Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena • Hacker News Board

Re: Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

#111

Post by marc_io » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 9:59 PM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #36

238475235243 wrote: post #25

The only thing they left out was swamp gas as a possible explanation (RIP Hynek). Seems like another whitewash, "it can't possibly be happening" report. If you spend some serious effort on this and stay away from the crazies you'll come to the opposite conclusion of this report. A good starting point is Vallee's books.

I don't know about Vallee, but after being briefly in the defense industry, reading much, and having some experience with aerospace everything seems to fit very well into one of three categories 1) known US aircraft activity either simply misinterpreted or kept secret from the public or even most of the military apparatus, sometimes strongly denied either as a way to disseminate vague information to adversaries or mi…

“The thing to notice is cameras have become much more prevalent and much higher resolution, but "UFOs" in pictures haven't.”

Just two examples of high resolution UAP videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBQ1Ftj4hPE&ab_channel=OrdoN...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVmGhxYrkug&t=0s&ab_channel=...

The problem is not resolution per se, but the fact that is quite easy nowadays to manipulate images and videos (I'm not saying these videos are fake, BTW).

Re: Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

#112

Post by sillysaurusx » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 10:00 PM UTC

camjohnson26 wrote: post #104

DoreenMichele wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't care to elaborate on my personal opinions about this topic. I only noted that because I habitually remind people on HN that UFO just stands for Unidentified Flying Object and the reason the US government is interested is for national security reasons. I noted it just to suggest "If you are inferring that I am on your side in thinking only nutters believe in aliens you are wrong." I have no desire to have…

Having some views that are out of the mainstream, I sympathize that trying to have a good faith argument can be frustrating, but remember it’s generally bad actors and trolls who are most likely to downvote and reply to a post they think they can easily shame. There’s plenty of people who would appreciate a different perspective even if it’s mostly downvotes. I recommend the excellent documentary “Behind the Curve” f…

Seconded! I’m one of them too.

(Thanks for posting some encouragement.)

Re: Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

#113

Post by thebeefytaco » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 10:00 PM UTC

dandelany wrote: post #29

Nine pages? All this hoopla for the month leading up to the release and we get NINE measly pages with no supporting documentation? am I missing something? I expected to see something similar in quality/detail to an FAA accident investigation, this is a worthless executive summary.

I didn't expect to see anything like that, but I wanted to.

Re: Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

#114

Post by ineedasername » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 10:00 PM UTC

krferriter wrote: post #65

y04nn wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not call it a report either, this is a request for more funding, the last sentence is: > The UAPTF has indicated that additional funding for research and development could further the future study of the topics laid out in this report. I would be more interested in a BEA style analysis of each incident. But at least it lays down some possible causes: - Airborne Clutter - Natural Atmospheric Phenomena - USG or…

The fact they don't include "just other normal planes" in that list calls into question the quality of this whole document. It really seems like this document was just thrown together with no real intent to get into the weeds on the reports. It does also seem like they are trying so hard to be vague to avoid running afoul of information classification rules. The White House needs to tell them to stop going so overboa…

If they knew it was just another normal plane then it would not be unidentified. They actually identify countless objects every day. This report was not about them.

Re: Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

#115

Post by nescioquid » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 10:02 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #45

giarc wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They had to release it. >The report prepared by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) was required by the Intelligence Authorization Act passed by Congress late last year. The U.S. intelligence community was given 180 days to prepare an unclassified and classified report on what the U.S. government knew about UAPs. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/highly-anticipated-ufo-repor...

The classified report probably has the good stuff. It doesn't surprise me that this is extremely watered down for the public: Far more plausible than "aliens" is "foreign government figured out they can do something cool"[0], and if it's the latter, the US is not going to want to make it clear how much they do and don't understand about it. [0] Even this category can be divided out into plausible and implausible opti…

I can't get around thinking there are simply just a bunch of I-want-to-believers in government, some of whom started/supported AATIP and its successor. They need budget, so invoke National Security. I truly doubt there is any "good stuff".

Re: Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

#116

Post by beaner » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 10:04 PM UTC

krferriter wrote: post #56

dandelany wrote: post #29

Nine pages? All this hoopla for the month leading up to the release and we get NINE measly pages with no supporting documentation? am I missing something? I expected to see something similar in quality/detail to an FAA accident investigation, this is a worthless executive summary.

They referenced 18 cases in which "observers reported unusual UAP movement patterns or flight characteristics". Of course this does not mean the object/phenomenon actually exhibited unusual movement or flight characteristics, rather that the person who observed it thought it might have been. They need to list each of those 18 key cases they referenced, as well as what their current state of knowledge about each is. O…

> They also point out that the reports disproportionately come from the area immediately surrounding US military testing/training facilities.

Is that because the observers are disproportionately likely to be near US military testing/training facilities?

Re: Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

#117

Post by babelfish » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 10:06 PM UTC

lend000 wrote: post #78

From a first skim, it looks intentionally vague and noncommittal, and in classic form, released on a Friday afternoon to minimize coverage. Also of note: there was no input at all drawn from the CIA, which is the agency most frequently associated with the topic for a variety of reasons, aside from the Air Force. "The majority of UAP data is from U.S. Navy reporting [i.e. not in-the-know] , but efforts are underway to…

Perhaps it is because there is no evidence of nonhuman intelligence visiting and engaging with Earth. I'm not sure who's surprised by this report.

Re: Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

#118

Post by nradov » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 10:07 PM UTC

xxpor wrote: post #89

nradov wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most ATC now uses secondary radars. Those generally only pick up aircraft carrying transponders.

Secondary radar == just an RX only antenna?

Transmitter also, but not powerful enough to get a useful return from an aircraft without a transponder at any significant range.

Re: Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

#119

Post by benlumen » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 10:09 PM UTC

If UFOs are real and their existence has so far been dismissible by benefit of the doubt (that the pictures and footage are fake), then the era of deniability may be ending. We’re surely not far from cryptographically verified social media content - companies like TruePic are already doing this, attempting to solve the problem of deepfakes. It makes sense to me that now would be the time for some honesty about this stuff. I wrote a piece to this effect a few weeks ago.

https://benlumen.substack.com/p/nothing-is-real-right-now-so...

Re: Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

#120

Post by f02a » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 10:10 PM UTC

tw04 wrote: post #99

DoreenMichele wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't care to elaborate on my personal opinions about this topic. I only noted that because I habitually remind people on HN that UFO just stands for Unidentified Flying Object and the reason the US government is interested is for national security reasons. I noted it just to suggest "If you are inferring that I am on your side in thinking only nutters believe in aliens you are wrong." I have no desire to have…

I think if you threw out why you feel there is alien activity with a "not looking to debate it" that would be more interesting than saying you think people are going to argue with you. If you've stated reasoning in the past maybe just link to that?

I, for one, 100% believe that at least some of this is advanced, non-human tech.

Trying to convince HN about the "why" is at best problematic. I could give evidence from my own observations and experiences, but they would be easily dismissed due to lack of evidence.

I'll just say that we, as humans, do not fully understand how consciousness works. I'm certain that there are others in this galaxy who do, and I have personal experience to back that up. What percentage of HN is going to believe that I, for whatever reason, have come into contact with an advanced, non-human intelligence?

Spoiler: near zero. That's why I post about this topic on a burner account.