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Comment by cookiengineer | Hacker News Reader

It's dangerous to go alone. Take this [1] and this [2] and especially this [3].

Area 51 was a radar testing site due to the unique properties of the salt on the ground. And they just tested a "silver shiny UFO" which was the prototype for the SR-71. And yes, this was exactly the same date when people first called radio stations and the police for UFO sightings.

The Skunkworks A-12 OXCART research project led to the final SR-71 design for the CIA's spy planes. More details on this on the CIA website for the Archangel project in the web archive [4].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_A-12

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:A12radartesting.jpg

[4] http://web.archive.org/web/20201112000409/https://www.cia.go...

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I'm just going to plug this book because it's so good and adds a lot more color to these comments -

https://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-Lockheed/...

For context, this book covers history on the development of these UFOs and was written by Ben Rich, who worked at and eventually led the Lockheed division that developed these planes. If nothing else, it's a fascinating account of many historical events from a totally different vantage point.

> Area 51 was a radar testing site due to the unique properties of the salt on the ground. And they just tested a "silver shiny UFO" which was the prototype for the SR-71. And yes, this was exactly the same date when people first called radio stations and the police for UFO sightings.

Assuming Area 51 was just that, you can't disregard the whole UFO phenomenon (which has been taken place all over the globe for decades) as "the observers didn't know they were looking at an Skunk Works aircraft". That implies you haven't even seen the tip of the iceberg.

These reports not only often come from highly trained fighter pilots and engineers, but it also leaves imaging (radar, infrared, etc.) records that show that these things, whatever they are, can move too fast (and too slow) to be any USA/China/Russia/Israel super secret aircraft.

Hope you're not talking about gimbal/gofast etc, as they are poor examples... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Le7Fqbsrrm8

on one hand you have multiple fighter pilots (who have seen the object with own eyes, not just instrumentation), military FLIR technicians, radar operators, CIC personnel, a navy admiral all claiming to have witnessed something unusual - on the other hand you got some rando youtube guy claiming it was a bird... interesting

Mick West is full of shit on this one. You can listen to both a FLIR technician [1], and the same pilot [2] who saw the Tic Tac, explain why West is wrong. Why would you rather believe someone who has absolutely no experience with neither aircraft nor these advanced imaging systems, over these 2 people?

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzmdSsszf5g

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBt4CNHyAck

Skipping the YouTuber spam and go straight to the source: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-4ZqTjKmhn5Qr0tCHkCV...

I've always thought that an interesting theory is that some of what people have seen out there is the result of particle beam weapon testing. I have no idea how probable that is, but it sounded plausible. Here is a gem from the old web [0] laying out the argument.

[0] https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/area-51-and-other-strang...

None of those planes look like UFOs and they wouldn't move in the same reported ways, either. I don't agree that it makes someone stupid to be open minded.

> None of those planes look like UFOs and they wouldn't move in the same reported ways, either.

Yet today's pop culture conspiracy theorists tried to raid Area 51 for their beliefs.

Don't get me wrong: I believe in alien life. But I don't believe in conspiracy theorists that are blind to the obvious in correlations of evidence.

Scientific theory is about bayesian reasoning, not about proving to yourself that you're right; which is a likely phenomenon in the thinking nature of conspiracy theorists.

If by 'today's you mean last year or so...

The Area51 raid was an imgur joke...I think Chuck Norris and Shaggy were supposed to lead it. (The 2 most powerful memes on the internet...)

> Scientific theory is about bayesian reasoning, not about proving to yourself that you're right; which is a likely phenomenon in the thinking nature of conspiracy theorists.

For that comment to be true, there would be no science without bayesian reasoning. Since bayesian reasoning differs from hypothetico-deductive, that is false.

How do they differ?

Most of the reports of "UFOs" and their characteristics in flight come from untrained, and unreliable sources.

It's not stupid to be open minded, but it is stupid to ignore plausible explanations of phenomenon because you are hoping to find something new.

> It's not stupid to be open minded, but it is stupid to ignore plausible explanations of phenomenon because you are hoping to find something new.

This sentence reads like you are casually dismissing all of science..

Surely "The Earth is flat", "Rain spirits make the rain fall from the sky" and "We are at the center of the universe, being created by God and all" were plausible explanations of phenomena that were eventually ignored by scientists hoping to find something new.

>This sentence reads like you are casually dismissing all of science..

That sentence is the very essence of science. Most observations are easily explained by existing theory. If you are proposing something new, you need evidence and time to upend the consensus.

Flat Earth, rain spirits etc all were disproven because, eventually, the most plausible explanation of phenomena matched evidence to the contrary rather than what existed.

Scientists don't ignore flat earth, they weight it's evidence just the same as a globe earth. The reason that the globe earth is accepted as the consensus truth, is that it has the overwhelming evidence of its veracity, an argument for the globe collected over a long period of time.

> Most of the reports of "UFOs" and their characteristics in flight come from untrained, and unreliable sources.

Agreed. But when you filter all those, you are left with a huge pile of true UFO reports, that come from trained personnel, radar operator, astronomers, etc. Look at the conclusions of Blue Book.

Maybe it’s real. Maybe it’s a psyop. I know such a radar technician (not one who ‘witnessed’ such phenomena)that has classified access who sides on psyop

>true UFO reports

But what is that? A report of an object, that is unidentified. The only truth is that an observation was made.

There are many many mundane things, albeit rare, which can explain these observations. Rare mundane things that even trained observers aren't aware of in the moment.

Point is, UFO report is step one. After that comes a boring process of trying to explain the observation with all in all the mundane ways before jumping to extreme conclusions.

>>true UFO reports

>But what is that?

A "true UFO", as stated in my previous comment, is a report that survives...

> Point is, UFO report is step one. After that comes a boring process of trying to explain the observation with all in all the mundane ways before jumping to extreme conclusions.

...all this process, and remains unexplained. That boring process of trying to explain it is what I called "filtering".

What does a UFO look like?

A metal lamp shade, obviously. But, I Want to Believe.

The stereotypical description is a circular object that can hover and make sharp directional changes. Usually they're described as having lights and sometimes as having no seams or visible rivets.

Exactly.

It's something up in the sky, that you can't identify. I've seen plenty, and if you've ever seen something flying that you can't identify then you've seen them too.

I kind of wish Unidentified Flying Object hadn't been conflated with space aliens.

Those planes have very unusual forms by the standards the public was accustomed to decades ago. In the time since, those planes and ones even more exotic have appeared countless times in popular media, changing the public's perception of what airplanes might look like.

The A-12 was publicly announced in early 1964. It first flew in 1962. The X-3, F-104, B-58 had all flown by the mid-50s. If anything, airplanes have been much more pedestrian as function and form needs were mostly subsonic.

As far as I am aware, the A-12 was secret until the 90s, though the existence of the nearly identical in appearance and function YF-12's was indeed made public in the 1960s. But how many in the 60s would have recognized one if they saw it? Public knowledge and common knowledge are not the same thing.

I linked the picture of the radar test especially because of its absurd dimensions. In the bottom left corner you can see a full size military jeep standing next to it.

This thing is _huge_ and honestly, it's very reasonable people thought it was an alien spaceship.

I have to admit that as a youngster when an SR-71 surprise buzzed Vancouver BC circa 1986 that my first thought was that it was a UFO (flying saucer). Edge on they look very saucer like! It was only when they banked almost vertical that I could see the true silhouette.

Those spy planes are absolute marvels of engineering and creativity.

I couldn't even start to imagine what incredible stuff is currently classified and being worked on!

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