Live data from Hacker News

CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents

cia.gov

41–50 of 224 posts

Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents

#41

I'm surprised they're continuing the misdirection so many years later. "Unidentified flying object" means an aircraft, usually a military one (because civilian aircraft are easier to identify). A UFO over US soil would usually be a USAF plane, but the CIA ran (runs?) a reporting hotline because they might occasionally be foreign spy planes instead. But of course, the Soviets were very interested (or the US believed t…

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.

Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents

#42

I'm surprised they're continuing the misdirection so many years later. "Unidentified flying object" means an aircraft, usually a military one (because civilian aircraft are easier to identify). A UFO over US soil would usually be a USAF plane, but the CIA ran (runs?) a reporting hotline because they might occasionally be foreign spy planes instead. But of course, the Soviets were very interested (or the US believed t…

I remember hearing about this in a documentary, actually...so you might not be able to find the link because it doesn't exist on the Internet. :)

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

This one?

Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents

#43

I'm surprised they're continuing the misdirection so many years later. "Unidentified flying object" means an aircraft, usually a military one (because civilian aircraft are easier to identify). A UFO over US soil would usually be a USAF plane, but the CIA ran (runs?) a reporting hotline because they might occasionally be foreign spy planes instead. But of course, the Soviets were very interested (or the US believed t…

Do you even info war?

Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents

#44

I love UFOs because UFOs tell us a lot about how we deal with non-reproducible observations. Walk outside and see a green, glowing light that hovers then disappears? You can walk outside again for the rest of your life and never see it again. Does that mean you didn't see anything? Of course not. This really messes with people's heads. The rationalists will say that since we can't independently observe it, it might a…

> I'm not a constitutional expert but seems to me the one thing that ought to carry the severest penalty is government officials in a democracy deliberately trying to mislead the public about critical issues.

There's nothing in the constitution that requires the government to reveal the existence of classified projects to the public. Would you expect the Air Force to admit that "yes, actually, that's our new stealth plane, the SR-71 Blackbird, don't tell the Soviets" when someone sees one?

Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents

#45
post #16

If you want to understand the UFO story better, you should watch Mirage Men about Air Force Office of Special Investigations Agent Richard Doty, a self-admitted UFO disinformation agent- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6naKTTuBq14 The intelligence agencies aren't hiding anything about UFOs from my experience. And I don't really think the USAF is either. But the USAF did tell various people that UFOs were real and the…

When I was a kid, I asked my grandfather, who was at that time an AF Colonel (he's now passed away), whether UFOs were real and whether he has seen aliens. He just looked at me, took me aside, and told me that UFO stories were propagated by the "boys from Langley" as a way to hide experimental aircraft testing. That way, every report of some black plane that was seen by the public, would be chalked up to UFOs and Rus…

UFO's are real. There are thousands of such events reported a bit everywhere around the world every year.

Of course, most of them never remain "unidentified" very long: optical illusions, weather balloons, discarded objects from actual identified flying objects, etc...

Too many people associate the term "UFO" with aliens. The two are completely unrelated.

Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents

#46
post #41

I'm surprised they're continuing the misdirection so many years later. "Unidentified flying object" means an aircraft, usually a military one (because civilian aircraft are easier to identify). A UFO over US soil would usually be a USAF plane, but the CIA ran (runs?) a reporting hotline because they might occasionally be foreign spy planes instead. But of course, the Soviets were very interested (or the US believed t…

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.

"Delta Force" is not what it's called, either. The Army cycles through bureaucratic sounding names -- "Combat Applications Group" for example -- in order to keep it confusing. "Delta" comes from one of these names -- "Operational Detachment: Delta." This sounds like an unimportant support team for a Special Forces group. "OD: Alpha" is the main team of green berets (aka, "ODA" or "the A-Team"). They are supported by 'OD: Bravo" and "OD: Charlie" (logistics support, etc.). So "OD: Delta" sounded meaningless to an uninformed listener. By the time Chuck Norris made "Delta Force" a known name for the pinnacle of Army Special Ops, they weren't actually called that anymore in reality.

Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents

#47
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was a kid, I asked my grandfather, who was at that time an AF Colonel (he's now passed away), whether UFOs were real and whether he has seen aliens. He just looked at me, took me aside, and told me that UFO stories were propagated by the "boys from Langley" as a way to hide experimental aircraft testing. That way, every report of some black plane that was seen by the public, would be chalked up to UFOs and Rus…

Like carrots. The British promulgated the belief that carrots improve eyesight to explain the effective of their aircraft spotters, instead of radar.

As a matter of fact, I've never seen rabbits wearing glasses.

Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents

#48
My first UFO story:

I was ~13 years old in The Civil Ait Patrol, this occurred in Truckee, Ca at the Truckee Airport.

We were doing standard marching exercises and our troop leader was a former SR-71 mechanic/maint person...

It was a full moon - and as our gatherings typically started after 5PM - it got dark fairly quickly.

We were marching and then looking to the mountain line in the horizon, we saw a light come up over the mountain line and fly vertically up at a steady clip as it was near the moon which had also just risen over the ridge.

We all watched, speculating what type of plane this was (Civil Air Patrol was like the cub scouts for the air force)

As we watched and guessed, this craft flew straight up from the mountain - then directly toward us.

I came to a complete hover just above us by about 300 feet. The craft was the classic triangular shape with large round whit lights at each corner.

As it hovered - the troop leader said "OK KIDS - EVERYONE INSIDE NOW!!!" and he ushered us into the end of the hangar building that had our CAP office.

Ever since then.... I've had an interesting relationship with believing UFOs...

Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents

#49
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was a kid, I asked my grandfather, who was at that time an AF Colonel (he's now passed away), whether UFOs were real and whether he has seen aliens. He just looked at me, took me aside, and told me that UFO stories were propagated by the "boys from Langley" as a way to hide experimental aircraft testing. That way, every report of some black plane that was seen by the public, would be chalked up to UFOs and Rus…

Like carrots. The British promulgated the belief that carrots improve eyesight to explain the effective of their aircraft spotters, instead of radar.

Despite Snopes confirming this, I refuse to admit that it's true. Nethack wouldn't lie to me like that.

Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents

#50

If you want to understand the UFO story better, you should watch Mirage Men about Air Force Office of Special Investigations Agent Richard Doty, a self-admitted UFO disinformation agent- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6naKTTuBq14 The intelligence agencies aren't hiding anything about UFOs from my experience. And I don't really think the USAF is either. But the USAF did tell various people that UFOs were real and the…

The review of the film, a shorter useful info:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/mirage-men-film-revi...

For me it was too boring to watch the film. If anybody actually saw it, liked it and remembers something interesting but not mentioned in the review, please tell.

Post reply on HN