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The original was posted on /r/ufos by /u/bocley on 2024-08-23 01:28:03+00:00.
As every now knows, Mick posted a video immediately after the release of Luis Elizond’s book, entitled ‘What Luis Elizondo got very wrong about the UFO videos.’
When discussing Elizondo’s statements about the observation of the object in the FLIR1 video captured on FLIR by Chad Underwood, Mick West uses this screen shot, while highlighting what he says Chad Underwood ‘didn’t see’: It is an image of text from New York Intelligencer article, dated Dec 19, 2019:
Navy Pilot Who Filmed the ‘Tic Tac’ UFO Speaks: ‘It Wasn’t Behaving by the Normal Laws of Physics’
So what are the other words are in that passage that Mick West has selectively obscured?
This is the entire unredacted passage from the interview.
As you can see for yourself, in the reponse to the initial question, where Mick West only highlights (by ommission of other text) the words “I didn’t see anything with my eyeballs”, the complete passage actually reads:
“No. I was more concentrated on looking at the FLIRAdvanced Targeting Forward Looking Infrared (ATFLIR) is an optical electric- and thermal-imaging system that was developed for U.S. Navy pilots by Raytheon in the late 1990s, mainly for the detection and identification of tactical targets and the delivery of autonomous precision targeting to smart weapons. In the mid-2000s, as well as today, ATFLIR was capable of detecting and tracking targets within a range of 40 nautical miles. . It was inside of 20 miles. You’re not going to see it with your own eyes until probably 10 miles, and then you’re not going to be able to visually track it until you’re probably inside of five miles, which is where Dave Fravor said that he saw it. So, at that point I didn’t see anything with my eyeballs. I was more concerned with tracking it, making sure that the videotape was on so that I could bring something back to the ship, so that the intel folks could dissect whatever it is that I captured.”
Why was Mick West so eager to cut all this extra content out of the full passage, removing context and reducing “So, at that point I didn’t see anything with my eyeballs” (complete with the explanation as to why), down to the 100% context-free “I didn’t see anything with my eyeballs”.
Could this be what Mick West would prefer we didn't consider?
In the following 2019 article, from SKY News, it states:
(Source: 'It was behaving erratically': US Navy pilot speaks out about UFO sighting 15 years on'It was behaving erratically': US Navy pilot speaks out about UFO sighting 15 years on'
(EDIT: At this time, I cannot confirm the veracity of this statement from the SKY News article. I am however reporting that they printed it and will continue to seek further information on this.)
Whether Underwood saw the UAP with his own eyes, or not, he was clearly mystified by what he saw with his Weapons Operation System instruments, stating, "‘It wasn’t behaving by the normal laws of physics."
Later in West's video critiquing Elizond's reporting, while making much of Elizondo’s conflicting and incorrect statements on the heat signature of the UAP (as shown on the FLIR screen), Mick West also fails to reference these comments from the New York Intelligencer interview by Chad Underwood:
And this:
I’m not going to spend any more time looking for further errors, ommissions or intentional obfuscations in Mick West’s video, but my point is this:
It would seem Luis Elizondo has clearly made some mistakes in his descriptions of the events West highlights in his latest video. That much is true. But Mick West has (as usual) tailored his critique to exclude quite specific contextual information, clearly in an attempt to reduce the overall credibility of what may have been observed by the sensors operated by Chad Underwood – and possibly his own eye).
By inference, West is obviously also trying to raise suspicion about everything else Luis Elizondo discusses in his book.
This, once again, is an example of bias getting in the way of honest analysis. No matter which side of the fence you’re on regarding the UAP topic, one could quite reasonably argue that West and Elizondo both appear guilty of this to some degree. It is self-evident, that both are driven to some significant degree by their own personal agenda and worldview.
Surely this is all the more reason to recognise that, in order to properly assess the veracity of UAP events like these, or any others, we need to remain wary of taking the word of any one source or critic at face value.
What ‘we the people’ really require is access to unadulterated and uncontaminated data and information, with a known and unimpeachable chain of custody, and free from any one party’s interpretation or bias.
Without that, we will never get to the truth.
