Jim Oberg's "99 FAQs About Space UFO Videos"

[JimO]

Well, reasonable assumptions are better than unreasonable ones, and assumptions are one of the few things we can do.

But if we are supplied with data to correct (or abandon) those assumptions I'm sure we will get closer and closer to the truth, whatever it may be.

That is my entire motivation for writing the '99 FAQs' and in asking for help in identifying inadequacies, incompleteness, NASA tech talk, and other failings.

Assumptions are only 'reasonable' in the environment for which they have been verified. The degree to which space is DIFFERENT is still only dimly clear to earthlings, and for good reason. NASA makes it look boring, newspapers make it look daring, TV space experts like to show off arcane knowledge not available to the masses, and most folks shrug and assume it's "rocket science" and they never would understand anyway.

Quite a burden to overcome, eh?

Just conceptualizing the invisible shadow zone in front of a camera in these famous 'UFO videos', and how it makes small nearby objects appear when they drift from the shuttle's shadow out into full sunlight, is a mind-stretcher that is aided by using models and a light bulb at home. Play around with it. Satisfy yourself that one possible prosaic explanation for a white dot to 'pop up' in the middle of the screen is that there is an unseen shadow there that it drifts out of. This is really 'counter-obvious'. Play with it.

[JimO]

BTW I'm making progress on the videos and am currently struggling with "Filezilla" ftp protocol.

[ArMaP]

Assumptions are only 'reasonable' in the environment for which they have been verified.

True.

The degree to which space is DIFFERENT is still only dimly clear to earthlings, and for good reason. NASA makes it look boring, newspapers make it look daring, TV space experts like to show off arcane knowledge not available to the masses, and most folks shrug and assume it's "rocket science" and they never would understand anyway.

Just curious, do you see yourself in any of the above mentioned categories?

Quite a burden to overcome, eh?

Yes, but possible.

Just conceptualizing the invisible shadow zone in front of a camera in these famous 'UFO videos', and how it makes small nearby objects appear when they drift from the shuttle's shadow out into full sunlight, is a mind-stretcher that is aided by using models and a light bulb at home.

Most people don't even understand basic perspective.

Play around with it. Satisfy yourself that one possible prosaic explanation for a white dot to 'pop up' in the middle of the screen is that there is an unseen shadow there that it drifts out of. This is really 'counter-obvious'. Play with it.

No need for that, not only because it's not counter-obvious to me but because I don't see any problem in considering that explanation the best to explain the "popping up" of the white dots.

[ArMaP]

BTW I'm making progress on the videos and am currently struggling with "Filezilla" ftp protocol.

I never had any problems with Filezilla, can you tell us what kind of problems are you having?

[JimO]

...Just curious, do you see yourself in any of the above mentioned categories?
....

Under various avatars, every ONE of them, and more. Alas.

[deuem]

Well Jim I started a Math Model and used the Orbit of the Earth and looking at the longest possible Day night. I guess if the orbit path was north to south pole you would be in sunlight all the time. So it should go from 100% to something? That max something is around 36+ minutes of dark down to zero on a N/S orbit. I would think. An orbit perpendicular to the sun.

If you are saying that the ice never melts even in direct sun then does every discharge of water and waste just stay there forever? So water hits space. It stays that way forever and it stays near the shuttle. Some of it even coming home. I guess if they did any kind of a burn the ice would stay in theier orbit and the shuttle would pull away. So are they massive amount of ice crystals left up there from each shuttle and they now have to fly around them? Or just ram them whenever. No space walks for Deuem if this is the case.

[JimO]

Well Jim I started a Math Model and used the Orbit of the Earth and looking at the longest possible Day night. I guess if the orbit path was north to south pole you would be in sunlight all the time. So it should go from 100% to something? That max something is around 36+ minutes of dark down to zero on a N/S orbit. I would think. An orbit perpendicular to the sun.

Uh, only if the Earth's axial tilt were zero. Mir and ISS are in orbital inclinations of 52 degrees, and combined with actual axial tilt of 23 degrees, can seasonally wind up in orbits tilted 75 degrees edge-up. And since at their altitude the sun 'peeks over' the horizon, added to about a degree of atmospheric refraction, and you can get several days of 100% sunlight every orbit.

Figuring the solar illumination is straightforward but the influencing factors aren't obvious. So it's not surprising that nobody in the UFO community noticed the remarkable 'coincidence' that the most spectacular 'space UFO' videos were just happening to occur in the very narrow orbital segment just following sunrise.

It's not an accident. It's the short interval during which small nearby sunlit objects are easiest to see on the TV cameras. And -- voila!! -- there are the UFOs.

Nobody has addressed this highly inconvenient truth about these videos, because they never wanted to know enough about spaceflight to earn the right to an opinion instead of wild-a$$ guessing.

It's why I wrote the 99 FAQs. As to why that intention has apparently failed to make any difference at all, that's a more profound question.

[JimO]

....
If you are saying that the ice never melts even in direct sun then does every discharge of water and waste just stay there forever?

If you saw me say that, then that is what I said, but if you didn't see me say that, then I didn't.

I thought I mentioned sublimation, water transitioning from solid to gas directly, and it will do so slowly in space, of course. A small snowflake might vanish in a day or less, a thicker hunk of ice, much longer.

So water hits space. It stays that way forever and it stays near the shuttle.

Stuff flying along with the shuttle is affected by air drag to a much more severe degree because its density is so much less. So it drops into lower faster orbits and quickly departs the vicinity except in cases the particles briefly occupy a region of 'wind shadow' [like inside the bay or main engine compartment] and linger there a few hours. 

Some of it even coming home. I guess if they did any kind of a burn the ice would stay in theier orbit and the shuttle would pull away. So are they massive amount of ice crystals left up there from each shuttle and they now have to fly around them? Or just ram them whenever. No space walks for Deuem if this is the case.

[deuem]

Jim there is at least 3 common planes. Th standard su to Earth orbital plane which has got nothing to do wit anything except the sun ( I used this one ) then we have an Equader plane and a magnetic plane. The tilt can be added to any of them. Which plane do the orbits follow?

And I don't know if ice can go from Ice to gas and miss water. Never heard of that before. Maybe the water in the crystal would boil so fast it would just pop as gas instantly. A change of several hundred degrees might be needed but you said no furnace up there. Either way if part of it went to gas then would it not Jet off in another direction?

Jim, I am trying to work out an idea on why the Ice/critters are dancing all over space. If you say they are ice and up close then what is the reason for the movement in many directions. I could see if they all went the same way but they don't. they seem to go where ever they want to go, changinging direction as they please. So if it is Ice and they are not imploding sections and re-directing themselves then what is going on? If NASA does not know they we are left to speculate.

[The Matrix Traveller]

Jim there is at least 3 common planes. Th standard su to Earth orbital plane which has got nothing to do wit anything except the sun ( I used this one ) then we have an Equader plane and a magnetic plane. The tilt can be added to any of them. Which plane do the orbits follow?

And I don't know if ice can go from Ice to gas and miss water. Never heard of that before. Maybe the water in the crystal would boil so fast it would just pop as gas instantly. A change of several hundred degrees might be needed but you said no furnace up there. Either way if part of it went to gas then would it not Jet off in another direction?

Jim, I am trying to work out an idea on why the Ice/critters are dancing all over space. If you say they are ice and up close then what is the reason for the movement in many directions. I could see if they all went the same way but they don't. they seem to go where ever they want to go, changinging direction as they please. So if it is Ice and they are not imploding sections and re-directing themselves then what is going on? If NASA does not know they we are left to speculate.

Re. the behaviour of water in space.....

http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2009/06/29/water-in-space-what-happens/

This radiation, known as the Cosmic Microwave Background, bathes the entire Universe in a temperature
of only 2.7 Kelvin.
That's less than 3 degrees above absolute zero, or -455 degrees Fahrenheit! But there's also — literally —
no pressure in space. So, what happens? Who wins? Does the water freeze or boil?

Oddly enough, the answer is first one, and then the other! It turns out that having a pressure vacuum
will cause the water to boil almost instantly. In other words, the effect of boiling is much, much faster
than the effect of freezing.

But the story doesn't end there. Once the water has boiled, we now have some isolated water molecules
in a gaseous state, but a very, very cold environment! These tiny water vapor droplets now immediately freeze
(or, technically, desublimate), and become ice crystals.

We've observed this before. According to astronaut observations, where they've observed their urine
get expelled from the ship:


When the astronauts take a leak while on a mission and expel the result into space, it boils violently.
The vapor then passes immediately into the solid state (a process known as desublimation),
and you end up with a cloud of very fine crystals of frozen urine.

[1967sander]

I have read once that water and ice cannot exist in space. One reason would be that fluids cannot exist without gravity as gravity binds molecules. They used the Moon as an example. The Moon only has 1/6 of the gravitational force of Earth and according to some scientists therefore the Moon does not have a molecular / gasseous atmosphere as we do. This also means that there is no moisture overhead the moon surface. They also claim that because of the extreme radiation level in space, molecules (also watermolecules) heat up  to a level that these molecules get too much exited to bind. In direct sunlight therefore water evaporates. Based on this information gravity being essential to bind molecules may we not conclude that in space and outside earth gravity, gravitational force is too little to bind molecules again? Therefore water that once evaporated in space never will become water or ice again?

[deuem]

Jim, while the shuttle is in space in the Sun is there any difference in the temp from sun side to shade side or is it all -455f. If you know the temp, please present it.

[JimO]

This task is fast outreaching my original estimates of merely listing some characteristics of 'how things work' in space. But actually it has been successful in sharing the realization that things really are different in space compared to Earth.

So the goal -- better define what needs to be explained in the 99 FAQs or maybe the new "199" FAQs -- is being met. Let me think on this and respond constructively to EVERY question, and I am deeply appreciative of this development, and grateful to you all, and I owe a visible acknowledgement of that, to you.

[thorfourwinds]

Greetings esteemed Member JimO:

And GOLD for you, kind Sir, for your eloquent statement.

We sincerely appreciate your time, consideration and most importantly, your participation.

We have all grown in respect of your vast knowledge on these subjects.

Thank you.

thorfourwinds

[JimO]

Aw shucks...  and I was holding off pulling the rabbit out of the hat until this weekend, in concert with armap. We finally have all the sts75 tether videos and are trying to arrange universal access.