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US Congress doubles down on claims of illegal UFO retrieval programs

thehill.com

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

#521

Post by JPws_Prntr_Fngr »

kvetching wrote: post #400
tptacek wrote: post #292

Ezra Klein just did a long interview with Leslie Kean (a popular author and Coast to Coast AM guest) about her article in "The Debrief" --- where it went, after the Washington Post wouldn't run it on her time schedule --- about David Grusch: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/20/opinion/ezra-klein-podcas... It does not make Kean and Grusch's claims sound a lot more credible. Some of Kean's sources are proponents of thin…

"so you can't blame Rubio for indulging it." He's got access to a lot more than us. This isn't just some congressman indulging it for the lulz. It's so funny to see the mental gymnastics people here make to discredit some of our most elite intelligence officials. Even Rubio is having trouble believing it but he's now admitting to have talked to people with direct access to the program. Grusch is as credible as it get…

> mental gymnastics people here make to discredit some of our most elite intelligence officials

It takes no mental gymnastics whatsoever to discredit them. They've done that themselves, time and time and time again. It takes mental gymnastics to retain trust in them.

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

#522

Post by heavyset_go »

esbranson wrote: post #414
heavyset_go wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the NY Times article: > "Over half of all U.F.O. reports from the late 1950's through the 1960's were accounted for by manned reconnaissance flights" over the United States, the C.I.A. study says. "This led the Air Force to make misleading and deceptive statements to the public in order to allay public fears and to protect an extraordinarily sensitive national security project." This is exactly what happened wit…

Every witness says there's not a chance in Hell that UFOs are human. But no one reports seeing aliens except abductees. People desperately want to believe aliens aren't real, and some real mental gymnastics to get there. Like believing "debunking" videos from crackpots and videogame programmers (which real pilots say are nonsensical), or "this one time in the 60s the CIA".

I genuinely want aliens to be real and do believe that life in some form is out there.

However, I'm not going to believe that little green men from Mars visit the US government in flying saucers because of evidence so bad that "crackpots and videogame programmers" can debunk it.

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

#523

Post by Alex3917 »

optimalsolver wrote: post #502
Alex3917 wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a push from Congress to force programs into the open that are secretly capturing Russian/Chinese UAVs right? No. The USA has spent the last several decades putting most of its military budget into aircraft carriers, which will all be sunk within the first 24 hours of any conflict with China. This is just a last ditch effort to try to trick China into thinking we might have some kind of deterrent.

Out of curiosity, what happens after China sinks the carriers?

You learn to speak Chinese.

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

#524

Post by _kbh_ »

themagician wrote: post #481
_kbh_ wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US just lost a 20 year war in Afghanistan against cave dwellers with Soviet-era rifles, homemade explosives and random bits from the bottom of a toolbox. To be fair the US left Afghanistan and the remaining Afghani army crumbled to the taliban pretty quickly. I’d say the two situations are very different, the US successfully occupied a country that was ~7000km from them. The Russians have so far failed to take…

To be even more fair, the US lost the War in Afghanistan. It's an unambiguous Taliban victory. That's how it will read in every history book that doesn't have an American flag and a bald eagle on it. 20 years there and all the US did was create a whole new generation of terrorists who will spend the rest of their lives seeking revenge.

Sure if you want to frame it that way.

But it’s still not comparable to Ukraine.

The sheer scale involved is completely different and really shows the ability of the US to project force.

Whereas Russia is currently struggling to get 200km from their own border.

The causalities scales are also hugely different. The Russians have taken likely close to 5x the causalities in about 1/4 the time.

Russia is clearly not a super power but that doesn’t mean other countries like America aren’t.

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

#526

Post by Loquebantur »

tashoecraft wrote: post #405
runjake wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> she cites the now-discredited "Gimball Video". (sic) When/where/by whom was the Gimbal video discredited? I’m especially curious because I’m somewhat of an “expert” in the area (having worked on those sensor systems and seen tons of footage in a former life) and I think it’s a legitimate object of some sort [1]. Though I don’t believe it’s extraterrestrial. 1. Eg. The footage of a purported object speeding right ov…

VFX artists react had a pretty good video where they're pretty sure the footage over the ocean is just a bird. The oddness is due to the camera optics and the vessel that's recording it traveling extremely fast.

Do you assume, US fighter pilots get stumped by birds often?

I find it really remarkable how far behind the curve HN is on this topic. It's literally the nerdiest, most avant-garde topic of all. Yet here people behave like their own grandfathers.

TheHill.com reports on Congress acting on the mounting evidence for ET craft crash retrieval programs illegally hidden from democratic oversight, people on HN discuss whether birds fly high.

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

#527

Post by quickthrowman »

Loquebantur wrote: post #518
quickthrowman wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now apply Occam’s razor to the following two choices: 1. Aliens have visited Earth. They crashed their spaceships or we shot them down. The US Government (and possibly other governments) retrieved and studied their technology and managed to keep it a secret for decades 2. Aliens have not visited Earth

"Occam’s razor" is merely a heuristic, not some sort of law. Neither logical nor otherwise. Here, you are even using it wrong. You present a false dichotomy and rely on top of that on the faulty, but commonly held assumption, one choice was vastly less probable than the other. If the US government has covered up the topic for the last 80 years, you must assume your priors to be faulty.

Ok, let’s add a third scenario: aliens have visited Earth undetected. Hell, you can add as many scenarios as you like, I’m still going to go with ‘Aliens have not visited earth’ unless presented with overwhelmingly concrete evidence.

Anecdotes and eyewitness accounts from falliable humans and weird sensor readings from non-scientific sensors that are designed for war are not the least bit convincing to me.

Being visited by alien beings would be the most consequential event in human history, I’m personally fine with having an extremely high bar for any evidence or proof before I even entertain the possibility.

I do believe it’s probable that intelligent life exists in the universe, for what it’s worth.

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

#528

Post by TechBro8615 »

mhoad wrote: post #519
TechBro8615 wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is precisely why I've always been most fond of the explanation that "the UFO thing" is a training ground for US psychological warfare officers. We're target practice for US disinfo campaigns.

This is such a ludicrous idea that doesn’t pass even the most basic reality checks. It’s explicitly illegal for a start amongst a whole host of other problems where the incentives make zero sense.

The government lying to us and manipulating the population with psychological warfare is a much more germane, plausible, and historically aligned proposition than the suggestion that aliens are visiting earth. In fact if you assume aliens are visiting earth, then you must also assume the government has been lying to us about it. So either way, the government is lying.

> It’s explicitly illegal

Lol. When has this ever stopped any government agency, ever? The FBI conducted over a million illegal searches last year. The NSA lied for decades about its dragnet surveillance program. You think the DIA information office (Lue Elizondo's "former" workplace) is against fabricating some conspiracy theories in an effort to corral the people most susceptible to them? They could even justify it as a defensive maneuver against hostile forces who would otherwise propagandize the same people ("distract them with Lue Anon so the Russians can't target them with Q Anon").

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

#529

Post by parineum »

throwaway743 wrote: post #455
doctorpangloss wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> U.F.O. skeptics and experts in optics have long said many of the videos and sightings by naval aviators represent optical illusions that have made ordinary objects — weather balloons, commercial drones — appear to move faster than possible. > Military officials have largely come to the same conclusion. … > Another video, known as Gimbal, shows an object that appears to be turning or spinning. Military officials now…

Honestly, Mick West reaches hard for any way to debunk everything and his conclusions on certain subjects are just flat out ridiculous. Ex: Suggesting that what kids saw at the Ariel school sighting were just puppeteers. Those kids are now adult professionals and have stuck to what they saw. Don't take my word, have an open mind and watch the past and recent interviews with them. Was great to see him put in his place…

> Those kids are now adult professionals and have stuck to what they saw.

Knowing what we know about memory, that is not at all surprising.

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

#530

Post by [deleted] »

Loquebantur wrote: post #526
tashoecraft wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VFX artists react had a pretty good video where they're pretty sure the footage over the ocean is just a bird. The oddness is due to the camera optics and the vessel that's recording it traveling extremely fast.

Do you assume, US fighter pilots get stumped by birds often? I find it really remarkable how far behind the curve HN is on this topic. It's literally the nerdiest, most avant-garde topic of all. Yet here people behave like their own grandfathers. TheHill.com reports on Congress acting on the mounting evidence for ET craft crash retrieval programs illegally hidden from democratic oversight, people on HN discuss whethe…

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