• NEW! LOWEST RATES EVER -- SUPPORT THE SHOW AND ENJOY THE VERY BEST PREMIUM PARACAST EXPERIENCE! Welcome to The Paracast+, eight years young! For a low subscription fee, you can download the ad-free version of The Paracast and the exclusive, member-only, After The Paracast bonus podcast, featuring color commentary, exclusive interviews, the continuation of interviews that began on the main episode of The Paracast. We also offer lifetime memberships! Flash! Take advantage of our lowest rates ever! Act now! It's easier than ever to susbcribe! You can sign up right here!

    Subscribe to The Paracast Newsletter!

February 21, 2016 — Peter Davenport


Forums New posts
Mr. Davenport is maxed out. He is doing yeoman's work at NUFOC and can't handle anything more. All said, he's a good example of a ufologist.
 
I was enjoying the show and thinking about how much I love Peter Davenport and then he has to go and ruin it by slagging off TV and Movies in the last segment :mad: I can love Sanford and Son and waste my time watching interesting programs if I feel like it!!
I feel the anti-TV do something worthwhile vibe, but some people can tolerate, even critically engage the stuff. I wish more people would critically confront their surroundings, but well..:rolleyes:
Still love ya Petey.
 
Time to get my rubbish weekly After the Paracast reference gag in before the actual discussion.

Rick Nedfern:
200_s.gif
 
Interesting show. I was particularly pleased to hear Gene play Devil's Advocate during the last 3/4 segments of the show and push the envelope a little bit. Davenport has spent decades collecting a huge number of sighting reports and we're still no closer to the truth of what the phenomenon actually is. Sure, we can speculate all we like until the cows come home, but sighting reports alone don't get us any closer to what's going on. It makes me wonder why he still bothers...
 
Interesting interview, and at the very least the possibility of proactive "networking" with other investigators on a few issues, which Gene emphasized, was helpful. Good show on that.

I think passive radar is possibly a good idea. The biggest problem that comes to my mind is that ra-d-a-r (radio detection and ranging, as I was taught) involves knowing when a pulse of radio energy is transmitted, so that the time it takes to go out, bounce off the target, and return to the receiver can be measured, and then plotted on a screen. "Radar mile" was one of the first things taught in the military - which is the time it takes for a radar pulse to go out one mile and bounce back - pretty quick at the speed of light, but still a fixed time. That's how old style transmit-receive radars determined range, by measuring the time between the transmission pulse and its reflected pulse at the moment it returns to the receiver. So, as far as I can tell, a passive system would have to be in sync with a remote active transmitter's "prf" or pulse repetition frequency, and also tuned to the actual radio frequency of these pulses sent by transmitter. Otherwise there is no way to determine a target's distance, at least not by a single passive receiver. And there are other complicating factors beyond that. You might be able to get around prf synchronization by setting up multiple receivers at distant locations and then using triangulation, if the receivers are sufficiently sensitive to get an accurate direction of targets. My musings here are from experience from the '70's, so perhaps a consumer-priced passive-system has already developed beyond the idea stage. It would be nice. Fun for the whole family.
 
I joined this forum because I've heard Mr. Davenport on so many shows over the years and I finally hit my breaking point with this interview. Gene pressed him a bit but Davenport deflected it by segueing into a passive radar discussion (which is a fantastic idea for what it's worth).

Peter stated that he saw no point in discussing a merging of the databases for lack of a better term which I found intellectually dishonest. Anyone who has been working on this research for 6 months let alone 22 years should realize that hoarding segmented, proprietary information isn't a very efficient way to document research or even compare research. Reputable scientific research is peer reviewed and sources are cited.

His defense centered around his "garbage in garbage out" argument augmented by his belief that since he spent personal time and money collecting this data, he should not be expected to "give it away." I found this statement a little confusing. If his database is largely garbage unworthy of mining, why would he consider it to be valuable at all?

And besides, why would he spent 22 continuous years collecting garbage? I respect Peter for his contributions to ufology. I find him to be a credible resource in a sea of charlatans. I just think he's getting a little grumpy about the whole subject. I know I would be.


I really wish he'd reconsider his position on data sharing in the interest of getting closer to the meaning of all this.

And no, I'm not a ufologist or data person interested in his information. I'm basically a guy who has been interested in ufology since hearing Art Bell in the middle of the night the early 90s. And I'm a Paracast listener (obviously).
 
Thanks for asking my questions. Not wanting to be a brick wall :D, I followed Mr Davenport's advice and looked at some of the witness reports on ufocenter.com, specifically looking for fireball type UFO reports with video material. Although Gene is right in saying that a real search feature (and a modernization in general) might work wonders, the sheer amount of good cases is really impressive. And there is some categorization, for example by UFO shape. That's a lot of work and it constitutes a body of evidence that shouldn't be ignored.

I did find quite a few videos of orange orbs or "fireballs", too, but as yet none featuring what looks like genuinely inexplicable movement or behavior. The problem is, of course, that it's mostly just orange balls of light against a homogenous black background, so that any sudden movement or change of direction could just be camera movement.

I had hoped to find at least some footage of a fireball splitting up in two or more balls of light, but no luck there either. I didn't find anything in terms of actual proof for these observations being more than just chinese lanterns. Just orange-reddish lights standing still in the sky or moving slowly in a straight line. I do believe that at least some of these witness reports are of "trUFOs", but all the videos I've seen up to now can still too easily be explained away as "just sky lanterns".

The witness reports are really interesting, though (as Mr Davenport says, often by policemen and pilots) and reminiscent of historical descriptions (as in "Wonders in the Sky", foo fighters etc). I hope Mr Davenport won't mind if I use a few of those for my "nocturnal lights" thread (which should probably be named the "fireballs" or "orbs thread", as Chris correctly pointed out, these lights aren't only seen by night).

Personally, I don't think there is a big difference between these "fireballs" and older phenomena like foo fighters or mystery lights. Maybe the large groups could be alarming, but if those aren't for a big part large groups of sky lanterns or fireballoons from some festivity, anyway, there still is (in my opinion) the fact that bigger groups of these lights have obviously been observed in historical times also.

If there was no "invasion" by whatever caused the more anomalous "fireballs" sightings in ancient times (after people, for example, reported a bunch of "fiery arrows" and "shields" first assuming formations and then circling each other, "clashing" and separating, as if a battle was going on in the skies), why should there be one now?

Btw., are sky lanterns still legal all over the U.S.? Here in Germany, they have been outlawed in all the federal states now, because of the possible danger to aircraft and of spreading fire. If there has been a similar development in America, that should have led to a decrease of reports caused by them, not an increase. Actually, as far as I know, there was no increase in mistaken UFO sightings here in my country when the lanterns were still allowed (and for a short time quite popular).
 
Last edited:
I completely understand why Mr. Davenport is reluctant to turn over the years of hard work and money that his database represents. I also completely disagree with his notion that any sort of computer aided analysis would not be of any value. It would be almost impossible to do any sort of analysis on such a large amount of reports without the aid of a computer.



I have Masters Degree in Crime Analysis, so I have some understanding of what can done with report data. There is a gold mine of data that can be mined from the reports in the data base. A knowledgeable person could use systematic analysis for identifying and analyzing patterns and trends among the reports.



Some of the questions that could be answered include, just off the top of my head, in what time frame did triangular ufo reports start becoming prevalent, what are the different types, shapes, etc. of objects that have been spotted, when do the bulk of sightings occur, are they centered around certain geographic areas or landmarks.



The biggest problem, in my opinion, lies in getting the reports into a format that could be analyzed, such as excel spreadsheet, just as an example. Depending on the software and format some, or maybe all, of the reports could be imported or, may have to be entered manually.



The other big problem is how is the data coded or categorized. In other words, what characteristics of the reports are going to be analyzed? Some of the more obvious things to look at include, dates, times, shape of the craft, description (lights & colors for example), visible windows, was it in the air or on the ground, any occupants or beings seen, or what type, if any, of interaction was there. Those are just a few examples. An experienced investigator, or group of investigators, could come up with the specific criteria.





Again, I understand that the data base represents years of work, time, and money invested by Mr. Davenport. It is his to do with as he pleases. Perhaps instead of simply turning over the database to an individual he could formally collaborate with someone or an organization. It seems a shame to let such a valuable asset be so underutilized.
 
Fubar said:
Again, I understand that the data base represents years of work, time, and money invested by Mr. Davenport. It is his to do with as he pleases. Perhaps instead of simply turning over the database to an individual he could formally collaborate with someone or an organization. It seems a shame to let such a valuable asset be so underutilized.
Click to expand...

In the same discussion he said his data is full of garbage
 
Well done Gene for putting the pressure on Mr Davenport on the usefulness of recording experiences but not processing the data collected in any way. A database would at least help allow for cross-referencing, and possibly allow the processor to identify any interesting recurring elements that may lead to identifiable patterns that could be significant.

But then again, kudos to Mr Davenport for his labour of love and complete dedication to the field.
 
Tanith14 said:
Well done Gene for putting the pressure on Mr Davenport on the usefulness of recording experiences but not processing the data collected in any way. A database would at least help allow for cross-referencing, and possibly allow the processor to identify any interesting recurring elements that may lead to identifiable patterns that could be significant.

But then again, kudos to Mr Davenport for his labour of love and complete dedication to the field.
Click to expand...


Davenport is doing a great job for sure. On his site it appears that the content is already in table format. I wonder how hard it would be to copy/paste into a spreadsheet?
 
A stalwart of the field and another top show.

I think both Peter and Chris missed Ravenfree's point on Big Data, but that's fair enough - this is new stuff. Just as an overview on that: Big Data is all about how we can mine and make use of the mass of data that is generated incidentally as part of day to day life but is too vast to be put subject to normal analysis. Data can be as simple as door opening and closing events for a fridge, or weather records, or traffic light phase data, or how much you accelerate and brake in your car, i.e. data sets that are massive and valid but do not lend themselves to easy analysis unless you want to put a team of monks on the case for 20,000 years.

As a rule of thumb: if it's something you can crunch on a spreadsheet then you don't need to resort to Big Data.

A UFO-centric example of Big Data analysis would be (as an example): taking every air traffic control radar record for the past 2 decades for the UK, USA, Europe and Asia, and trawling through them looking for anomalous/UFO incidents/correlations/other statistical tie-ups to do with events, then drawing similarities between these events.

We talk about the need for paradigm shifts in UFO research. This is a paradigm shift in research, period, and something I think we should be looking at.
 
Auslandia said:
I think the point was that the NUFORC has a shitload of data and nobody is doing anything except adding to it.
Click to expand...
One of the interesting features of the history of ufology is the lack of collaboration that has taken place, unless you are trying to prove or disprove the Roswell Slides event. So many investigators, so many organizations, so much data sitting around collecting dust...there's a kind of Silos of Isolation phenomenon that has been taking place for decades - each investigator has his big idea, his collection of material, and it's his ego that might just be slowing it all down. Increasingly though i'm seeing collaboration as a better way forward that many are taking, recognizing that not much can happen in the silo except getting buried in your own grain. As people become more and more open to learning and collaborating, and seeing the combined pursuit as being a better focus than the personal theory, I expect that more interesting developments will unfold. This will happen both in the combining and crunching of all the data as well as through the innovations that unfold as a consequence of more prolonged acts of collaboration.
 
I agree. Too many chiefs & not enough Indians as we say very politically incorrectly.

One issue is that it's human nature to protect your work. Another is that people are making a meager living off their own brands. But without money, I suppose nobody but the independently wealthy would be able to do the legwork.
 
Robert Bigelow offered to buy Peter Davenport's UFO database a few years back. Davenport chose not to sell. I don't see the point of adding more sightings if these cases end up not being investigated. That is not to say that Bigelow would share any of this info if he had purchased the database.

It just seems a little futile to keep adding more cases and not really doing anything with the collected info.
 
I totally get Peter's reluctance to just give away all his data when he has worked his ass off for years for no pay etc.

BUT I do not understand then why he bothers. What is to be gained by adding yet more and more sightings to his database. If nothing worthwhile is going to be done with it at the end of the day, I don't know why he feels the need to continue? I'm afraid that while I do understand Peter's reluctance just to hand over his hard work but say if he were to merge data with MUFON or something, he would at least be gaining a huge amount of data he probably does not have already. He would not have to feel he is handing over years of work for nothing, because I'm sure an exchange with MUFON would be hugely beneficial to Peter's database.

Peter obviously does not have the time to actually go and investigate the reports he receives but data from MUFON is by and large investigated by many competent investigators. So in my own humble opinion, should Peter Davenport ever merge/swap data with MUFON, I believe he would be getting the best side of such a deal and would be really remiss to turn down such an opportunity, should it ever be suggested to him.

I mean, why is Peter Davenport spending so much of his time and life if he intends just to keep all his data to himself, bar the odd cases he relates on his frequent Coast to Coast AM appearances. What is Peter's endgame? What does he actually hope to achieve while he is alive and still manning the reporting phone line - he has so many cases already, I don't really see what can be gained with 5 more years of the same if he is just going to sit on it himself.

I don't get him, I do have much respect for the man but he gave some pretty lame answers to some of Gene's questions - questions which were totally legitimate and in no way intended to show Peter up or make a mocker of him. Far from it. We just want to know what the effort is all for basically.
 
Goggs Mackay said:
I totally get Peter's reluctance to just give away all his data when he has worked his ass off for years for no pay etc.

BUT I do not understand then why he bothers. What is to be gained by adding yet more and more sightings to his database. If nothing worthwhile is going to be done with it at the end of the day, I don't know why he feels the need to continue? I'm afraid that while I do understand Peter's reluctance just to hand over his hard work but say if he were to merge data with MUFON or something, he would at least be gaining a huge amount of data he probably does not have already. He would not have to feel he is handing over years of work for nothing, because I'm sure an exchange with MUFON would be hugely beneficial to Peter's database.

Peter obviously does not have the time to actually go and investigate the reports he receives but data from MUFON is by and large investigated by many competent investigators. So in my own humble opinion, should Peter Davenport ever merge/swap data with MUFON, I believe he would be getting the best side of such a deal and would be really remiss to turn down such an opportunity, should it ever be suggested to him.

I mean, why is Peter Davenport spending so much of his time and life if he intends just to keep all his data to himself, bar the odd cases he relates on his frequent Coast to Coast AM appearances. What is Peter's endgame? What does he actually hope to achieve while he is alive and still manning the reporting phone line - he has so many cases already, I don't really see what can be gained with 5 more years of the same if he is just going to sit on it himself.

I don't get him, I do have much respect for the man but he gave some pretty lame answers to some of Gene's questions - questions which were totally legitimate and in no way intended to show Peter up or make a mocker of him. Far from it. We just want to know what the effort is all for basically.
Click to expand...
Peter doesn't need to just hand over his data. I am sure Bigelow would have been willing to pay handsomely for Davenport's years of collecting ufo reports. I don't get his endgame either. What will happen to all that data if he passes on? It would be a shame for all those reports to end up in the circular file.
 
Back
Top