Chilean UFO shows double-edged nature of the internet

Sunday, January 8, 2017

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COMMENTARY

In our latest episode of “The Internet is the worst thing/best thing,” my Facebook feed shows a trending topic about the Chilean Navy releasing video of a “UFO” or “UAP,” as they describe it. The trend seems due, in no small part, to a Huffington Post article, which attempts to outline the facts of the situation and the Chilean government’s efforts to explain what they were seeing.

As to the point of the Internet being the worst thing: This HuffPo piece is all most people feel they need to see to draw their conclusions about the video. They then share and spread it on social media. The author does a fairly thorough job of covering what we know and what the Chilean government thought at the time. But she doesn’t draw very solid conclusions and does almost zero investigation into the matter herself (think of a long appeal to an authority). So, you know, case closed, right? For many people, this appears to be the case.

Well, here’s why the internet is also the best thing: If you are genuinely curious about what that UFO really is, you can find out for yourself!

We have plenty of helpful tools at our disposal, such as PlaneFinder and Google Earth. And, thanks to the video, we have a bunch of helpful information. Not only can we explain what we’re seeing (aerodynamic contrails and jet engines), but we can identify the airplane number and it’s flight path. We can also, then, understand why the Chileans couldn’t figure it out. Their eye-witness accounts were off by a decent amount to begin with, and they based their investigation around that info.

It’s also important to remember how we can know things only with varying degrees of certainty. In this case, of course, an airplane is the likeliest explanation for this UFO because there is plenty of evidence for it, and, uh, none for it being alien spacecraft.

My closing point is this: There’s a big internet out there full of awesome content. Use it and enjoy it!

— Mike Allen

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