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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

#601

Post by snowwrestler »

haswell wrote: post #63

I’m not saying that I buy into these narratives, but in the interest of curiosity and for sake of argument… Let’s say that there are real ET craft, and let’s say that the US government has indeed been retrieving and studying them for decades. If such analysis unlocks technology breakthroughs of the kind that would solve say, energy problems, the government now has the problem of sitting on secrets that it has no lega…

> If such analysis unlocks technology breakthroughs of the kind that would solve say, energy problems, the government now has the problem of sitting on secrets that it has no legal pathway to introduce to the public, and no way to explain without somehow coming clean.

They would just release it and come clean. No one would be mad that we suddenly have near-magical solutions to energy problems.

What you're describing is essentially what happened with the Manhattan Project, which was a tightly guarded military secret. But once it became clear there were civilian applications, they stood up the Atomic Energy Commission and helped the rest of the country get to work on nuclear energy.

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

#602

Post by stevenhuang »

theptip wrote: post #215

This is a push from Congress to force programs into the open that are secretly capturing Russian/Chinese UAVs right? Folks on the committees are angry that China is trolling US Navy vessels with UAVs and this isn’t being publicized. The “non-earth” origin is the smokescreen, “exotic” covers foreign secret research projects? Something a bit convoluted like this is orders of magnitude more probable in my world model. (…

It only rounds to zero if you are uninformed.

Consider updating your priors on this topic

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

#603

Post by pimpampum »

colanderman wrote: post #575
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…

"Gimbal" is a speck of dust (or fly, or bird poo) on the lens of a gimbal-mounted heat-tracking camera. The entire video is predictable given the physics of such a device [1]. Not my idea, it's been around since this news first broke [2]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20019375 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15961848

Totally, Gimbal and Gofast were immediately discredited as Gimbal, well, being the gimbal of the sensor + contrast enhacement and Gofast being the parallax effect on a probably balloon moving at normal wind speeds. The last one I haven't seen conclusions, but if you squint it looks like an airliner at a distance. Finally the green tringle one also was discarded as a lens artifact.

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

#604

Post by mcpackieh »

runald wrote: post #590
emmelaich wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he starts from the conclusion that the aliens are not here I'd say assumption not conclusion. It sounds like a good assumption to me.

It's called circular reasoning. Conclusion cites the premises, which in turn the premises cite the conclusion. Evidence (or lack of) is used to prove it self. When you start with a false or circular premise, anything that follows is technically true. It's a powerful (bullshitting) tool that can be used to prove or disprove anything.

It's bayesian reasoning. If I tell you that I predict the sun will explode tomorrow, you should consider the sun's track record of not exploding when evaluating my claim.

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

#605

Post by abliefern »

themagician wrote: post #352
abliefern wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This does not track for me at all. I'm sorry but why would anybody in the DOD have an incentive to "make Americans believe in US military and intelligence superiority"?

So many reasons. If you want unlimited funding, if you want people to join, if you want citizens to feel safe… you really want them to feel like the government is powerful. If people think their government is a joke they will treat it as a joke. You don't want people thinking that a dozen people with box cutters can fly planes into buildings. You don't want people thinking that "the greatest superpower in the world"…

> But you don't have to take my word for it. Please, continue to believe that spaceships from other planets have crashed and some elite division within the US government managed to retrieve them and keep it secret for 50+ years. Look past the failing state of our infrastructure and continue to believe that an alien species capable of interstellar travel is interested specifically in Americans, but "they" are keeping you from knowing the truth!

I don't believe any such thing.

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

#606

Post by z7 »

colanderman wrote: post #575
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…

"Gimbal" is a speck of dust (or fly, or bird poo) on the lens of a gimbal-mounted heat-tracking camera. The entire video is predictable given the physics of such a device [1]. Not my idea, it's been around since this news first broke [2]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20019375 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15961848

How does one explain the eyewitness testimony of the 4 people involved?

>Fravor reported that he saw an object, white and oval, hovering above an ocean disturbance. He estimated that the object was about 40 feet (12 m) long.[7][4] Fravor and another pilot, Alex Dietrich, said in an interview that a total of four people (two pilots and two weapons systems officers in the back seats of the two airplanes) witnessed the object for about 5 minutes.[8] Fravor says that as he spiraled down to get closer to the object, the object ascended, mirroring the trajectory of his airplane, until the object disappeared.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_UFO_videos#Background

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

#607

Post by sph »

throwaway743 wrote: post #474
sph wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was a great podcast, and the entirety of Kean's journalistic research and integrity basically amounts to "I trust Grusch because he seems like a decent guy and I've been told he's trustworthy. But yeah, he's never seen any UFO, just reports and heard people talk about them, but since I trust him, I implicitly trust their words as well." I love how Ezra asks her obvious questions about her research like "how is i…

This thread is full of "I don't want to believe and/or can't". If it's legit, could people itt put down their confirmation bias and handle that we're not the smartest around, not top of the food chain, that our governments have lied to us and kept it wrapped sealed through compartmentalization/removed from oversight through third party contractors for decades, have hidden clean energy tech from tax payers so private…

Our greedy, inept, inefficient government, but also our conniving, duplicitous, and machiavellian government that is able to keep aliens a closely guarded secret even from everyone for decades.

It's either one, or the other.

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

#608

Post by mhoad »

TechBro8615 wrote: post #541
mhoad wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously nobody is going to convince you that you have a complete crackpot view of the world, that’s kind of the definition of the situation you find yourself in. It’s just incredibly clear that you actually don’t have any kind of meaningful understanding about how the military or intelligence agencies work and you are left yelling about a world that exists in your mind. The entire comment is just Swiss cheese to an…

Wow, very convincing argument, you must be a professional spy with all your more-than-passing familiarity with intelligence agencies , I bow down to your totally rational viewpoint on the world where government agencies follow all laws and aliens routinely crash their flying craft for our venerable government agencies to recover and (legally, of course!) keep secret from us for seven decades.

This is like talking with a child. I’m going to leave you to it. Good luck.

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

#609

Post by nobody9999 »

z7 wrote: post #509
ggm wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or alternatively, not. It's not grand conspiracy, don't pucker up, do continue to think about applications of Hanlon's and Occam's razor. A stoicism point of view here is that none of your wishful thinking of change would necessarily be good or bad, it's too early to say. And since this is a fantasy grab-basket of meme food, the most likely stoical outcome is that nothing to see here, move along is actually the best…

Not the parent, but how do you explain something like this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_Washington,_D.C.,_UFO_inc...

>Not the parent, but how do you explain something like this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_Washington,_D.C.,_UFO_inc...

I don't have to. Your link did so for me:

"At the request of the Air Force, the CAA's Technical Development and Evaluation Center did an analysis of the radar sightings. Their conclusion was that "a temperature inversion had been indicated in almost every instance when the unidentified radar targets or visual objects had been reported."[29] Project Blue Book would eventually label the unknown Washington radar blips as false images caused by temperature inversion, and the visual sightings as misidentified meteors, stars, and city lights.[30] In later years two prominent UFO skeptics, Donald Menzel, an astronomer at Harvard University, and Philip Klass, a senior editor for Aviation Week magazine, would also argue in favor of the temperature inversion/mirage hypothesis.[31] In 2002 Klass told a reporter that "radar technology in 1952 wasn't sophisticated enough to filter out many ordinary objects, such as flocks of birds, weather balloons, or temperature inversions."[7] The reporter added that "UFO proponents argue that even then seasoned controllers could differentiate between spurious targets and solid, metallic objects. Klass disagrees. It may be that 'we had two dumb controllers at National Airport on those nights'...[Klass] added that the introduction of digital filters in the 1970s led to a steep decline in UFO sightings on radar."[7]"

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

#610

Post by z7 »

nobody9999 wrote: post #609
z7 wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the parent, but how do you explain something like this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_Washington,_D.C.,_UFO_inc...

>Not the parent, but how do you explain something like this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_Washington,_D.C.,_UFO_inc ... I don't have to. Your link did so for me: "At the request of the Air Force, the CAA's Technical Development and Evaluation Center did an analysis of the radar sightings. Their conclusion was that "a temperature inversion had been indicated in almost every instance when the unidentified radar t…

How does that explain the eyewitness accounts?

>Staff Sgt. Charles Davenport observed an orange-red light to the south; the light "would appear to stand still, then make an abrupt change in direction and altitude ... this happened several times."

>Nugent's superior, Harry Barnes, a senior air-traffic controller at the airport, watched the objects on Nugent's radarscope. He later wrote: We knew immediately that a very strange situation existed ... their movements were completely radical compared to those of ordinary aircraft.

>Barnes then called National Airport's radar-equipped control tower; the controllers there, Howard Cocklin and Joe Zacko, said that they also had unidentified blips on their radar screen, and saw a hovering "bright light" in the sky, which departed with incredible speed.

>Airman William Brady, who was in the tower, then saw an "object which appeared to be like an orange ball of fire, trailing a tail ... [it was] unlike anything I had ever seen before."[3][5] As Brady tried to alert the other personnel in the tower, the strange object "took off at an unbelievable speed.

>On one of National Airport's runways, S.C. Pierman, a Capital Airlines pilot, was waiting in the cockpit of his DC-4 for permission to take off. After spotting what he believed to be a meteor, he was told that the control tower's radar had detected unknown objects closing in on his position. Pierman observed six objects — "white, tailless, fast-moving lights" — over a 14-minute period.

>At one point both radar centers at National Airport and the radar at Andrews Air Force Base were tracking an object hovering over a radio beacon. The object vanished in all three radar centers at the same time.

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