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The Pentagon’s U.F.O. Program

nytimes.com

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Re: The Pentagon’s U.F.O. Program

#91

Post by krapp »

Teever wrote: post #76
volgo wrote: post #56

IMO, the fishy part of the article is the cronyism involved in this program: "The shadowy program — parts of it remain classified — began in 2007, and initially it was largely funded at the request of Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat who was the Senate majority leader at the time and who has long had an interest in space phenomena. Most of the money went to an aerospace research company run by a billionaire entreprene…

Robert Bigelow has been interested in aliens and UFOs for most of his life and has essentially dedicated his life to amassing the resources to start an aeronautical company. Hiring him to do this is like hiring Robert Ballard to find the Titanic.

>Hiring him to do this is like hiring Robert Ballard to find the Titanic.

No, because the Titanic could be proven to have existed before Robert Ballard tried to find it.

Re: The Pentagon’s U.F.O. Program

#92

Post by madaxe_again »

valuearb wrote: post #59
gfodor wrote: post #50

It's been pretty clear for some time now for those who study the facts that there is a very good chance there are real objects in the sky that maneuver in ways that conventional aircraft are unable to and cannot be explained adequately as other observed phenomenon. The taboo around this subject due to the common hypothesis they are due to extraterrestrials is a shame because there's been plenty of documented evidence…

It’s pretty clear that people see UFOs all the time. The problem is when they are identified. My daughter sees one nearly every car ride, something in the sky that isn’t shaped like a plane, and certainly doesn’t move like one. Guess what? when we get closer it’s always an airliner, or a helicopter, or a balloon. It’s easy to get mislead by the light, the perspective, the shadows, the distance, etc. The really dumb p…

We’d make a good case study of a civilisation negotiating a critical juncture. I’d dare say we’d be of interest to sociologists and historians, and given where we’re at there might even be something of a careless stampede to gather data before the idiot quadrupeds wipe themselves out. There can’t be that many civilisations going through the hockey stick/environmental catastrophe stage in this galactic neck of the woods at any given time.

As to contact - doubt it’s happened - it’d fuck up the data, and spoil the case study. So long as we keep on ignoring weird stuff because it’s weird the experiment is ok.

As to distances - well, that’s our perception of it - the best we can do is brute force through 3d space - and if they can manoeuvre as they appear to be able to, they may well have some means of travel that is, well, alien to us, such as some variety of extra dimensional travel.

Re: The Pentagon’s U.F.O. Program

#93

Post by madaxe_again »

valuearb wrote: post #63
remir wrote: post #28

There's no doubt there's a kind of aura of ridicule around the subject of UFOs and I'm sure credible people don't want to be associated with it. That being said, I think it's something worthy of exploration. My interest in the subject really began when I listen to people around me who saw and experienced things. It's one thing to read books or watch documentaries about UFOs, but it's another when normal "everyday peo…

What’s worth exploring is space. Better telescopes, more monitoring, etc will actually tell us something about tye possibilities or existence of alien life. Chasing down misidentified flying objects and hoaxes will not. The idea that numerous spaceships, each with more potential kinetic energy than mankind has created in its entire history, are just flying around our atmosphere without leaving massive and easily reco…

It’s ludicrous if you assume they’re using diesel engines and air screws or something.

If they can snap accelerate with essentially infinite jerk, as observations seem to suggest, then they’re not playing by the same rule book as us, and have fancy inertialess tech that’s beyond our ken.

I’m not some true believer in little green men, just a scientist who won’t rule out what seems impossible just because it seems so.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and all that.

Re: The Pentagon’s U.F.O. Program

#94

Post by gwern »

volgo wrote: post #56

IMO, the fishy part of the article is the cronyism involved in this program: "The shadowy program — parts of it remain classified — began in 2007, and initially it was largely funded at the request of Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat who was the Senate majority leader at the time and who has long had an interest in space phenomena. Most of the money went to an aerospace research company run by a billionaire entreprene…

Also note the timing. The program began in 2007. What else happened in 2007? The Democrats got control of the Senate, turning Minority leader Harry Reid into Majority leader.

Re: The Pentagon’s U.F.O. Program

#95

Post by passwordreset »

valuearb wrote: post #59
gfodor wrote: post #50

It's been pretty clear for some time now for those who study the facts that there is a very good chance there are real objects in the sky that maneuver in ways that conventional aircraft are unable to and cannot be explained adequately as other observed phenomenon. The taboo around this subject due to the common hypothesis they are due to extraterrestrials is a shame because there's been plenty of documented evidence…

It’s pretty clear that people see UFOs all the time. The problem is when they are identified. My daughter sees one nearly every car ride, something in the sky that isn’t shaped like a plane, and certainly doesn’t move like one. Guess what? when we get closer it’s always an airliner, or a helicopter, or a balloon. It’s easy to get mislead by the light, the perspective, the shadows, the distance, etc. The really dumb p…

When we (biologists) study other species, we travel long distances to examine them in their habitat. We try to hide so we can see them in their natural state, without our interference. If one suggested that this were 'dumb' or 'grandiose', then they would be ridiculed, as they would have exposed their own ignorance through that comment. The thought that a species might travel far to investigate another species in situ while attempting to avoid contamination is reasonable to a non-zero number of biologists.

Re: The Pentagon’s U.F.O. Program

#96

Post by tzs »

volgo wrote: post #87
Teever wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Robert Bigelow has been interested in aliens and UFOs for most of his life and has essentially dedicated his life to amassing the resources to start an aeronautical company. Hiring him to do this is like hiring Robert Ballard to find the Titanic.

I've been into finding magical unicorns my entire life too. Can I get start a company and get $600 million from the Pentagon for my research too?

Are there numerous creditable sightings of unidentified animals that are consistent with unicorns? And if there are, are unidentified animals something the military has an interest in?

There are numerous creditable sightings of unidentified things in the air. Are they aliens? Almost surely not. But no matter what mundane phenomenon is responsible for unidentified things in the air, it is of interest to the military.

Re: The Pentagon’s U.F.O. Program

#97

Post by twblalock »

volgo wrote: post #56

IMO, the fishy part of the article is the cronyism involved in this program: "The shadowy program — parts of it remain classified — began in 2007, and initially it was largely funded at the request of Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat who was the Senate majority leader at the time and who has long had an interest in space phenomena. Most of the money went to an aerospace research company run by a billionaire entreprene…

It's no surprise that successful business people and politicians know each other. There is no perfect world where every decision to spend government money is a transaction between complete strangers. If this situation constitutes corruption, then almost every venture between government and private business would also need to be considered corrupt.

Re: The Pentagon’s U.F.O. Program

#98

Post by passwordreset »

michaelcampbell wrote: post #47
neurotech1 wrote: post #26

Cmdr. Dave Fravor was one of the most squared away F/A-18 pilots in the Navy. He is not some conspiracy "nut" and if he says he saw something, I'd believe him. He is held in high regard by those who served with him. Cmdr. Fravor was featured in the PBS Carrier series [0][1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrier_(documentary) [1] http://www.pbs.org/show/carrier/

> Cmdr. Dave Fravor was one of the most squared away F/A-18 pilots in the Navy. He is not some conspiracy "nut"... I see no correlation, implication, or relevance between these 2 statements.

It doesn't say this in TFA, but Fravor was one of the airmen who reported the incident to the NYT, hence the relevance. As he was allegedly denigrated by some as a nut, the 2nd sentence fragment is relevant as well. Neither correlation nor implication are needed to understand neurotech1's message; however, it does reference facts outside the article that one could gather from a quick google search, if desired. http://www.google.com/search?q=fravor+ufo

Re: The Pentagon’s U.F.O. Program

#99

Post by mistersquid »

mratzloff wrote: post #49
dwaltrip wrote: post #40

Where is the HD footage that actually shows features of the mysterious "unidentified objects"? Why is all the evidence grainy and obscured? The prospect that life from another star system traveled hundreds of trillions of kilometers, only to hide for the past few decades, peeking out briefly for low-quality photoshoots, is beyond absurd.

I don't know if alien spacecraft have visited Earth or not, but nothing says they would have to be piloted by aliens. If they exist, they could just as easily be robotic drones.

> If they exist, they could just as easily be robotic drones.

While perhaps literally included in the group of "robotic drones", one interesting possibility would be craft piloted by highly-developed machine intelligence, what we might call sentient AI.

Re: The Pentagon’s U.F.O. Program

#100

Post by ACow_Adonis »

valuearb wrote: post #59
gfodor wrote: post #50

It's been pretty clear for some time now for those who study the facts that there is a very good chance there are real objects in the sky that maneuver in ways that conventional aircraft are unable to and cannot be explained adequately as other observed phenomenon. The taboo around this subject due to the common hypothesis they are due to extraterrestrials is a shame because there's been plenty of documented evidence…

It’s pretty clear that people see UFOs all the time. The problem is when they are identified. My daughter sees one nearly every car ride, something in the sky that isn’t shaped like a plane, and certainly doesn’t move like one. Guess what? when we get closer it’s always an airliner, or a helicopter, or a balloon. It’s easy to get mislead by the light, the perspective, the shadows, the distance, etc. The really dumb p…

Historically, Europe was decimated by something much smaller than an ant.

Additionally, in an unknown strategic situation, it is generally inadvisable to turn your situation with asymmetric information into one which informs the other players of your true state of play.

Now you might say, its would be pretty obvious that we're a comparatively primitive society. Maybe, maybe not. That makes a lot of simple assumptions about the nature of technology, instellar travel, and the possibilities of subterfuge and misdirection in a game with unknown players, unknown context, unknown goals, of unknown capability.

So from a purely theoretical perspective, I respectfully disagree.

The rational strategy is some function that trades off information-gathering directly against information-hiding on your own state of play.

Our species is arguably being the crazy ones sending out signals blindly into the ether without a care...

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