SUBJECT: THE PHOENIX PROJECT FROM A GENIE FORUM              FILE: UFO2506



PART 9




    Filename: Phoenix9.Edi
    Type    : Editorial/Opinion
    Author  : Sean Pobuda
    Date    : 10/27/92
    Desc    : Editorial on the Phoenix Project's K2 Report


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    I  have  been  reading with interest the publications of  the  "Phoenix 
    Project" which, if believed,  are evidence for the presence of an alien 
    base  in  California.  I  would,  however,  like to point out one  more 
    discrepancy in their story. In Report #4,  the following information is 
    given regarding a UFO sighting: 
     
    By Staff #2 
    Date: August 10, 1989 
    Time: 2212 PDT 
     
    ..."the moon was still below the horizon." 
     
    Now here is one place where a simple fact is stated and can be checked. 
    I  did.  Using four separate planetarium and moon position  calculation 
    programs,  I determined that the moon on that night at that time was as 
    follows: 
     
    RA   : 16 hr 8 min 
    DEC  : -26.17 degrees (this means in the constellation of Scorpio) 
    Phase: 9.5 days passed new moon (waxing gibbous) 
     
    What  this  means is that the moon would be between first  quarter  and 
    full, and would have risen before sunset and been in the sky during the 
    evening hours before midnight. The report states that the sky was clear 
    with stars visible. 
     
    The  moon was low in the western horizon,  but certainly not  "...still 
    below the horizon." 
     
    What  is interesting is that no one has (to my knowledge)  checked this 
    simple statement. Since the moon had certainly already risen and should 
    have  been visible in the sky,  one might assume that the statement  it 
    hat  not yet risen (was "still below the horizon")  was put in to  help 
    eliminate the moon as a possible explanation for the UFO sighting.  Did 
    the author, therefore, add this statement so no one could accuse him of 
    mistaking the moon for a UFO?  This is what you would expect of someone 
    who was making up a story, not the on-site notes of an actual observer. 
    Apparently  the  bit  about  the moon not yet having  risen  was  added 
    without checking the moon's actual position on that night. 
     
    In anticipation of a counter-argument that since the moon was close  to 
    its setting time and, in a moutainous area, might possibly have already 
    gone behind a mountain and therefore not be visible to the observer,  I 
    can  only  point out that in that case the observer,  who had  been  on 
    watch for a while at least,  would have seen the moon earlier and known 
    that it had just set. He would, therefore, not describe it as "the moon 
    was still below the horizon."  That certainly implies that the moon had 
    not yet risen, when, in fact, it had been in the sky all evening. 
     
    My  feeling is that 99.9999  percent of all UFO reports and claims  are 
    fakes,  mistakes, hoaxes, mis-identifications,  and other human errors. 
    But  let us continue our search for a little signal in all  that  noise 
    (to steal a phrase from engineering). 
     
    Yours, 
    Sean 




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