I am reblogging my pop quiz from last week because, based on the evidence in several recent reports (see here, here, and here), it looks like the object shot down by the U.S. Air Force on 10 February was a small metallic balloon, which can be purchased at Party City for under $7.00, that was launched by a club of high-altitude-balloon hobbyists that call themselves the “Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade”! Question: Should I update my priors in favor of answer choice #3 (research), or should I add a new category (hobby balloons) to my quiz? Either way, that still leaves two other unidentified flying objects.
As I see it, a good Bayesian should assign an equal probability to each of these outcomes and then begin updating these priors as new evidence becomes available, right?
prior probability 