Newsgroups: alt.ufo.reports
From: kymhorsell@gmail.com
Subject: experiments with UFO nav model

[uploaded 11 times; last 07/09/2024]

In several prev posts we looked at models that are based on objects
that appear in Earth's atm and environs "navigating" around the solar
system. The aim of the exercise was to cook up a very simple model
that matches up day-by-day with known UFO sightings (I normally use
the NUFORC data upto 2022).  We found that several such models explain
a large chunk of UFO sightings with very strong statistical certainty
that this isnt just luck.

The current prime candidate for current experiment models UFO's as
simple automata that have very basic goals. They move from object to
object within the solar system in smooth curves at constant speed
(measured in AU/d). An UFO currently in the atm of some planet, moon,
asteroid or comet leaves on any given day with a fixed probability
(p_leave).  If it chooses to leave then it chooses to visit Earth next
with prob p_earth.  Otherwise is chooses the closest other object in a
given list of destinations.

For UFO's reaching Earth we calculate the number of daily "sightings"
as a fixed proportion (p_seen) of UFO's that have reached Earth and
not yet left. We transform the "seen count" into a count of UFO
reports (i.e. the NUFORC count for a given day) using a simple
function -- essentially a linear function but possibly using
sqrt/log/powers of the seen count.

It's then a simple matter to get an AI-driven optimizer to hunt
through all the combinations of everything to find the "best models".
In the current work all models must "validate" -- i.e. they are tuned
on about 2/3 of the data of planetary and asteroid motions to find an
optimum model, then checked against the 1/3 of data not used in
training to make sure the model performs just as well there. If so,
it's saved for the end to determine which validated model has the best
"explanation power" -- i.e. the smallest square error with respect to
the variance of day-to-day UFO sightings.

Last time we noted that some of the best models the AI has found to
date suggest maybe 1/3 of UFO sightings can be explained in this way.
But more recent developments have pushed this just past 50%.  I.e. it
seems possible to determine to the day when a UFO sighting might be
made simply from the motions of solar system objects.

But today we'll look at a specialised search that tries to
characterise which objects in the solar system "best explain" the
totality of UFO reports. (Looking at the models for particular
sub-types of UFO is also interesting and on-going and leading to
several surprises some of them presently very hard to explain :).

NASA/JPL's "Horizons" database is used for mission planning for probes
and other spaceflight. The blurb for the database says it keeps track
of mns of known objects to an accuracy of meters over a period of
1000s of years into the past and future.  Unfortunately most objects
have only been observed via telescope so little information is
available for them apart from their orbits.  Most objects have no
known size, surface albedo, rotation period or much else.  Certainly,
because all objects fall at the same rate, even the mass of most
objects is not known.

So there are only limited ways to divide solar system objects up to
conduct a systematic search for the "most important" as far as our UFO
navigation model is concerned. If you make a model using 1000s of
solar objects chosen at random the (validated) model can be made to
predict UFO sightings quite closely. But we might like to test whether
just *certain* of the solar objects are involved in these putative
movements. Can we zero in on the most important class of objects?

One parameter that is known for almost every solar objects is its
semi-major axis (A).  This value is roughly the average distance of
its orbit from the sun (modulo orbit "eccentricity" and the grav
influence of other solar system objects, mostly Jupiter and Saturn).

So we can partition known asteroids, planets, moons and comets into
distance buckets and create optimal models for each distance category
and then see if any special distances stand out. So far the AI's have
churned through distances between 0 and 10 AU from the sun --
i.e. including planets from Mercury to Saturn.

The summary table is as follows:

Model   p_earth     speed      p_leave      p_seen      Trans   R2
 a.5    0.071629    0.214583   0.00100584   0.203717    log     0.36639588
 a1     0.0568041   0.210198   0.00105137   0.183578    xylog2r 0.28136184
 a1.5   0.0828047   0.600163   0.00105905   0.136631    xylog2r 0.30161104
 a2     0.0683117   0.568315   0.00103976   0.190772    xylog2r 0.34559023
 a2.5   0.0577278   0.613898   0.0010611    0.175899    log2r   0.29335109
 a3     0.0851019   0.656988   0.000913026  0.171799    xylog2r 0.28340107
 a3.5   0.0683176   0.644947   0.000926765  0.153154    log     0.36771441
 a4     0.0598292   0.752912   0.000921733  0.140991    log     0.35748587
 a4.5   0.0675953   0.682925   0.00109817   0.141377    xysqrt  0.39911542<-
 a5     0.0697198   0.186691   0.000911366  0.174009    log     0.37888326
 a5.5   0.0634316   0.739331   0.000954489  0.128725    xlog    0.37974848
 a6     0.0822086   0.638555   0.00105771   0.138926    xlog2r  0.33807583
 a6.5   0.0746274   0.197952   0.00091385   0.344653    xylog2r 0.38006421
 a7     0.0819688   0.55695    0.00100032   0.18214     xlog2r  0.32488497
 a7.5   0.0675685   0.646487   0.00094572   0.409923    log     0.29304688
 a8     0.0619007   0.66731    0.00094424   0.198133    log2r   0.38489031
 a8.5   0.0635766   0.631978   0.00104537   0.148351    xlog    0.36077829
 a9     0.0635671   0.563366   0.00103238   0.143274    log     0.24125486
 a9.5   0.0584533   0.626809   0.000939106  0.178266    ylog2r  0.41397851<<==

The "model" column gives the distance class. E.g. model "a.5" are
solar objects between 0.5 and 1.0 AU from the sun, incl Earth and
moon.  The other columns give the best model known so far that
matches against all UFO sightings reported between 2006 and 2023. No
"fiddling" was done to remove known hoaxes, known mistakes, or other
"observer" factors like day of week or hour of day the sightings were
made. It's also assumed the estimated date & time of the sighting
given by the witness is correct even tho some reports come in years
after the sighting event.

Given all the qualifications it's still interesting to see the best
models found, overall, seem to cluster around A=9.5-10 and around
A=4.5-5. Roughly objects orbiting near Jupiter and near Saturn.

If you were "planet oriented" you might suspect many UFO's somehow
originate near Saturn. But this is not straightforwardly the
case. Models just involving Saturn and/or its moons does not explain
(as here) 41% of UFO sightings.  Perhaps only 1/2 that. It seems
asteroids and other objects near the orbit of Saturn are absolutely to
be included in the model.

It's interesting to see that the most important objects also don't seem
to line up with the plane of the ecliptic. The best models so far seem
to line up with a direction 20 deg to the ecliptic, a finding that is
confirmed by a "2nd bump" in the relative important at 110 deg to the
ecliptic -- 90 degrees wrt the main bump. It's sometimes found that
classes of objects in the solar system live in 2 planes at 90 deg to
each other. This can be caused e.g. by the disturbance of objects by
some other planet. (This has been noted in the research trying to zero
in on "Planet X").

An even more interesting tidbit the AI's are still considering is
whether or not comets are as important as asteroids in these models.
Comets are somewhat harder to deal with than asteroids. The latter
generally have well-behaved orbits and return again and again to
approx the same positions they had "last year". But comets appear in
the inner solar system once in a blue moon and sometimes are so
changed from their travels to the outer edges of the solar system they
are hard to recognize on their return. They can look different, act
different and have different orbits each time they approach the sun.
They sometimes just appear for the first time out of nowhere.  And
sometimes they just disappear altogether.

But from prelim data it seems comets are also a vital part of these
nav models.  E.g. models created from the ones that performed well,
above, but removing all mention of transit to/from comets explain
only 1/2 the UFO sightings of the full data-set.  Interesting, also,
that models without comets require the average speed of transiting
UFO's to be much higher to match Earth UFO sightings. It seems tagging
along with a comet on its way into the inner solar system can save --
in some sense -- a lot of travel time.

All in all it seems UFO's do not originate in 1 or 2 special places
inside the solar system but are best explained by being distributed
over key parts of the asteroid and cometary belts. Mental model: they
are everywhere.  This seems to align with time-lapse images (~1 fr per
hr) from space telescopes that see sequences of starlight-blocking
events in all directions all the time.  Events that, themselves,
highly correlate with UFO sightings in which witnesses sometimes see
things that in no way resemble a streaking meteor or patch of light in
the sky.

In following posts we'll look at models broken down by other solar
object characteristics. There seem to be several surprises for object
radius, rotation period and albedo indicating UFO are connected with
"special" asteroids and comets -- not just your run-of-the-mill rock
or loose clump of dirty ice.

--
Welcome to the very first official UFO hearing in American history
It's a historic day for everybody who has always wondered if we are alone in
the universe. Although there have already been multiple hearings on UFOs or
UAPs, this is the first hearing in which credible witnesses will testify
under oath in front of Congress. All representatives already offered their
initial remarks and gave all 3 witnesses the chance to make their oath
before the hearing starts. These witnesses are former Commander David Fravor,
former fighter jet operator Ryan Graves, and former Intelligence Official
David Grusch.
-- Marca.com, Wed Jul 26 10:48:24 EDT 2023

There is something there -- measurable light, multiple instruments -- and
yet it seems to move in directions inconsistent with what we know of physics
or science more broadly. And that, to me, poses questions of tremendous
interest, as well as potential national security significance.
-- Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., 2022 House Intelligence Committee hearing
   on UAPs.

"Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.
Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less."
- Marie Curie

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  [Nuttin Two Hyde!]
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  National Archives directed to collect reports but measure gives govt
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  You'll have to wait 25 years to see the fruits of the UAP Disclosure Act,
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whistleblower claims...
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