Ask HN: Do you believe aliens are visiting Earth?

So there's nuance here. Let's define "Aliens" as "non human sentiences". Personally, I think ET hypothesis is valid. Maybe you feel UT (ultra-terrestrial) hypothesis makes more sesne. Or "ED" ( extra-dimensional, as opposed to "from another planet/galaxy").

Facts: there's abundance of testimony that would secure conviction in court regarding abductions, encounters (of variosu "kinds"), and "multi-sensor data".

Truth is, it goes back centuries, before we could concievably have "RE'd" (reverse-engineered) anything similar. So there has to be something external to our current human civilization (not so surprising, how can you explain how megalithic 100-ton bricks structures were build by "primitives").

Yes, this is "provocative" (perhaps) for some on HN. That's the point. not adversarial, but simply to "provoke" a thought - rather, a question - "what is" the nature of reality? The existence of a "higher"/superior/more technological sentient intelligence interacting with us and our planet is a natural pairing with that question.

Belief is important. Because, your personal experience constitutes, for others, a belief. And that's much of the "evidence" we have.

Trend seems clear in gestalt: disclsoure is coming. So I ask here to take the pulse of this "intellectual/technical/curious/secular" (corase categroties) community. Do you believe this is real? If so, why? If not, why not?

If we were to get "DISCLOSURE" (ie, the "government authroity" of a "respect country" stating unequivocally that the reality of "alien" contact is true) woudl your ontology/worldview be "shattered" or "robust", or "otehr"?

*why so many "airquotes"? I recognize the plurality of meanings and layers of baggage associated with different terms. THe air-quotes are simply a glib nod to such multiplicity. Take as such, s'il vous plais.

Basically this post is to serve as a historical marker for taking the temperature of a significant collective in the "pre-disclosure" era. So this is your chance to record your official viewpoint, before it all comes down. What you say?

I am very interested.

That's a good viewpoint. You have to stay grounded in your own experience. This Russia cancer thing, what is that? Curious.

I would expect them to return again to see if they could find any signs of intelligent life this century.

Me too. Lots of evidence for stupidity. Easy to confirm. But intelligence? Hmmm... hard to find!

> There's some kind of a "evidence problem" where we rely on a single-source for "evidence" (the government), while discounting "evidence" from testimony/imagery from rando people (even before AI).

Real evidence isn't dependent on the source. It can be evaluated objectively.

> if you don't have experience yourself, no matter what external "proof", you may not believe it. Which is fine, and valid I think.

I disagree, really. This, along with the opposite (believing in things despite the lack of evidence) are both positions rooted in fantasy rather than reality.