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An investigation of the Pentagon's UFO program

popularmechanics.com

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Re: An investigation of the Pentagon's UFO program

#101
post #51
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been reports of UFOs since the second world war. I don't think the Chinese were flying highly advanced drones back then. Same thing with the US.

You didn't hear about Mao's peasant anti-gravity division? Jokes aside, I'm certain the OP didn't read the article and isn't well read on the subject. The OP's idea makes for an interesting story if you don't try picking it apart, but the real story is much harder to grasp. Most rational people cannot delve too deep into this subject without training wheels -- it can take years to get comfortable with some of the con…

> isn't well read on the subject.

Me neither, though the History Channel sure tries these days, lol.

Anyway, can somebody explain what the fascination is with UFOs to somebody who never really got it?

I just assume the Universe is so big (and expanding) that nobody besides bacteria could make it alive to Earth. The End.

Re: An investigation of the Pentagon's UFO program

#102
post #93
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, one possible explanation for a lot of this is that the US military has been scammed by a bunch of quacks and they lack personnel with sufficient scientific competence to evaluate what they are being sold. I don't see how it could explain the 2004 Nimitz incident though.

The they're-a-bunch-of-quacks story doesn't have to explain the Nimitz incident. They were given footage and reports of the incident, but the existence or nonexistence of the event is independent of them.

Sorry I don't understand what you're saying here. Could you please elaborate ? (It might help to clarify who the different instances of they and them are referring to.)

Re: An investigation of the Pentagon's UFO program

#103
post #27
post #6

Here's my theory about the recent influx of UFO footages coming from high places. US military was working on advanced drones. Nothing fancy, think current best tech, add 15 years and billion in r&d, that kind of stuff. Then when it was ready for test they flew it secretly before their own pilots and waited for reports. And waited. And waited some more. Silence. They disabled stealth, added flashlights, nothing. Milit…

Wouldn't it be a lot easier to just pass orders down through the ranks to report all sightings, however odd they may seem? "Hey, we think the Chinese or Russians may have something new. It's imperative that all unidentifiable flying craft are reported." My personal theory is that the US knows exactly what these objects are because they built them. I don't believe the US military would've ever commented if they weren'…

Or it's projecting a strength to entice a Chinese reaction. If the US knows 100% for a fact after burning through a ton of cash our flying technology has reach global maximum. The best strategy would be to act as if you actually have something and let your adversaries burn even more resources trying to achieve the impossible.

Re: An investigation of the Pentagon's UFO program

#104
post #72

I'm disappointed by this article. There is an amazing story here, and the author missed it: a collection of UFO believers and pseudoscientific quacks manage to get $26 million in funding from the US government. They produce mostly nonsense, yet somehow the project runs for years. The author collected all the pieces to tell the story, but wrote yet another "well, I'll let you decide, but it seems there's something to…

[deleted]

Re: An investigation of the Pentagon's UFO program

#105
post #6

Here's my theory about the recent influx of UFO footages coming from high places. US military was working on advanced drones. Nothing fancy, think current best tech, add 15 years and billion in r&d, that kind of stuff. Then when it was ready for test they flew it secretly before their own pilots and waited for reports. And waited. And waited some more. Silence. They disabled stealth, added flashlights, nothing. Milit…

This all just seems a little anachronistic... a little arrogant... Are there really people in this day and age that believe there's nothing that exists that can't be explained with a textbook? Is the world do devoid of magic, or is wonder in such bountiful supply that something amazing and wonderful must be snuffed out, crushed under the weight of such dullness, such grasping conspiracy theories? A government psyop,…

Name one thing that a) we're sure exists, and b) it's so extraordinary that it "can't be explained with a textbook".

The entire progress of humanity came through converting "magic" to "mundane". It's usually called "gaining understanding".

Re: An investigation of the Pentagon's UFO program

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I don't believe the 'it's all cointel' theory myself, it does also seem possible the USAF could have highly advanced prototypes that aren't ready for mass production yet.

>it does also seem possible the USAF could have highly advanced prototypes that aren't ready for mass production yet. And have had them for decades now, if UFO reports are to be believed? UFO sightings aren't new. The capabilities people report don't seem to be getting better over time. If UFO reports are (sometimes) real and they're advanced US prototypes not ready for production, what were they 30 or 40 years ago?…

My bet is that none of them are real. Of the ones I've seen, each one is different, each one had zero measurable impact other than some people and some cameras seeing something, and each one has its own perfectly reasonable explanation, usually involving photo editing, lies of a witness, and natural phenomena like e.g. internal reflection in the camera housing structure that changes as the camera rotates trying to track it.

Re: An investigation of the Pentagon's UFO program

#107
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't it be a lot easier to just pass orders down through the ranks to report all sightings, however odd they may seem? "Hey, we think the Chinese or Russians may have something new. It's imperative that all unidentifiable flying craft are reported." My personal theory is that the US knows exactly what these objects are because they built them. I don't believe the US military would've ever commented if they weren'…

US is so very much into "sending a message" thing. Anything of importance ? "This is a message to ". My God, there are hundred ways to deliver a message without resorting to teh dramah

A tech drama ;)

Re: An investigation of the Pentagon's UFO program

#108
At the risk of sound like a crank, this book convinced me of quite a few things:

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/750010.Witness_to_Ros...

The things I came away with were:

- Approx. 600 former USAAF (the precursor to the USAF) staff have admitted there was a cover-up of some description

- Multiple first-hand dying testimonies or "open after I die" testimonies agree there was a craft and several beings of unknown origin that were the subject of said cover-up

- Nobody with any expertise in Soviet technology believed it was within the capabilities of the Soviets.

- Nitinol possesses many of the qualities of the material said to be found by multiple eyewitnesses. It was actively researched only after this incident, and the public history of it doesn't tally with some documentary evidence.

And it's for those reasons I don't think anybody in the US military was prepared to just step back and accept that these strange objects were no threat or danger.

Nobody has to agree on ET origin to accept that something was found that posed a threat to the country, but most people do not accept a Soviet origin.

The Roswell incident showed to some that the US public were not ready for it. Highly religious people had breakdowns (they cycled in a new pastor on-base for that reason, as it happened), and some like the town Mayor really, really struggled to cope with what was going on.

So imagine you're briefed on all this as a top general in the US military. Wouldn't you put some money into trying to figure out what is going on, and to do so in a way that would not alarm Americans to the point of mass hysteria? Would you not want to throw some money at some covert operations to make sure you were getting a sense of what was going on?

As an aside, whilst the Roswell story has a fair bit of credibility - as many others do, it's just Roswell has more witnesses that have gone on the record - absolutely nothing that Bob Lazar has written stands up to an iota of scrutiny. That's not how security clearances work, period.

Re: An investigation of the Pentagon's UFO program

#109
post #6

Here's my theory about the recent influx of UFO footages coming from high places. US military was working on advanced drones. Nothing fancy, think current best tech, add 15 years and billion in r&d, that kind of stuff. Then when it was ready for test they flew it secretly before their own pilots and waited for reports. And waited. And waited some more. Silence. They disabled stealth, added flashlights, nothing. Milit…

Civilian pilots outnumber military pilots.

I've not heard any report where the pilot was not treated seriously if they believed there was a threat to their aircraft, passengers or the airspace they were travelling in.

Often the phenomenon they describe can be attributed to meteorological conditions. This is a training opportunity for all concerned, and witness testimony can be useful.

The reason why this material is being leaked is not to encourage people to come forward, but to say "hey, this is weird, we don't know what this is".

If we were to accept a non-ET origin, this footage could be helpful in signalling to foreign countries "you've got tech we don't recognise" to tempt them into being more brazen about it, thereby increasing the chances of capture.

Occam's razor says they genuinely don't know, and given the context of multiple interesting incidents over the last 70 years (often focusing on nuclear capabilities/facilities), it's reasonable that there are teams of people trying to work out what's actually going on.

Re: An investigation of the Pentagon's UFO program

#110
post #6

Here's my theory about the recent influx of UFO footages coming from high places. US military was working on advanced drones. Nothing fancy, think current best tech, add 15 years and billion in r&d, that kind of stuff. Then when it was ready for test they flew it secretly before their own pilots and waited for reports. And waited. And waited some more. Silence. They disabled stealth, added flashlights, nothing. Milit…

I could swear I'd read this verbatim before. I had: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21858749
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