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Comment by notthegov | Hacker News Reader

If you want to understand the UFO story better, you should watch Mirage Men about Air Force Office of Special Investigations Agent Richard Doty, a self-admitted UFO disinformation agent-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6naKTTuBq14

The intelligence agencies aren't hiding anything about UFOs from my experience. And I don't really think the USAF is either. But the USAF did tell various people that UFOs were real and they did run a psychological operation against Paul Bennewitz, destroying his life and forever obsfucating whatever truth there is about UFOs. (None in my opinion.)

Here's a good summary:

http://www.openminds.tv/open-letter-u-s-air-force-allegation...

*Fixed link

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When I was a kid, I asked my grandfather, who was at that time an AF Colonel (he's now passed away), whether UFOs were real and whether he has seen aliens. He just looked at me, took me aside, and told me that UFO stories were propagated by the "boys from Langley" as a way to hide experimental aircraft testing. That way, every report of some black plane that was seen by the public, would be chalked up to UFOs and Russians wouldn't know what to think of it. We had a good laugh and I never told this to anyone. I don't think it's even a big secret anymore.

Since then, I always laughed at all these UFO reports and reports of abductions etc. It's become a national meme that's ingrained into the minds of so many... yet it's a complete fabrication.

RE: Abductions, it's entirely possible that those stories could be, instead, related to MK Ultra [0] rather than Air force testing.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra

Anybody who hasn't, do read to see how much they were ready to do. Abductions or just "anal probes" are nothing compared to their actions. Note the use of different drugs and the brain washing experiments after which some innocent people never recovered.

E.g.

"In Operation Midnight Climax, the CIA set up several brothels in San Francisco, California to obtain a selection of men who would be too embarrassed to talk about the events." (...) "In other experiments where people were given LSD without their knowledge, they were interrogated under bright lights with doctors in the background taking notes. The subjects were told that their "trips" would be extended indefinitely if they refused to reveal their secrets."

> Note the use of different drugs and the brain washing experiments after which some innocent people never recovered.

One of the victims of MK ULTRA experiments was Harvard undergraduate student Theodore John Kaczynski (who later gained infamy as the Unabomber[1]). I can't help but to wonder if history would have turned out any different had MK ULTRA not existed

1. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/06/harvard-...

> Anybody who hasn't, do read to see how much they were ready to do. Abductions or just "anal probes" are nothing compared to their actions.

I remember reading declassified documents from MKUltra in Acid Dreams. It was pure fear and paranoia, they were scared that if they don't quickly learn how to use LSD as truth serum or mind control agent, the evil Ruskies are going to figure it out and strike first.

They even had ideas like adding psychotropics to water supplies to alter minds of civilian population, either local or enemy, depending on the exact substance used and expected effects.

I had always somewhat suspected this, that it was a hoax perpetrated by humans in order to manipulate other humans into believing something. I'm surprised more religions don't pull off these kind of stunts, they'd certainly receive a huge influx in believers. ;) Watching "Mirage Men" was enlightening as I never really thought about how maybe the government recognized they made a mistake, they unleashed something into the "hive mind" of the American populace that they couldn't regain control of. From what Doty implies, it seems like they were just trying to convince a handful of people to look somewhere else, and he just kept telling lies until it had spun so far out of his control that he just had to basically drop out and abandon the whole thing. It felt very similar to when undercover cops get really close to the top of some large drug cartel, only to be thwarted at the last minute by someone figuring out who they really are...

>as a way to hide experimental aircraft testing.

even today it looks cool https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJARrc40imk , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmPiZv4q4Ms

Is there any evidence CIA was responsible for the hoaxes?

There is significant evidence that US Air Force was responsible for the hoaxes. And, of course, Area 51 is an Air Force Base.

The relationship between the two seems acrimonious on this issue. Also "the CIA" sounds more sinister than the US Air Force so it makes the story better.

>There is significant evidence that US Air Force was responsible for the hoaxes. And, of course, Area 51 is an Air Force Base.

Yes, Area 51 is an AF base but CIA has paid for most of the planes that were tested there in 50s, 60s and 70s. U-2 was paid for, in a large part, by a CIA budget [0]. Same goes for Lockheed A-12, a predecessor of SR-71, which too was paid for by the CIA [1]. Then there's Have Blue, a predecessor of F-117 which, too, was paid for by the CIA. CIA also paid for a slew of other planes and prototypes which ended up either destroyed or as other AF planes. So while it was an AF facility, CIA had a large say in what goes on there.

CIA also has a large staff of psychologists and other sociology experts who can pull off various deceptions and spread propaganda to a large part of the population. UFO mythology was probably created by them. AF don't have many experts in this area.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_U-2 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_A-12 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Have_Blue

The CIA didn't exist until several months after the 1947 Roswell crash of a US Air Force "weather balloon".

The CIA doesn't have complete access to Area 51. They fund projects and advise, but there are projects and Special Access Programs that are outside of their mandate and authority.

It is probable that in the 50s, 60s and 70s the CIA advised the Air Force on disinformation or other tactics, but I do not believe UFO mythology was created by them. I am almost certain but, of course, I do not know everything and I have no evidence to support my assertion.

A large part of the UFO-government mythology did originate from a psyop against Paul Bennewitz perpetrated by the Air Force-

http://philipcoppens.com/bennewitz.html

The first time a UFO expert (Bruce Maccabee) spoke at the CIA was in the late 1970s.

Like carrots.

The British promulgated the belief that carrots improve eyesight to explain the effective of their aircraft spotters, instead of radar.

As a matter of fact, I've never seen rabbits wearing glasses.

http://sussex4hnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Monmouth-...

Well, naturally, rabbits don't even eat carrots[0]

[0]-http://www.rspca.org.uk/adviceandwelfare/pets/rabbits/diet/m...

Despite Snopes confirming this, I refuse to admit that it's true. Nethack wouldn't lie to me like that.

>>Like carrots.

Poor thing. As a kid I told my cousin(he wore glasses), that carrots were good for the eyes, to a point I exaggerated if he ate enough he could get rid of them altogether at some point.

He would eat kgs of carrots.

Well, carrots are delicious, so no harm done.

Harmless yes, but with carotenosis you might turn orange.

My mom thought so too. At some point she took me to the doctor and asked him why I had orange feet. He told her to stop feeding me so much carrot.

Man, I had no idea my mother had any other children besides me.

You can get orange feet from eating too many carrots?

This is easily the craziest thing I've learned so far in 2016 and why I love reading Hacker News so much

You mean to tell me they are not?!! I remember reading that carrots have some nutrient necessary for good eye sight, beta-catorene I believe. I don't think it improves your current eye sight so much as it keeps it from going bad from a lack of it.

it's got a grain of truth to it, so it's a believable smokescreen

Yup, actually carrots are good source of beta-carotene / Vitamin A which is necessary for good eye health and vision. Obviously carrots aren't the only source though.

"Vitamin A has multiple functions: it is important for growth and development, for the maintenance of the immune system and good vision.[2] Vitamin A is needed by the retina of the eye in the form of retinal, which combines with protein opsin to form rhodopsin, the light-absorbing molecule[3] necessary for both low-light (scotopic vision) and color vision."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_A

So getting sufficient vitamin A from carrots or other sources is instrumental in keeping your eyes healthy. That's not the same thing as saying that eating additional carrots will give you super-vision.

UFO's are real. There are thousands of such events reported a bit everywhere around the world every year.

Of course, most of them never remain "unidentified" very long: optical illusions, weather balloons, discarded objects from actual identified flying objects, etc...

Too many people associate the term "UFO" with aliens. The two are completely unrelated.

Here's my tin-foil-hat theory on UFO's.

The whole idea of a UFOs and flying saucers was a kooky ass idea from the US government to spook the Soviets into thinking, the US actually had in their possessions aliens, and futuristic alien technology.

It is too coincidental the first reports of flying saucers came in the late 40s. When the cold war first started to heat up.

I think the Soviets actually bought it up and the government (CIA?) kept running with it. Why not? It was probably a cheap and effective way psychologically mess with the Soviets.

That isn't particularly outlandish. The Red Mercury hoax is pretty well documented and very similar:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/magazine/the-doomsday-scam...

The whole thing might have been a great way to 'out' spies (by tracing information flow) and generally confuse and psych out the Soviets.

UFOs predate the cold war; the "flying saucer" image is from that time, but that's a time when advantages of flying saucers were being discussed and experiments being tried.

The "airship sightings" are especially fun(ny).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_airship

The review of the film, a shorter useful info:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/mirage-men-film-revi...

For me it was too boring to watch the film. If anybody actually saw it, liked it and remembers something interesting but not mentioned in the review, please tell.

You linked a different movie for the Mirage Men trailer. The correct link is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6naKTTuBq14

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