Former intel officer says 'non-human biologics’ found at alleged UFO crash sites
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
These are not "good" answers to the Fermi paradox, and definitely not the only answers. Much better answers (in my opinion) are things like: their signals haven't reached us yet; they haven't developed interstellar communications or travel yet; they haven't developed intelligent life yet.
I would think an alien spacecraft carrying the energy and resources needed for interstellar travel (including the return trip) would be pretty obvious and detectable even by amateur astronomers. Instead what we're doing here is chasing at shadows and grasping at straws. Credible reports deserve to be looked into, yes. But what is Grusch alleging here? Existence of a UFO crash retrieval program. Presence of non-human biologics. OK, experimental Soviet or Chinese military technology with dog or cat DNA counts. Of course the US military guards those in secrecy. When we ask, "did you find aliens?" they aren't going to reply with "sorry no aliens, and to prove it, here are the details of all the experimental Soviet/Chinese/US military tech we recovered."
PBS Space Time has a number of great episodes on the subject of aliens, including questions like how do we know whether humans are among the first spacefaring species: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTrFAY3LUNw
I don't think this is true. If an alien ship landed on the moon, we won't know about it. No equipment or resources put in to monitor something like that. Much less all the other planets, moons, and asteroids in the solar system.
The problem with this stance for literally the past 20 years is that the Alcubierre drive, which has yet to be disproven in concept (despite requiring exotic matter and high amounts of energy) has been known about since the 90’s, and at least makes FTL travel, theoretically possible.
This is why I am skeptical about modern-day skeptics: Have they simply all collectively not read the Alcubierre paper, or the expert physicist responses to it, despite having had 20 years now to do so? Do they really think that simply not knowing how to implement it is an argument against it? How nearsighted would you have to be to assume that we’ve discovered all the loopholes already?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/star-treks-warp-d...
imo most likely is they exist, but space is just so unimaginable huge, and also Aliens can at most go close to lightspeed. They didn't beat physics nor invented portals / wormholes?
> They should be here already.
Least likely for me out of the three options.. just our tinfoil hat love :)
You're an expert in alien technology and civilizations far more technologically advanced than we are?
He still works for intelligence, obviously. Aliens and UFOs are a well-known and obvious cover story for experimental aircraft. It's his job to spread this story.
Note that I'm not suggesting most things people claim to be UFOs are actually experimental aircraft. A few may be. But often it's a hoax, a piece of dust, an ordinary aircraft, a weather balloon, an artifact of extreme zoom, etc.
Without commenting on the likelihood of any hypothesis, I don't see how this makes sense. If we assume that it is a cover story for advanced tech programs, top secret programs in general are now going to have 10,000x more scrutiny by the media and Congress, and will be far more likely to have details leaked. Drawing attention like this is the exact opposite of what you'd do to keep something secret.
If "cover story" really is the explanation, it seems unlikely that Grusch is in on it--more likely would be that he was also fed the cover story, and that his going public really is resented by the military since it brings so much unwanted outside attention.
Given the limit of the speed of information and the expansion of the universe, there's a VERY small area that would even be aware of the signals we've started sending out over the past century to come looking.
But Earth would be an extremely interesting destination....for future Earth.
Though personally the most likely answer is that it's our own tech that the people sighting it don't have clearance to even know about which is why USINT is so against more attention to reports of sightings.
But if I had to put my money on outlandish claims, time traveling ships would get my best any day over extraterrestrial ones.
Others try to calculate and predict the position. But they didn’t use enough floating point precision bits and ended up in the earth’s crust or somewhere in the ocean.
No one on HN "throws it out" because this is ostensibly a rational community and time travel is an even more absurd, less scientifically plausible solution than FTL or interdimensional travel. At that point we're just discussing comic book plots. If you believe we live in a universe that runs by comic book rules that's fine - it seems a depressing number of people here do, but there isn't much viable, intellectually grounded discussion to be had about that. You either agree with it or you don't.
I mean hell, let's throw Jacques Valee onto the pile and say maybe UFOs/aliens are fae taking on a modern form in order to feed upon humanity's collective fear of the other. Makes about as much sense as time travel.
Time travel (backwards) is not possible, only inter-universe travel.
What has happened has always happened and will always have happened.
we should be able to come back, which means we would already be doing so? as long as the preconditions remain true... either way we would probably have some sort of "butterfly effect/grandfather paradox" laws in place
that said, the value of future earth visiting past earth would likely be 'kitsch' at best :P
That's the argument I would like to make regarding the existence of angels and the coverup by the secularists to hide their involvement in humanity.
Watch this 5 min clip for additional context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FrloSlst1A
If we expected to see them far away, how would them being here prevent us from doing that (and also from seeing other presumably existing alien species that are not here)?
How could you possibly know that?
Is this an issue of national Security? Who has what information? Who is housing what artifacts? What funds are used to pay for these projects? Who has committed crimes to hide this information?
All those questions weren't asked because anyone expected Grush, Fravour or Graves to tell them: Yeah I've got a UFO in my garage. In fact all witnesses answered all those questions before. This had one specific goal: Get this into congressional testimony, under oath, from credible witnesses and thus give congress the means, information and constitutional duty to investigate further.
And for all those sceptics out there: this is unusually bipartisan and seeing Gaetz and AOC both laserfocused on investigating government misuse of money on such a historically fringe subject is most interesting.
I watched the whole congressional forum today and those guys are probably the most well-spoken people I’ve ever heard discussing UAP/aliens/NHI. Also, one of the more bipartisan and civil congressional hearings I’ve witnessed in recent memory.
It’s definitely intriguing to say the least and I have a hard time doubting that these guys have not witnessed what they say they witnessed, both with their eyes and in terms of government programs/secrecy/misallocated funds. Now if those UAPs are NHI or government-created machines or something else, hopefully we will find out eventually.
It should be easier to hack a congressman's personal email account than someone in a air gapped military compound, and easier to hack a scientist's (presumably) academic email.
Indeed, there was very minimal political sniping. A little bit at Biden about the Chinese balloons, but that was it. I was very surprised - especially with those two in the same room.
What’s your metric for quality? Seems merely low-quality sophistry to me.
The Interstellar Squid have arrived. They're hanging out around Saturn (cf "largest comet ever"). Even after a century of preparation and propaganda, there is a large fraction of humanity who refuses to conceive of intelligence other than human. This is the last gasp at preparing them.
That, or the political corruption has gotten so rank that they're scraping the bottom of the bin for "lookit the shiny!" distraction stories.
Oh, and let's not forget about the Squid's notoriously poor sense of direction. They've probably been circling Saturn for the past decade thinking it's Jupiter. I wouldn't be surprised if they show up in a few millennia, asking for directions to Earth.
So, let's cut our Squid friends some slack. Interstellar travel is hard, and they're doing their squid-best.
> He fished for Curious Squid, so called because, as well as being squid, they were curious. That is to say, their curiosity was the curious thing about them.
> Shortly after they got curious about the lantern that Solid had hung over the stern of his boat, they started to become curious about the way in which various of their number suddenly vanished skywards with a splash.
> Some of them even became curious – very briefly curious – about the sharp barbed thing that was coming very quickly towards them.
> The Curious Squid were extremely curious. Unfortunately, they weren't very good at making connections.
-- Jingo by Terry Pratchett
Technically, yes.
With very little success, alas. Pesky gravity.
if anything, scalar interstellar travel is SLOW
The simplest answer is the most probable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL_HYG3uXQg
I watched it, pretty weird. Particularly interesting: 1:45:00 through 2:00:00
Am I missing something?
Let’s at least recognize that before automatically casting doubt.
They aren't because there is literally no new data, none. This isn't like Manning etc... where there was a materiel leak of classified data. So what would they be charged/fired for? Nothing. It's so much lazier, the claim is that being prevented access is somehow a proof of a coverup. All of the claims of harm were long before any of the publicity here.
All of the "whistleblowers" in these cases were not on any kind of career trajectory that this would have put in danger or even still serving in those roles.
They were all regular joes with uneventful military careers. They didn't bring new data to light like other whistleblowers - it's all rumors and speculation in this case, and literally a handful of shitty FLIR videos in others.
I'm baffled at the lack of epistemic consistency across truth claims. Nobody would accept this level of speculation for anything actually related to reality yet here we are wasting time on this. I've hurt myself today by being involved here at all. Totally irrational.
Grusch was a GS15 NGA officer that was read into over 2000 special access programs and prepared/delivered the presidential daily briefing in 2021. He’s quite literally one of the most credentialed intelligence officers in the US.
Dave Fravor was second in command of the USS Nimitz and is recognized as one of the top fighter pilots to come out of Top Gun.
They aren't because there is literally no new data, none
He can, however, discuss it with Congress and the whistleblower program in a secure setting and has done so (as he mentioned many dozens of times under oath today) and is willing to do so further.
truth claims
I don't see (credible) people claiming that anything was proven to be the "truth" today. Yet that seems to be what you're railing about. Well, hey, I agree with you a hundred percent about that. Nothing proved.
However, for reasons reiterated dozens of times here, his claims are very significant. If they are not true then he has duped a lot of members of Congress. Considering some of the congresspeople I saw up there today, it's not exactly the intellectual A-Team. But still.
> They aren't...
> Totally irrational.
Ok you just proved why they're putting their reputation and career on the line... people calling it irrational.
They need performative theatre of such dramatic potential they can distract from the Senates bill about banning Congress owning stocks
Edit: I don’t mean just the stock bill. They need to keep Overton window where it is.
But cover for not banning congress from stock trading? Really? What is your basis?
If you're going to put your career and reputation on the line, actually show or leak something that makes people believe you.
Otherwise, themselves and their titles only seek to perpetuate an average news story or cover up for something else the government is doing.
It is trivial to see that pushing a potentially desired position of the state/intel agencies could very well raise one's reputation and career prospects with these institutions.
The primary critique of this whole issue is that it is lies. So, why would lying in the interest of the state be bad for one's status within those circles?
Framed in this manner these people are risking absolutely nothing.
That used to be the case, but not in our modern world where “all publicity is good publicity”. IMO, this is a stunt from otherwise no-name government officials looking to get some media time.
I'll trade my good name for a few million bucks too.
We also did have flying saucers in the 50s, but they kind of sucked compared to helicopters.
I’m not saying this whistleblower is definitely lying, but if anyone was capable and willing to bring this forward with receipts, Snowden would’ve done so.
The classified stuff wasn’t really that siloed. He had access to everything CIA, DIA, NSA, etc. He talked about this in his book. Searching for evidence of aliens was one of the first things he did when he got access.
And, fyi, as I understand it, “I’m your superior”, is not a valid reason to need-to-know. Need-to-know is, as I understand it, at the discretion of the secret keepers.
Here is a NYT article from 1997 on the the CIA coverup. https://web.archive.org/web/20230726002122/https://www.nytim...
But I also seem to remember an airforce person coming forward with similar stories that were more recent. This article talks about the 1950s-60s.
When Trump ended his term without once mentioning aliens, that’s when I was certain all of this was hogwash.
Are there maybe very advanced aircraft out there we should be aware of? Certainly. But it’s definitely not aliens without hard af evidence.
We should ask saudi arabia, they probably bought it from him if it exists. Elon has the connections to do that.
Although, the nice thing about conspiracy theories is you can always just layer on another explanation. Obviously the Deep State didn't trust Trump with this dangerous knowledge, so they kept him in the dark. Some things not even the President is cleared to know. Duh.
0: https://www.npr.org/2022/11/18/1137474748/trump-tweeted-an-i...
There is also the possibility they simply told him no (especially given the keyhole/iranian missile thing) the idea that the CiC is the highest practical authority in the IC is, well, somewhat naive.
A specific allegation made in these hearings is that there is a conspiracy to hide what is known from much of the government. Why people think that would exclude a President thought to be compromised by the Kremlin, I really can’t understand.
-->
"Whistleblower is deluded"
There's no UFOs. Well let me clarify - there's no aliens. If there are UFOs then they are made right here on earth and just need close up, non fuzzy photos.
The concept of "anonymous" alien visitation is self evidently silly.
But also, the concept of traveling between the stars is also so unlikely as to be effectively impossible. If you don't agree, then you don't really grasp the distance to the stars.
Our priors should reflect no radio transmissions from aliens, no non-blurry pictures of UFOs, etc etc
1. Many questions about the US response to aerial devices like the “Chinese ballon” and the public’s right to knowledge about those events.
2. Calls for removing career stigma around pilots reporting UAPs.
3. Calls for additional funding and policies surrounding research and reporting of unidentified aerial phenomenon.
It was a combination of pragmatic process improvements, defense funding requests and unsubstantiated non-human intelligence claims.
If anything, your comment makes the impression of the quintessential HN poster that claims to know better / dismiss others without having checked the linked sources.
Reaction I: The concept/prospect of space aliens really mashes a lot of people's emotional buttons. And "having a right to learn about" is how such strong emotions are usually articulated.
Reaction II: So long as $Potential_Enemy_Nation is a bit unsure about whether you are really lying, about having a bunch of from-1000-years-in-the-future technology hidden away, that you could suddenly start using (against them) if sufficiently motivated...that's pretty cheap deterrence, eh?
Your point stands though. If these things are crashing then surely they would have crashed on some Third World hell-hole where the population would happily collect the debris and sell it to whoever wants to pay. It would be hard to cover something like that up. The US likes to think they are everything, everywhere, all at once, but it's not entirely true.
For entertainment, consider that the Cold War could have been about finding intact UAPs, at least in some of the scuffles.
I remember listening to Art Bell as a kid, fascinated with the stories of aliens, MIB, military coverups, etc… with former military men telling a lot of the stories.
Then I read Carl Sagan and realized how silly it all was. Then I learned how the government lies about so much. How they use current and former military and intelligence to further those lies.
Shame so many still buy into this at all. Highly suggest reading a demon haunted world if you haven’t. It makes these claims pure comedy.
> When the Air Force finally made Special Report #14 public in October 1955, it was claimed that the report scientifically proved that UFOs did not exist. Critics of this claim note that the report actually proved that the "unknowns" were distinctly different from the "knowns" at a very high statistical significance level. The Air Force also incorrectly claimed that only 3% of the cases studied were unknowns, instead of the actual 22%. They further claimed that the residual 3% would probably disappear if more complete data were available. Critics counter that this ignored the fact that the analysts had already thrown such cases into the category of "insufficient information", whereas both "knowns" and "unknowns" were deemed to have sufficient information to make a determination. Also, the "unknowns" tended to represent the higher quality cases, q.e. reports that already had better information and witnesses. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Blue_Book]
That said, this misinformation only highlights that the Air Force was trying to minimize UFOs, not increase their presence in the public consciousness.
I’m still suspicious of claims about actual aliens until things get declassified.
Why is that UFOs are coming up as pop culture topic just now in last few decades - and no concerted & corroborative evidence exists from medieval or prehistoric times (apart from some cave paintings where imaginations have been at play of superior beings).
Human race always had a creative tone to recording our history - we borrow philosophy, allude to existence of supernatural, and of God almighty. When it is about non-planetary life, definitive evidence _must_ exist all over the planet that we were visited - not just one country. Or am I being too cynical?
The US and the USSR had to collaborate on filtering out UAPs from radar early warning systems so we didn't nuke each other.
Two of the people testifying in front of Congress are ex military pilots noting that they saw, and logged on radar, objects.
The third has stated specifically that we do have satellite data and imagery displaying UAPs.
> Why is that UFOs are coming up as pop culture topic just now in last few decade
UFO reports from the middle ages exist, both in paintings and in writings. Ship captains have reports in their logs from the 16 and 1700s. Reports from within the U.S. in the 1800s exist.
I haven't provided references here in the interest of my time, but all of what I stated here is readily verifiable with a few internet searches.
All arguments of the form "where is the evidence" are moot at this point, as there is a mountain of evidence. The issue today is provenance. With claims so large, even HD video of an object and creatures in real time wouldn't be enough. The only thing that would convince people is the word of the US (or some other major country) government itself providing evidence, which it has done in small doses, and is the only reason this hearing is happening.
Sorry, I haven’t seen a single decent photo or video—everything is always blurry, distant, or ambiguous. And this is after a decade where virtually everyone is constantly carrying a camera on their person.
And as we know they're the only countries with radar and observation abilities.
> Two of the people testifying in front of Congress are ex military pilots noting that they saw, and logged on radar, objects.
> The third has stated specifically that we do have satellite data and imagery displaying UAPs.
This is nothing new. There's plenty of "stuff" that can get tagged as a UAP/UFO/Whatever. None of it has turned out to be aliens.
> UFO reports from the middle ages exist, both in paintings and in writings. Ship captains have reports in their logs from the 16 and 1700s. Reports from within the U.S. in the 1800s exist.
We've also got reports of dragons, krakens, bigfoot, the lochness, ghosts, psychic powers, and magic. Hell there's a couple of rather popular books talking about all sorts of phenomena like talking burning bushes, parting the sea, and walking on water.
> All arguments of the form "where is the evidence" are moot at this point, as there is a mountain of evidence.
No, it just isn't. HARD EVIDENCE does not exist. Even a mild dive into the claims shows how absurd all of these are, and often very real explanations are given, verified, and ignored by the community that wants to believe. It's got all the rigor of pizzagate and is in fact less likely to be possible.
We haven't seen a single clear evidence yet. The objects captured from fighter jet IR cameras discussed in the past have also had explanation of lens flares and focal aberrations. True color image corresponding of the same event do not exist. No two accounts of unidentified activities are also same with inconsistencies one observes when people extend stories based on tenuous observation/experience
Worth noting that Russia does actually have similar myths, likely for the same reasons.
My takeaway there is more that it's believable pilots have sighted unidentifiable aircraft exhibiting technologically implausible behavior because those craft are classified projects, rather than because they're extraterrestrial craft, but I don't think it's so plainly unbelievable that the government can't keep secret projects under wraps. The stealth modified helicopters used in the Bin Laden raid come to mind, and really, those are pretty boring as far as "top secret technology" goes, and were apparently in pretty regular use already.
I've met Travis Walton. He is one of the most genuine people I have ever met. We're just not listening (some people are but most are not capable of hearing it).
I am _not_ a non-believer. It is just the lack of scientific historicity and diversity of evidence that bothers me. I cannot reconcile that mountain of contradiction with the current testimony. It is one Congressional account of definitive existence, versus the absence of conclusive proof or material evidence anywhere else.
that’s bullshit, but i’ll believe it.
Intelligence personnel swear to keep their mouths shut. He has no real evidence and no real compelling reason that I'm seeing for coming forward.
What did he expect?
Why this cynical attitude? Perhaps he did expect it and he is now clearly and publicly stating it in a congressional record so something might be done about other whistleblowers.
When I go out for a hike in the woods or a hike in a new state/country that isn’t my home. I don’t go out destroying the land around me. I observe and enjoy my time
Maybe these aliens are scientists. Documenting biological life across the galaxy. Maybe they’re VanCampers. Just bouncing from planet to planet for fun
If a civilization has presumably reached FTL travel. I imagine many of their needs have been met and conquest/destruction isn’t required to maintain their supremacy. Lots of empty planets with plenty of resources out there!
Not saying aliens/UFOs are real, but I think it’s very easy to imagine them existing and not being destructive. Or maybe they’re just scouting before the invasion :)
I guess a counter thought would be that they haven't actually tried to interact with anyone at all, maybe only observe, but the armed forces/governments are the only element of our species with the ability to detect and retrieve them when they make mistakes.
Rep Nancy Mace, a North Carolina Republican, tried to get Grusch to elaborate on what he knew about non-terrestrial bodies.
She asks him if "biologics" were recovered from any crashed crafts.
Referencing his previous media interviews, Grusch responds that "biologics came with some of these recoveries".
Were they human or non-human? Mace asks.
"Non-human, and that was the assessment of people with direct knowledge on the programme I talked to," Grusch responds.ike this."
> “I was informed, in the course of my official duties, of a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program, to which I was denied access,”
He has no first hand evidence. Basically somebody pranked him by telling him they had access to super secret programs that he would not be allowed to ever see and now he thinks the govt is running experiments on aliens.
Take that for what it's worth
So basically "take that for what it's worth" in both cases is 0.
Sounds like utter nonsense.
The RQ-180 has been flying for years, all over the world, and has only been photographed twice, poorly, from far away.[0]
Not to say an unidentified flying object must be an alien, but it seems very obviously the case that there are aircraft flying around the globe today you and I haven't seen in photos and videos.
[0]https://theaviationist.com/2021/09/05/mystery-aircraft-phili...
What if it's neither of those things? What if something else, not normal as we know normal things of nature to be, but also not classically extraterrestrial or for that matter an outright case of hoaxes and mistaken identity is happening?
That last question leads into the second very common rigid point that should be scrutinized: the assumption that aliens have to be extrasolar visitors to be present on Earth. Since we known nothing about alien life, or any super-intelligent life anywhere at all, we can only guess at anything about its nature.
Because of this I think it's a bad idea to not consider the possibility of something entirely different from classical interpretations of extraterrestrials interacting with us already, and possibly in ways so strange (because of its own truly alien strangeness in a general sense) that they seem absurd and instead get written off as myths or hoaxes across decades and centuries of human history and reported events.
That was a complete waste of everyones time.
But - tinfoil hat time - have they not demonstrated their ability to do this wrt the knowledge around nuclear weapons?
Edit: and considering the claimed abilities of UAP, might those technologies be on par (in terms of military might) with the technology behind nuclear weapons?
Also, that bit about a spaceship needing a biological pilot was kind of dumb. I don’t know how you can see the advances in AI these days and not be able to extrapolate an advanced space faring species not needing a biological pilot on their spaceship.
No our government has not demonstrated their ability to keep secrets over the span of a few years, let alone decades.
I think I've only ever seen one quantitative book that deals with the minutiae of a nuclear bomb (in a book about explosives, will link it)
What next, hearings on Big Foot :)
Let's assume he's not a nut job... So why is he bringing to light secrets which could negatively affect U.S. security? Especially as a career Air Force officer and intelligence services member. Whether you agree that this info should be public or not, there's something odd about this person's 180 degree flip. From swearing an oath to protect the country and its secrets, to insisting those secrets become public. Really?
Let's also assume his story is real: The tech could be nuclear weapon level science, so secrecy would nominally be a good thing. But he doesn't seem to know what it is, and has decided that it doesn't matter anyways. What would possess him to face public ridicule, criticism, career damage and all that to be a whistleblower for something that could potentially be dangerous if public knowledge?
It just doesn't add up.
Also, it seems to me the last president wouldn't have been able to keep it a secret had he known about it. Which leads to all sorts of "Independence Day" style conspiracy theories. Occam's Razor says it just isn't true.
Maybe some ultra-big intelligence calling us to get killed for a higher (deeper) purpose (pocket).
So he's got hearsay but no hands-on or eyes-on direct proof. Like Mulder, I want to believe. But if you're going to speak under oath, you've got to do better than this.
My brothers and some of my friends had them twice when we were kids in New York.
You all are calling us a distraction, but it is absolutely nowhere in the news. If it was this distraction, it would be headline on CNN. But it’s not.
I literally know no one that knew this hearing was going on today.
OTOH the BBC in the UK ran it as their headline and dedicated an entire live feed and various articles to it.
The amount of ignorance on display is overwhelming, and a lot of people who fancy themselves intelligent are going to struggle to come to terms with how they were so wrong for so long.
Signed, The past
He never explicitly said anything about extra terrestrial beings, and this honestly just feels like a stupid spy joke.
Or if those objects are also people who have an AGI < $5 megabucks, they're down to audit records with a probe where the sun doesn't shine.
It's also problematic, a distraction, and a waste of resources to address mythological and conspiratorial topics, like having a flat earth research committee.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/03/sunday-review/tax-rich-ir... https://archive.is/lNEng
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/17/super-wealthy-irs-tax-audits...
It used to be saucers, then silvery orbs, tic tac pills, triangles with bright lights , and now during the hearing we learn about dark cubes in translucent spheres!
I mean... how many different alien races exactly are playing tourists over here?
[0]https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/28640/could-some-of-th...
(not making a claim on the veracity of the reports)
BBC with the appropriate level of snark for the continual lack of details and evidence.
I wish we had events unfolding to hurl us into a new age of space progress, but the "non human biological" stuff was definitely actual dog shit or someone's lunch.
How people believe this shit will always be amazing to me.
When do we get a horse senator?
Overall, if such events are true I wonder what effect this will have on politics driven by religion-based agendas (many who drive such agenda are not even pious or adherents in any form of the word). Maybe this is finally bring an end to religion-driven politics.
Assuming the only creation God engaged in was planet earth, how he is described (as never changing) means that his revelation of himself in Christ (who was both human and God, in order that his death would be like our deaths, ((wages of sin is death)), but whose divinity would allow him to rise from the dead ((thereby proving the penalty of sin - death - had been paid for _eternally_ {{being God}})) means that any other creation in the universe would need to be in a similar situation as humanity on earth...otherwise Christ as God/Human is totally senseless and useless on these other planets...which can not be since God does not change. Thus, no aliens, anywhere.
Now before ppl go off screeching about religion, this is in no way an attempt to convert. It is just a perspective made possible by someone who reads the Bible and likes to try to place any modern idea against it, and maybe the same might help someone else grapple with the immensity of It All. It also doesn't mean that there is no need for humanity to keep searching and exploring the stars.
It's possible to understand these passages as referring to God's nature and character, rather than His actions. In other words, God is consistent in His attributes — His love, justice, mercy, and so on — but this doesn't necessarily mean that His actions or creations are limited to a single pattern. After all, even within the Bible, we see God interacting with different people in different ways at different times.
So, to apply this to the topic at hand: God's immutability might not prevent Him from creating life elsewhere in the universe. The incarnation of Christ was a unique event in human history, but this doesn't necessarily mean that God couldn't or wouldn't interact with other life forms in a way that is appropriate to their nature and circumstances. God's consistency in character doesn't restrict Him to only one method of interaction or revelation.
It's worth noting that other interpretations exist which might allow for the possibility of extraterrestrial life without contradicting the idea of an unchanging God.
This doesn't even make sense. God being unchanging doesn't imply that the relationship of all created beings to God must be the same. Genesis makes it clear that humanity was created in a state of perfection and then fell from grace - and yet God didn't change, despite humanity's relationship to God changing. Therefore it is possible within Biblical canon for created beings to exist which do not need salvation through grace - humans are an exception, not the rule.
I mean, within the Bible, there are humans who just don't die and go straight to Heaven because God likes them and decides to waive the immutable stain of original sin like a parking ticket, because apparently even God's rules can have exceptions.
Also, your assumption that the only creation God engaged with was planet Earth is fallacious. Genesis clearly states that God created the Heavens and the Earth. He created the entire universe. The Bible doesn't mention the dinosaurs either (no, Leviathan doesn't count, file that under the common Indo-European motif of chaoskampf) but we know they existed.
I'm not even religious but I can see your point of view is a bit too limited even within Christendom. CS Lewis was writing about aliens within the framework of Christianity a century ago. Many religious people can square that circle quite easily, simply by assuming God is not strictly limited to what is contained within Biblical canon.
Reason: it's never aliens
Funny that "UFOs" used to look like cigars ... you know, back when dirigibles were a thing of the popular imagination.
Public US hearing on UFOs [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36880454 - July 2023 (199 comments)
A person says "I swear under oath that there is so and so place. Visit for yourself and see". This person is not allowed to take pics at those places. But the official visitors definitely can go see for themselves. The motivation can be "get first hand knowledge of whether budget is being wasted and whether people are being killed", for starters.
UFO == Unknown Flying Object
at least since the cold war the US had a lot of interest to capture any unknown flying objects and also not disclose much information about capabilities, scope etc. of such a program
Can this objects be strange? sure I mean it who knows what the Soviet Union invents. Just looking at some of the research Nazi Germany did (and which ended up in the hands of the US) they would be stupid not to do so just to be sure not to miss something.
But does that mean such a program had anything to do with aliens? Not really. But if you already have the program you already keep track of any unexplained aerial phenomena, so people speculating about aliens is basically guaranteed.
Why would you still disclose such things today?
Maybe you where responsible for some missing/crashed Soviet Aircraft or maybe some civilian casualties. Maybe by researching what causes what phenomena you develop some unusual plan which was never used (or build) but has successors which could be relevant if a WW3/Cold War2 starts. Who knows.
What I know is that all the examples about how supposedly we now have stuff based on alien tech seem nonsensical to me, as there is a long paper trail of how people invested that stuff it's parts it's non widely available predecessors etc.
Similar a program not related to aliens seems likely.
And people, including employees etc., coming up with all kind of "interesting" ideas what such a secret program actually does is also well in the area of what I would expect given my understanding of humans.
The US landmass (9.834.000 km²) is exactly 1.93% of the earth landmass (510.100.000 km²), and we can assume everybody can see the differences.
I call it bullshit
okay, so? they didn't say non-terrestrial.
we've put dogs, monkeys, all sorts of other critters in to experimental aircraft.
also, the Russians (Soviets) / Chinese / Europe all have good air and space monitoring capabilities and satellites -- and there is an awful lot more land in Russia. Why aren't they confirming these things?
I'll say it again: this is a way for FedGov to burn media cycles as both Hunter Biden and Trump are facing indictments that have real teeth. Same story since the 90s and the Oklahoma City Bombing, a great way to keep the q-anon / rube demographic riled up.
If aliens are visiting us, why is the US the only nation to have any documentation? Are you telling me the collapse of communism, which caused everything from nuclear plans to biological weapon designs to leak, somehow left aliens untouched?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Myq_Hc_39aI&t=1898s
Now, I find it difficult to believe there isn't a plethora of intelligent life out there in the universe. There are just far too many star systems. I also find it difficult to believe that any have to come to visit. There is no evidence to support it, and think about it: the time, energy, and technology required to travel the vast expanse of space to reach Earth are unimaginably huge. And if they had that kind of technology, it would seem unlikely that they would routinely crash once they got here. Furthermore, we've only been producing radio waves for a short period of time, nowhere near long enough to signal a remote civilization that we're even here (I'm not sure our radio waves would even be detectable at those distances). And why would they even want to? At that level of sophistication, we would be nothing more than ants to them. Bacteria in a petri dish.
Yet, even we, as humans, spend a lot of effort researching ants. And bacteria, in petri dishes. And if the collective DMT community's experiences are to be believed, and we have contacted and communicated with advanced alien intelligences, they usually seem to be quite interested and curious about us too. This is a huge leap, but maybe the universe isn't what it seems. It could be data, data that could be manipulated from outside the confines of the simulation. Or, maybe there are higher dimensions of reality, that we are currently (mostly) incapable of detecting from our vantage point. Maybe the aliens exist in higher dimensions, and use these UFOs as lower dimension probes, that don't have to travel vast distances of space because they don't originate from other star systems. Maybe they crash because they're SUPPOSED to be found, maybe they want us to reverse engineer them to learn something, to accelerate our technological and scientific advancement.
Or maybe it's all poppycock. Maybe we're the first species that will possibly achieve interstellar transportation, and it will us that are the aliens visiting other primitive worlds. Only time will tell.
I can see why this would be classified. One should not leak to adversaries how miserably some of our sensors and cameras are failing. So that only leaves me with one question. Do governments stipulate in their vendor contracts that if {n} percent of objects can not be identified by some measurable means that they get a heavy discount on the improved sensors?
Grusch's extraordinary claims that the US has forced a global secrecy around the race to recover working and crashed non-human vehicles since 1930, that biological materials (aliens) and vehicles have been recovered multiple times, and that there is currently multiple countries in a "cold war" like race to recover these vehicles on an ongoing basis, seems fanciful.
A beneficial pragmatic outcome will be if there was more government transparency and removal of stigma around reporting UAP for civilian and military pilots.
This is an explicitly bipartisan effort. Most recently:
- Kirsten Gillibrand (Senator D-NY) most recently secured funding for UAP Office, and for years now has been writing legislation on the topic which has been passed: https://www.gillibrand.senate.gov/news/press/release/gillibr...
- Chuck Schumer (Senator D-NY) in the past few days pushed an amendment for UAP disclosure, with language including things like eminent domain over any recovered UAP craft. It is unlikely this would've been pushed without consulting the white house. https://www.democrats.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/uap_amendment... See also: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/13/us/politics/ufo-records-s...
Choice excerpt from Section 10a:
"The Federal Government shall exercise eminent domain over any and all recovered technologies of unknown origin and biological evidence of non-human intelligence that may be controlled by private persons or entities in the interests of the public good"
This is from Chuck Schumer, someone that hasn't been adjacent to this topic until now, out of nowhere.
- Jared Moskowitz (Representative D-FL) was one of the three representatives pushing for this hearing
The bipartisanship at the hearing is to be commended, and the national security angle cannot be overstated. All three witnesses believe these UAP are genuine national security threats because they possess flight capabilities far exceeding anything beyond what we have. These UAP were documented on multiple military sensor platforms, some of which are still classified.
You must realize the USG has been and is engaged in an active disinformation campaign to deny existence of UAP, even to Congress. For example, multiple Subcommittee members mentioned that they wanted to meet in a SCIF with Grusch to receive a classified briefing but could not. A direct quote from the hearing: "Just so that the press knows and the people know, we [members of the Subcommittee] were even denied access to a classified briefing in a SCIF due to the amount of hoops we had to jump through to grant temporary clearance to witness Grusch, who has knowledge of classified information." Additionally, multiple members of Congress were initially denied access to data and personnel related to a UAP incident reported at Eglin AFB and in the end only received a portion of what was sought. Clear attempts to prevent elected officials from merely accessing relevant information is a genuine threat to national security because the military serves the people, not the other way around.
All three witnesses are trained and decorated military service members, each of which have since left the military. Their situational awareness and observational abilities are much better than you or me, particularly since we haven't been explicitly trained on such while they have. Additionally, Grusch is documented to have worked in both the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), two sensitive branches of the military intelligence community. As far as I'm aware, the NRO ships and provides military sensing platforms, and the NGA performs analysis from many different military data streams, including the NRO. Grusch even said in his opening statement that, at the NGA, he had a hand in making the Presidential Daily Briefing.
One commenter here says it's "more reasonable to assume this is psyops by an adversary", which is, by definition, a conspiracy theory, given that the commenter has no evidence of such occurring and would prefer to live in a world where three former US military service members are coerced to commit perjury to Congress about something which doesn't actually exist. Moreover, if an adversarial nation possesses craft with the capabilities described by the three witnesses, drawing any attention, even through an active disinformation campaign, to that strategic advantage is a clear breach of operational security with no clear, tangible benefit.
The preponderance of evidence in support of the existence of UAP should be overwhelming unless you've made the choice to not accept the premise: that intelligent life beyond humanity exists.
Here's a link to the full hearing recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ7Dw-739VY
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
- Iraq WMDs
- dragnet surveillance
- ANA will fight the Taliban
We also know they obscure the truth, eg Victoria Nuland responding to the question about “chemical or biological weapons” in Ukraine by nodding as she spoke about “research labs”.
We also know the CIA has previously hacked the computers of a congressional investigation into their misconduct.
The default assumption is that this is concocted narratives to raise military funding from an increasingly impoverished and war-weary public — sickened by the MIC waste and ineptitude (eg, we can’t repair ships and all of NATO manufactures fewer artillery shells than Russia alone).
This is FUD until there’s evidence — these people have zero credibility.
There's no fucking way this is remotely true, but everywhere I look, not matter the community, there's so much "what if" nonsense that reeks of the same ignorance those people screamed about when that was the argument for COVID conspiracies.
The energy required to travel through space is obscene.
The difficulty of traveling through space is obscene.
Finding ANYTHING in space is obscene.
IF somehow all of this was done, then the idea it's been kept a secret when there's soooo many ways of tracking and viewing these things is stupid (especially when you consider how much energy would need to be expended).
This is also assuming that for some reason they want to remain secret?
The whole thing is just so on it's face bs, but people so desperately want to believe they'll ignore all evidence. I can understand that, but I HATE the hypocrisy on display from those who are routinely critical of others for having such gaps in their logic.
2.6 million years ago: Stone tools
1.7 million years ago: Controlled fire
5,000 - 3,000 BC: Writing
3,000 BC: The wheel
1543: Nicolaus Copernicus publishes his heliocentric model of the solar system
1687: Newton publishes "Principia Mathematica"
1915: Albert Einstein publishes the general theory of relativity.
1969: Apollo 11 mission successfully lands the first humans, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, on the Moon.
If I was the government exchequer and comfortably spending on the refrigeration of alien entrails & annually greasing their flying saucers, I wouldn't _additionally_ spend billions of dollars setting up space observatories like JWST, new radio wave telescopes & deep space probes to find evidence of life. At the least, experts from scientific community will be invited to investigate any material finds & that information will trickle out in tiny amounts. Scientific community deeply believes in replication at its core. It is impossible for everything to remain compartmental.
And acknowledging existence of alien technology only makes the position of a country more formidable, not less. Our global relationship is today less of muscle (like the past) & more posturing. By acknowledging otherworldly technology's existence but denying the details, US would be incredibly in advantageous position militarily. Why wouldn't they if they already possessed these technology?
We as human race may be spiteful to our brethren, but not stupid given the obscene expenditure of wealth and resources we dedicate annually in lieu of feeding & keeping everyone happy
People need to believe in something. Multiple things. Anything. It’s why thousands of religions exist.
Most people have mundane lives and are wage slaves. This gives people hope. People want to believe there is more to life. Americans in particular want to believe their government is all powerful.
It should not be so shocking how easy it is to get people to believe this, or the fake moon landing, or anything else. People desperately want to believe, and the government is happy to enable it because it provides stability.
Whistleblower tells Congress: US Gov't hides 'non-human intelligence' evidence - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36882051 - July 2023 (1 comment)
Former intel officer says 'non-human biologics’ found at alleged UFO crash sites - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36880471 - July 2023 (13 comments)
Public US hearing on UFOs [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36880454 - July 2023 (55 comments)
Live: UFO/UAP Congressional Hearings - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36879441 - July 2023 (95 comments)
House UFO hearing livestream [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36877774 - July 2023 (121 comments)
I'm not sure which URL is best so not sure where to marge the threads, most of which aren't very good anyhow. This is a topic on which people mostly just repeat their priors.
(RIP Trevor Moore.)
I think it’s all the Hunter Biden stuff:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/hunter-b...
Not sure if this is an insane person, a grifter looking for a book deal, or someone trying to trigger an investigation. But I’m going to go out on a limb and say we probably haven’t been studying a crashed alien spaceship for decades.
1. Do programs exist over which Congress has no knowledge and/or oversight. If so, this is likely unconstitutional.
2. Do programs exist because Congressionally appropriated funds have been covertly redirected to those programs without Congressional knowledge. If so, likely unconstitutional.
3. Have whistleblowers been threatened or harmed to prevent disclosure and/or testimony. If so, likely a violation of US criminal statutes, and likely unconstitutional - particularly if those whistleblowers intended to provide Congressional testimony in accordance with Congress's oversight role.
The point is not disclosure, confirming existence or declassification - despite what you may hear. It could be one or more of those things occur, but likely not via these hearings.
Oversight can be as simple as notice to the "Gang of Eight" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_of_Eight_(intelligence), or possibly the Intel/Defense committee ranking members, and need NOT to be to the entire Congress or even full committee membership. The accusations in these hearings seem to allege this minimal notice did not take place. The testimony also claims extra-governmental (possibly private sector) program management with no political accountability.
In sum... this appears to be a (necessary) power struggle over programs & information. At the same time - and depending on what the real truth may be - one can make a convincing argument little of this information should be public & these programs should remain off the books. Depends on your confidence in the body politic and Congress.
The purpose of the hearing is to do that again in public. In theory, the idea is to get the information distributed more widely. In practice, it's usually about grandstanding, so that the politicians get to make speeches on TV.