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Robert Bigelow, NIDS & Ongoing UFO Evidence Collection

EnolaGaia

I knew the job was dangerous when I took it ...
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NOTE: This thread is created to focus on Robert Bigelow's ongoing belief in UFO's as evidence of alien visitation. He, along with the National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS) he once funded, have been repeatedly mentioned here on FTMB in years past - for example, in these threads:

NIDS (National Institute for Discovery Science)
http://forum.forteantimes.com/index.php?threads/nids-national-institute-for-discovery-science.18622/

Space Tourism
http://forum.forteantimes.com/index.php?threads/space-tourism.6288/

Why do ufo's have lights?
http://forum.forteantimes.com/index.php?threads/why-do-ufos-have-lights.45424/

The following May 30 commentary piece from International Business Times represents a response to his recent appearance on the CBS news program 60 Minutes. Although the appearance focused on his inflatable orbital habitat project (Bigelow Aerospace), the subject of UFO's also arose.

Bigelow Aerospace, Time To Put Up Or Shut Up About UFOs

Bigelow Aerospace founder and president Robert Bigelow recently spoke with '60 Minutes' and discussed his long-held belief that alien UFOs have and are visiting Earth. But he's not just another UFO enthusiast, Bigelow has privatized piles of relevant evidence. Whatever he knows, he should tell us.

On 60 Minutes Bigelow Aerospace president Robert Bigelow said “there has been and is an existing presence, an ET presence” on or around Earth. “I’m absolutely convinced. That’s all there is to it,” Bigelow told Lara Logan.

Bigelow, whose company has partnered with NASA and Elon Musk’s SpaceX to test their immense, expandable spaceship habitats, inflated in orbit, has been a believer in UFOs as extraterrestrial phenomena since his grandparents reported encountering a craft that “sped up and came right into their face and filled up the entire windshield of the car.”

But Bigelow’s belief in extraterrestrials visiting Earth go far beyond conclusions reached from family anecdote and the public record, or so he implies. “I spent millions and millions and millions — I probably spent more as an individual than anybody else in the United States has ever spent on this subject.”

Through his now-defunct National Institute for Discovery Science, Bigelow collected hotline reports of UFO sightings and precipitated a minor scandal in UFO circles by allegedly buying Mutual UFO Network case files from an inside source. He’s even bought up physical evidence and worked it out so the FAA submits UFO sightings directly to Bigelow Aerospace, since there’s no government entity accepting them.

It’s likely the evidence Bigelow has amassed doesn’t conclusively prove extraterrestrials are visiting Earth, although it sure seems to have convinced him. When Logan asked if he’s risking anything by taking a public stance that UFOs are visiting Earth, Bigelow said, “I don’t give a damn. I don’t care.”

“It’s not going to make a difference. It’s not going to change reality of what I know,” he said. “You don’t have to anywhere… it’s just like right under people’s noses.”

If whatever Bigelow has found is so compelling, perhaps it’s time he share. Instead, Bigelow repeatedly hints at big secrets, sufficient for absolute certainty, that he’s simply not telling. The absence of evidence would be sufficient to dismiss most other UFO boasts of this nature. But in Bigelow’s case it’s not simply a naked claim, but one backed by an aerospace billionaire (perhaps the industry most entwined with government) who has spent years privatizing vast troves of UFO evidence.

Bigelow should make a choice between revealing what he knows — even if it means burning sources or leaking classified information — and relinquishing the rhetoric of certainty and insinuation. Otherwise we might be lead to the conclusion that Bigelow is deliberately withholding from the population of Earth the most important truth in the history of our species. ...

SOURCE: FULL ARTICLE: http://www.yahoo.com/news/bigelow-aerospace-time-put-shut-235625996.html
 
Put up or shut up - he seems to be taking the third option - not putting up and not shutting up. That's no use to anyone.
 
In one of the links below, from 2011, Tinfinger asked..

..i used to think it was odd that they chose to fly at night when they are most visible(they seem to be a bit secrative lol)...

Makes one wonder where they go during the daytime.

INT21
 
............

Makes one wonder where they go during the daytime.

INT21
To the local diner for a burger....?
;)

I wonder about the lights also....and the apparent visibility of ufos.
If you want to be covert and keep under the radar...so to speak....why go around buzzing places all the time and lit up on top of it? What's wrong with this picture?
 
... I wonder about the lights also....and the apparent visibility of ufos.
If you want to be covert and keep under the radar...so to speak....why go around buzzing places all the time and lit up on top of it? What's wrong with this picture?

IMHO the relative proportion of nighttime UFO sightings that persist as 'loose ends' has more to do with the observers and their observational settings than the routine behaviors ascribed to a preferred interpretation for what they report.

There's little question that (non-hoaxed; non-faked) sightings involve something 'Unidentified' (by the observer(s)) which is 'Flying' (aloft). The problem lies in what sort of 'Object' is being observed ...

In a daytime (or perhaps another close and / or well-illuminated) scenario, you get all 3 components - the U, the F, and the O.

In a nighttime scenario, all you can be really certain about are the U and the F bits. One has to project an O into the scene (often in amongst the lights that are all that's really seen ... ).

It makes sense to question why extraterrestrial spacecraft fly at night with lights ablaze if and only if you presume the nighttime sightings are necessarily extraterrestrial spacecraft.

It makes much more sense to question why one believes an overhead entity is an extraterrestrial spacecraft when it's displaying the sort of lighting commonly associated with - and even legally mandated for - ordinary terrestrial aircraft.
 
It makes sense to question why extraterrestrial spacecraft fly at night with lights ablaze if and only if you presume the nighttime sightings are necessarily extraterrestrial spacecraft.
I've always puzzled over this.

And: if it is possible to use astronomical telescopes in conjuction with optical spectroscopes (to the extent that atmospheric contents millions of miles away can be estimated scientifically.....) why on earth can't a similar spectroscopy technique be used via a terrestrial telescope in response to an Unidenified Flying Anything, say 10 miles away and at 2,000feet? Similarly, non-contact thermometry. Or ultrasound/LASER range estimation?

These are all hardly contemporary technologies. Yet the best we can ever throw at these damn things is cheap cameras and poor witnesses.
 
I've always puzzled over this.

And: if it is possible to use astronomical telescopes in conjuction with optical spectroscopes (to the extent that atmospheric contents millions of miles away can be estimated scientifically.....) why on earth can't a similar spectroscopy technique be used via a terrestrial telescope in response to an Unidenified Flying Anything, say 10 miles away and at 2,000feet? Similarly, non-contact thermometry. Or ultrasound/LASER range estimation?

These are all hardly contemporary technologies. Yet the best we can ever throw at these damn things is cheap cameras and poor witnesses.
How many people carry spectroscopy/thermometry/laser rangefinders around with them? Most ufos arent predictable in when/where they will appear. Cheap cameras are plentiful and lots of people carry their mobile around with it's built in camera.
 
How many people carry spectroscopy/thermometry/laser rangefinders around with them?
I meant having such items in readiness at locations of apparent repeated activity.

I am also wondering to what extent spectroscopic analysis can be applied to existing static and video imagery, especially if the pictures themselves are blurred, but the light spectral content (and hence origin/technology) is captured. Obviously this doesn't work...but I'm unsure why that would be.

Clearly a live image would provide content better-suited for analysis, possibly in respect of dynamic range, but I wonder why it cannot be made to work (as an analytical tool) at least to an extent.

@EnolaGaia why can't photographs be spectroscopically-analysed?
 
Spectroscopic analysis can be carried out on transient phenomena such as meteors.
http://www.amsmeteors.org/ams-programs/meteor-spectroscopy/how-to-obtain-a-meteor-spectrum/
Obtaining a meteor spectrum is not all that complicated. All you need is the equipment, and most of all, a lot of patience since you cannot predict where and when a bright meteor will occur. Just about any good camera from a 35 mm to a large format camera like a 4X5 press type can be used. You simply mount a prism or replica transmission diffraction grating in front of the lens, no slit is required. The dispersive element, prism or grating, breaks the light of the meteor up into a spectrum. Today, gratings are preferred over prisms as the dispersion is better and nearly linear. Good gratings are expensive, however. A 50X50 mm grating costs around $700- $800 US. A large format camera is preferred if you want to obtain good spectra. I made one of my own using a surplus aero lens (Kodak F-2.5 178 mm focal length lens using 4X5 film). You can sometimes find these lenses in used camera stores or on eBay.
But
Unfortunately these are rather rare events. It takes on the average around 100 hours of exposure time to obtain one spectrum so you can go through a lot of film.
UFOs are even rarer than meteors, so spending all this money then waiting hundreds of hours for nothing would put most investigators off.
 
Ermintruder,

..why can't photographs be spectroscopically-analysed?..

Because they do no emit a spectrum of light to analyse.
You see a picture by the light it reflects and this depends upon the type of light it is illuminated by. Try looking at a colour photo in, say, red light.

'Cold hearted orb that rules the night
removes the colour from our sight.
Red is grey and yellow white
but we decide which is right
and which is illusion.'

(Moody Blues)

INT21
 
..why can't photographs be spectroscopically-analysed?..

Because they do no emit a spectrum of light to analyse.
You see a picture by the light it reflects and this depends upon the type of light it is illuminated by. Try looking at a colour photo in, say, red light. ...

Exactly ...

Spectroscopic analysis of a given material / substance requires the material to be incandescent (producing electromagnetic radiation such as visible light) so as to provide spectral evidence for that material's chemical / molecular composition.

Spectroscopically analyzing a meteor (cf. eburacum, post #10) is feasible because the meteor's surface material is incandescent (by superheating from atmospheric friction).

Spectroscopic analysis of materials from reflected light is somewhat nonsensical, insofar as the light being analyzed didn't originate from the incandescence of the reflecting object's constituent material(s), and hence provides no evidence of those materials' composition.

As to photographs specifically ... Spectroscopic analysis involves identifying and evaluating the absorption-related gaps or differences within a diffracted spectrum (as opposed to the 'overall' or 'composite' light emission). All that's captured in a photographic image is the 'net' (composite) color of a light source - i.e., the sum total of the light's spectral array. The photograph's record of a (e.g.) red summary pixel / area can't be subsequently deconstructed via diffraction to reconstruct the 'unpacked' spectrum that triggered the photographic medium to make that portion of the image 'red'.
 
IMHO the relative proportion of nighttime UFO sightings that persist as 'loose ends' has more to do with the observers and their observational settings than the routine behaviors ascribed to a preferred interpretation for what they report.

There's little question that (non-hoaxed; non-faked) sightings involve something 'Unidentified' (by the observer(s)) which is 'Flying' (aloft). The problem lies in what sort of 'Object' is being observed ...

In a daytime (or perhaps another close and / or well-illuminated) scenario, you get all 3 components - the U, the F, and the O.

In a nighttime scenario, all you can be really certain about are the U and the F bits. One has to project an O into the scene (often in amongst the lights that are all that's really seen ... ).

It makes sense to question why extraterrestrial spacecraft fly at night with lights ablaze if and only if you presume the nighttime sightings are necessarily extraterrestrial spacecraft.

It makes much more sense to question why one believes an overhead entity is an extraterrestrial spacecraft when it's displaying the sort of lighting commonly associated with - and even legally mandated for - ordinary terrestrial aircraft.

Yes....and my main point which I probably didn't say well is that if I were an ET visiting earth I would try to keep a low profile but it seems their covert techniques are poor to say the least. It's as if they want to be seen.
The lights aspects is just another one that doesn't make a lot of sense if you are secretly monitoring earth.
 
Maybe the lights are a product of the drive technology they use in their spacecraft? Perhaps it ionises gas or uses a plasma? This may be impossible to mask.
 
Maybe the lights are a product of the drive technology they use in their spacecraft? Perhaps it ionises gas or uses a plasma? This may be impossible to mask.

If the lights result from exhaust or other propulsion-generated chemical emissions, they would in principle be subject to informative spectroscopic analysis.

Since you brought up the masking issue ... One angle on this that almost never gets mentioned is that perhaps aliens intend to be maximally stealthy, but don't know enough about human sensory capabilities to realize how visible their flights may be to us. Things aren't masked because they don't realize we can see them ...
 
Yes....and my main point which I probably didn't say well is that if I were an ET visiting earth I would try to keep a low profile but it seems their covert techniques are poor to say the least. It's as if they want to be seen.
The lights aspects is just another one that doesn't make a lot of sense if you are secretly monitoring earth.

Agreed ... One would think their presumptively-advanced technologies would do a better job of inducing 'stealth'. On the other hand, one would think they could make themselves a lot more visible if they really wanted to be seen.

The most obvious reason for displaying lights at night is to warn other aircraft of your presence so as to avoid collisions. Alien visitors would be well advised to visually advertise their presence, given the number and diversity of humans privileged to fly.

On the other hand, if all alien craft are capable of the physics-defying stunts described in some reports, one might wonder why evasive maneuvers would even be considered a risk worth avoiding.

On yet another hand ... If visiting aliens wanted to be brushed off as just another ordinary (human) night-flying aircraft, there'd be no better camouflage than displaying the internationally prescribed lighting arrangement the 'natives' employ.
 
Some do turn their lights off after being seen, don't they? They could be teenage showoffs, who have watched Close Encounters of the Third Kind
 
Some do turn their lights off after being seen, don't they? ...

Is there a documented case where this has occurred? It seems to me it would 'count' only if the UFO remained visible after its lights were extinguished. Otherwise (i.e., if the lights were the only visible evidence) the lights' disappearance wouldn't necessarily indicate deliberate light-extinguishing.
 
I am sure i have heard it mentioned where they were observing a UFO and suddenly it went dark, now whether or not it shot off or turned the lights off, i do not know. I have read that many UFO reports it would probably be impossible for me to find it
 
Is there a documented case where this has occurred? It seems to me it would 'count' only if the UFO remained visible after its lights were extinguished. Otherwise (i.e., if the lights were the only visible evidence) the lights' disappearance wouldn't necessarily indicate deliberate light-extinguishing.
Not light-related, but there are a few examples of saucers playing tag with aircraft, flying dangerously close and being quite reckless. There are also examples of saucers doing this to cars - flying up to and against the windscreen, almost as if the pilot is having a laugh. Shady's point of 'teenage kicks' might be relevant, and may also extend to lights as 'bling' or something to play with.
Maybe all the aliens we've encountered have been kids? Might explain irrational happenings. Maybe they have 'AlienTube' where they upload 'happy slapping' incidents?
 
Not light-related, but there are a few examples of saucers playing tag with aircraft, flying dangerously close and being quite reckless. ...

This brings to mind another issue ... What hope is there for 'better' (e.g., more credible) UFO reports now that any bozo can obtain and operate a remotely controlled flying drone?
 
A very good point, Enola, and couple that with how easy it is to fake videos, it may signal the end of any of the subject being taken seriously (or as seriously as it ever was taken). I do know the UFOs I saw were moving too fast and erratically to be drones, plus it was the 1970s and they hadn't been invented yet anyway!
 
The collection of ufo information has always been problematic due to the fact that they seem to be very random in where and when.

But even when there is an opportunity for scientific study it often seems to be missed.

i recently watched the 'Seneca Gun' episode of

And it was different in that here was a phenomenon that was regularly reported by the same people in the same place.
And although one man had succeeded in recording the sound and a woman was logging the occurrences as well as one claiming to regularly see orange balls over the lake,there is no serious attempt to investigate this.

It appears, from the description, to be a case ripe for monitoring.

Surely a university or some interested body could set up a 24 hour automated set of recording equipment. Let it run for, say, six months.

If the equipment was feeding recording equipment set with any number of event triggers than it should produce usable data.

I have found a few cases where it should be possible to get closer to the cause of things, but no one actually seems to be bothered.

INT21

One has to ask why ?
 
Good point. If it's happening regularly, someone (maybe environmental protection services) should monitor it and find out the cause.
 
Mythopoekia.

It was 'Unexplained Files'.

I momentarily forgot the title.

INT21:oops:
 
Thanks, INT21.
 
I was watching the 'Unexplained files 'again a couple of night ago.

This time it was partly on the cattle mutilation. I don't have any particular interest in this subject as it seems to be a mostly American phenomena. We don't have anything here to relate it to.

One thing did strike me though.

It seems, according to one observer, that there is a strong correlation between mutilation cases and ufo sighting right across America on the 37 North parallel.This parallel also crosses the countries on the north side of the Mediterranean then on through Turkey, Northern Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Northern China. south Korea and Japan.

We don't hear of many mutilation cases from any of these countries.

Odd, don't you think ?

INT21
 
I was watching the 'Unexplained files 'again a couple of night ago.

This time it was partly on the cattle mutilation. I don't have any particular interest in this subject as it seems to be a mostly American phenomena. We don't have anything here to relate it to.

One thing did strike me though.

It seems, according to one observer, that there is a strong correlation between mutilation cases and ufo sighting right across America on the 37 North parallel.This parallel also crosses the countries on the north side of the Mediterranean then on through Turkey, Northern Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Northern China. south Korea and Japan.

We don't hear of many mutilation cases from any of these countries.

Odd, don't you think ?

INT21
Those countries probably dont have the breed of fly that feeds on the soft tissues of cattle. Experiments with leaving dead cattle out in those areas with cameras on them show no aliens, but "mutilation" caused by flies eating the soft tissue.
 
Those countries probably dont have the breed of fly that feeds on the soft tissues of cattle. Experiments with leaving dead cattle out in those areas with cameras on them show no aliens, but "mutilation" caused by flies eating the soft tissue.
Or it could be something to do with the US military. Monitoring some kind of biological agent or poison that they inadvertently released into the environment many years ago.
 
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