NASA clears the air: No evidence that UFOs are aliens
theconversation.com
theconversation.com
1. Conspiracies where there is evidence of a conspiracy (like sworn testimony from conspirators)
2. Conspiracies where there is no evidence of a conspiracy, i.e. the hypothesis is that it is a successful conspiracy.
Type 2 conspiracy theories are are like invisible pink unicorns: by design they are unfalsifiable, and hence unscientific, and so can be dismissed on those grounds alone.
Contrary to popular opinion, extraordinary claims do not require extraordinary evidence to merit serious consideration, they merely require some evidence that cannot be accounted for by more mundane explanations. Weird video artifacts don't qualify.
worrying. There are so much knowledge unfalsible yet we relied on. This overestimate our ability to reason, or gathering evidence.
Like what?
I have first hand experience with this.
Or the opposite: Our observations reflect actual reality.
Or that induction actually leads us to truth.
Or that our logical processes arrive at things that are actually true, not just that seem true.
That's probably enough for a start...
That's a straw man. I never said anything about being sure. We can never be sure about anything. Type 2 conspiracy theories might be true. So could last-thursday-ism.
The reason these things can be rejected is not because there is evidence against them. Last-thursday-ism might be right. But so could last-wenesday-ism or last-tuesday-ism or last-monday-ism or... Each of these is an instance of a large family of hypotheses, none of which are falsifiable. Only one of them can possibly be right, so even if one of them is right the odds that you've picked the right one are indistinguishable from zero. That is why all unfalsifiable hypotheses can be rejected.
See, I can play that game too.
There are LOTS of conspiracy theories where the 'conspiracy' is not at all hidden, but out in the open and it's an open question of whether it's a coincidence or actually coordinated action. Based on common sense discernment, some of these range from "almost certainly true" to "probably nonsense".
There are also conspiracy theories where there is no longer evidence of conspiracy, but lots of evidence of deliberate data destruction. One can only infer the motive behind the data destruction, but I wouldn't call this type 1 or type 2. It's not inherently unfalsifiable by design, but extremely hard to falsify. If you mark such a conspiracy theory with the label, you risk discouraging people from trying to uncover what actually happened, and converting a "maybe successful conspiracy" to an "actually successful conspiracy" (if indeed it is a conspiracy).
But evidence of deliberate data destruction is evidence. It might be an open question of what it is evidence of -- for example, maybe someone is just clearing out old records. But if someone is trying to destroy -- oh, I dunno, just spitballing here -- surveillance footage of someone moving boxes of classified materials after a subpoena has been issued for those materials, it's hard to explain that as anything other than a cover-up.
Suppose there's a theory that some person got suicided in jail. And a lot of security footage got deleted. It could be that the prison guards were torturing the person in the cell for information that they could use to blackmail important people, and covering that up and there was not (yet) a higher level call for the person to be suicided.
Not saying that's the case in any particular incident, just conjuring a hypothetical example.
Testimonies and indications of concealed information suggest that any existing evidence might be hidden or suppressed. Such revelations should intensify scrutiny on NASA's handling of the matter.
There are accounts, and possibly some tangible evidence, of encounters with non-human entities, with some testimonies claiming that these beings identified themselves as extraterrestrial.
While numerous skyward sightings exist—some dubious or misidentified—there remains a portion that defies explanation.
NASA's commitment to empirical research is commendable. However, in light of the allegations, it would be prudent for them to conduct an internal review to ensure there have been no cover-ups or destruction of evidence in the past.
I can't imagine any reason for them to be dishonest about not finding evidence of aliens which is based in reality as opposed to paranoid nonsense.
Well, if all that is true then I think we should pay a little attention to what cammikebrown is saying and demand that his claims are investigated, because either cammikebrown is full of shit and needs to end with his bones in jail, or he is not and there is some serious corruption that needs to be addressed within the DoD.
[0] https://thedebrief.org/intelligence-officials-say-u-s-has-re...
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/20/podcasts/ezra-klein-podca...
You'll see a lot of arguments that take the form "x, y, and z numbers of DoD people agree with Grusch". When you read things like that, I'd encourage you to keep in mind that there are over 950,000 employees of the DoD on the civilian side alone, and far more than that if we include former DoD people. It would be weird if you didn't have DoD and former DoD people believing that the Vatican has orchestrated a coverup of extradimensional beings whose bodies and equipment are hidden in a crypt in St. Peter's. At some point the law of large numbers takes over; you should be able to get any belief out of the DoD, even if it manages to be weirder than that one.
Not in public sessions. According to journalist Ross Coulthart and Sen. Marco Rubio [0], several first-hand witnesses were called to testify in front of the ICIG. It was on this basis that the ICIG directed Grusch's whistleblower complaints to Congress, where he presented further supporting documentation and deposed in front of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and others.
> The bigger flaw, of course, is the fact that he's telling it at all; if it were true, it would be one of the most important military secrets in the history of human civilization. The DoD seems to care not one whit about what he has to say
His central argument is that the nature of these programs is only known to a handful of people. In order for his DOPSR [1] to prevent him from talking, two conditions must be met:
1- The people performing his DOPSR must know about the existence of these programs; and
2- By law they would have to indicate which specific agencies deny him the right to state specific things, which in turn he would have been able to fight in court.
Regarding first-hand witnesses of these legacy programs, would their testimony sincerely change your opinion on the subject, or would you dismiss anything they claim as well? What is the basis for that difference?
Ultimately we must all ask ourselves what sort of evidence would be sufficient for us to change our mind, then follow that up by wondering what would it take for that evidence to be available to us, and what would it take for that evidence to be hidden from us. Only then we can have reasonable shot at understanding where things are.
So far I haven't seen convincing evidence, but at the same time I can see how such convincing evidence would be very difficult to obtain even if the NHI phenomenon was true.
This bit about the legal loophole Grusch is sneaking through here is similar to an argument Leslie Kean tried to make with Ezra Klein; in fact, that argument is the point the interview starts to fall apart, because none of this is how military classification works. If any of this is real, there is no possible way Grusch could be talking about it.
The DOPSR is simply the department in the DoD that performs pre-publication review. It's not a special instrument Grusch signed. Classification is classification, we can just use the normal words.
And multiple such people have already testified in front of several congressional committees. I have already provided two sources. There are more sources if you look for them.
> But he can't identify any of them.
He is not legally allowed to disclose classified information to the public. He has already provided that information to the ICIG and congressional committees.
> Neither person is credible
What specifically makes then non-credible? Because if the reason you don't find them credible is the fact that they are making statements you find implausible then that suggests that you will not accept any information that clashes with your preexisting beliefs.
> because none of this is how military classification works
Please inform us of how the DOPSR works. Be as specific as you feel may be necessary.
> The DOPSR is simply the department in the DoD that performs pre-publication review. It's not a special instrument Grusch signed.
Did I say he signed anything? I said he submitted a list of subjects he wanted to discuss in public and sent that list to the DOPSR for review, which was granted to him and currently establishes the boundaries of what he is allowed to disclose in public. If your understanding is different, please elaborate.
I think you're describing specifics of David Grusch.
I'm a little surprised at how retributive you want to get if he's exaggerating. (he is)
We have not even a single video that isn't uselessly low-quality, clearly fake, or of something ordinary.
We have not even a single shred of physical evidence.
We just have the same thing we've always had: a bunch of people telling stories which cannot be verified, imply the existence of evidence they cannot produce, and which—purely coincidentally, I'm sure—make them famous. None of these stories has ever led to hard evidence.
Wake me up when you have something to show me. I will take any evidence beyond tall tales.
Multiple first-hand witnesses have testified to several congressional committees, in classified sessions. At the same time, nobody from these legacy programs testified in the single open session we've had so far.
> We have not even a single video that isn't uselessly low-quality, clearly fake, or of something ordinary
The four videos of UAPs released in the past few years by the DoD are ambiguous blurry messes, indeed.
Anything from an anonymous source is automatically suspect, regardless of how clear it might look.
Academia in general appears wary of surveying our atmosphere in search for UAPs, so no such projects have been funded so far, with the very recent exception of Avi Loeb's Galileo project. Loeb's project so far only has a single surveying station around Harvard since the beginning of this year, to my knowledge. Nothing has come out of it so far.
> We have not even a single shred of physical evidence.
Completely agreed. Grusch has provided the ICIG and some congressional committees information regarding the location, people, project names, funding mechanism, etc. of legacy UAP reverse-engineering programs, but that information is classified and has not been made public. I hope it will be investigated, but so far nothing has come out of it.
> We just have the same thing we've always had: a bunch of people telling stories which cannot be verified, imply the existence of evidence they cannot produce, and which—purely coincidentally, I'm sure—make them famous. None of these stories has ever led to hard evidence
I completely understand your skepticism. At the same time, I think there are some indications that there may be something to it.
In particular, the people with the best access to classified information, such as the Gang of Eight, appear to be the most in favor of transparency and investigating the subject. See for example the "UAP Disclosure Act" that is included in the 2024 NDAA.
> Wake me up when you have something to show me. I will take any evidence beyond tall tales
Evidence will not be forthcoming if we don't pressure our elected representatives to release the information they have already gathered, and/or start funding academia to survey our atmosphere for UAPs.
Galileo didn't find the rings of Saturn without first building a telescope.
This is the kind of ad-hoc hypothesis Occam cautioned against - multiplying entities unnecessarily. "UFOs are spycraft, hoaxes, and surprising atmospheric phenomena" is a perfectly serviceable alternative to the hypothesis "UFOs are alien spacecraft." Why are we introducing a new entity (extradimenional travel) which we have no other evidence for, when we don't need to?
All I mean to say is that circular logic based on upholding one's views of reality do not bring any clarity to the situation.
The same situation seems to happen countless times in the history of empirical science and mathematics. There are incontrovertible facts, until some new information controverts them.
An obvious comparison is religious thought. Unlike most religious thought, you do actually learn when the consensus has been utterly wrong. What you don't know is when that will happen.
If it turns out there is "something else", it would not be a dimension as defined by math and physics.
It’s quite amusing to read the sentence “Seems easier to live in a higher dimension than to break the speed of light”. The latter is well established, very precise physics, the former is a very vague, so far fictional concept with little to do with our current understanding of physics (and actually very much goes against it), yet somehow one is “easier” than another.
Of course we can’t rule anything out, including “extra dimensions” in some scifi-esque sense that’s not currently understood, but these two don’t belong in the same sentence.
(Btw, I enjoy sci-fi about traveling between alternate universes.)
But to me, I am fully in 3D. I am literally an extradimensional being to the bacteria. And I am so far above it (no pun intended) I am incomprehensible to anything that lives on that 2D slide.
Even if I assume the bacteria has some really good teachers and can build stuff (they actually do, they make biofilms that are pretty complex "superstructures"), the kind of thing they can do in their limited plane of existence is nothing compared to what a human can.
So while I don't believe anything that was released so far points conclusively to real aliens, I don't find the concept of extradimensional beings too far fetch.
Undetectable beings living in another part of reality we're unaware of are, of course, unfalsifiable.
And I don't really care about what the bacteria "think". The point being there exists an extradimensional relationship between me and the bacteria right here in front of me. So at least to me, it isn't so outlandish that there can be something above this 3D plane and I am simply too primitive to understand it.
Of course, there is no sufficient proof right now so I do not accept it as a real answer. It is simply analogical reasoning. Also, I would not say it is unfalsifiable. Like mentioned earlier, the extra dimensions are simply tucked away and not easy to detect. They still exist and with sufficient technology, they can be probed.
There's tons of literature on this topic to process/consider in science fiction.
In other words, we are not the most technologically advanced species on the planet. Merely bystanders to other, older, perhaps far more advanced civilizations that merely tolerate our presence on their planets surface.
I mean, this tracks.
The best way to stop conspiracies would be publicly releasing the radar and video data they do have of anomalous objects, whatever they might be. Anything else is patronizing and feeds distrust, deservedly or not.
If this was in fact a coverup, the only reason it's worked so long (despite humans being unable to keep secrets) is due to two things:
1) the implausibility of the premise
2) the ridicule of the claimants
3) the compartmentalization of the information, and possibly
4) the threat of unknown agents
The thing is, the truth eventually always comes out. How do you think this is going to look, once it does?
In between there's a lot of material and references that won't be obvious to other people.
So I'm confused.
But I'm pretty sure they'll be just fine, as long as the reptilians continue suppressing the truth.*
* my understanding of why people get drawn into these nothing-burgers is you see new info, you think somethings around the corner where all those skeptics are proven wrong. years pass, and people either acknowledge it was a nothing burger or escalate claims to explain away why there's all these aliens bouncing around, everyone would want to hear that, Congress is demanding anyone who claims such be given a wide bearth and credence and yet....still nothing.
If you can't resist ridiculing people who are trying to maintain a respectful friendly conversation with you online, you are reinforcing their conviction that stigma and ridicule are preventing the subject from being studied earnestly.
Are you in the habit of sneering at people in other subjects as well?
I'm on the fence on this subject, finding both some merits and demerits to the arguments of both detractors and supporters of the NHI hypothesis. Until we have publicly available concrete data to analyze, all we are doing is speculating and slinging mud at each other.
The difference being that the proponents of the NHI hypothesis are all for obtaining and releasing such data, while the critics appear to be very comfortable with the status quo of secrecy.
Some of these individuals are connected to Lue Elizondo. Elizondo and the elders of the UFO Core Story team create “secret” groups and have been trying for 40-years to get their own UFO program. They intimidate anyone who challenges their narrative.
They first described it as the Secret Onion around 1988 in Jacques Vallee’s diaries. These are intelligence affiliated people and former “psychic spies” who are pawns of counterintelligence and victims of their own delusions and greed.
You can read below how Elizondo claimed to be a 33rd degree Freemason. They have groups like the Invisibles, the Cosmic Club and all these other fake elite scientist groups where they network.
There’s a Stanford professor who lies about “working with the CIA” when in reality, none of these people have security clearances. The professor works with an ex-CIA employee from 40-years ago on privately funded cases. They repeat rumors that ex-CIA or ex-DoD people repeat. These rumors, lies and sophisticated hoaxes originate from multiple unrelated sources.
There is definitely an illegal aspect and unknown actors involved in sophisticated hoaxes for decades. All of this related to war and geopolitical tactics but it is impossible to uncover because it is outside the government and obfuscated behind legitimate counterintelligence and the real national security risk of advance UAS.
Lue Elizondo claims to be 33rd degree Freemason- https://medium.com/@osirisuap/my-search-for-the-truth-about-...
Anything else is speculation, one way or another, and that won't lead to a broad consensus.
It just won't do anything. And it's really obvious that it won't do anything.
Could they be covering something up? I can't say it's impossible.
I'm just saying that between the tendency towards overclassification, the UFO stigma, and seemingly legimitate counterintel concerns, it doesn't seem like this refusal is evidence of a cover-up in and of itself.
They have always "admitted to the existence of" things they can't identify in some videos, blurry photographs, radar tracks, etc. UAP doesn't mean aliens, it just means "I can't tell what this is." Most of these UAPs turn out to be shit like commercial airliners far away on the horizon, and they remain "unidentified" because nobody cares enough to actually figure out what they are.
And you take this to be suggestive of aliens? Please!
It becomes far too trivial for someone to ignore a thousand points against and obsess over three points for, because it validates that pattern-seeking behaviour.
It’s why I don’t really hold any disdain for the conspiracy theorists: they’re functioning as nature intended.
The one conspiratorial belief I hold is that all animals are my friend and someone is trying to keep them away from me.
It loved her and came right up to her.
Possibly the Pet Set but I couldn't find the video all I could find was her feeding an alligator in Lake Placid (which I don't remember ever having watched).
Maybe I'm remembering everything wrong, but if not maybe someone else has that video or show in their back pocket and can help out.
and here is the best hippo video on the internet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5SSnQBtaq4
And meanwhile we need to try to not jump to conclusions, even though it is so very tempting for believers and sceptics alike.
But interesting is the field or subject of ufology (though I hate that word). It is so mixed with crazy people, very reasonable people, grifters, those who are maybe grifters, disinformation (maybe or just the crazy people or grifters again?) and maybe some real interesting stuff among it all.
Trusting in evidence and objective reasoning mark us as old people. Today the only 'facts' are social media posts.
A little respect goes a long way towards having constructive conversations with people. A good place to start is accepting that perhaps the people we are talking to are not crackpots, and that that what they want is not all that different from what we want.
I hate to break it to you man, but in this dichotomy you're one of the crackpots.
Thank you for supporting my thesis that in this conversation there are those who treat each other with respect, regardless of which hypothesis they support, and those who don't.
In this case, you might say you were provoked. But the preceding comment is itself reacting to personal arguments you made earlier. It’s just a mess, and it’s not working out for you.
The vast majority of the comments in this post disagree with me and yet we are able to maintain a friendly curious conversation in the spirit of the HN guidelines.
A handful of people were actively derisive or insulting and I respectfully called them out for it.
> But the preceding comment is itself reacting to personal arguments you made earlier
Please elaborate. I have made a conscious effort to remain civil and respectful, even when faced with direct insults.
In this particular instance, this is is what I said, and this is the reply I got:
>>> [Me] A little respect goes a long way towards having constructive conversations with people. A good place to start is accepting that perhaps the people we are talking to are not crackpots, and that that what they want is not all that different from what we want.
>> [Reply] I hate to break it to you man, but in this dichotomy you're one of the crackpots.
> [Me] Thank you for supporting my thesis that in this conversation there are those who treat each other with respect, regardless of which hypothesis they support, and those who don't.
If you have any specific suggestions of how I should have worded my replies I will be happy to read them.
If you feel any of my comments violate HN commenting guidelines [0] feel free to quote them and/or reach out to dang.
Here are some examples; I wasn't able to find any references to "performative politeness":
> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
> Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
> Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize.
> Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.
Have you considered that when you feel neutral about a subject your arguments will naturally align against both extremes of the discourse?
In HN where the majority of the sentiment is ridicule against the NHI hypothesis you will find me offering arguments in favor of releasing data and investigating the claims made by high-ranking officials.
In other websites when somebody defends that a blurry dot in the sky cannot possibly have mundane explanations you will find me defending a more prosaic interpretation.
My viewpoint is the same in both cases, but in one of them you will label me as a "crackpot" and in the other one you may see me as the voice of reason.
I hope this helps you understand the more nuanced takes on the UAP issue.
It will never be explained because it is both fake and necessary. The government can’t stop its employees from believing in pseudoscience and the supernatural thus making them targets of foreign spies.
Overall, some people involved in this do seem to want it to end. Even if you’re an influential actor within the Intelligence Community, you are up against say 20 other agencies/departments that benefit from the UFO enigma.
Check out this article from 2012 about “Spherical Aircraft” from Aerospherical Systems. Whatever the real UAP are, they are definitely not intergalactic. It would be impossible to keep it a secret.
https://www.unmannedsystemstechnology.com/2012/05/aerospheri...
The worst and best conspiracy theory I have heard about this is that there has been a plan to stage an alien invasion. 100% fake invasion with real explosions. You just need to get the population into the right mindset such that they will suspend their disbelief when the bombs drop and the media is showing fake aliens. Add a sprinkle of NASA magic and their new satellites will 'confirm' everything. Once you believe aliens are real, the theory states you will abandon all religion and either worship the new overlords or trust your government.
The theory sounded ridiculous to me until we had all these government sponsored psyops pushing us closer towards it.
Aliens are not real.
1. Wouldn't suddenly appear recently. On the human timeline, I'd say if they were around, we'd be neighbors.
2. If they did suddenly appear, it would be as obvious as the earth is round.
The UFO craze was created by government nepotism and incompetent journalism
https://www.theintrinsicperspective.com/p/the-ufo-craze-was-...
> To sum up the story as far as I understand its convoluted depths: diehard paranormal believers scored 22 million in Defense spending via what looks like nepotism from Harry Reid by submitting a grant to do bland general “aerospace research” and being the “sole bidder” for the contract. They then reportedly used that grant, according to Lacatski himself, the head of the program, to study a myriad of paranormal phenomenon at Skinwalker Ranch including—you may have guessed it by now—dino-beavers. Viola! That’s how there was a “government-funded program to study UFOs.”
The UAP thing is also mostly a lever for narrative control, where whenever the news gets a little too close for comfort, you can release some alien files and knock something out of the news cycle. $22-million gets you a whole bunch of dry powder for less than the cost of a crisis management firm on a political campaign. People will believe anything, and while you can rarely convince them otherwise, you absolutely can become the source for confirmations, and they'll follow whatever confirms their beliefs. Who cares what they actually believe so long as they're dependent on facts you control to believe it. That's just the game.
Area 51 must be getting really full by now. /jk
Maybe you should read up on the radar tests of the A12 prorotype, SR71 and skunkworks in general.
'Murica has an education problem if they think that this [1] was a space ship more than 65 years later.
[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Lockheed...
I'm always amused that whenever HN talks about UFO/UAP there are actually grown adults here vehemently defending the idea that aliens are trolling us having taken the millions of LY trips...
For that matter, I suppose you can't absolutely prove a positive either, for the reasons Descartes described; you can't prove the nonexistence of an omnipresent demon who adjusts your sensory information at just the right time and in just the right ways to make you believe something other than the truth. Still we hazard coming to conclusions and change our minds when the time comes.
In any case, I was being tongue-in-cheek hence the smiley.
My statement is still true. That we have no evidence of the existence of aliens doesn't mean they don't exist. We just don't have proofs.
I don't know why people are getting so worked up by my little comment. :)
I'd be interested to hear more.
> In any case, I was being tongue-in-cheek hence the smiley.
> I don't know why people are getting so worked up by my little comment. :)
I'm certainly not getting worked up. You said something and I responded to it, because I thought the topic was interesting and worth responding to. If you're suggesting the egg is on my face for taking you seriously, well okay, but I think that's being disrespectful to yourself.
That's possible.
Sorry. I must have gotten worked up by what I consider unnecessary downvotes. Don't put my dopamine in jeopardy! :p
1) It was a reflection
2) It was an insect
3) It was a bird
4) It was a balloon
5) It was a meteor
6) It was a secret new kind of aircraft from a department the pilot didn't know about
7) It was a secret new kind of aircraft from a foreign country
8) The image/video was fake, for money
9) The image/video was fake, for lulz
10) The pilot was confused
11) The pilot was lying
(one for each season of The X-Files)
The root of the problem is one of trust. Ask yourself: which person or institution do you trust enough that you would accept an image from them as proof of the NHI hypothesis?
Because I've been called a crackpot multiple times in this HN post and yet I don't trust any source enough to accept any image they could provide as proof of NHIs.
Is there consistency in the models of those objects or each detailed sighting is a different "model" of the vehicle (which may suggest that each may have been designed by a different artist)?
I can't, for several reasons.
First, if NHI UAPs did exist, we have no idea what they would look like. I may be able to tell you with some certainty whether a picture of an airplane is fake because I've seen many airplanes; no such luck with UAPs. We don't know what we don't know.
Second, there is the problem of trust. There are many people who claim having witnesseed UAPs in the sky over the decades, and among those sightings there are some shapes that appear frequently, such as dark equilateral triangles one whitish light on each corner and a fourth light (often red/amber) in the middle; no blinking lights like an airplane. But are these witnesses lying? Did they misidentify some ordinary phenomenon? Did they dream or hallucinate it? All plausible options.
But even when you are presented with an image of an object that matches this rather common description you have no way of knowing whether it is fake unless you really trust the source of that image, so much so that it overcomes your general disbelief of the nature of UAPs.
That hasn't remotely happened to me yet, so I remain neutral on the subject of UAPs.
Now consider viewing the Tic-Tac video footage (released by the Pentagon) along with with interview of the radar operator during that same mission and then the GIMBAL/GOFAST video footage (released by the Pentagon).
Finally, there is a CSPAN video where two former-fighter pilots and a former DoD intelligence director testified in front of Congress about these topics.
Then go down your list and see which of those 11 options fit the best.
4) The speed of movement is inconsistent with balloon
6,7) is possible but would require some fundamental physics breakthrough kept in secret
10) There were multiple jet pilots at the scene including top gun instructor. Their account is confirmed by video and radar from the ship.
You appear to be claiming that there's an infinite amount of explanations and we can't really know, while also claiming that more data points don't create greater certainty of correlation.
That's contrary to the basis of how science works.
For example, is having a simple mechanical explanation for something really evidence against some Devine intervention that is just done so that everything looks "normal"?
It is good to see the Pentagon releasing evidence even when it makes the government look silly.
NASA isn't the Pentagon fyi. The Pentagon is the headquarters of the Department of Defense, the US military. NASA is a civilian agency, they aren't in that.
Regardless of whatever Navy personnel think or say, neither of these videos shows an object moving in an abnormal way. The objects in these videos have mundane trajectories which are easily explained by extant earth technology (balloon or drone n the case of GOFAST, and another airplane in the case of GIMBAL.)
There is NO evidence of aliens, alien technology or even advanced human technology in these videos.
GOFAST has been conclusively shown to be a slow-moving object at about 13,000 feet. It's simple geometry. We don't know what it is, exactly, but it's probably a balloon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLyEO0jNt6M
So GOFAST is probably a 3 or 4, while GIMBAL probably is a 6 or 7 but even more pedestrian.
However, I'd add that the two figter pilots who testified in front of Congress would NOT agree with the balloon assessment. So, if you accept their opninions as SME and thus leaning towards legitimate then that leaves "a slow-moving object" before you add in the details about the acceleration patterns that also occurred.
Otherwise it makes me think it is a hoax.
We test aircraft and technology against other countries, why not test our own country unprepared for how they respond.
The vice article is decent for skeptical people. https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7wjzg/the-skeptics-guide-to...
Grabby Aliens concept by Robin Hanson is an interesting new take on UFOs. Start with “if they are UFOs, what could we reason about them from their behaviour?”.
See https://youtube.com/watch?v=cQq2pKNDgIs
“It might be unlikely but it’s not crazy unlikely”.
Like it.
One of the three witnesses at the Congressional hearing was touting getting a bunch of observations from commercial pilots, and when he finally posted his first video it was... satellites. Starlink, to be precise.
Starlink is probably singlehandedly responsible for more sightings than any other source right now.
If I hadn't heard it described to me before, I might've worried it was a train of ICBMs or something. I've seen more satellites than I can count, I saw two of them that night before I spotted Starlink, but it was unlike anything I'd ever seen. There were so many of them, at first I thought it was a contrail.
A thought I had shortly after was, "if there ever is an alien invasion, it will look exactly like that."
I think the capitalistic "greed" caused all those old reports, it was so popular at that time so people produced the content that was in demand.
i remember some TV show that was presented some old temple and claiming something like "only aliens would have had tools to cut this rocks at such perfect angles" - then when I had Internet access and check that temple I see it was made from sandstone (a very soft materials) and the freaking angles were not precise by a mile... so makes you wonder should there be consequences for this kind of intentional lying for cache ? (I mean in general and I understand that USA is super special).
Rather than greed, I think it was just a meme. People got it in their minds that aliens in flying saucers were scooting around abducting cows, so they were psychologically primed to perpetuate the idea.
Ps more seriously, I wonder where the whole flying saucer concept comes from. Was it the SR71 with its rounded shapes? Or does it predate that?
Kenneth Arnold, an Air Force pilot in 1947 who reported seeing craft shaped like "saucers" or "pie plates" flying past Mount Ranier[0]. He never called them "flying saucers" specifically but after the press picked up the story, the term and the concept became popular. After that, flying saucers became a trope in sci-fi movies.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Arnold_UFO_sighting
Nope, he was a private pilot.
https://web.archive.org/web/20120819213938/http://www.americ...
Speaking as a USAF Veteran, they are very strict about honesty, and there's actually a whole set of meta-laws (the UCMJ, https://www.military.com/join-armed-forces/the-uniform-code-...) which are stricter than civilian laws, that all members of the US military must adhere to. (Let's just say I got one personal taste of this during a "white lie" incident I was a part of.)
The pilots who reported "foo fighters" https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/what-were-... in WW2 were under the same rules.
I would therefore consider any reports by active military to be head and shoulders above others, at least on the assumption of dishonesty. (That still leaves the possibility of misperception, mis-recall, etc.... but if you consider each person an imperfect detector of information, then the more people reporting a thing, the more accurate the picture becomes thanks to sensor fusion/the Kalman filter: https://medium.com/@cotra.marko/wtf-is-sensor-fusion-part-1-... )
Not necessarily. Adding a bunch of extra imperfect sensors is not the same as adding imperfect sensors with imperfect interpretations. The storage medium that interpretation is stored in is also imperfect. An accounting of that interpretation will change non-linearly depending on how many times it's described and how recently from the event it's described.
Adding more and more of these recountings don't necessarily mean you've got better data.
Which should make intuitive sense. If 1 person claims they got raped by someone, and that is the only evidence against them, you might be skeptical. If 50 people claim they got raped by someone, and that is the only evidence against them, a reasonable position IMHO would be that the chances that this person is not a rapist are vanishingly small, even if (on average) 5 to 10% of the reports are non-truthful and motivated by perverse incentives (such as avoiding shame of promiscuity).
At some point we need to figure out how to deal with eyewitness evidence without complete dismissal, because complete dismissal of it is wrong (it's literally gaslighting- telling people that their reported experiences are irrelevant/invalid, which is the same as asserting that they didn't happen IMHO). Plenty of experiences (both positive and negative) happen that only have the retelling as the evidence, and ignoring all retellings omits a possibly large amount of evidential source of truth.
People aren't all that different no matter what group they join and no matter what values they espouse. Believing someone is above reproach just because they say they are is what let the Catholic Church get away with its atrocities for so long.
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/military/story/202...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPrYVmYkL5w#t=49
at some point if you have to bend over completely backwards in order to fit a square peg theory into a round hole (when all you have is the square peg, and the only reason why you don't have a round one is your incredulity), it starts to get ridiculous
I'll tell you what's ludicrous, the idea that we live alone in an unimaginably large universe and that no other intelligence has figured out FTL travel when we already know about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive
this is starting to look a lot like the people who didn't believe in meteorites despite all the claims of people reporting rocks from space landing in their backyards (granted, that's better physical evidence, at least, than we have now)
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/1803-rain-rocks-he...
It literally took 3,000 meteorites landing at once and numerous witnesses before the scientific community acknowledged that meteorites were real, despite the fact that they had no explanation for them at the time (which was the reason for their initial dismissal)
Sometimes, when a bunch of people report something for which the physical evidence is still scant, it's not always mass hysteria