Obligatory xkcd link: https://m.xkcd.com/1235/
"In the past few years, with very little fanfare, we've conclusively settled the questions of flying saucers, lake monsters, ghosts, and bigfoot."
CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents
21–30 of 224 posts
Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents
#22I'm surprised they're continuing the misdirection so many years later. "Unidentified flying object" means an aircraft, usually a military one (because civilian aircraft are easier to identify). A UFO over US soil would usually be a USAF plane, but the CIA ran (runs?) a reporting hotline because they might occasionally be foreign spy planes instead.
But of course, the Soviets were very interested (or the US believed they were very interested) in knowing about US military planes and their capabilities. There's an anecdote I recall reading - I apologize for not having the link handy - about how, at Area 51 (their airfield for testing experimental aircraft), they would leave big airplane-shaped objects on the tarmac to create cold spots for Soviets' spy satellites to photograph in infrared, corresponding to planes that didn't exist.
The reason I'm unable to find that anecdote is because the search term "Area 51", combined with any other search terms, brings up an enormous a flood of incoherent crackpot ramblings. I'm pretty sure this is the result of a deliberate strategy: create a bunch of fake information, so that real information about US military capabilities will be harder to find. A few hints and a few taunts, and voila, every discussion about unidentified aircraft is guaranteed to have a schizophrenic walk in and start rambling about aliens!
Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents
#23I really enjoyed those. I particularly like some of the descriptions.
In the early 80's I worked in the Image Processing Institute at USC where one of hte UFO shows had us analyze some of the "best" photographs (at that time) of UFO sitings. We pulled all sorts of fun stuff out of the pictures, like the letters "9 oz" on the bottom of a pie plate type UFO, "old skool" photo doctoring where someone had taken the picture of a "ufo" and literally placed it on top of a picture of the sky, and then re-photographed the composite. As I recall there was only one picture we could not definitively rule out as a fake. But my best memory of that project was when the producer asked the camera man to get some footage of the "computer" and when he pointed it at the 11/55t front panel the producer said, "No, the computer!" and pointed at the tape drives. I knew we had top shelf folks on the team at that point :-)
Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents
#24Title is misleading, text starts with "The CIA declassified hundreds of documents in 1978"
Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents
#25If you want to understand the UFO story better, you should watch Mirage Men about Air Force Office of Special Investigations Agent Richard Doty, a self-admitted UFO disinformation agent- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6naKTTuBq14 The intelligence agencies aren't hiding anything about UFOs from my experience. And I don't really think the USAF is either. But the USAF did tell various people that UFOs were real and the…
Here's my tin-foil-hat theory on UFO's. The whole idea of a UFOs and flying saucers was a kooky ass idea from the US government to spook the Soviets into thinking, the US actually had in their possessions aliens, and futuristic alien technology. It is too coincidental the first reports of flying saucers came in the late 40s. When the cold war first started to heat up. I think the Soviets actually bought it up and the…
UFOs predate the cold war; the "flying saucer" image is from that time, but that's a time when advantages of flying saucers were being discussed and experiments being tried.
Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents
#26If you want to understand the UFO story better, you should watch Mirage Men about Air Force Office of Special Investigations Agent Richard Doty, a self-admitted UFO disinformation agent- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6naKTTuBq14 The intelligence agencies aren't hiding anything about UFOs from my experience. And I don't really think the USAF is either. But the USAF did tell various people that UFOs were real and the…
When I was a kid, I asked my grandfather, who was at that time an AF Colonel (he's now passed away), whether UFOs were real and whether he has seen aliens. He just looked at me, took me aside, and told me that UFO stories were propagated by the "boys from Langley" as a way to hide experimental aircraft testing. That way, every report of some black plane that was seen by the public, would be chalked up to UFOs and Rus…
I had always somewhat suspected this, that it was a hoax perpetrated by humans in order to manipulate other humans into believing something. I'm surprised more religions don't pull off these kind of stunts, they'd certainly receive a huge influx in believers. ;) Watching "Mirage Men" was enlightening as I never really thought about how maybe the government recognized they made a mistake, they unleashed something into the "hive mind" of the American populace that they couldn't regain control of. From what Doty implies, it seems like they were just trying to convince a handful of people to look somewhere else, and he just kept telling lies until it had spun so far out of his control that he just had to basically drop out and abandon the whole thing. It felt very similar to when undercover cops get really close to the top of some large drug cartel, only to be thwarted at the last minute by someone figuring out who they really are...
Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents
#27If you want to understand the UFO story better, you should watch Mirage Men about Air Force Office of Special Investigations Agent Richard Doty, a self-admitted UFO disinformation agent- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6naKTTuBq14 The intelligence agencies aren't hiding anything about UFOs from my experience. And I don't really think the USAF is either. But the USAF did tell various people that UFOs were real and the…
When I was a kid, I asked my grandfather, who was at that time an AF Colonel (he's now passed away), whether UFOs were real and whether he has seen aliens. He just looked at me, took me aside, and told me that UFO stories were propagated by the "boys from Langley" as a way to hide experimental aircraft testing. That way, every report of some black plane that was seen by the public, would be chalked up to UFOs and Rus…
>as a way to hide experimental aircraft testing.
even today it looks cool https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJARrc40imk , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmPiZv4q4Ms
Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents
#28I'm surprised they're continuing the misdirection so many years later. "Unidentified flying object" means an aircraft, usually a military one (because civilian aircraft are easier to identify). A UFO over US soil would usually be a USAF plane, but the CIA ran (runs?) a reporting hotline because they might occasionally be foreign spy planes instead. But of course, the Soviets were very interested (or the US believed t…
I remember hearing about this in a documentary, actually...so you might not be able to find the link because it doesn't exist on the Internet. :)
Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents
#29If you want to understand the UFO story better, you should watch Mirage Men about Air Force Office of Special Investigations Agent Richard Doty, a self-admitted UFO disinformation agent- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6naKTTuBq14 The intelligence agencies aren't hiding anything about UFOs from my experience. And I don't really think the USAF is either. But the USAF did tell various people that UFOs were real and the…
When I was a kid, I asked my grandfather, who was at that time an AF Colonel (he's now passed away), whether UFOs were real and whether he has seen aliens. He just looked at me, took me aside, and told me that UFO stories were propagated by the "boys from Langley" as a way to hide experimental aircraft testing. That way, every report of some black plane that was seen by the public, would be chalked up to UFOs and Rus…
Is there any evidence CIA was responsible for the hoaxes?
There is significant evidence that US Air Force was responsible for the hoaxes. And, of course, Area 51 is an Air Force Base.
The relationship between the two seems acrimonious on this issue. Also "the CIA" sounds more sinister than the US Air Force so it makes the story better.
Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents
#30[deleted]