eburacum said:
http://www.ufonet.nl/nieuws/tornado/index2.html
From that page
The human eye has the natural tendency to see points of light observed against a uniformly dark background as if they are interconnected [11][12], giving the illusion that they form a single entity. For this optical effect to have created such an illusion was almost inevitable.
Yes, but that doesn't explain how the sky can be blackened, as in Phoenix in 1997. Aaa, but yes, the same effect which according to you was responsible for the sighting reported by a poster on another thread. Despite that he repeated that he had no secret wish to see a UFO, you stubbornly repeated that he couldn't see the stars, despite that he expected to see them. Just because. Usually, PSHers say that witnesses see things because they want to see them. Now, they don't see them because they expect to see them !
And there :
eburacum said:
http://www.ufonet.nl/nieuws/tornado/index2.html
Besides, the brilliance of the lights in conjunction with such good visibility could create the impression that the lights were very much closer than was the case in reality. During their observations, the pilots did not notice anything that could have broken this illusion.
what are we supposed to understand ? That the shape of the lights of a re-entry makes the object look smaller, I suppose ? Then when witnesses report a big object, covering part of the sky, that's because of the same effect that makes it look smaller ?
eburacum said:
This demonstrates conclusively that eyewitness reports are very, very unreliable.
According to people who know that it is not true, as they use them any time it suits them. And who never tried to petition the science establishment or the legal system that they shoudn't be taken into considerration anymore. Well, if a small motorcycle can be confused with a big truck coming from a completely different direction, there would be an urgency. They shouldn't be taken them seriously as long as they don't do that.
eburacum said:
This case is extraordinarily good, as it shows just how very large the range of descriptions can be from a single event. I think we can say with a high degree of confidence that effectively all the witnesses in Europe who reported a UFO that night actually saw this re-entry, but they describe a wide range of different things.
That is not what happened here; this is a good demonstration of just how distorted accounts can get, and an exemplary case which should be carefully examined by those who place blind faith in eyewitness reports.
No. The conclusion that other phenomena were involved was reached by all open-minded investigators. Like Robert Allessandri, who made a conclusive study on the trajectory of the re-entry, but concluded that a number of cases did not seem to relate to it.
They were detailed notably by Joël Mesnard in issues of
Lumières dans la Nuit, and Franck Marie in his book
400 Ovnis sur la France (I do not agree that there were 400 ufos above France). Inquiries were not only the work of amateurs, but used all tools available to investigators, like triangulation. Engineer Claude Lavat used it to estimate that his own sighting would have been 15 km wide if it happened at an altitude of 110 km. The sightings took place often around 19.00, sometimes in a similar direction. But with features inconsistent with the reentry ; not vaguely, but definitely inconsistent. Like : shape bearing no likeness to a re-entry ; hiding stars sometimes on a huge distance ; fixed lights relating to each other ; above witnesses despite that it took place at a great distance from the re-entry, up to hundreds of kilometers (including above the sea, west of Britanny) ; different direction ; changing direction, sometimes more than once ; below clouds etc...
A small selection of some of those sightings, definitely unrelated to the re-entry, at appro. the same time (there were others before and after) :
In Cuhem, near Calais, 375 km from the reentry, around 18.45, a number of witnesses sighted a gigantic isoceles triangle, emitting beams seemingly searching the ground. After ten minutes, it abruptly departed towards the sky, at an incredible speed.
In Montreuil-Juigné, in the West, a witness looking opposite to the re-entry saw a complex group of lights, so wide that it covered almost the whole sky.
Near Cahors and Sauzet (no confusion possible, the witness looked in the opposite direction), at 19.00, a driver saw a gigantic flatened beam covered with lights, with three 'reactors', moving, then stationary (the driver stopped to look at it at only a few tens of meters), moving again after a few minutes and vanished (lasting at least ten minutes). If the time and direction were appro. the same, it was 200 km to the west. The witness noted a 'Oz effect'.
Around 19.00, near Périgueux, a woman saw a rectangle delineated by fixed lights, with two trails, moving from west to east. Triangulation (using buildings as marks) established that it was close to the ground. A comparison with another witness, who was staring from the opposite direction in the same town, established that it was just above Périgueux, at 100 km from the re-entery.
In Gretz-Armainvilliers (east of Paris), around 19.00, Jean-Gabriel Greslé, a former pilot with a long interest in UFOs (no, that does not make him a cook), with seven other witnesses, saw a pillar punctuated with lights, hundreds of meters long, which plunged to the ground, changed direction many times, and ascended into a cloud.
Near Vert-le-Grand (Paris region), around 19.15, a driver saw a huge dark cylinder, tens of meters long, narrower at the front end, emitting beams, close to the ground, between two electric pylons.
In Trappes (west of Paris), around 19.00, two teenagers saw a triangle coming from the east-south-east, stopped and remained stationery above them for about 1 mn, and then departing to the south-east. Its sides were 20 to 30 m long.
In Villavard (east of Le Mans), around 19.15, a farmer saw a group of lights coming from the south-south-west, then performing a complete curve and moving to the east.
In Neuilly-sur-Marnes (Paris region), at 18.55, a witness saw above his flat a huge triangle covered with lights, stationery for three to four minutes, before it moved away to the east.
Near Neufgrange in Lorraine, at 19.03, a driver spotted on a left, at tree's height, a dark sphere, with a rank of 'windows' around its equator. It was first stationary, then seemed to follow the car, when a group of luminous objects plunged from the sky, surrounded it and merged with it.
Etc etc...
