16. Are these academics seriously saying an 18 or 19 year old cannot cope with some of the stuff in this classic novel?

    How are young people going to handle what actually happens in the real world if they are constantly protected from its depiction in art?

    The whole world's gone stark bonkers mad.

    Perhaps it started when their grandparents became addicted to a gossip newspaper that specialises in taking offence and causing offence.
    Whilst the Mail is hardly an island of calm and reason to counter such things, if the story is accurate it is still bloody ridiculous.
  • FairlieredFairliered Posts: 4,931
    kinabalu said:

    HYUFD said:

    This is interesting.

    I'm not sure it's that interesting.

    I think polling against privatisation has been pretty consistent for decades.
    Apart from the privatisations of BA and BT the public have long wanted to keep the utilities and railways etc nationalised even when they were privatised yes
    Utilities as sexy businesses delivering big bucks for shareholders and senior execs feels wrong to people, I think.
    Labour are missing a trick by being scared to suggest nationalisation of major utilities, especially those that are natural monopolies.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,143

    Latest snowflake news...

    Now Thomas Hardy gets a trigger warning: Warwick university students are told 'Far from the Madding Crowd' contains 'upsetting scenes' about the 'cruelty of nature' and 'rural life'

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11112325/Warwick-students-told-Thomas-Hardys-Far-Madding-Crowd-contains-upsetting-scenes.html

    FFS.

    I did this book for 'o' level english at 15/16. Are these academics seriously saying an 18 or 19 year old cannot cope with some of the stuff in this classic novel?

    How are young people going to handle what actually happens in the real world if they are constantly protected from its depiction in art?

    The whole world's gone stark bonkers mad.

    Well, Rotters, they apparently can't be asked to think about structural racism without sending the white ones into paroxyms of deeply damaging personal guilt, so you know ...
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405

    Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Is the Calvine UFO photo actually just a mountain-top?


    https://twitter.com/gordonhudsonnu/status/1559136861616046080?s=20&t=_Y4lIvDowIRhR6LDX_hj1Q


    This *feels* quite convincing. But then the "rock in a loch" hypothesis felt equally convincing

    So I wonder if there is - as I suggested before - a human urge to believe the least weird explanation for something weird, to the extent that you will mentally overrule what your eyes are seeing

    What the photo shows is a whacking big weird thing hanging in the sky. What my brains tells me I am seeing is just a rock in a puddle! No, it's just a mountain!

    Never "it's a really big weird thing hanging in the sky"

    Whatever is going on in that photograph is very very unlikely to be a temperature inversion (cloud sea). I've seen quite a few of these in Scotland.

    For a start they usually have a clear sky above, and although you can occasionally see layers during fronts these are normally very local and you can't see distant objects.

    What definition there is in the sky in the photograph is also visible both above and below the 'object'. Layered cloud of any kind would be visible as a line across the image.
    Interesting. So that rules out the mountain hypothesis?
    Well, I don't buy it, anyway. For what that's worth.
    All opinions are worth something, and yours is quite persuasive here


    I tend to agree. The shape being so similar to a mountaintop is probably coincidence. Nothing else supports this thesis. How could it happen, photographically? Psychologically? How come the plane is in the photo but no other landscape features? Nor does this hypothesis remotely square with the eye-witness accounts (which might all be lies, of course)

    I'm down to three explanations


    1. A long elaborate hoax
    2. Surprising human tech
    3. Aliens!???!
    I'm suspicious of those branches at the top: suggests they've hung something - perhaps some symmetrical stone object - from them with transparent thread.
    If you were going to hang something, you'd make very sure there was no visible means of support, surely!

    Anyway, here's a cropped picture of Schiehallion (being a suitable hill for an EXPERIMENT) in a cloud inversion. I took this in January, not August, but you get the idea. The location is only a few miles from Calvine (in the Drumochter hills).



    Even with a serious overexposure I think you'd struggle to get something similar to the mystery image.

    I still think it is a reflection but am prepared to be convinced.


    I totally understand the obsession with ALIENS. Are we alone? It is a fundamental question which will shape how we see the universe if it can ever answered in the negative.

    I doubt we'll discover them in this way, though.
    The mountain top/stone in loch theories ignore the backstory to the photo. They would be great if there were none, and this was just a photo of unknown provenance bought at a car boot sale. But there is, there's the statement of the guys who took the photo (or at least provided it) who say it was a thing in the sky, which shot upwards after 10 minutes. So if they are lying, what's the theory? That a stone in a loch is the best way of faking the UAP or that they took a picture of an uninteresting lochstone and later looked at it and said Hey, that looks like a spaceship? Neither sems likely. The photo is 1 of 6 by the way, so the mountain in clouds claim looks a non starter unlessly they were spookily static clouds.

    What it is, it's the USAF Aurora project.
    There is also the plentiful evidence that the MoD took this seriously, and decided the photos showed a real object, hanging in the sky. Not a rock or a mountain

    Nick Pope has been a much derided figure in Fortean UFOlogical circles, but he has been adamant for years that these photos existed and they were lost/hidden, and after all that derision, here indeed is one of the photos, and it is a very close match to what he has described all along. He's been entirely consistent. He is vindicated

    He is particularly interesting because, in his opinion and those of some colleagues- it seems - this is NOT American tech
    Have you eve4 wondered why we never see the same UFO in other reports? If this is an alien craft, and an example of the ones that have been visiting for 60 years, why is there no consistency?

    On this particular case, and Nick Pope in particular, I have never doubted the existence of at least one photo, that likely spooked someone in the RAF. But Pope has a new career to push, and books to sell, and a living to make. He is skin in the game.
    There are other photos and videos with similar shaped craft, same with 'saucer' shaped, triangles etc. There are other eye witness cases with similar shaped craft - Todmorden Yorks in the 70s for example.
    Todmorden - the ex policeman who wrote a story and then pretended it was real? With some startling similarities to other stories? That Todmorden?
    Godfreys book was written long after what he reported (and covered his experience, the Adamski case he had investigated as an officer and Travis Walton amongst others) and obviously like any report you can believe, dismiss or scoff as pleases you. Its an example, before the 1990 Calvine photo, of diamond shaped craft in ufo lore. No more, no less.
    I’d suggest nothing actually happened at Todmorden. He initially wrote a piece of fiction, that somehow mutated into a report of true events. The Adamski link is the giveaway.
    Its quite possible nothing did happen and Godfrey made it up, yes, its also possible he saw something weird. Im not sure where this 'wrote a piece of fiction' comes from? He had never written anything, his alleged encounter was reported by him at the time in 1980?
    Adamski is just odd regardless. Guy disappears and turns up on top of a coal pile, dead. But its just an unsolved possible murder mystery, theres no indication of paranormal involvement imo.
    There was a piece in Fortean Times recently about this. That’s when I was struck by the similarity of the name Adamski and George Adamski. Very fishy.
    Well he was called Zigmund Adamski and he turned up dead on top of a coal pile. The coroner who examined his body was called James Turnbull. It was reported on in the national press at the time. Its an interesting mystery, there is no need for paranormal extras on that one. The surname is a common enough Polish surname. He was Polish.
    Why did the PC leap to the idea of alien abduction? Maybe he’d been reading about George Adamski...
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,103
    edited August 2022
    kinabalu said:

    Latest snowflake news...

    Now Thomas Hardy gets a trigger warning: Warwick university students are told 'Far from the Madding Crowd' contains 'upsetting scenes' about the 'cruelty of nature' and 'rural life'

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11112325/Warwick-students-told-Thomas-Hardys-Far-Madding-Crowd-contains-upsetting-scenes.html

    FFS.

    I did this book for 'o' level english at 15/16. Are these academics seriously saying an 18 or 19 year old cannot cope with some of the stuff in this classic novel?

    How are young people going to handle what actually happens in the real world if they are constantly protected from its depiction in art?

    The whole world's gone stark bonkers mad.

    Well, Rotters, they apparently can't be asked to think about structural racism without sending the white ones into paroxyms of deeply damaging personal guilt, so you know ...
    Yes? That would also be stupid.

    I don't get it - if the story is true it is utterly silly, and the presence of snowflake reactions to structural racism or whatever wouldn't make it less silly. It would be incredibly infantilising if true, and manbaby reactions on another matter wouldn't affect that.
  • kinabalu said:

    Latest snowflake news...

    Now Thomas Hardy gets a trigger warning: Warwick university students are told 'Far from the Madding Crowd' contains 'upsetting scenes' about the 'cruelty of nature' and 'rural life'

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11112325/Warwick-students-told-Thomas-Hardys-Far-Madding-Crowd-contains-upsetting-scenes.html

    FFS.

    I did this book for 'o' level english at 15/16. Are these academics seriously saying an 18 or 19 year old cannot cope with some of the stuff in this classic novel?

    How are young people going to handle what actually happens in the real world if they are constantly protected from its depiction in art?

    The whole world's gone stark bonkers mad.

    Well, Rotters, they apparently can't be asked to think about structural racism without sending the white ones into paroxyms of deeply damaging personal guilt, so you know ...
    So a bit like the left, the Civil Service and antisemitism then?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,143
    kle4 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Labour leads by 7%.

    Westminster Voting Intention (14 August):

    Labour 41% (+1)
    Conservative 34% (-1)
    Liberal Democrat 12% (–)
    Green 5% (–)
    Scottish National Party 4% (-)
    Reform UK 3% (–)
    Plaid Cymru 1% (-)
    Other 2% (+1)

    Changes +/- 7 August

    Summer holiday churn.
    Key thing is that it's another poll where getting rid of Boris hasn't led to a Conservative poll lead. It may still happen once Liz is installed, but for now... tick, tock.
    He hasn’t gone yet and remember that the average person who doesn’t follow things that closely thinks Sunak is most likely to take over.
    Sure. But think back to 1990. The announcement of Maggie's resignation was enough to produce a massive turnaround in the polls. Roughly a Labour lead of 6 becoming a Conservative lead of 6 in a matter of days. That has happened a bit with Boris, but not enough to get the Conservatives ahead. Putting a new face in Downing Street may seal the deal, but it hasn't happened yet.
    I think they have less chance of winning the election with Truss than they'd have had with Johnson.
    That's possible, though it is a hard thing to estimate given he has more strengths with the voters (or had), but also probably greater weaknesses - how many more scandals and outrages would have occurred to diminish his chances vs Truss?

    What's certain is if she fails it will become fact that he would have won but for traitors in the party.
    Oh yes for sure. That is written and ready to go.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,657
    Some really useful tips for budding serial killers in this twitter thread, and some true stories...

    https://twitter.com/L3GSV/status/1558911932555579393?t=9s7v4QBBFE7pl_skw5R9vw&s=19
  • EPGEPG Posts: 6,652

    EPG said:

    EPG said:

    EPG said:

    This is interesting.

    I'm not sure it's that interesting.

    I think polling against privatisation has been pretty consistent for decades.
    People want stuff and think they can get cheaper stuff if some politician can be instructed. Do they want to pay the capital cost of the stuff infrastructure? Not really.
    What's that got to do with privatisation/nationalisation?
    The stuff = water, etc. The cheap stuff = politicians holding the price down by running working losses and recapitalising it and borrowing against your kids' tax bill. The capital cost = paying for the water treatment, generating plants, sorting offices, etc.
    I ask once again, what has any of that got to do with privatisation/nationalisation?
    People think you can nationalise water or mail and you convince Boris to hold down the price by telling pollsters you'll vote Labour, so they borrow to keep it cheap.
    I think you underestimate people. They just don't see how privatisation has helped improve these services.
    But that doesn't explain a 3:1 margin in favour of Neo British Rail.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    kinabalu said:

    Latest snowflake news...

    Now Thomas Hardy gets a trigger warning: Warwick university students are told 'Far from the Madding Crowd' contains 'upsetting scenes' about the 'cruelty of nature' and 'rural life'

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11112325/Warwick-students-told-Thomas-Hardys-Far-Madding-Crowd-contains-upsetting-scenes.html

    FFS.

    I did this book for 'o' level english at 15/16. Are these academics seriously saying an 18 or 19 year old cannot cope with some of the stuff in this classic novel?

    How are young people going to handle what actually happens in the real world if they are constantly protected from its depiction in art?

    The whole world's gone stark bonkers mad.

    Well, Rotters, they apparently can't be asked to think about structural racism without sending the white ones into paroxyms of deeply damaging personal guilt, so you know ...
    But apart from anything else, the best way out is always through. If I were descended from cotton pickin N words I'd want to read every last word of "The Diary Of Thomas Thistlewood - over its 'detail regarding sexual assaults and extreme violence.'" and be enraged about what was done by him to my ancestors. Not be warned off it because triggers.
  • EPGEPG Posts: 6,652

    kinabalu said:

    HYUFD said:

    This is interesting.

    I'm not sure it's that interesting.

    I think polling against privatisation has been pretty consistent for decades.
    Apart from the privatisations of BA and BT the public have long wanted to keep the utilities and railways etc nationalised even when they were privatised yes
    Utilities as sexy businesses delivering big bucks for shareholders and senior execs feels wrong to people, I think.
    Labour are missing a trick by being scared to suggest nationalisation of major utilities, especially those that are natural monopolies.
    They quite sensibly don't want to get the blame when it doesn't improve anything, especially if 70% of people think it will.
This discussion has been closed.