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Comment by rasengan | Hacker News Reader

The 8th document [1] made it clear to me that alien life exists and a coverup took place as records make it appear that Dr. Davidson had a different stance.

We are not alone.

[1] https://documents2.theblackvault.com/documents/cia/ufos/C055...

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Not to be contradictory for the sake of it, but I see nothing specific about alien life in that. A̶l̶l̶ ̶I̶ ̶s̶e̶e̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶a̶ ̶r̶a̶d̶i̶o̶ ̶r̶e̶c̶o̶r̶d̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶M̶o̶r̶s̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶d̶e̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶r̶e̶c̶o̶r̶d̶e̶d̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶d̶i̶d̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶w̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶r̶e̶l̶e̶a̶s̶e̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶p̶e̶r̶s̶o̶n̶.̶ ̶T̶h̶e̶r̶e̶'̶s̶ ̶n̶o̶ ̶t̶a̶l̶k̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶i̶n̶v̶e̶s̶t̶i̶g̶a̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶o̶r̶i̶g̶i̶n̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶s̶i̶g̶n̶a̶l̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶e̶n̶s̶u̶r̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶c̶a̶u̶s̶e̶d̶ ̶b̶y̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶l̶o̶c̶a̶l̶ ̶e̶f̶f̶e̶c̶t̶ ̶(̶e̶.̶g̶.̶ ̶f̶a̶m̶o̶u̶s̶ ̶s̶t̶o̶r̶i̶e̶s̶ ̶a̶b̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶m̶i̶c̶r̶o̶w̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶o̶v̶e̶n̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶r̶o̶w̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶o̶d̶d̶ ̶m̶e̶a̶s̶u̶r̶e̶m̶e̶n̶t̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶l̶a̶b̶s̶)̶.̶

Edit: upon closer reading, you're right, the Morse code item was made up. But I still stand by my point that beyond the fact that they don't seem too keen to release the recording, there's nothing specifically in the document to indicate it is alien or substantial.

It says they made up a story about morse code to brush Dr. Davidson off, but it didn't work.

Where does it say they made it up?

> "This was intended to satisfy Davidson that he did not in fact have a space message"

Without other context, that reads to me more like:

1) Davidson made a prior claim that was received as being farfetched.

2) The set of people responsible for this document had another party to assess the signal.

3) They came to the conclusion that it was domestic morse code.

4) They passed that explanation and details back to Davidson to satisfy his presumably intense curiosity about this signal.

Did you read the last sentence?

Edit: And to be clear, he was an expert on UFOs.

I did, but my first impression was that it was referring to more of his impression of public details around early circular wing research.

I am making these comments with fresh eyes without understanding him, his background, or context of these articles, so I suppose I will have to do more reading to further understand your arguments.

I see zero evidence to support your conclusion in that link.

"Someone wanted to say something else but military PR didn't want that" is wholly not evidence.

But to be fair I don't really understand the alternate reality conspiracy game everyone plays online and might be missing that you're having a laugh.

It's hard to read but it seems to just be saying "Can you please track down the message and give it to him because he wont stop asking for it and it's getting annoying" ?

Can't really see any evidence of a coverup there.

It says that they tried to satisfy him with a fake story and that he was too smart for that.

Yeah, this seems a bit bizarre.

Without any knowledge of what this incident is referring to and with only this context, "the message was in identifiable morse code and from a known US licensed radio station" should by default be more plausible than "a space message".

Yet, the author of the paper himself says that Dr. Davidson is no fool and wouldn't buy the excuse if you read the message.

Yes, I suppose what that is referring to is unclear to me. It does seem to change context:

> "Davidson's criticizing the air force for concealment of information on flying saucers. Incidentally, Davidson is no fool and it appears that ATIC is treating him as one if they think he can be satisfied with a SOP such as Captain's.."

Did Davidson publish context criticizing the circular wing research and development programs? [0] Or was his criticism directly related to this space message?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Canada_VZ-9_Avrocar#Desig...

What did you believe before reading that document?

That he didn't think it was a space message [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Davidson#Personal_life

Can you provide more information?

"RE DR LEON DAVIDSON X LEON DAVIDSON [REDACTED]

DR LEON DAVIDSON IS ON OUR BACKS AGAIN. HE WANTS A VERBATIM TRANSLATION OF THE "SPACE" MESSAGE AND THE IDENTIFICATION OF THE TRANSMITTER FROM WHICH IT CAME. YOUR ATTENTION IS CALLED TO [ILLEGIBLE]-ETTER TO DAVIDSON FROM WALLACE W ELWOOD X WALLACE W ELWOOD, CAPTAIN, USAF X USAF, ATIC X ATIC, DATED 5 X 5 AUGUST 1957 X AUGUST 1957, IN WHICH ELWOOD TELLS DAVIDSON THE MESSAGE WAS IN IDENTIFIABLE MORSE CODE AND FROM A KNOWN US X US LICENSED RADIO STATION. THIS WAS INTENDED TO SATISFY DAVIDSON THAT HE DID NOT X NOT IN FACT HAVE A SPACE MESSAGE. HE IS NOT X NOT SATISFIED AND EXPLAINS THAT THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SOUNDS ON THE TAPE RECORDING OF THE MESSAGE ARE NOT X NOT MORSE-TYPE. CAN YOU OBTAIN FROM ATIC THE MESSAGE TRANSLATION, AND THE TRANSMITTER, SHORTLY: WE'D LIKE TO DISMISS THIS MAN ONCE AND FOR ALL. IF YOU CANNOT OBTAIN THIS INFORMATION, DAVIDSON IS GOING TO PRESSURE US FOR PERMISSION TO USE CHICAGO OFFICE LETTERHEAD AND OTHER US X US GOVERNMENT LETTERHEAD HE HAS RECEIVED IN THIS MATTER IN AN ARTICLE FOR SOME SPACE MAGAZINE. WE ARE SENDING BY BUCKSLIP THIS DATE A PUBLICATION OF DAVIDSON'S CRITICIZING THE AIR FORCE FOR CONCEALMENT OF INFORMATION ON FLYING SAUCERS. INCIDENTALLY, DAVIDSON IS NO X NO FOOL AND IT APPEARS THAT ATIC IS TREATING HIM AS ONE IF THEY THINK HE CAN BE SATISFIED WITH A SOP SUCH AS CAPTAIN ELWOOD'S."

My take: Davidson got hold of a recording of an unknown morse code message, and started claiming it was aliens. The air force just doesn't want to deal with him, so someone sends him an official letter that says "It's not aliens." He doesn't believe them and says he can tell by the "characteristics" of his recording that it isn't a morse code type machine. He asks for the official identifying information of the source of the signal, and further, pressures them that if they don't respond, he will use some official letterhead he has to fabricate something for a magazine story. The recipient of the message here is being asked to give Davidson that information, if possible. They further indicate they will attach with the letter a story ("buckslip" is a magazine insert, like an ad) of Davidson's, criticizing the air force for hiding UFOs. At the end, the ATIC is admonished for not sending Davidson the full information up front, as he "is no (I repeat, no) fool," and that the previous sop (a concession of no great value in an attempt to appease someone while not satisfying their actual requests) should not have been attempted at all, because it just made him more suspicious.

Furthermore, after reading about Davidson [0], apparently he never believed it was aliens at all, he was trying to uncover secret CIA experimental aircraft.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Davidson#Personal_life

My take is that Captain Elwood sent him a letter more or less reading "This is a Morse code recording from a domestic station but we won't say more about it, but it's not aliens" and that only riled Davidson up, presumably because he wasn't talking about aliens in the first place, so why the red herring.

Now they ask to find the decoded message and give the man the sending station so he shuts up. At the end they warn that just sending him some no-content letter (or [I am guessing they imply] made-up stuff) won't do.

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