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US Congress doubles down on claims of illegal UFO retrieval programs

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Re: US Congress doubles down on claims of illegal UFO retrieval programs

#191

Post by throwaway4aday »

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #166
lend000 wrote: post #139

All the people here claiming new types of drones and secret programs dating back decades have clearly never worked in defense. Most of the US military, the best funded in the world, is decades behind the private sector on computing technology -- it's honestly unthinkable to me that their propulsion technology would be decades (or centuries) ahead. The best engineers and scientists have taken Silicon Valley jobs payin…

Ehh, what's the SV state of the art in low-observability, or railguns, or high-precision fuzing? I'm thinking "not very much".

Not SV but there's a lot of aerospace companies in Cali and the rest of the SW. The guy[0] who invented the first modern UAV that became the basis of the military's entire drone program was running his company out of his garage in LA, literally a garage startup. This is why DARPA exists and funds companies outside of the direct purview of military R&D.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Karem

Re: US Congress doubles down on claims of illegal UFO retrieval programs

#192

Post by CamperBob2 »

lend000 wrote: post #139

All the people here claiming new types of drones and secret programs dating back decades have clearly never worked in defense. Most of the US military, the best funded in the world, is decades behind the private sector on computing technology -- it's honestly unthinkable to me that their propulsion technology would be decades (or centuries) ahead. The best engineers and scientists have taken Silicon Valley jobs payin…

The best engineers and scientists have taken Silicon Valley jobs paying 5-10x more since the late 90's.

Not necessarily. I once sold a Ferrari to a nuclear weapons tech from Los Alamos. His boss had a Countach.

Re: US Congress doubles down on claims of illegal UFO retrieval programs

#193

Post by michaelbuckbee »

nickelcitymario wrote: post #121

While I understand and appreciate the aspects of the bill that offers protection for whistleblowers, I don't understand cutting all funding for reversing such technology. If it exists, don't we want to understand it ASAP? Regardless of whether it's alien in origin or not, why in the world wouldn't we want to study potentially advanced technology?

It's the carrot and the stick:

- Stick. Today a program that is doing "Advanced Propulsion Research" that happened to be reverse engineering UFO tech would be perfectly legal. Cutting funding for this, unless explicitly authorized, opens up liability for anyone in the government and related contractors.

- Carrot. The amnesty is an opportunity to come forward without the liability.

Re: US Congress doubles down on claims of illegal UFO retrieval programs

#194

Post by simmanian »

I like to entertain myself with the idea that perhaps what's driving the recent spotlight on UFOs is not that we are seeing/detecting them, but that we are detecting more and more of them.

Maybe governments around the world have always known about objects flying/floating around. And that was fine because there are many natural causes that could explain these blips on radar. Many weather phenomena or man made objects could explain people "seeing" UFOs. Buzz Aldrin famously saw glowing objects flying around in space but he does not necessarily believe they have ET origin.

But recently, there's simply way more of these objects everywhere, and nobody knows for sure what these are. This worries some people because, well, what if they're Chinese spy balloons or drones? Remember when the US military shot down a couple balloons some time ago and it made the news?

This is a potential threat to the national security and it makes sense that they have put together teams for the retrieval of these objects. The government may not believe they have ET origin, but they now see them more as potential threat to the national security.

Of course, I would definitely find it enjoyable and exciting if there is some "otherworldly" intelligence behind these objects.

Re: US Congress doubles down on claims of illegal UFO retrieval programs

#195

Post by sixstringtheory »

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #166
lend000 wrote: post #139

All the people here claiming new types of drones and secret programs dating back decades have clearly never worked in defense. Most of the US military, the best funded in the world, is decades behind the private sector on computing technology -- it's honestly unthinkable to me that their propulsion technology would be decades (or centuries) ahead. The best engineers and scientists have taken Silicon Valley jobs payin…

Ehh, what's the SV state of the art in low-observability, or railguns, or high-precision fuzing? I'm thinking "not very much".

We make one helluva juice pouch squeezer!

Re: US Congress doubles down on claims of illegal UFO retrieval programs

#196

Post by 1970-01-01 »

fsn4dN69ey wrote: post #179

Let's look at this as rationally as possible: People have been claiming to see UFOs for years, ever since the popularization in mass media with the start of "the war of the worlds". In nearly all cases, even (at the time) credible sightings were advanced weapons programs. Additionally, with the proliferation of everyone having access to relatively high quality cameras, the amount of "legitimate" sightings has dropped…

I would put weight on this if it were to re-occur. The navy has done lots and lots and lots and lots of drills since 2004. Nothing like this has magically re-appeared.

Re: US Congress doubles down on claims of illegal UFO retrieval programs

#197

Post by throwaway4aday »

aredox wrote: post #149
Gud wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the other half?

Almost all of Earth's population carries a camera (with their phones), and yet sightings of UFOs (or any cryptid) have been at an all-time low. https://xkcd.com/1235/

Dude, you can't even get a good picture of the moon on most phones without some AI assistance. How the hell are you going to snap a clear photo of something much smaller and dimmer?

A challenge for the incredulous, bring me some high quality cellphone pictures of airplanes at night without using any extra equipment like tripods, lenses or stabilizers.

Re: US Congress doubles down on claims of illegal UFO retrieval programs

#198

Post by godelski »

lend000 wrote: post #139

All the people here claiming new types of drones and secret programs dating back decades have clearly never worked in defense. Most of the US military, the best funded in the world, is decades behind the private sector on computing technology -- it's honestly unthinkable to me that their propulsion technology would be decades (or centuries) ahead. The best engineers and scientists have taken Silicon Valley jobs payin…

I've worked with the government in the past. Their compute systems definitely are not decades behind. Though some are. They have the the top supercomputers and machines that haven't been updated since the 80's. That's a more realistic picture of the government. That it is this gigantic thing that is in no way remotely monolithic. It's more like The Blob, that it is an amorphis mixture of a lot of things. Neither this nor that. This is why people get into arguments when discussing the government, because it is a hodgepodge of conflicting things that with extreme differences in capacity and effectiveness. The same also goes for the military (and this should be more obvious to people if you know the joke about "military grade" and recognize that our military is the most powerful and modern one. It is the reason all those "more advanced" private sector things exist. Just because not bought in "bulk" and handed to every private doesn't mean it isn't in the system). So stop painting it with a broad brush because it is leading to conspiracy theories that are just silly (goes in both directions).

With the military (in addition to what I said) you have to be very aware that it, like most gov entities, outsources work. The private sector is coupled with the military. The US military doesn't build the secret jets on secret military bases, Lockheed and Boeing do. Lockheed built the SR71, which definitely led to many UFO stories.

Re: US Congress doubles down on claims of illegal UFO retrieval programs

#199

Post by gregw134 »

newt_slowly wrote: post #168
gregw134 wrote: post #109

These "UFOs" are in my opinion probably new type of drone. Video of "UFO" over Poland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WZN0T_54xY Pentagon video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6Wmap12xm0 Picture of crashed orb in Mexico: https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvmm7a/mysterious-metallic-o... My theory is that these spheres are spinning and move using the Magnus effect (the effect that causes a spinning soccer ball to cur…

"Almost certainly"? We all have our hypotheses, and by all means promote yours, but do you really feel you have enough evidence to assign such a high confidence to yours? How do you reconcile it with statements like the following, made by the former director of National Intelligence? "There are a lot more sightings than have been made public. Some of those have been declassified. And when we talk about sightings, we…

Ok, I changed the wording to "in my opinion". My main point is that it might be possible to build drones matching this description with existing technology. There is existing technology to induce controlled rotation in satellites, using control moment gyroscopes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_moment_gyroscope

Perhaps if you placed a control moment gyroscope inside a helium-filled sphere, an operator could generate a controlled rapid spin. I'm not an expert by any means, was hoping someone more knowledgable can evaluate the idea.

Re: US Congress doubles down on claims of illegal UFO retrieval programs

#200

Post by throwaway743 »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #177

> would immediately halt funding for any secret government or contractor efforts to retrieve and reverse-engineer craft of “non-earth” or “exotic” origin. If that were going on (and I'm skeptical) why would you want to stop it? > Funding would also be cut for “the development of propulsion technology, or aerospace craft that uses propulsion technology, systems, or subsystems, that is based on or derived from or inspi…

Likely because it's been going on since at least the 40s by private defense contractors, who don't have the same oversight as a gov agency and who are benefiting from the tech with tax payer dollars without the public knowing or benefiting.
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