Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mount Washington Observation

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 15:38, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Mount Washington Observation (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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UFO claim is cited to a single fringe site. Does not have notability in reliable, independent sources. LuckyLouie (talk) 22:48, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Paranormal-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 23:32, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete nothing in gnews. [1]. this is original research. LibStar (talk) 07:14, 24 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment You're probably not going to find much of anything if you use "Mount Washington Observation" as your search term. If you play around with your search terms, you'll find stuff like this and this. Nothing great, but enough to prove that this isn't totally OR. Zagalejo^^^ 07:25, 24 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment Considering the lack of attention the subject's been given, this could never be more than a two-sentence article. It may be best to merge it to List of UFO sightings. Turns out it's not even a legit UFO sighting but some sort of hoax/exaggeration that hasn't gotten any traction in non-fringe sources. - LuckyLouie (talk) 12:28, 24 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Interestingly, we have the picture in the database. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.139.114.30 (talk) 13:50, 24 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Article improved. Keep — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.139.114.30 (talk) 14:38, 24 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment The Mount Washington image is used to illustrate the UFO article in Bulgarian, Bosnian, Croatian, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Latvian, Macedonian, Polish, Russian, and other wikis, suggesting that this is a popular UFO story (or alternately that someone with a lot of time on their hands has been adding the image to a lot of different wikis). I'd be kind of curious where this story comes from (e.g., who originally decided that the photo looks like a UFO?), but a quick search didn't turn up much in the way of historical context. I did find another book that mentions the photo, Haunted Hikes of New Hampshire (1), although it's just a snippet view and doesn't seem to have much context either. If the article can be improved enough, it might make a nice Halloween DYK. CordeliaNaismith (talk) 23:32, 24 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. No third-part recognition of this particular UFO-sighting has been forthcoming in my attempts to research this on the internet. UFO-enthusiast sites don't really count per WP:FRINGE#Independent sources. 76.119.90.74 (talk) 23:41, 24 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete and bury in a block of ice As far as I can ascertain, this has no identifiable source; it is passed around from UFO blog to UFO blog, but since every single such mention goes off about this auction in 2002 (unsubstantiated, and if anyone really did pay that kind of money for it, they were gypped), the two more recent mentions cannot be traced to any better source, even if they are in marginally more reputable publications. More damning is that the full image (shown at right) doesn't show a sky scene, but instead shows some sort of ice formation; one may guess at the nature of the fleck but it could just as well be a piece of wood. Ironically, the only way we could have a reliable source on this is to get someone else out there to do the debunking for us; then we could write it up as a hoax. as it stands, since you have to be right to be reliable, we don't have any reliable sources. Mangoe (talk) 01:10, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That it is an ice formation makes it all the more notable - it means the UFO has landed! Looking at it closely, it's not a chunk of wood (too much structure at one end), it's not crud on the lens, it's not a smudge. It must be real. After all, it's not like a photographer taking a picture of a really large ice formation might have wanted to put something there for scale, is it? . . . Ach! . . . . never mind. Delete Maybe we need some special rule for WP:FRINGE material, whereby it has not met the benchmark for notability until it has become well enough known for someone with credibility to publicly debunk it. Agricolae (talk) 03:50, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

One site even claims that a swastika is visible on the, er, thing. - LuckyLouie (talk) 17:13, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete No mainstream third-party sources are covering this. The fact that nobody noticed the unidentified smudge or artifact in an old stereoscopic photo for so many years indicates that it is not a notable smudge or artifact. Delete, per WP:Notability#Smudges. First Light (talk) 02:30, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - only inside view of interested parties. --Eingangskontrolle (talk) 09:25, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - Even within the fringe Kenneth Arnold is supposed to be the one who spotted a flying saucer first (at least in the USA). Can't find any sources to support this or even reject it, which is a shame because an article debunking this would be particularly fun. Panyd^{The muffin is not subtle} 12:30, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.