Copasetic Flow

The UK Ministry of Defence recently updated its released UFO sighting data sparking several related news stories. The raw source data released by the MoD can be found at: UFO Reports 1997 -2007 in the UK Here are links to each of the individual reports: 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 | 1998 | 1997 Digg The Sources: read more | digg story Huge Rise In British Sightings read more | digg story UFO Sightings in Britain up 39% read more | digg story Top Ten British UFO Cities in the Last Decade read more | digg story British UFO Sightings Increase... Sort Of

Part I Part II The British Ministry of Defence recently released updated data on UFO sightings in the United Kingdom. According to the ministry top ten UK cities for UFO sightings in the last decade are: City 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 Grand Total West Kilbride 2 12 2 2 18 Hull 2 7 1 3 1 1 15 Wellingborough 1 6 4 2 13 Edinburgh 5 5 1 11 Liverpool 1 1 1 4 2 2 11 Leeds 2 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 10 Brighton 3 1 2 1 1 1 9 Cardiff 1 2 1 1 2 2 9 Glasgow 1 1 1 2 3 1 9 Swindon 3 2 1 1 1 8 View Larger Map

A recent article from Telegraph.co.uk reached Digg Popularity in record time by reporting that there was a huge rise in British UFO sightings. Well, sort of... I'm always ready to believe . But this time the data just didn't pan out. The well written, interesting, article used data released by the British Ministry of Defence. I decided to download the data to do my own analysis. I'll be reporting more on the data in the next week, but I'll just start with a graph of the UFO sightings in Great Britain year by year. As you can see, there's actually been a decrease in sitings since 2005 and a significant decrease compared to 1997. As additional interesting data comes out, I'll post it here. Here's the original source data if you want to do your own analysis: 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 | 1998 | 1997 Digg the Sources: read more | digg story Huge Rise In British Sightings read more | digg story UFO Sigh...

It was gorgeous up on Dakota Ridge yesterday morning! Jupiter and Venus were in view as the horizon lit up. The clouds to the north and the south were incredible. As the sun lit them up And here's a video of it all!

And on a Lighter Note... Now That's a Pareidolia!!! There's been a lot of talk in the last week about the 'female' figure observed on Mars. Most of the skeptics are weighing in that the figure is just a pareidolia, a fancy word for the tendency of the human mind to see objects in clouds and other places that they don't really exist. Well, I don't know about Mars, but on Mercury this week, the mother of all pareidolias was observed, literally, the mother! The picture on the left is of a geographic feature observed on Mercury , the one on the right is from a study on the fertilization of shrimp . Have a great weekend!

In any scientific investigation, it's always important to keep an open mind. Otherwise, the important details can sneak right by while you're too busy hollering that they don't exist. I've been researching dugg reports of strange phenomena lately. Things like the woman, the canals, and the face on Mars. Just about as often as there is a report of a strange phenomenon, there's another report that claims to debunk it. In reading these 'debunkings' I noticed that most of them use the same logical fallacy. It's called the ' argument from fallacy ', and here's how it works: If P, then Q. P is a fallacious argument. Therefore, Q is false. And here's a further example from wikipedia: Tom : "All cats are animals . Ginger is an animal. This means Ginger is a cat.". Bill : "Ah you just committed the affirming the consequent logical fallacy. Sorry, you are wrong, which means that Ginger is not a cat".Of course, Ginger cou...

Martian Rock(Sculpture?) While 'digg'ing around the internet this week I found this article about a recent picture sent back from the Mars rover Spirit. The author was in an inordinate rush to dismiss the image as a case of pareidolia , which is defined as perceiving vague or random stimulus as being significant. Amusingly enough, pareidolia is a type of apophenia , which is what this article may wind up being categorized as. As an example, of the phenomenon, he sited the back of the New Hampshire quarter. I've lived in the Southwest for much of my life, and I've seen my fair share of rocks that look like something else . However, the above picture of the Mars 'sculpture' goes beyond this. All the other rocks look worn by the wind like sandstone does here. However, the rock of interest has not only NOT been worn in the same manner as the others, but is in a recognizable shape. Why? The author goes on to cite another 'expert' who says the 'statu...