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Comment by gdubs | Hacker News Reader

I’ve always been more on the skeptic side, FWIW — but the two pilots on 60 Minutes came across as very credible. And they — and others — claimed to have seen these things with their own eyes. The one pilot described the object as being around the same size as their fighter jet. I’m not arguing it’s “aliens” — just saying that while we’ve only seen grainy weapons-tracking footage, there seems to be a decent number of pilots who have seen similar objects first-hand. Not sure we can dismiss it as equipment glitches.

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> claimed to have seen these things with their own eyes

Human observations are the least reliable form of evidence. There are countless ways you can incorrectly interpret what you see.

For example, it's very hard to correctly estimate the distance or size of an object in the sky. Pilots are no better at this than anyone else. If you think something is closer than it actually is you'll also incorrectly interpret its speed and size.

OP's point is in that situation the government should/would have data gathered from onboard sensors about the UFOs. A fighter jet costs hundreds of millions of dollars, so we'd expect there to be various sensors with recordings of these objects, rather than just pilot's eyesight and memory.

Why do you think they don't have more data on these events?

Luis Elizondo (which was at the time the senior official in the U.S. government responsible for the UAP program) explicitly said in a recent interview that there is actually more data “layers“ connected to the videos.

https://youtu.be/Eozxt_HnPu4 around 52min)

The issue is that the data is classified and it was not released yet, making it more difficult to independently prove those claims.

All the scenarios in my mind are bad. Either (1) we have actual aliens, which in bad inasmuch it is freaking crazy and novel; (2) the government is incompetent in identifying the physical effects manifesting in the sensors and is okay in exposing their incompetence; (3) a non-US nation-state has superior technology, which suggests a potential bad future geopolitical outcome; or (4) the government is running a psych-op on its people and deliberately pushing misleading information for some purpose, such as to subtly signal to other nation-states that they have advanced technology.

Judging by the way the UFO rhetoric was suddenly ratcheted up several years ago by the US Govt, I feel that #4 is probably the most likely. My gut is telling me something isn’t right.

I have this feeling too, not so much about the pilots testimony, as about the way the videos came to light.

If I put my conspiracy theorist hat, this "To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science" smells to me to a "Intelligence Community" front.

For people with conspiracy theorist hats, any name can smells like an intelligence community front. Too weird and it's obviously fake, too normal and it just shows you that the intelligence community is Very Tricky Indeed and almost managed to fool us by choosing such a normal name. But luckily, due to our Advanced Conspiracy Theorist Hat Technology advantage we knew upfront that anything we look at is an intelligence community front and therefore they can never fool us with their devious naming choices.

Oh, but it's not the name what smells like a "intelligence community" front.

It's that if you check the founders they are related to the "intelligence community", and the way the video was "leaked" to the NYT feels kind of funny too. This guy Luís Elizondo (1) is clearly from the "community", what it's not so clear is that he was in charge of investigating UFOs as he is claiming. I don't know, maybe they just want to make money or they are legitimate and just want the truth.

Of course, this is just a "feeling" that I have, so, I'm not claiming is falsifiable or it's the true, for now it's only something to have an eye on that I wanted to share.

(1) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Elizondo

for whatever reason, over decades, it seems like Air Force or IC veterans tend to be more into UFOs than the average person. maybe because of rumors they hear, or maybe they get interested because most of the UFO sightings have some military connection. so it could just be that the people who are most into UFOs join organizations like TTSA or MUFON or what have you.

I've been partial to this theory posted on HN:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21859896

tl;dr it is a "psyop" but the target is our servicemembers who were too scared to report weird phenomena.

Now that is an interesting theory. Makes a lot of sense.

I watched some interview with some congressman saying that the aliens explanation is not so bad, the problem is if they are Chinese or Russian.

I don't know if laughing or crying about that statement and what it says about humans.

Why is having aliens bad? If there really are extraterrestrial entities on earth, and they aren't making any acts of aggression, that seems like it could potentially be a good thing, although there is the big question of why they would hide from the general population but allow themselves to be seen by the occasional pilot...

One possible idea is that if they organize their civilization in any way then they may simply not have authorization to reveal themselves. The occasional pilot noticing them would be accidents.

As far as it being bad news — it’s never comforting to learn a different civilization has vastly superior technology, and may not share your values.

Many "government approved" and "pentagon verified" videos have been consistently debunked and proven to be common visual phenomena and physical illusions. While steering clear of any hardcore conspiracies, I don't doubt that the government wheels this same package out time and time again when needed as a distraction or to provide a weak reason for additional defense funding seeing as it is always so effective in capturing attention.

There is radar data from the ships too. The reason they send the jets there in the first place is because they can't explain the radar data. So, we have radar data, a video and the testimony of several professionals. We don't have to believe in aliens to accept that something very surprising is going on.

The writer of the article is dismissing evidence to fit his theory. And the guy is a professor of epistemology.

I believe fighter pilots (maybe all pilots?) are required to have very good eyesight as well.

Flies a 100 million dollar equipment. Does not bring a 100 dollar gadget that records what you see.

Yes

The planes might also (I mean, yes, they have, but we don't know what it is exactly) classified capabilities and sensors. And "black boxes" (not exactly that, but more like FOQA probably).

It is also likely someone took data from those flights and tried to plot the possible object paths. Did any (unclassified) conclusion come from that?

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