Hacker News Reader

Comment by pulkitsh1234 | Hacker News Reader

I am worried about a time when we do get a good quality photo, the hard part would become convincing everyone that it is a real photo and not cgi.

I have this fear for pretty much everything, so much of our digital lives depend on the assumption that things are real. Security cam footage, audio recordings for criminal proceedings, UFO footage, everything, how will we prove something is actually real in the digital world ?

Think about the reddit AMA proofs[0], I am pretty sure within 10 years there would be no way to actually provide proof for a digital entity representing something real. There are obviously proofs for digital-to-digital entities (cryptographic signatures), but what is the "cryptographic signature" to prove that something is real ?

[0] => https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/wiki/proof

View on HN

You've said it, cryptographic signatures are the way. Then it all becomes a trust economy where someone vouching for a claim puts their reputation at stake, and that is exactly what gives the claim a certain level of reliability.

There are actually already a lot of great pictures of UFO's out there [0]. The problem is exactly as you said: because these are typically from ordinary people or organizations, people cry "I could do this with Photoshop!" (and that is probably the true origin for many of them). I know someone personally who has a pretty good quality photo, which isn't faked, and isn't a plane or drone or ball lightning, but I wouldn't expect to be able to convince a reasonably skeptical person on the internet about its validity. So you end up with the skeptics taking a No True Scotsman position, which is intellectually counter-productive.

So, we have this "phenomenon" which is clearly quite active on our planet, but which does not want to be identified, for whatever reasons. Perhaps the reason there are any sightings at all are because of the sheer volume of their activity, because they are exerting influence on events, or as a means of making a slow and gradual introduction. Is there a military cover-up of this information? Absolutely. The amount of secrecy around this for nearly 80 years is unparalleled. Is it because some general or defense contractor or masonic lodge really cares so much if people know that there is a greater intelligence here? Probably not. The disclosure of centralized, credible phenomenon-related information is likely driven entirely by the phenomenon itself. So even with this movement for transparency the last few years, I'm not optimistic about getting the truth anytime soon.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/ufo/comments/falwxl/here_are_a_bunc...

>Is there a military cover-up of this information? Absolutely. The amount of secrecy around this for nearly 80 years is unparalleled. Is it because some general or defense contractor or masonic lodge really cares so much if people know that there is a greater intelligence here? Probably not. The disclosure of centralized, credible phenomenon-related information is likely driven entirely by the phenomenon itself. So even with this movement for transparency the last few years, I'm not optimistic about getting the truth anytime soon.

I'm curious. what do you mean when you say that the disclosure of credible information of the phenomenon is driven entirely by the phenomenon itself? And why does this make you pessimistic?

As for one plausible reason for the secrecy by governments. I assume it's because they don't like to look like they're ignorant (few governments do), and stay secretive because to do otherwise would be to reveal that they're just as clueless as the general public or any private research effort.

> I am worried about a time when we do get a good quality photo, the hard part would become convincing everyone that it is a real photo and not cgi.

Perhaps corroboration, as video/camera ubiquity approaches. I'm encouraged by such things as the Chelyabinsk meteor [1] in 2013, or the impressive (and thankfully non-fatal) "Hollywood-style crash" in which a car seemingly takes flight over a highway in California earlier this month, and as covered by The Drive [2].

Yes, these things were either bright or in broad daylight, but might still have been CGI. It's the coverage by more than one independent recording device that provides evidence favouring real rather than faked footage.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor

[2] https://www.thedrive.com/news/41623/speeding-camry-soars-ove...

I'm convinced that one day we'll have a public trust net. It's the only thing I can think of that can solve questions of belief and trustworthiness at scale. If I know Sally from high school and she highly trusts the general announcing the findings because she knew him at West Point, it is going to take a lot of evidence or other members of the trust net that to convince me that they're faking the photo.

The drawbacks of trust nets are well known, but I think they're solvable if we're willing and if people have a secure way to opt out.

It would be like everything else today. Reality would bifurcate along political lines.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com