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NSA UFO Documents Index

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Re: NSA UFO Documents Index

#91

Post by at_a_remove »

subsubzero wrote: post #61
at_a_remove wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Briefly put: the speed of light. It takes a long, long time to get anywhere, because light moves at a relative crawl compared to the distances between stars, so it would be a long and energy-intensive process to visit another planet, especially given how hard it would be to detect a civilization there before you departed. The Earth didn't emit much of a signal on radio waves until about 1900, so even if the aliens we…

The speed of light is a constant but we are still very behind in terms of understanding the universe and physics, we still do not have a unified theory which bridges general relativity to quantum mechanics. We know next to nothing about dark matter(haven't found any yet), also in terms of energy production we have not achieved - room temperature superconducting and fusion reactors. We can barely get rockets outside o…

In literally every protracted discussion I've had about FTL since before I got my physics degree, someone has brought up the "science doesn't know everything yet" angle. Here's the thing: science is never done, it will never know for finally and for certain. And yet two of my objections will remain unaddressed:

1) FTL implies CTCs, that means paradoxes. How are those going to be resolved? Because the Cosmic Censor stuff never quite makes sense -- exactly what mechanism is going to forbid you from opening the message that says, "Do not send this message back in time?"

2) Again allowing for FTL ... where are the self-replicating machines spreading across the cosmos? Pop to another star system, pop to another galaxy, or even a local cluster. They should have already been there. The universe is vast. Most species will realize that this is a terrible ass idea, but there's always a lunatic in a large enough crowd, and it'll be a pretty large crowd.

Nobody ever deals with these points. People want FTL to be true because, well, Star Trek (or Star Wars, or Farscape, take your pick). It's a bit dull, plodding along at some small fraction of c, but the universe doesn't have to be exciting for us. And I'm not going to bet otherwise.

Re: NSA UFO Documents Index

#92

Post by thotsBgone »

IncRnd wrote: post #73
cookiengineer wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> None of those planes look like UFOs and they wouldn't move in the same reported ways, either. Yet today's pop culture conspiracy theorists tried to raid Area 51 for their beliefs. Don't get me wrong: I believe in alien life. But I don't believe in conspiracy theorists that are blind to the obvious in correlations of evidence. Scientific theory is about bayesian reasoning, not about proving to yourself that you're r…

> Scientific theory is about bayesian reasoning, not about proving to yourself that you're right; which is a likely phenomenon in the thinking nature of conspiracy theorists. For that comment to be true, there would be no science without bayesian reasoning. Since bayesian reasoning differs from hypothetico-deductive, that is false.

How do they differ?

Re: NSA UFO Documents Index

#93

Post by HideousKojima »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #24
uhtred wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of those planes look like UFOs and they wouldn't move in the same reported ways, either. I don't agree that it makes someone stupid to be open minded.

What does a UFO look like?

It's something up in the sky, that you can't identify. I've seen plenty, and if you've ever seen something flying that you can't identify then you've seen them too.

I kind of wish Unidentified Flying Object hadn't been conflated with space aliens.

Re: NSA UFO Documents Index

#94

Post by ALittleLight »

swebs wrote: post #71
diegocg wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Harry Reid funded the "Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program" with 22$ millions per year from 2007 to 2012 to research UFOs. And most of that money went to Robert Bigelow. Which happens to be friend of Harry Reid, is interested in UFOs and has donated money to Reid's campaigns (what a coincidence!) But the program was secret. Because, you know, aliens. And national security. Until its existence was reveale…

If its that open-and-shut, why hasn't he been arrested?

Because the legal system is designed and run by people in power and people in power aren't interested in prosecuting their own crimes.

Re: NSA UFO Documents Index

#95

Post by deeeeplearning »

motohagiography wrote: post #35

Went through the CIA one as well, and it's almost designed to be opaque and vague. UFO's create interesting ethical questions and can be useful thought experiments for contemporary issues. A good one is where, say you are checking in on a civilization to see whether it's about to become space faring, and given the amount of energy required for it, the tech is dangerous to any other civilization these recent space arr…

>A good one is where, say you are checking in on a civilization to see whether it's about to become space faring, and given the amount of energy required for it, the tech is dangerous to any other civilization these recent space arrivers might find. The question is whether they're going to pose a threat to the regional galactic order, and if they haven't got their cultural act together, do you let them?

Seems a strange position to take. Look at our own case. Do we evaluate "un-contacted/lost" tribes in the Amazon to see if they may pose a risk to the current Global Order? No, because that would be absurd. They are so far behind technologically that they pose about as much of a threat as a troop of chimps do. For galactic scale civilizations the difference in capabilities is probably at least as extreme as that.

Re: NSA UFO Documents Index

#96

Post by jrowen »

motohagiography wrote: post #35

Went through the CIA one as well, and it's almost designed to be opaque and vague. UFO's create interesting ethical questions and can be useful thought experiments for contemporary issues. A good one is where, say you are checking in on a civilization to see whether it's about to become space faring, and given the amount of energy required for it, the tech is dangerous to any other civilization these recent space arr…

I don't think these are dumb questions at all

They're not, but they're also somewhat orthogonal to "UFO culture." You're describing a philosophical/sociopolitical discussion that isn't really informed by a blip on a grainy video frame.

The question that's more relevant to UFOs, in my opinion, is "Why would these aliens, with their unimaginably superior technology, travel all the way here and reveal themselves in such asinine ways?" Did they intend to come all this way to do some cryptic and spooky display for a small number of people? Did they simply slip up and briefly drop their cover?

I just don't see it. I fully believe that, if there were aliens out there with such capabilities, and they came to earth, they would either conceal themselves fully or reveal themselves intentionally (and not just to a handful of people in a remote area).

Re: NSA UFO Documents Index

#97

Post by dole »

nycdatasci wrote: post #4
ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #3

The redactions on some of these documents are absolutely ridiculous. What is the point for releasing documents in a state that leaves them completely useless.

Some of these are interesting. Here's one that is completely unredacted: https://www.nsa.gov/Portals/70/documents/news-features/decla...

This slightly more legible one [1] elsewhere in the thread has some redacted parts that this one doesn't.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25766074

Where'd the objects go or what happened to them? Why'd the F-4 drop the chase and why didn't they try to scramble more jets?

Re: NSA UFO Documents Index

#98

Post by jk7tarYZAQNpTQa »

cookiengineer wrote: post #8

It's dangerous to go alone. Take this [1] and this [2] and especially this [3]. Area 51 was a radar testing site due to the unique properties of the salt on the ground. And they just tested a "silver shiny UFO" which was the prototype for the SR-71. And yes, this was exactly the same date when people first called radio stations and the police for UFO sightings. The Skunkworks A-12 OXCART research project led to the f…

> Area 51 was a radar testing site due to the unique properties of the salt on the ground. And they just tested a "silver shiny UFO" which was the prototype for the SR-71. And yes, this was exactly the same date when people first called radio stations and the police for UFO sightings.

Assuming Area 51 was just that, you can't disregard the whole UFO phenomenon (which has been taken place all over the globe for decades) as "the observers didn't know they were looking at an Skunk Works aircraft". That implies you haven't even seen the tip of the iceberg.

These reports not only often come from highly trained fighter pilots and engineers, but it also leaves imaging (radar, infrared, etc.) records that show that these things, whatever they are, can move too fast (and too slow) to be any USA/China/Russia/Israel super secret aircraft.

Re: NSA UFO Documents Index

#99

Post by ikrenji »

INTPenis wrote: post #57
ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how you can't at least find this document interesting. It's a first hand account of what was basically a dogfight between a US pilot and a UFO over Iran. https://www.nsa.gov/Portals/70/documents/news-features/decla... Even if you assume that whatever he encountered was made on Earth, its hard not to have questions or be interested in the account.

That's an excellent example. Thanks for finding it. I'd rather believe this was a combination of natural phenomenon and instrumentation failure than an alien visiting us from far far away. After reading the text that doubt is definitely still strong. It starts with conflicting reports from people on the ground. They are never able to identify what it was. And also the text reads as if it was written by a "believer" i…

the report is from over 40 years ago and all the involved are iranian personnel, not american ~ i wouldn't expect any of them to come forward if they are still alive...

there is no natural phenomenon that fits the description. one passage says that the UFO landed and illuminated land around it in a 2-3km radius. there was a radar return, multiple aircraft involved etc.

im not saying its 100% aliens, but im pretty sure its also not swamp gas / weather balloon.

Re: NSA UFO Documents Index

#100

Post by jk7tarYZAQNpTQa »

searine wrote: post #20
uhtred wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of those planes look like UFOs and they wouldn't move in the same reported ways, either. I don't agree that it makes someone stupid to be open minded.

Most of the reports of "UFOs" and their characteristics in flight come from untrained, and unreliable sources. It's not stupid to be open minded, but it is stupid to ignore plausible explanations of phenomenon because you are hoping to find something new.

> Most of the reports of "UFOs" and their characteristics in flight come from untrained, and unreliable sources.

Agreed. But when you filter all those, you are left with a huge pile of true UFO reports, that come from trained personnel, radar operator, astronomers, etc. Look at the conclusions of Blue Book.

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