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Comment by rocgf | Hacker News Reader

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I'm fairly confident about it because I've seen this pattern before, with moral panics, fairy tales, witch hunts and other group/herd behavior in people throughout history (and modern times as well).

Yes, I think it's sociological in origin and the UFOs don't exist. There are probably a core group of "true believers" that are absolutely convinced that aliens exist.

Here's an example of a somewhat modern mass hysteria, which started in the 1980s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_panic

the satanic panic was spurred by a very real conspiracy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Finders_(movement)

Of course, you get utterly depraved individuals who do absolutely atrocious things, e.g. cannibalism. You might get a dozen of them over the decades. And cults that can be nasty and do terrible things.

But the moral panic is where we see it everywhere, in the thousands, when it isn't. It's like a form of mass paranoia. And it's harmful not just because of the innocent people falsely accused, but that people were not letting their children out to play, out of fear of predators, which likely damages their development somewhat.

It's very disappointing, but all evidence indicates that we (a technological species) are alone, in this area, at this time. It even seems possible that we might be the first technological species in our Local Group.[0]

If someone could prove me wrong, I would be so excited!

Please prove me wrong!

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Group

There are many regions/nations that are either hostile to the current international order or ungoverned. There is no chance of such a global conspiracy working for many decades to cover this up. Besides, just think what hostile countries would do to get access to alien technology or just prevent their enemies from it. That would be very, very noticeable.

We would have tons of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Azorian all over the world.

I'll bite; what's happening?

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