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CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents

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Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents

#161

Post by arethuza »

davorb wrote: post #133
sanoli wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's probably a lot of this going. Comes to mind right now the way the Navy had about two seal teams in the beginning, and then decided to name the next one 'Team 6', to make it look like they had more. I've read about other examples, but can't remember right now.

The Soviets managed to fool the US government into believing that they had many more strategic bombers than they actually did, using the same tactics. > At the Soviet Aviation Day demonstrations at the Tushino Airfield, ten Bison bombers were flown past the reviewing stand, then flew out of sight, quickly turned around, and flew past the stands again with eight more, presenting the illusion that there were 28 aircraf…

I don't think the US had any desire to accurately measure the threat from the Soviets as reality would have contradicted what politicians needed - the curse of all intelligence activities.

Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents

#162

Post by Houshalter »

sam_goody wrote: post #141
enkephalin wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think the main issue with people having trouble believing in visitations from extraterrestrial species (or at least their technology), is that they have absolutely no sense for the age of the universe. and the fact that so many people believe it to be utterly ridiculous that alien life forms could be exploring the galaxy, yet here we humans are, doing exactly that, is just completely mind-boggling to me.

I think the main issue that most people have with aliens is that we kinda expect that if they exist (which scientifically and religiously they should) and they have the technology to have found us and interact with us (possible) they would have subjugated us or annihilated us by now. The fact that they haven't suggests that either they don't exist or that they haven't found us.

That's just anthropic bias/survivor bias. There have probably been a lot of Earth like planets that have been annihilated. Perhaps the only reason we exist is because we are lucky enough to have friendly neighbors, or perhaps no neighbors.

Well I do wonder how friendly they are, given that they haven't intervened at all in Earth's history. I find that very unlikely. Moral aliens would probably want to help us, amoral ones kill us like you said. But the probability of aliens existing yet being indifferent seems unlikely.

Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents

#163

Post by kls »

golergka wrote: post #142
noobermin wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, I can't speak for their military leaders, but I've read Soviet physics papers and they had (funded and educated) some solid scientists.

Physics as a field doesn't have the same pressures and people aspiring to it as intelligence military analytics.

While I agree intel and physics are apples to oranges, the soviets had a pretty good intelligence arm and quite capable analytics. The soviets where very good at Human Intelligence:

http://sputniknews.com/military/20150928/1027670037/kgb-cia-...

Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents

#165

Post by kagamine »

sanoli wrote: post #87
sanoli wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's probably a lot of this going. Comes to mind right now the way the Navy had about two seal teams in the beginning, and then decided to name the next one 'Team 6', to make it look like they had more. I've read about other examples, but can't remember right now.

Not the same thing but similar, a programmer wrote once how he made his software delay the answer to some user action to make it look like the program was hard at work. The process was actually very fast, almost instantaneous, so he added some message like " working - x seconds left ". Maybe it was on HN some years ago...

Now there's an interesting UX paper if it hasn't been done already. In UX we hear that a milliseconds long delay directly affects user retention rates. I wonder how users feel about search reliability, or data integrity when results are faster than expected.

Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents

#166

Post by celticninja »

wrboyce wrote: post #156
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still widely used in the the UK for person-to-person transactions. Also for paying single-person businesses like plumbers, painters, etc. Almost all shops and larger businesses refuse to accept them.

Widely? I'm pretty sure that it's one of the least used methods for person to person transactions in the UK. If I had to guess I would put Cash, Faster Payment/BACS, and PayM (the mobile number thing) as more commonly used these days. I used to pay my milkman with a cheque, but he's online now.

Grandparents sending money to kids and grandchildren is pro ably their number one use.

Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents

#167

Post by sgt101 »

varjag wrote: post #157
golergka wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Physics as a field doesn't have the same pressures and people aspiring to it as intelligence military analytics.

Also in physics, you can't get away with politicking and reading the Party plenary speeches alone. That nuke better has to work and is easily verifiable: Beria, the head of Soviet secret police, personally compared the mushroom cloud photo of the U.S. test to the Soviet one, to ensure the bomb was copied correctly.

I wonder what he'd have concluded if it had looked different?!

Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents

#168

Post by lsadam0 »

arjn wrote: post #131
jack9 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

During a summer break jaunt to see the American Flag Art Exhibit in 1996 (found it! http://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/08/us/art-or-trash-arizona-ex... ), I was coming back down the 10 just past Wiley's Rest Stop, in California and pulled off the road into the desert about 500 yards from the highway. It was me with my best friend (from kindergarten) and 2 sisters we were mutually involved with. No drugs, no alcohol, no c…

Could it have been a thick stray cloud combined with some light reflection/refraction effects from the ground or maybe stars/planets in the background ?

I respect the skepticism. I do not subscribe to the 'UFOs are aliens' idea myself. Though in this case I believe the OP did see what he claims. There's a longstanding rumor that some branch of the armed forces is in possession of a 'stealth blimp'. Exactly what a 'stealth blimp' is, I don't know. But there have been numerous sightings over the previous 20 years that match very closely with that OP saw.

I think most "credible" UFO sightings (especially those in the western US) are Government owned aircraft. For the most part, Humans are just bad at interpreting what they have seen. One of my favorite examples is the rumored "flying artichoke" that was likely just a sighting of an F-117A Stealth Fighter ( http://i.imgur.com/D22OrQ1.jpg )

Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents

#169

Post by gtk40 »

nathanm412 wrote: post #56
sanoli wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's probably a lot of this going. Comes to mind right now the way the Navy had about two seal teams in the beginning, and then decided to name the next one 'Team 6', to make it look like they had more. I've read about other examples, but can't remember right now.

As a cashier when I was a teenager, I was told to ID and call in anyone with a check # under 500 with the assumption that low check numbers were less likely to be reliable. When I ordered my first book of checks a few years later, I started with # 1550 and was never bothered.

I actually had a clerk at a local county court tell me they have to refuse checks if the number was less than 500 (and they already didn't take cards without a 5% fee). Thankfully, I had just ordered new checks and had number 501.

Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents

#170

Post by notalaser »

ishi wrote: post #123
kamaal wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Like carrots. Poor thing. As a kid I told my cousin(he wore glasses), that carrots were good for the eyes, to a point I exaggerated if he ate enough he could get rid of them altogether at some point. He would eat kgs of carrots.

My mom thought so too. At some point she took me to the doctor and asked him why I had orange feet. He told her to stop feeding me so much carrot.

Man, I had no idea my mother had any other children besides me.
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