From: David Rudiak <drudiak.nul>
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:34:18 -0700
Archived: Wed, 30 Sep 2009 06:50:53 -0400
Subject: Re: Ray Stanford's Comments To UFO Iconoclast


>From: Viktor Golubik <Diverge247.nul>
>To: post.nul
>Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 10:44:49 EDT
>Subject: Re: Ray Stanford's Comments To UFO Iconoclast

>>From: David Rudiak <drudiak.nul>
>>To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <post.nul>
>>Date: Sun, 27 Sep 2009 17:15:50 -0700
>>Subject: Re: Ray Stanford's Comments To UFO Iconoclast

<snip>

>Yes, I understand the physics of the situation very well but I
>also understand how witnesses can defy the laws of physics!

>Evidently, you haven't yet crossed that fundamental threshold. I
>might suggest you start investigating fresh cases and begin to
>get a feel for all the potential "real world" problems that
>exist.

Yes, Viktor, I know. None of us is worthy to debate anything
with you. You are so beyond us in every conceivable way.

>We can often vacillate around seemingly fundamental issues
>because the juxtaposition of both weak and strong evidential
>components can be weighed differently - each affecting the
>underpinnings of the other.

>Some of Zamora's testimony and others:

>"...The two legs were at the bottom of the object, slanted
>outwards to the ground." Zamora then got closer to the object,
>got out of his car, heard a loud roar, saw a flame, ran, bumped
>his leg, lost his glasses, and kept on going. He saw the object
>fly up, and move 10 to 15 feet above the ground, and then leave
>the area "traveling very fast."

You left out the part where Zamora reported complete silence
once the object had lifted out of the arroyo. The departure at
high speed was in silence, perhaps the most significant part of
his tetimony. (Of course, knowing the way you operate, you will
probably label it one of those "weak evidential components" and
give zero weight to it.)

In the real world, complete silence rules out helicopters, jets,
rockets, internal combustion engines, etc., etc. What we have
instead is a silent propulsion system capable of high
acceleration and achieving high speed.

But just how fast was "traveling very fast"? That's where the
physics comes in, which Viktor ignores, I guess another one of
those "weak evidential components". As I wrote previously, if
Ray Stanford's estimate of a 20 second departure (increased from
Zamora's 10 second estimate) to fadeout in the distance (about 6
miles by Zamora's estimate), then the craft _averaged_ over 1000
mph in its departure, though its peak speed could have been much
higher, over 2000 mph if there were constant acceleration.

Incidentally, I've done visual experiments which demonstrate
that Zamora's fadeout distance of 6 miles is quite reasonable
given standard visual acuity. I found that it could have been as
high as 8 miles with very good seeing conditions or as low as
2.5 miles with a lot of haze and sun glare. But Zamora was
certainly in the ball park in terms of feasible fadeout
distance.

So if you want to push some "helicopter" theory, you not only
need to ignore the silence testimony, you need to somehow
decrease the speed by absurd amounts, say triple the departure
time and assume a bare minimum fadeout distance, let's say 2
miles. This cuts the average speed by a factor of 9, down to 120
mph, though the peak speed would have to be substantially higher
than this, perhaps 240 mph with constant acceleration. (Unless
Viktor also wants to make another absurd assumption that the
"helicopter" instantly achieved 120 mph speed).

That's getting pretty close to impossible for our magical silent
helicopter, which, incidentally (or have you forgotten Viktor?)
is towing a multi-ton object (calculations based on soil
depression). Perhaps with your superior knowledge of everything,
you can point us to a helicopter back then that can
do all that.

>He radioed his dispatcher to
>look out his window for 'an object... it looks like a
>balloon.'

It looks like a balloon, therefore it is a balloon. Brilliant
logic. Or is it a helicopter, or a Surveyor landing craft? Or
some college prank with fireworks? Damn, I can't keep all these
definitive "explanations" straight?

>Nearby, the bushes were still smoldering. News reports in the
>local paper, El Defensor Chieftain, also mentioned "an
>unidentified tourist" who remarked about how " aircraft flew low
>around here," and that the strange object was a 'funny-looking
>helicopter, if that's what it was'."

"If that's what it was", therefore it was a helicopter. More
brilliant logic.

>As we can see, both helicopter and balloon are mentioned by
>witnesses.

Earth to Viktor. Looks like does not equal is. Instead, this
sounds like the usual human response of first trying to match an
unknown with something known.

>And if Zamora saw a small landed helicopter

Oh, the small landed helicopter that leaves no depressions on
the ground and takes off and departs silently towing a multi-ton
object--that small helicopter?

>it might
>be described as the size of a Volkswagen since it deviates
>from
>the size of the smaller vehicle he described

Baloney. The object he described was 15 to 20 feet in length,
observations strongly supported by the four landing pad
depressions left behind.

>and focused on
>later. Might there have be two vehicles involved?

You forgot to throw in the flying monkeys.

You also forgot the part where Ray Stanford determined that
Zamora got to within 35 feet of the oval object. He got within
35 feet and couldn't determine he was dealing with a helicopter?

Do helicopters blast off? Do they burn the ground and foliage.
Can they go completely silent? Can they fly off at hundreds of
miles an hour while towing a multi-ton object on a cable? Can
they climb steep mountainsides while doing so (another part of
Zamora's testimony you neglect)?

No doubt to this Viktor will say, no he didn't approach the
helicopter. He approached a Surveyor landing craft that blased
off, but being towed by the helicopter, without ever explaining
where the helicopter was hiding, why it left no physical trace,
and how it could be silent. Nor will he bother to explain how
the very un-Socorro-like Surveyor in size, weight, and shape
could morph into what Zamora saw and what the physical trace
evidence indicates he saw and described.

>Could the
>occupants have departed in a small helicopter tethering the
>device?

Yes, the silent helicopter that left no trace evidence behind,
such as landing skid marks.

>He lost his glasses before it took off, his vision was >poor,

This is the typical "lost his glasses" red herring and also a
highly inaccurate rendition of what Zamora actually reported. He
did NOT lose his glasses BEFORE it took off. (Show us Viktor
where he said that.) He approached CLOSE to the object with his
glasses on. When the object started to take off, he was
terrified, thinking it might explode. He turned around and
started scrambling back out of the arroyo, shooting looks over
his shoulder, glasses still on. When he got back to his car on
the rim of the arroyo, he bumped into it, and at this point lost
his glasses. He ran beyond his car and dived for cover, turned
around and watched the object lift up out of the arroyo, then go
completely silent (what do his glasses have to do with this
part?), and then depart horizontally at high speed.

He then ran back to his car, quickly retrieved his glasses, and
watched the object leave the scene and fadeout in the distance,
_with his glasses on_.

Time without glasses--maybe 20 seconds. Effect on critical
details of the sighting--zero.

It is pretty clear that Viktor and many others have no idea what
visual acuity is measuring. As I've repeatedly pointed out,
traffic cops have to have at least 20/100 acuity without
correction to pass their physicals. If 20/20 is standard acuity,
20/100 means they can just read a line of letters at 20 feet
that is five times as large as a 20/20 line.

20/20 letters are about 9 mm high at 20 feet. (Designed so that
width of black and white portions of letters are all 1 minute of
arc wide) Thus 20/100 letters are 45 mm or about 2 inches high
at 20 feet. If Zamora dashed 100 feet away where he dived for
cover, then 20/100 acuity means he could just discern letters
about 10 inches high made up of lines about 2 inches wide.

But the oval object was 15-20 feet long, and perhaps half as
wide. Would he have any problems seeing that? No, of course not.
Visual acuity is a measure of how well we see fine detail, not
the gross stuff. So the edges of the object would have been a
little fuzzy, but he would have had no trouble seeing the much
bigger details, such as the entire object itself.

That's why I say bringing up his vision without his glasses on
is a red herring. Nothing critical in his observations was
affected by his glasses being off. And, of course, his visual
acuity, glasses or no glasses, had no effect on his ability to
detect the object going completely silent as it made its
departure, the critical detail that you'll notice Viktor never
brings up.

>and he was already contaminated by having testified
>publicly on a radio program (with a showman host) before he was
>interviewed by others - where the townsfolk describe that
>interview as him having been force-fed.

Ray Stanford will have to chime in here, but from what I've
read, both he and Hynek went over and over the testimony with
Zamora, and he didn't waver in his story nor did he exaggerate
or keep elaborating on it.

But I guess Viktor has the will to believe that Zamora must have
been easily programmed by some radio guy into a particular story
and was incapable of thinking on his own.

>Should we now lead in a debate about his vision problems and
>the
>fact his sun glasses skewed his color perception.

What does color perception have to do with the most critical
parts of it? Is that why he thought the object went dead silent
as it departed?

>That he
>actually lost his glasses during the sighting!

Red herring, as explained above. It had no effect on critical
details reported by Zamora.

>That in an early
>interview he mentions the possibility that the crew did not
>board the vehicle.

Just sounds like a cop weighing various possibilities. Obviously
Viktor is trying to suggest the little guys in their coveralls
jumped into their silent, invisible helicopter and made a fast
escape.

>That there is evidence of a tethered surveyor
>test flight on April 24 at 7:45 AM... along with another test
>vehicle designed by Hughes which was tethered and self
>sufficient. That 37 companies competed for contracts for the
>surveyor programs and the like.

And all of these where flying dozens of miles off-range 10 hours
later, and silently too when they departed? And these "surveyor"
test craft were oval shaped, multi-tonned, and 15-20 feet in
length?

>As we can see quite plainly, we have another problem with star-
>truck advocates getting emotionally involved with cases and not
>willing or unable to bring up other aspects.

Maybe it's more the case that we "star-struck" advocates don't
like to waste our time on on magical thinking, red herrings, and
inane, hand-waving arguments. Viktor apparently doesn't suffer
from any of these handicaps.

>But, let's hope
>that our own narrow mindedness doesn't necessarily lure us into
>single-minded solutions - boxed in without ability nor room to
>expand.

Yes, let's consider ALL possibilities, no matter how absurd or
impossible. Has Viktor yet considered the flying monkeys, or is
he too narrow-minded to go down that path?

>Once I saw Ray's post, my only interest was in an exchange with
>the actual investigator. An investigator who actually spoke with
>witnesses and was on the ground taking in the entire experience
>and exchanging with the witnesses.

>I've learned quite convincingly that many cases have both major
>and minor flaws and it is the willingness of the investigator to
>discuss them that speaks well for them and the entire case -
>though it is often most unappreciated by both sides of the
>debate.

>The following are interesting reads:

>http://tinyurl.com/yh7b39g

Dead link.

>http://forufo.blogspot.com

Usual pointless Rich Reynold blatherings on Socorro. Among
Reynold's usual screwups is transcribing Zamora's description of
the size of the insignia from feet into inches. Apparently
Reynold's can't tell the difference between ' and ". And we run
into the usual red-herring, hand-waving arguments about Zamora
losing his glasses and how this somehow affected his judgment,
without ever specifying exactly what critical details were
actually affected.

>http://www.nmsr.org/socorro.htm

Yes, do go read this one, by CSICOP debunker Dave Thomas, trying
to suggest that maybe it was a test of a the lunar Surveyor
landing craft being towed by a helicopter. Pay special attention
to the photo near the bottom showing the SMALL, THREE-legged,
very un-oval-shaped Surveyor next to the astronaut on the Moon.
Is this a match to the much larger, oval-shaped, multi-tonned,
4-legged Socorro object? You be the judge.

Of course in Debunker World, all you need is to wave your hands,
magically combine the round cockpit of a Bell helicopter (of
which no trace was ever found on the ground--must of silently
hovered with the rest of the craft being totally invisible) with
the stick-like surveyor, magically add another landing pad, blow
it up several times in size and weight, and POOF, you have your
Socorro object that Zamora saw. This is what Viktor calls
"looking at all the angles."

>I'm afraid I have no interest in proving the world is flat in
>today's climate. Though you are quite capable of leading others
>in that direction.

Oh yes, Viktor, I am not worthy to even sit in your shadow.

>Can I once find an investigator willing to look at both angles
>with vigor and enthusiasm? Can we honestly say this sounds more
>like their technology and doesn't resound with aspects of our
>own?

"Resound with aspects of our own?" You mean the totally silent
departure at perhaps supersonic speed? A craft with no wings or
other obvious means of support or external propulsion, such as
propellers, rotors, jet engines, etc. Lack of all chemical
traces at the scene? Fused soil? Bush burned and cut cleanly in
half, but with no damage beyond the immediate burn area? What
technology did we have back then that could do all this?


David Rudiak

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