Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US urged to reveal UFO evidence after claim that it has intact alien vehicles

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

761–770 of 1001 posts

Re: US urged to reveal UFO evidence after claim that it has intact alien vehicles

#761

Post by mFixman »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #435
tedivm wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowing that life may be common is a lot different than knowing that intelligence is.

Yes, but the universe is so mind mindbogglingly vast. So many galaxies and so many stars! It just doesn't seem right that what happened here didn't happen somewhere else.

The possible shapes of life are much bigger than the universe.

The chances of intelligent life existing outside Earth are lower than the chance of that same intelligent life speaking flawless Swedish. We might as well send some Europop records to space as signals to aliens.

"Intelligence" is a human invention created by humans to describe humanity. It only applies to humans and human-like beings.

Re: US urged to reveal UFO evidence after claim that it has intact alien vehicles

#762

Post by jonathanstrange »

eek2121 wrote: post #387
tialaramex wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also people who don't understand what is or is not possible easily get confused about what is impossible / difficult versus possible / easy. My guess is that a substantial fraction of otherwise competent American adults don't realise VTOL jet aircraft are a thing we can and have built for example, and that if one of them saw a prototype like the Flying Bedstead (Rolls Royce experimental platform, which doesn't look a…

I am usually one to treat EVERYTHING with a very healthy dose of skepticism, but who are any of us to say what is possible or what is not? I'm sure that a century ago, space was just something we would never reach. The US Military released rather intriguing, yet unexplained videos of objects outmaneuvering our top jets. You should go check those out. I've yet to see an explanation that covers all the data those jets…

Of course, it's possible. Almost anything is possible on some abstract level if we allow our imagination to roam freely. I'm all for asking the US government: "Do you hide alien UFOs?"

The question is how you react when the answer is "No." If you keep insisting the government is lying, then you're more and more getting into 'tin foil hat' territory, especially if you're a government employee and have no evidence other than alleged hearsay. It depends on your strength of belief in the contrarian opinion. Saying that it's possible is one thing, saying "they're doing it but I don't have proof" is another.

Re: US urged to reveal UFO evidence after claim that it has intact alien vehicles

#763

Post by ithkuil »

drumhead wrote: post #759

My feeling is that they're prepping us for full disclosure. The evidence and witnesses that were seeing more recently are less fringe and more mainstream. They also don't seem to be trying as hard to debunk claims as they used to. The fact that the Guardian has covered this seriously is quite surprising, they usually treat this issue like a joke.

Could this be ascribed to a generational change in the general population which includes journalists and editors and whatnot?

Re: US urged to reveal UFO evidence after claim that it has intact alien vehicles

#764

Post by themitigating »

nonethewiser wrote: post #413
eek2121 wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am usually one to treat EVERYTHING with a very healthy dose of skepticism, but who are any of us to say what is possible or what is not? I'm sure that a century ago, space was just something we would never reach. The US Military released rather intriguing, yet unexplained videos of objects outmaneuvering our top jets. You should go check those out. I've yet to see an explanation that covers all the data those jets…

It’s incredibly hard for people to say “we dont have an explanation.” Either it’s unexplained therefore aliens or an equally speculative yet mundane dismissal.

What about Occam's razor? Think about the reports as well. It's not like some alien was seen walking around by hundreds then disappeared we are talking about unexplained visuals and mass moving in an unexplained way. Why even go right to aliens? Because people already believe it's true and are looking for anything that can be attributed to it.

Re: US urged to reveal UFO evidence after claim that it has intact alien vehicles

#765

Post by friendzis »

xpe wrote: post #538
gitfan86 wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Angels, ghosts, UFOs, miracles all have the same characteristics. A person who seems very reasonable says they are sure that saw the thing, and they provide SOME circumstantial or grainy photographic evidence, but no one actually got a full resolution picture of the angel or ghost or UFO. I doubt these people are lying. They actually saw something. Miracles are the easiest example to explain. Someone couldn't walk an…

It seems likely to me that “seeing things” is consistent with the predictive processing model from cognitive neuroscience. To summarize: the retina error-corrects a simulation provided from the cortex. Let’s say some visual details are fuzzy. With a strong enough Bayesian prior (e.g. belief in UFOs), the human perceptual apparatus could subjectively see things that look like UFOs. Mind bending, but this seems to me a…

While this is not a well studied phenomenon, as in to the extent of having well formed theory, we do know that eyes constantly perform micromovements.

One of the prevailing hypotheses states that due to low inherent resolution of the retina these micromovements are used to create sort of sub-pixel resolution. Hence, visual cortex inherently works in predictive/generative mode with constant feedback correction. This hypothesis is sometimes used to explain phenomena like pareidolia and might as well be used to explain perception of UFOs.

Re: US urged to reveal UFO evidence after claim that it has intact alien vehicles

#766

Post by dan_mctree »

no_wizard wrote: post #434

Alright HN, we all know that this is likely untrue, from a rational angle, and this thread is full of reasons why, but play this mental exercise with me for a minute: What if its true ? What repercussions would having alien technology have on civilization? Would this fundamentally change beliefs? Influence religion? EDIT: someone pointed out to make this more stimulating we need constrains, assuming the following is…

Imo the most likely scenario if it's true, is that these are automated von Neumann probes that traveled here without faster than light propulsion and that they're here merely to explore, observe or possibly self-replicate. I believe this is the most likely option because it takes just one successful civilization in our galaxy, or even a close one, that employs this strategy.

Crafts made deliberately to meet us would have to originate from much closer civilizations unless the civilization has both FTL travel and much more sensitive and high resolution observation technology than we currently believe possible.

Supposing it is a von Neumann probe. There may be a planet or nearby system where these crafts are being built, but we're unlikely to be near the main star/region of the civilization. We might be stuck with just handful of these crafts for probably many (hundreds?) of thousands of years before any real first contact happens.

Re: US urged to reveal UFO evidence after claim that it has intact alien vehicles

#767

Post by jowdones »

agentgumshoe wrote: post #734
glenstein wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but who are any of us to say what is possible or what is not? This is the tragic sentence which is letting the parade of carnival animals in through the back door. In some sense it's true that intellectual humility is necessary as we allow ourselves to be challenged by ideas we thought not possible. But it's true the way hallmark card quotes are true, as vague generalities. It does no work as a specific response to…

A thought experiment. The universe is extremely large and billions of years old. Let's imagine life has developed within a few of those billions of galaxies out there, then imagine this started 1 billion years before us . How advanced to you think we could get in another billion years (assuming we don't annihilate ourselves)? What's really impossible?

Yeah, it's very plausible that if another civilization exists some 10 light years away, the vehicle they use to travel 90,460,730,472,580 Km in order to get to Earth has the size of a compact car and copies the design of a 1950s experimental aircraft.

Re: US urged to reveal UFO evidence after claim that it has intact alien vehicles

#770

Post by 2devnull »

eek2121 wrote: post #387
tialaramex wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also people who don't understand what is or is not possible easily get confused about what is impossible / difficult versus possible / easy. My guess is that a substantial fraction of otherwise competent American adults don't realise VTOL jet aircraft are a thing we can and have built for example, and that if one of them saw a prototype like the Flying Bedstead (Rolls Royce experimental platform, which doesn't look a…

I am usually one to treat EVERYTHING with a very healthy dose of skepticism, but who are any of us to say what is possible or what is not? I'm sure that a century ago, space was just something we would never reach. The US Military released rather intriguing, yet unexplained videos of objects outmaneuvering our top jets. You should go check those out. I've yet to see an explanation that covers all the data those jets…

I think you’re noticing the big five trait called “openness.”

Some people are very open, some not at all.

I’m happy I’m open to things. God, Love, Art. Some people tell you it’s all make believe, there’s no free will, just machines acting out biological imperatives in a world that’s so well understood by science that we’ve reached the end of history. No way!

Post reply on HN