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

theguardian.com

861–870 of 1001 posts

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

#861

Sounds like Grusch is upstanding, but I suspect he's been trolled by the rest of them. You can just imagine; "hey Eagle, the UFO guy's coming to ask about that UAP report, you know, the one where the IR tracker locked-on to a speck of dust. Let's mention the (nudge, hehe) black-ops alien testing site we saw when we went to file the report"

We, the general public, simply do not have enough information at this point to judge this man's testimony, or the evidence that he provided.

We do have a long, colourful history of "reputable" people (aka "I worked at the gov" or "I have a Harvard degree") making such claims (and not just about aliens but various hidden US gov tech) and combined with that we can do basic reasoning about how the US gov operates, the extreme difficulties/limitations of interstellar travel, how information can turn into a "telephone game", the other 1.25 million people with the same top secret clearance, the claim basically amounting to hearsay with no direct witnesses or participants in the program, etc.

I'm personally not waiting at the edge of my seat.

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

#862

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is more likely? a) An alien civilization has overcome the massive problems of interstellar travel and is visiting us right now. or b) The people making these claims are wrong. While a) isn't impossible, b) seems so much more likely. Also if they have the technology to cross interstellar space, surely they have the technology not to be detected by us?

Occam's razor. Even at non-relativistic speeds self replicating robots could have visited every star system in the galaxy within a few tens of millions of years. We haven't seen any evidence. Everyone has the most advanced cameras in history in their phones and there's exactly zero indisputable pictures of UFOs, ghosts, fairies, chupacabras, Nessie, Bigfoots, Yetis, and so on. If aliens can travel even a light year,…

Agree with everything you’re saying except the cameras in phones. Cameras in phones are advanced but most do not have kind of optical zoom. Try to take a picture of a plane flying overhead with your iPhone or a bird. It’s hard to get a clear photo of something so far away.

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

#863

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would faster than light travel be presupposed in any way?

Where do we think the aliens came from, specifically, without it?

we don’t actually think about aliens.

but if you want a list of hypothetical alternate origins, and don’t have access to the wealth of programming generated by Prometheus and made available on Discovery Networks, thanks to some of the minds of our time, this light summary might help…

* center of the earth is actually hollow, “aliens” are just inner earthlings * one of the other planets or otherwise within the solar system isn’t so dead after all * it’s just us - from the future * it’s just us - from the past * no space travel, no time travel, but parallel earths or dimensions or something * they have always been here, we just are too dumb to see them

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

#864

I saw an interview with this guy just yesterday. He didn't see anything himself. His claim is that some people, and he believes them to be trustworthy, confided in him and showed him some documents. So, at best his testimony is hearsay. All of this stuff reeks of some kind of psyop. My belief is that for some reason, the US government used psychology tests to identify a select few people who naturally "want to believ…

Nice point. But why is it even considered probably fake immediately when people speak about probable extraterrestrial intelligence encounters? Isn't this a cognitive bias? I would have little doubt in possiblity of advanced extraterrestrial life if not the hype - the universe is so vast and ancient, the idea Earth and humans are so unique seems much more incredible.

The argument isnt that we are unique but that we are far, far away.

It is considered fake because the perceived difficulty of space travel combined with the complete lack of direct evidence despite the ongoing search for it.

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

#865

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…

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 othe…

For almost hundreds of reasons, if any government, but specially super-power government would have UFO's tech hidden, and everybody else is almost certain UFOs are a myth, some wacko-level talk for internet forums

They would be strategically obligued to deny everything, so the answer would "No, no such a thing like UFOs here".

i.e. what happened with the NSA programs, most were almost fully known for the "conspiracy wackos" except by the name of the program, even decades before Snowden. But just were confirmed to be real maybe 30 years after the first mentions in the 70s,80s,90s.

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

#866

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice point. But why is it even considered probably fake immediately when people speak about probable extraterrestrial intelligence encounters? Isn't this a cognitive bias? I would have little doubt in possiblity of advanced extraterrestrial life if not the hype - the universe is so vast and ancient, the idea Earth and humans are so unique seems much more incredible.

The argument isnt that we are unique but that we are far, far away. It is considered fake because the perceived difficulty of space travel combined with the complete lack of direct evidence despite the ongoing search for it.

Why are we so confident in our understanding of reality being so perfect nobody in the whole universe could have found a way to transcend the limitations it imposes? I would totally expect an advanced alien race to consider our physical science ridiculous.

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

#867
post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some speculations: To spook enemies of the US and create a mystical aura of superiority around the US military and its capabilities. They're literally creating the impression that the US military has technology beyond the "Clarke threshold." (The Clarke threshold refers to Arthur C. Clarke's maxim that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.") To shake out moles, spies, and unreliable p…

All I can say is that IF there ever is an irrefutable visitation from an alien civilization in the future, it will be shit-show that will never end. I have zero confidence that any government or their populace will be able to handle that realization without going completely bonkers. We simply can't handle it as a civilization. For every sane person who is curious and wants to interact positively with the artifact/bei…

If the aliens are far away and it's a SETI detection I think we'd manage, but if they are here I think things might get pretty wild.

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

#868
post #851

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How dou you suppose your own competence to be sufficient to judge his claims "must be wrong" and on top of it attest this guy some "mental illness"?

If there was some Vegas sports book I'd bet the odds are in the direction he's a bit loony or lacks analytical skills at a minimum, or had any real data. Gov jobs in intelligence isn't exactly an exclusive club for intelligent people after all. Which is usually where the bulk of credibility is built on. > As our chart shows, the federal government grants top secret security clearance to large numbers of government em…

Here's an analogy ... one of the core devs of some important language finds a bug that would have wide ranging security implications world wide but doesn't really want to reveal evidence of it and his colleagues certainly don't either.

Imagine some smart pilot or govt official (with no knowledge of our field) saying "it's not like these guys work in some exclusive club for intelligent people" ?

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

#869
post #487

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…

If you are curious about how Christianity in particular would need to react you could read CS Lewis’ essay “Religion and Rocketry”. We Christians would need to answer these questions: 1. Are there animals anywhere else besides earth? 2. If yes, do any of these animals have what we call ‘rational souls’? That is, are they spiritual beings? 3. If there are such spiritual beings, are any or all of them, like us, fallen?…

This is a pretty wild but fun topic :-)

Saint Augustine discussed a colorful rumour from his time about dog-headed people (cynocephaly). If you look beyond the actual rumour itself, his thinking provides a useful precedent for contemporary Christians to frame discussions about alien intelligence.

(If I remember correctly...) Augustine's thinking went something like this: if dog-headed people exist, then the question becomes whether they are descendants of Adam or not. (See the protoevangelium in Gn 3:15; or the genealogy in Lk 3:38; or the Catechism paragraph 402 and surrounding paragraphs on the Fall.)

If they are, then they are in need of salvation: the Gospel should be proclaimed to them and presumably they should also receive the Sacraments.

If they are not, given that Adam is our actual ancestor, then we might need additional revelation, because no revelation about this was provided to begin with (Jn 10:16 is taken to be a reference to non-Jewish peoples, who are also descendants of Adam and who would also end up worshiping the God of Israel by the sacrifice of the Cross, as predicted in the Old Testament).

I'd say this need for extra revelation would become even more pressing in the case of supposed intelligent life that is extra-terrestrial and, despite its rationality, fundamentally does not share in human nature and the Fall. My intuition (as a Catholic) is therefore that we will never encounter extra-terrestrial intelligence. Or if its existence is proven, then we would only learn about it from distant observations, e.g. through the SETI program, but we would never have meaningful interactions with it/them.

So far, actual evidence lines up with this more skeptical attitude inspired by the Christian faith: consider the Fermi paradox; or the vast size of the universe and our current understanding of challenges related to faster-than-light travel; or the questionable nature of the existing reports, together with very pragmatic but pressing questions like "why on earth would such advanced aliens secretly buzz around on Earth in highly advanced aircraft and still crash"...

The interesting twist (...imho...) is this: "extra terrestrial intelligence", aside from scientific debates about e.g. likelihood and discovery, also serves a cultural purpose. It is one way in which today's non-Christian society tries to think about what "it" might become. This is not unlike how thinking about angels provides Christians with a view of what they may become individually in relation to free will, moral choices and God, things which in angels are completely pure because they are immaterial creatures. The irony is that the reality of extra-terrestrial intelligence is completely unproven and its nature is therefore a matter of pure speculation and fantasy; whereas immaterial spirits actually do exist and we have some knowledge about them, expressed in solid metaphysical concepts.

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

#870

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument isnt that we are unique but that we are far, far away. It is considered fake because the perceived difficulty of space travel combined with the complete lack of direct evidence despite the ongoing search for it.

Why are we so confident in our understanding of reality being so perfect nobody in the whole universe could have found a way to transcend the limitations it imposes? I would totally expect an advanced alien race to consider our physical science ridiculous.

Because of the complete lack of evidence.
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