Hard on the heels of the Majestic document debunking comes a UFO story, courtesy of the Daily Mail, that has the silliest line I’ve seen in a long time:
The strange episode started just after 10.30pm, when the lights were seen hovering slowly over the town before three of them formed a triangular shape with one positioned just to the right.
Now, if three of them formed a square, then call me. That must take a superior intelligence.
Tip o’ the tin foil beanie to Fark. Note: I wrote this before reading the Fark comments, and others pointed out this three-pointed dumbosity as well.
July 24th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
A line? Or an 8-D billboard flashing a greeting to us earthlings, but that sadly loses its impact when projected onto our mere 3-D space.
July 24th, 2007 at 9:06 pm
Was that triangle in a plane by any chance? Planar triangles are the weirdest of all.
July 24th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
This hurts my brain. I can’t handle this 2 d geometry.
I”m going to go read Flatland for a bit.
July 24th, 2007 at 9:58 pm
Somedays a little rain most fall, for the ufologists today is a flood.
July 24th, 2007 at 10:15 pm
Well, I’m sure the Wall Street Journal’s op-ed writers could make three points into a square, Phil, so be careful.
July 25th, 2007 at 12:45 am
Well, technically, three points could also form a line. I think they were trying to say was that the points formed something close to a small equilateral triangle (although, most people probably wouldn’t know what an equilateral triangle was), and stayed in that formation.
July 25th, 2007 at 1:27 am
The picture looks like an exact duplicate of a case that occured a few months back, which turned out to be a flotilla of Chinese Lanterns. That other case looked so much better because there were dozens of the lanterns!!
In any case, the Daily Mail is not exactly renowned for its scientific coverage.
I love UFO stories, by the way, you don’t have to believe in them to enjoy them. But what I find so depressing is that modern UFO stories compared to – say the 50s – are so astonishingly ordinary.
Back then, a UFO sighting was a disk then flew in front of you close enough to read mysterious symbols, stopped your car, dropped toxic sludge in a lake, crashed into a tree knocking the top of and vanished upwards at high speed when the F102s appeared over the horizon, leaving only a burn mark in a field.
Now it’s a light… that doesn’t do anything! What happened to imaginations of the modern generation? I blame the Playstation
July 25th, 2007 at 3:47 am
Not so fast. I saw them from the other side – and they formed a triangular shape with one positioned just to the left. Coincidence???
July 25th, 2007 at 4:18 am
Playing devil’s advocate for a moment, there’s no actual cast iron evidence on either side, just a picture of some white dots apparently in the sky. The pic. could’ve been photoshopped, or… oh no!
::Cue Twiglet Zone music:: The four ‘lights’ are at the points of a tetrahedron… It’s a goa’uld mini-mother ship! Arrgghhh! Run for your lives!
{g, d & r}
–
July 25th, 2007 at 4:27 am
Just a quick word from england but, the daily mail is a pile of crap. It’s one of the right wing papers that spews un-researched bollocks on a regular basis and seems to alternate between attacking politicians for racism because they said they don’t like black sweets, and asking questions like, long lines at the supermarket…. is it the dirty immigrants fault?
Disclaimer: All racist connotations contained in this comment are meant to represent my views on the daily mail’s outlook, not to be racist. Racists are dicks.
July 25th, 2007 at 6:23 am
Even though I like this blog, sometimes I think we are a little to fast with codemning people.
I am sure the people in England made an observation. And of course what they saw were UFO’s (unknown flying objects), because at the time they saw the they did not know what these objects were and the objects seemed to fly.
We should carefully distinguish between the people who made an observation and the people who claim to have the correct explanation (”it must have been alien space ships because 3 of them formed a triangle”).
If on last friday 2 weeks ago I had an accident with my car, and the Daily Mail would write “German physicist has proof Friday 13th is doomed” it still would be true 1.) I had an accident on friday 13th 2.) I am a German physicist 3.) I told someone abou these 2 things.
So the facts/observations are still true even if someone makes wrong or silly claims or conclusions.
T_G
July 25th, 2007 at 6:50 am
“I’m going to go read Flatland for a bit.”
Reminded me of Homer:
“Maybe I shoulda read that book by that wheelchair guy!”
July 25th, 2007 at 7:59 am
There is no such thing as little green men from outer space. I thought it was common knowledge that UFO’s were transdimensional vehicles carrying Satan’s legions to temp good little xtians into choosing a gay lifestyle.
July 25th, 2007 at 8:09 am
Superior? Bah, I can do it myself! All you really need is a cylindrical universe. Then you put one on top, and the other two on the bottom spaced out parallel to the axis by the right amount, and voila: A square using only three lights.
July 25th, 2007 at 8:33 am
The_Square, I didn’t comment on what the people saw or what they said; I’m just making fun of the person who wrote that article.
July 25th, 2007 at 8:51 am
Hey Phil, the article author was just paraphrasing a quote from one of the witnesses.
Sounds like a flummoxed person trying to describe a particular geometry seen in the sky without knowing how to quantify it with thlngs like angular size or specific geometric shape names. “Triangle” is vague, whereas “Equilateral triangle” is more specific.
July 25th, 2007 at 8:51 am
Arrrrrrrg! You’re right Sue Mitchell: Goa’uld! EVERYONE RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!
July 25th, 2007 at 8:57 am
Phil…..to be honest, I think you are being a bit nitpicky here. Of course three points will form a triangle of some measure or another, but to John Q. Public, when you say the word “triangle” they usually think of an equilateral one. That’s the picture that pops into my mind whenever I hear the word. From the picture in the article, this is exactly what is shown. And yes….a fourth light was off to the right. Now don’t get me wrong…..I think the entire notion of UFOs being alien spacecraft is crazy, but let’s not condemn the author for writing common language. He was not trying to be a scientist. Too bad someone didn’t think to get a pair of binoculars and take a better look at these objects.
July 25th, 2007 at 9:14 am
Im as skeptic as as any, but this is interesting.
And please note that there is a nice video link on the site, some kid got it with a mobile phone cam. We see the lights waver as they should when you look at dots in sky with unstabilized camera or scope, we see a dozen people looking at the lights.
I would really love to head Phil’s opinion on the movie. It doesn’t seem fake, if you go for a major fake out like that, when you convince half the town to play along, you don’t just show 4 dot lights in the sky.
I really think they saw something. Real ET spaceships, not a chance.
Something out of the ordinary. Certainly.
I hear there are major ops by civil defense in UK at this time because of some floods or stg, but air control denied anything was there.
I know wind can have different intensities and directions at different altitudes, but this just doesn’t look like a bunch of illuminated balloons or whatever.
July 25th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
I am definitely in the camp of people who think this is unnecessarily derisive. The word “triangle” in the context of a news article is more succinct than saying a “nearly perfectly formed equilateral triangle” or what have you. I think most people viewing that event would say that three of the lights formed a triangle, as a quick and efficient means of describing what they saw in a way that others would understand. Even if these were not our alien overlords come to enslave us, we can all appreciate unusual objects in the sky, no?
Cheers.
July 25th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
Well I’m proven wrong! I’ve always said that Daily Mail had only three stories: Princess Diana, house prices & immigrants. How wrong I am about this fine peice of journalism.
I followed the link & now I feel dirty because the Daily Mail will be on My History file.
July 25th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
FYI the midweek paper is running a ‘teaser’ for Friday’s full edition that says:
“UFOs explained! They were wedding celebration balloons”.
Sounds specific enough that they know for sure. Weird that it took the Daily Mail so long to catch on – afaik it happened on the 14th (not long after this sunset, so there were clearly some interesting lighting conditions). Give them another week and they’ll notice the town got flooded…
July 25th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
FYI the midweek paper is running a ‘teaser’ for Friday’s full edition that says:
“UFOs explained! They were wedding celebration balloons”.
Sounds specific enough that they know for sure. Weird that it took the Daily Mail so long to catch on – afaik it happened on the 14th. Give them another week and they’ll notice the town got flooded…
July 25th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
If the internal angles add to precisely 180 degrees- well that would be really spooky!
July 26th, 2007 at 5:48 am
HaHa! Had a good laugh at this! We used to have a military airport nearby and those planes (Tornado type) had three strong lightspots which could be rotated to aim them in a different direction. The pilots used to fly low over the city at slow speed at night so you could hardly identify them as jet propulsion crafts… and they often tested their lightspots, rotating them over the city… we had some nuts here you claimed them being alien UFOs despite the apparent truth.
July 27th, 2007 at 1:56 am
Come on guys, this is a bit silly! The article says “three of them formed a triangular shape with one positioned just to the right.”, but it should read “another one”. Thinking that adding a fourth dot to a triangle always makes it a square is bad geometry. Did actually anybody bother to look at the picture in the article? It does show dots (maybe beer stains on the camera lense, but that’s not the point) including the shape described. It’s a triangle, and the fourth dot makes it a Y-shape lying on it side.
July 27th, 2007 at 2:28 am
“Three lights and this other one…” Reminds me of Baldrick studying advanced mathematics in Black Adder.