6 ms·

How to Investigate a Flying Saucer

82 points by jackgavigan 11y ago

bootload 11y ago
"The case was considered significant because of the “excellent documentary evidence in the form of Kodachrome motion picture films (about 1600 frames).”" Is there any copy of the the Tremonton film online? [0] Anyone seen it? Not much from the CIA. [1] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jggeM_JEJtE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jggeM_JEJtE [1] http://www.foia.cia.gov/search/site/Tremonton http://www.foia.cia.gov/search/site/Tremonton
- sciguy77 11y ago
  Did some searching and here it is (I think): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=of3m8_LvUWs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=of3m8_LvUWs
  - bootload 11y ago
    here's a good overview by Dr J Allen Hynenk with a better reproduction ~ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kn4strYhWok https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kn4strYhWok
jonmrodriguez 11y ago
I feel like part of the cultural fascination with flying saucers is that we intuitively feel like it should be possible for someone with advanced technology to levitate without expending power. We are starting to get there, with quantum locking, which can levitate a type-II superconductor relative to a supporting magnetic field. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws6AAhTw7RA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws6AAhTw7RA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flux_pinning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flux_pinning I wonder if it would be physically possible to utilize the Earth's extremely weak magnetic field to support any meaningful mass?
- purpled_haze 11y ago
  I think the cultural fascination started with UFOs started with the first sighting on June 24, 1947: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Arnold_UFO_sighting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Arnold_UFO_sighting After that, it was picked up in movies and TV, with the first movie being the 1950 film: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flying_Saucer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flying_Saucer Movies and TV continued to imprint the human psyche with the image of flying saucers for many years. Flying saucers also had the benefit of being much easier to hoax in pictures and video than cylinders or other shapes, for obvious reasons (an old hubcap or pie pan could be a UFO, and spinning them like a frisbee provides gyroscopic stabilization). The only thing close to flying saucers in terms of mass recognition and capturing the world's imagination would be greys. The movie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_Encounters_of_the_Third_Kind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_Encounters_of_the_Third_... in 1977 popularized this image of aliens, even though aliens in fiction have included grey skinned beings since at least 1893: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_alien https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_alien Prior to greys, the most common cultural alien in popular culture, or at least in English language, were https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_green_men https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_green_men or anything with antennae, sometimes with helmets. Following these, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reptilians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reptilians were popular, probably most popularized in the V series in the early 80s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_%281983_miniseries%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_%281983_miniseries%29 But, nothing beats the flying saucer.
- krapp 11y ago
  Well, bear in mind that before it was flying saucers, it was flying airships[0], and before that, many of the phenomena now associated with alien visitations and abductions were attributed to demons or angels. And of course, before it became known that there was no life on Mars of Venus, most aliens claimed to be from Mars or Venus. Strange how the technology and culture of aliens always seems to align with human cultural and technological norms, and how they always seem to be, biologically, human or humanoid. The aliens created by science fiction authors are often far more alien than the aliens people actually claim to encounter. The diversity of life on Earth is more alien. Never any Tines or Puppeteers or sentient blobs of dark matter or or twelve foot tall squamous hyperdimensional polyps. Just... strangely unusual space people in unusual space cars. But never too unusual. I'm an extreme skeptic about UFOs as alien spacecraft and of alien visitation because, other reasons aside, the universe they seem to describe is depressingly mundane. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_airship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_airship
mchahn 11y ago
I'm going to get downvoted, but ... I can't believe that a technically savvy group like HN readers would even entertain the ridiculous idea of levitation or flying saucers. There is nothing mysterious about magnetic forces. They have been understood for a century. And obviously flying saucers are a myth or we'd have evidence.
- jlgaddis 11y ago
  Us humans are a pretty arrogant bunch, always believing we are the smartest creatures in existence. What if there are other species or life forms out there that are orders of magnitude smarter than us and we simply aren't intelligent enough to recognize signs of them when we see 'em? Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
  - logn 11y ago
    "I believe that there is life on other planets, but the vast distances which separate us also prohibit us from communicating with each other... we Americans have a history of being romantics and often imagine the impossible dreams. If you believe in extraterrestrial visitation, then for everyone's sake, present your evidence, state your facts, and let the true scientists of our nation be the judges. Let's quit exploiting the masses; because if you are the founder of an extraterrestrial vehicle, it will be self-evident" -Hector Quintanilla, head of Project Blue Book, https://ia902507.us.archive.org/15/items/ufos-an-air-force-dilemma/quintanilla.pdf https://ia902507.us.archive.org/15/items/ufos-an-air-force-d...
  - aftbit 11y ago
    Well, to be fair, absence of evidence is evidence of absence. It's certainly not proof, but it is evidence. Every observation you make that _does not_ show a phenomena occurring allows you to be more certain that the phenomena does not occur. http://lesswrong.com/lw/ih/absence_of_evidence_is_evidence_of_absence/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/ih/absence_of_evidence_is_evidence_o... http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?AbsenceOfEvidenceIsNotEvidenceOfAbsence http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?AbsenceOfEvidenceIsNotEvidenceOfAbsen...
  - inDigiNeous 11y ago
aftbit 11y ago
So what did (most likely) happen in the Zamora case?
- walkingolof 11y ago
  Nobody knows, since he is dead and no new evidences have appeared the likely hood of finding out what happened is very low.
- rangibaby 11y ago
  Another darn weather balloon! http://www.rotten.com/library/conspiracy/roswell/ http://www.rotten.com/library/conspiracy/roswell/
sandworm101 11y ago
Give how tightly wound UFOs, flying saucers and conspiracy theories are, perhaps it would have been beneficial if they were investigated by anyone other than the CIA. The CIA's culture is not one of openness, nor should it be. So anything they do will be regarded as suspect, any conclusion about UFOs seen as potential misdirection. The public does not expect the CIA to tell the truth. The NSF, even NASA, would probably have been a better point person. As for whether we are being visited, I see no evidence to the contrary. No practical amount of evidence can ever prove such as thing isn't happening. From a purely scientific standpoint I'm all for investigations. If NASA wanted to deliberately hunt for something like Bracewell probes in the outer solar system, I'd support that effort.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
anotheryou 11y ago
This scene from the movie "kaspar hauser" https://youtu.be/ITq02n7y2fI?t=12 https://youtu.be/ITq02n7y2fI?t=12 is clearly an homage to this picture on the right: https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2016-featured-story-archive/images/ufo-slider.jpg/image.jpg https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/...
wturner 11y ago
For those interested in a peice of signifigant ( and less known ) history from the world of flying saucers here is a little gem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Weygers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Weygers and his invention: http://www.discopter.com/ http://www.discopter.com/
emiliobumachar 11y ago
Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1235/ https://xkcd.com/1235/
emiliobumachar 11y ago
Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1235/ https://xkcd.com/1235/

82 points by jackgavigan 11y ago

"The case was considered significant because of the “excellent documentary evidence in the form of Kodachrome motion picture films (about 1600 frames).”" Is there any copy of the the Tremonton film online? [0] Anyone seen it? Not much from the CIA. [1] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jggeM_JEJtE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jggeM_JEJtE [1] http://www.foia.cia.gov/search/site/Tremonton http://www.foia.cia.gov/search/site/Tremonton

sciguy77 11y ago
Did some searching and here it is (I think): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=of3m8_LvUWs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=of3m8_LvUWs
- bootload 11y ago
  here's a good overview by Dr J Allen Hynenk with a better reproduction ~ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kn4strYhWok https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kn4strYhWok

jonmrodriguez 11y ago

I feel like part of the cultural fascination with flying saucers is that we intuitively feel like it should be possible for someone with advanced technology to levitate without expending power. We are starting to get there, with quantum locking, which can levitate a type-II superconductor relative to a supporting magnetic field. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws6AAhTw7RA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws6AAhTw7RA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flux_pinning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flux_pinning I wonder if it would be physically possible to utilize the Earth's extremely weak magnetic field to support any meaningful mass?

purpled_haze 11y ago
I think the cultural fascination started with UFOs started with the first sighting on June 24, 1947: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Arnold_UFO_sighting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Arnold_UFO_sighting After that, it was picked up in movies and TV, with the first movie being the 1950 film: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flying_Saucer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flying_Saucer Movies and TV continued to imprint the human psyche with the image of flying saucers for many years. Flying saucers also had the benefit of being much easier to hoax in pictures and video than cylinders or other shapes, for obvious reasons (an old hubcap or pie pan could be a UFO, and spinning them like a frisbee provides gyroscopic stabilization). The only thing close to flying saucers in terms of mass recognition and capturing the world's imagination would be greys. The movie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_Encounters_of_the_Third_Kind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_Encounters_of_the_Third_... in 1977 popularized this image of aliens, even though aliens in fiction have included grey skinned beings since at least 1893: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_alien https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_alien Prior to greys, the most common cultural alien in popular culture, or at least in English language, were https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_green_men https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_green_men or anything with antennae, sometimes with helmets. Following these, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reptilians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reptilians were popular, probably most popularized in the V series in the early 80s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_%281983_miniseries%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_%281983_miniseries%29 But, nothing beats the flying saucer.
krapp 11y ago
Well, bear in mind that before it was flying saucers, it was flying airships[0], and before that, many of the phenomena now associated with alien visitations and abductions were attributed to demons or angels. And of course, before it became known that there was no life on Mars of Venus, most aliens claimed to be from Mars or Venus. Strange how the technology and culture of aliens always seems to align with human cultural and technological norms, and how they always seem to be, biologically, human or humanoid. The aliens created by science fiction authors are often far more alien than the aliens people actually claim to encounter. The diversity of life on Earth is more alien. Never any Tines or Puppeteers or sentient blobs of dark matter or or twelve foot tall squamous hyperdimensional polyps. Just... strangely unusual space people in unusual space cars. But never too unusual. I'm an extreme skeptic about UFOs as alien spacecraft and of alien visitation because, other reasons aside, the universe they seem to describe is depressingly mundane. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_airship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_airship

mchahn 11y ago

I'm going to get downvoted, but ... I can't believe that a technically savvy group like HN readers would even entertain the ridiculous idea of levitation or flying saucers. There is nothing mysterious about magnetic forces. They have been understood for a century. And obviously flying saucers are a myth or we'd have evidence.

jlgaddis 11y ago
Us humans are a pretty arrogant bunch, always believing we are the smartest creatures in existence. What if there are other species or life forms out there that are orders of magnitude smarter than us and we simply aren't intelligent enough to recognize signs of them when we see 'em? Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
- logn 11y ago
  "I believe that there is life on other planets, but the vast distances which separate us also prohibit us from communicating with each other... we Americans have a history of being romantics and often imagine the impossible dreams. If you believe in extraterrestrial visitation, then for everyone's sake, present your evidence, state your facts, and let the true scientists of our nation be the judges. Let's quit exploiting the masses; because if you are the founder of an extraterrestrial vehicle, it will be self-evident" -Hector Quintanilla, head of Project Blue Book, https://ia902507.us.archive.org/15/items/ufos-an-air-force-dilemma/quintanilla.pdf https://ia902507.us.archive.org/15/items/ufos-an-air-force-d...
- aftbit 11y ago
  Well, to be fair, absence of evidence is evidence of absence. It's certainly not proof, but it is evidence. Every observation you make that _does not_ show a phenomena occurring allows you to be more certain that the phenomena does not occur. http://lesswrong.com/lw/ih/absence_of_evidence_is_evidence_of_absence/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/ih/absence_of_evidence_is_evidence_o... http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?AbsenceOfEvidenceIsNotEvidenceOfAbsence http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?AbsenceOfEvidenceIsNotEvidenceOfAbsen...
- inDigiNeous 11y ago

aftbit 11y ago

So what did (most likely) happen in the Zamora case?

walkingolof 11y ago
Nobody knows, since he is dead and no new evidences have appeared the likely hood of finding out what happened is very low.
rangibaby 11y ago
Another darn weather balloon! http://www.rotten.com/library/conspiracy/roswell/ http://www.rotten.com/library/conspiracy/roswell/

sandworm101 11y ago

Give how tightly wound UFOs, flying saucers and conspiracy theories are, perhaps it would have been beneficial if they were investigated by anyone other than the CIA. The CIA's culture is not one of openness, nor should it be. So anything they do will be regarded as suspect, any conclusion about UFOs seen as potential misdirection. The public does not expect the CIA to tell the truth. The NSF, even NASA, would probably have been a better point person. As for whether we are being visited, I see no evidence to the contrary. No practical amount of evidence can ever prove such as thing isn't happening. From a purely scientific standpoint I'm all for investigations. If NASA wanted to deliberately hunt for something like Bracewell probes in the outer solar system, I'd support that effort.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

anotheryou 11y ago

This scene from the movie "kaspar hauser" https://youtu.be/ITq02n7y2fI?t=12 https://youtu.be/ITq02n7y2fI?t=12 is clearly an homage to this picture on the right: https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2016-featured-story-archive/images/ufo-slider.jpg/image.jpg https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/...

wturner 11y ago

For those interested in a peice of signifigant ( and less known ) history from the world of flying saucers here is a little gem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Weygers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Weygers and his invention: http://www.discopter.com/ http://www.discopter.com/

emiliobumachar 11y ago

Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1235/ https://xkcd.com/1235/

emiliobumachar 11y ago

Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1235/ https://xkcd.com/1235/