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As a US Navy fighter pilot, I witnessed unidentified anomalous phenomena

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Re: As a US Navy fighter pilot, I witnessed unidentified anomalous phenomena

#841

Post by stevenhuang »

mlindner wrote: post #817
stevenhuang wrote: post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of that falls flat when you assume the phenomenon itself is intelligent. So it's no surprise in the age of smartphones we don't see increased footage. The evidence is out there. Don't be surprised you don't get it when you don't look into it and evaluate the evidence for yourself. If you're interested, see UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record by Leslie Kean.

I had and lost interest years and years ago. It's the same thing it's always been. A bunch of made-for-TV drama nonsense. The people that believe this stuff are the same types that think 9/11 was an inside job, that we didn't land on the moon, that 5G or wifi cause mental problems, or believe in crystal power. No matter how much you show them they'll continue to believe in their myth. It's a replacement for religion.…

If your only engagement with UFOs is that which is perpetuated by popular media, it should come no surprise to you that your understanding of the matter is surface level. For that reason I am entirely sympathetic to your point of view, which is shared by many, but I am here to say that there is evidence of the contrary, and that you should not be so certain this is all "nonsense".

> A bunch of made-for-TV drama nonsense.

When there is opportunity, there are opportunists. The important distinction is to realize the phenomena can be true, and also for grifters to leverage the phenomenon for personal gain.

At this point, I will say that if one endeavors to truly dive deep into the subject matter and arrive to lumping the UFO phenomenon with other conspiracy theories writ large, then it is a failure in epistemic ability.

As a rational, scientific, agnostic person, I am telling you that the UFO phenomenon is grounded, as incredulous it may be.

Re: As a US Navy fighter pilot, I witnessed unidentified anomalous phenomena

#842

Post by stevenhuang »

astrange wrote: post #753
stevenhuang wrote: post #695

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Podcasts are just a form of easily digestible popular media. If you're actually interested in learning see UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record by Leslie Kean. There are many such books with independent accounts of those who have experienced strange phenomena, that are all consistent with each other. These books are well researched and highly sourced with credible witnesses. I suggest you…

Oh I have. I also read all the legal documents for To The Stars; I thought it was notable that the marketing all sort-of kind-of offers to release alien hyperspace drives but none of the SEC documents do and their startup valuation doesn't include any.

Yeah TTSA is a mystery, and people in UFOlogy don't really know what to think about it. On one hand they've done a lot to further the dialogue, but the weird spin they put into it makes what they do put out harder to take seriously.

Re: As a US Navy fighter pilot, I witnessed unidentified anomalous phenomena

#843

Post by ctvo »

simonh wrote: post #735
Loquebantur wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why then do you believe Mick West over those professionals?

Because I watched his review analysis, I saw the instrument readings in the video that the pilots were talking about. I've listened to the explanation of what the instrument readings show, including explanatory diagrams, which has been confirmed by other experts on those systems. It's perfectly obvious in the bird video that the pilots are mistaken, their recorded statements are obvious misreadings of the instrument…

> Because I ...

lack trust in institutions. I think I'm smarter than experts, and know better with 1/1000th the training, and 0 context they have access to. See my other contributions on covid or the war in Ukraine.

(Not targeting you specifically, but the general sentiment)

Re: As a US Navy fighter pilot, I witnessed unidentified anomalous phenomena

#844

Post by stevenhuang »

mbnull wrote: post #733
harimau777 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you expand on how Jung is related? I think of him as a researcher in psychology which doesn't seem connected? I may be missing what you are getting at.

Plato's Cave, Jungian Archetypes, Valee's Control System all hint at the same insight, that founders of many religions also try to communicate: We live in a symbolic consensus reality, made up of individual dreams, if you will, that is quite malleable if we all agree. The new AARO (All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office) has a Marcus Aurelius quote in Latin on the proposed Logo, used in the presentation slides by the d…

I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that quote used in the AARO logo too. It's a fun acknowledgement to this pervasive theory, which as you've highlighted, is a unifying theme in UFO encounters and much more.

With UFOs getting as much pushback on HN (though this is improving) I would say crossing over into more of the "woo" and esoterics would give many here an instant dismissal on the topic :)

Re: As a US Navy fighter pilot, I witnessed unidentified anomalous phenomena

#845

Post by ezconnect »

somenameforme wrote: post #645
reso wrote: post #596

Mick West's breakdowns of the Pentagon UAP videos was the nail in the coffin of this era of UFO hype for me. https://youtu.be/Le7Fqbsrrm8?t=665 These were supposed to be the smoking gun evidence. UFO believers inside the DoD and as high up as US Senators fought for years to get them declassified. As soon as they were public, they were all quickly identified as sensor glare, bokeh, or mis-understood perspective. More…

Mick West has one major problem. He takes a video, and works to create any sort of elaborate explanation with zero consideration given to probability or externalities. If he can create the same visual effect he then declares his concept as the "truth", and everything else "debunked." Zero effort is made to challenge his own conclusions or assess their probability. As an example in the Gimbel video [1], he concludes t…

It's also one of the rationale to build the Space Force.

Re: As a US Navy fighter pilot, I witnessed unidentified anomalous phenomena

#846

Post by danenania »

wpietri wrote: post #754
ElFitz wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would probably depend on the scale. I'm pretty sure, to the extent they could imagine anything, ants would find it unimaginable and economically absurd for any creature to spend monstrous (to them) amounts of energy just to fuck around with them 10 minutes and then leave. For us, it's just another 5 years old.

Sure, if we imagine that there are gods, then we can imagine that they would be superior to us in interesting ways. Imagination's neat like that.

We don't have to 'imagine' aliens though. We can deduce from the size of the galaxy/universe and the fact that we ourselves exist that they are at least reasonably likely to exist, and some of them are reasonably likely to be more advanced than us.

There is no similar chain of logical deduction based on empirically observed facts that can lead you to the existence of gods or ghosts or demons.

Aliens are not like 'gods', they are like black holes after we realized they probably exist but before we found physical evidence for them.

Re: As a US Navy fighter pilot, I witnessed unidentified anomalous phenomena

#847

Post by tcmart14 »

simonh wrote: post #678
ALittleLight wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly what's in the article. I could quote it, but I'd basically just be copying and pasting the whole thing. Every element of my previous comment is in the original article. Either the pilots, Senators, and intelligence officials are lying (or absurdly incompetent) or it is as they say.

They don’t have to be lying, just mistaken, like the pilots on some if the video we do have. Sometimes people make mistakes, it happens.

This is the crappy part. I am sure some are mistaken, honestly. But then there are some I am sure are just fishing for book deals. Both of these can be true simultaneously. The problem is differentiating who is honestly mistaken and who has other motives.

Re: As a US Navy fighter pilot, I witnessed unidentified anomalous phenomena

#848

Post by godelski »

mikrotikker wrote: post #809
crosen99 wrote: post #721

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our understanding is so incomplete that we have to posit the presence of dark matter and dark energy - comprising the majority of the universe - to explain the parts we think we do understand. With so much we cannot account for, it seems unwise to have firm beliefs like this about what isn’t possible.

Yes exactly its a bit arrogant to think that we know it all or that we can know it all.

There's a big difference between claiming we know it all and that our understanding is incomplete. There's also a big difference between claiming something is incomplete and that something has to be rewritten from the ground up. I believe our knowledge is incomplete, I do not believe there is something out there that requires us to rewrite everything.

The problem here is that to go down this path you need to violate quite a few fundamental aspects of physics that we have. Several of which have stood the test of millennia despite many serious attempts to disprove.

Re: As a US Navy fighter pilot, I witnessed unidentified anomalous phenomena

#849

Post by scotty79 »

likeabbas wrote: post #797
scotty79 wrote: post #786

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UFOs are not radically different idea with recent evidence. It's literally more than half a century old secular religion which "evidence" for never panned out into anything or were thoroughly debunked. Gary Nolan and Avi Loeb will die of old age before they can deliver actual proof of alien technology exactly as every scientist and layman did so far. If they explain those artifacts it won't be aliens. That's just my…

Just let the damn scientists study the evidence and keep your opinions to yourself, damn. You obviously have a huge bias against studying things that are currently unexplained, so you're not helping the conversation. Keep that in the back of your head.

Solid scientists:

Immunologist that thinks he saw UFO:

https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/garry-nolan

Guy who thought Oumuamua is alien spaceship (gathered evidence gives exactly zero reasons to think that):

https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Avi-Lo...

Theoretical physicist with his head deep in things like Alcubierre drive that appears from Einstein's equations when applied to such things as negative mass (which doesn't exist) without acknowledging that quantum mechanics exists. He was also hired by Pentagon to investigate UFOs. Nothing came of it, but he had every incentive to make stuff up to keep his job. Which he was eventually fired from when it closed, but he claims it wasn't closed and he still works there. He also claimed they got some materials of alien origin they couldn't identify. Claim that has zero backing. And he can't even come clean that he lied because that would mean government could sue him for fraud.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Eric-Davis-16

I see how those three are superbly equipped to validate or falsify claims of some Airforce pilots. /s

Basically 3 believers with some accidental degrees including some with vested interest in continuation of UFO research.

Why am I against it? I just hate bs that poisons minds of so many people giving them some false sense of superiority for "having open minds" and forefront knowledge.

I know it's hard to be confronted with information that undermines your belief. It can be painful. But it's worth it. Freedom from bs waits on the other side of this path. And having accurate model of reality and yourself matters.

Re: As a US Navy fighter pilot, I witnessed unidentified anomalous phenomena

#850

Post by godelski »

mikrotikker wrote: post #810
godelski wrote: post #686

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem is that this technology breaks our understanding of causality. So it isn't a "less wrong" type of situation so much as we have to rewrite everything. Specifically it means things that happen in the future can affect things in the past (communication past the light cone). The discoveries of quantum and relativity didn't break classical mechanics so much as extend it. But to rewrite how a sequence of events hap…

The problem is you/we are working with what you know, not with what you don't know. That is why it's hard to conceive of something different. You never know, when this advanced technology is revealed by the US military it could just be some kind of physics hack that fits in neatly somewhere and doesn't require any rewriting, just a footnote.

Maybe read the Asimov link first.
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