Repeat after me: It’s bugs, bugs, bugs, bugs, bugs and bugs
…oops, I missed the bird! (D

It seems the Fox people put together a good story (meaning good for ratings)- they have film footage and they have an ‘expert’ who has declared the objects to be UFO’s. The story has been covered in blogs and even discovery.com has chimed in.

Interesting to me–
It seems the people who have watched the original footage on television quality monitors don’t think the images were made by bugs. They could be wrong obviously, but they probably have the best view of the situation.

When I look at the video I see dots moving on the screen and I wonder if this is a new form of Rorschach test.
Anyway, I don’t know what those dots are. I have lots of ideas about what they could be– certainly bugs would be in the running, but I don’t know for sure.

I’ll bet you could make a video like this using any number of things– bugs, dust, video artifacts,… and that proves what, exactly?
That it could be any number of things.

Now I think this a perfect example of ‘unidentified flying objects’. It might not be possible to ever determine what made each of those dots.
So I think if someone asks if there are UFO’s, I will use this as a fine example.

Oh, and I will point-out that if someone knows it is an alien craft, then it isn’t a UFO.

As an aside– I’m betting the reporter Heidi’s career is helped by this. What the stations want is ratings– and she has created a buzz with this one.

There is, therefore, an amusing twist to the question ‘Do you believe in UFOs?’ A true skeptic can also rightfully define him/herself as a ‘UFO believer’ – one that honestly believes that UFOs are just what their name says – no more and no less.

That’s one reason why I like to say I don’t believe in “alien visitation.” The other factor is that if you say you believe in aliens, they assume you’re talking about the Greys riding around Earth’s atmosphere in flying saucers, and not, say, a high likelihood of bacteria on various planets scattered around the universe and maybe one sapient species or two in distant galaxies.

In fact, saying that something is a UFO, by definition, merely means that it is something that flies and cannot be identified at the moment.

People see things that fly and that cannot readily be identified all the time. An insect is not just ‘mistaken’ for UFO, it IS a UFO (again by definition) for anyone who does not recognize that it is an insect – after being recognized, of course, it ceases to be a UFO. Same may be said of distant aircraft, unusual clouds or planets in the sky.

In other words, UFO is a relational term – it is dependent on the observer/reporter being unable to identify it at the time.

The problem is that to members of the UFO community the term means something other than just a thing that flies and is not recognized. And this is, of course, their ‘weakest link’ – the proposition ‘if you are not being able to say exactly what an object is, and it flies, then the object in question must necessarily be an alien spacecraft’ contains a clearly notable distortion of logic. Clearly notable, that is, for those who think sufficiently clearly to be able to note.

There is, therefore, an amusing twist to the question ‘Do you believe in UFOs?’ A true skeptic can also rightfully define him/herself as a ‘UFO believer’ – one that honestly believes that UFOs are just what their name says – no more and no less. And those that consider themselves ‘UFO believers’ may also be designated ‘skeptics’, since they are skeptical about UFOs being just UFOs (as defined).

Steve, I think you’re being more accommodating to this point than you need to be.

I don’t need a study t say that video capture devices of all sorts have become more common and better in quality, and I don’t need a study to say that we have no video proof of alien craft, bigfoot, ghosts, chubacabra, nessy etc.

I think it is fair for me to say that if anyone claims that the increase in availability of cameras and videos has resulted in an increase in evidence for alien spacecraft, they have the burden of showing that this is the case. No one, to my knowledge, has done that.

A thorough survey would be best, either way. I am not aware of any, but will look again.