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UFO Existence 'Proven Beyond Reasonable Doubt': Former Head Of Pentagon Program

156 points by n-exploit 9y ago

Apocryphon 9y ago
Well I suppose it's significant that the Pentagon confirms that these are actually flying objects and not swamp gas from a weather balloon trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus.
- tigershark 9y ago
  Where did the pentagon confirmed this?
  - Apocryphon 9y ago
    UFO literally stands for unidentified flying object. So meaning these weren't optical illusions or visual hallucinations. People are saying that UFO just means an unidentified flying object (not alien spacecraft as in the popular meaning) and so this is a non-story. My joke is that even if UFOs just turn out to be flocks of birds or unreported aircraft, it's still at least a little significant, because it means something's up there.
mankash666 9y ago
If this object indeed exists, it being a covert US government agency project is highly likely. So, in my opinion, one arm of the government is being funded to investigate the covert operations of another, without the former knowing about it. Like in many narcotics themed movies and TV series inspired by real events, the DEA spends considerable time and effort, only to find the CIA masterminding an operation
everdev 9y ago
UFO != Aliens I think many would agree that there are unidentified flying objects beyond a reasonable doubt. My guess is that just as it's hard to identify something in the distance, most of these experiences are from distance with poor resolution for the simple reason that if you were to get close enough you'd be able to tell what it was which is probably something other than an extraterrestrial spaceship.
TheRealPomax 9y ago
To save people some time: "The existence of UFOs had been “proved beyond reasonable doubt,” according the head of the secret Pentagon program that analyzed the mysterious aircrafts." and given that UFOs by definition exist (because we needed a term for Unidentified Flying Objects): no, actually, the title and this article are drivel. Thanks for the clickbait.
- choxi 9y ago
  Yes, but the Pentagon official they interviewed is saying he believes that extraterrestrial UFOs exist: > I hate to use the term UFO but that’s what we’re looking at,” he added. “I think it’s pretty clear this is not us, and it’s not anyone else, so no one has to ask questions where they’re from. So it's not really misleading. I think he believes that aliens exist and have visited Earth.
  - wavefunction 9y ago
    "It's not us, and it's not anyone else." I might take this more seriously if the guy said "It's not any humans."
    - servsys 9y ago
      Who else is there other than humans?
friedButter 9y ago
UFO = Unidentified Flying Object Its fair to say that some flying objects would be unidentified after all
NiklasMort 9y ago
some more info on that video: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/unidentified-flying-object-navy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/unidentified-...
- joering2 9y ago
  paywall :(
ShabbosGoy 9y ago
> In his resignation letter to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, he asked, “Why aren’t we spending more time and effort on this issue? There remains a vital need to ascertain capability and intent of these phenomena for the benefit of the armed forces and the nation." I stopped reading after that.
- mwfunk 9y ago
  Why?
- dang 9y ago
  Please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN, especially not when they're also internet tropes.
hliyan 9y ago
I went through the following sources, and assuming that there is no lying involved, I'm having some difficulty explaining the observations: 1. https://theaviationist.com/2017/12/17/u-s-department-of-defense-video-shows-unknown-object-intercepted-by-u-s-navy-super-hornet-and-we-have-no-idea-what-it-was/ https://theaviationist.com/2017/12/17/u-s-department-of-defe... 2. https://fightersweep.com/1460/x-files-edition/ https://fightersweep.com/1460/x-files-edition/ The difficulties: 1. Multiple corroborating observations - radar contact, two sets of aircraft crews visual observations, one set of FLIR footage 2. Very high acceleration and deceleration - powered descent from 80K feet to 20 feet in a matter of seconds; high G turns and acceleration, BUT with no visible high temperature engine exhaust visible on FLIR footage. It's possible to mask engine exhaust and it's possible to achieve very high G's, but I can't imagine how to achieve both simultaneously. Theories: Assuming that there is no lying involved, based on (1) we can safely assume that there _were_ actual physical flying objects in the area. However, before we go off-Earth, I think we should look at propulsion systems that do not rely on thermal expansion of gases. 1. What if it's just an extremely powerful electric propellor based drone? 2. What if it can achieve burst acceleration by releasing compressed gases (which actually reduces temperature)?
- tristanj 9y ago
  Here is another UFO incident from another country (Belgium) with multiple corroborating observations and very high acceleration/deceleration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_UFO_wave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_UFO_wave The evidence includes: 1. Statements by thirty different groups of witnesses, three separate groups of police officers, documenting the sight of a large object flying at low altitude. An estimated 13,500 people on the ground saw the object, of which 2,600 filed written statements describing in detail what they saw. 2. Detection on radar of the object from two F-16 Fighter jets scrambled to intercept the object 3. Secondary detection of the object from ground radar at a nearby military airfield 4. Data from the F-16s suggesting near impossible maneuvers. Quoting wikipedia: "During the first radar lock, the target accelerated from 240 km/h to over 1,770 km/h while changing altitude from 2,700 m to 1,500 m, then up to 3,350 m before descending to almost ground level – the first descent of more than 900 m taking less than two seconds. Similar maneuvers were observed during both subsequent radar locks. On no occasion were the F-16 pilots able to make visual contact with the targets [NB: it was around midnight hence poor visibility] and at no point, despite the speeds involved, was there any indication of a sonic boom." 5. A low quality photo, which may have been faked. With regards to the evidence presented, I find it very difficult to come up with a convincing explanation of this incident.
narrator 9y ago
So let's assume this is real for a moment. It's either the "breakaway civilization"[1], otherwise known as the secret space program or it must be the Strugatsky's "Roadside Picnic"[2] scenario. In support of "Roadside Picnic", if they've been hanging around all these years and just making the ocassional look-around and flybys without landing on the white house lawn and asking us to join the Interstellar Federation, we must be extremely unimpressive. Basically, life is common in the universe. We are a somewhat interesting tourist attraction and pit stop on the way to alpha centauri or whatever, but not really that special. They get here, pick up water and air maybe, take some pictures, some dna samples and fly off to wherever they were on their way to. Everything we have here they have in a million other places all around the galaxy. The breakaway civilization seems more plausible if one assumes that travelling interstellar distances is flat out impossible though. However, there could be a mix of the two... Now if this is all just a bug on the windshield "swamp gas", I understand the downvotes, but otherwise please tell me how it's not one or the other given the evidence. 1.http://www.theeventchronicle.com/study/breakaway-civilization-means-us-2/# http://www.theeventchronicle.com/study/breakaway-civilizatio... 2.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadside_Picnic https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadside_Picnic
- GVIrish 9y ago
  Option 3, intelligent life that builds a civilization is not common in the universe, so they want to study us. Much the same way we study great apes or dolphins. In that case, they might want to observe us without interfering to see how we behave naturally. Or maybe they have a sort of prime directive. Or maybe they realize that if they interact with us and expose us to their level of technology, we might destroy ourselves given the level of conflict and violence we're still prone to.
  - fbnlsr 9y ago
    > Much the same way we study great apes or dolphins. Unfortunately, humans are known to study other species by locking them in cages and cutting them open. :(
    - 9y ago
poisonarena 9y ago
this is the hacker news title I have been waiting for my whole life...
- vixen99 9y ago
  But it's merely pointing to a lack of identification on the part of some flying objects! I'm rather looking forward to something more exciting.
vadimberman 9y ago
While both the incident and the program are interesting enough to warrant further inquiry (let alone declassification), the kind of organisations that Elizondo is associated with, do not make him sound credible. This is "To The Stars" association, cofounded by him and Tom DeLonge: https://dpo.tothestarsacademy.com/#how-we-work https://dpo.tothestarsacademy.com/#how-we-work. A promise to invent "beamed energy propulsion" and "advanced electrogravitic propulsion" already makes me scratch my head. I see that there are lots of retired top brass there, like the former head of Skunk Works. There is Gary Nolan, who diligently analysed the so-called "Starchild" skull to conclude that it's probably nothing special. But then, there is Hal Puthoff (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_E._Puthoff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_E._Puthoff), of the Stargate ("Men who stare at goats") and "zero-point energy" fame. Finally, while there is nothing wrong with DeLonge as a musician, the pairing of a UFO enthusiast musician and former DC functionaries does not make a lot of sense. I mean... at this point Elizondo is offering one short video with the clarity of a Rorschach test, and extraordinary claims. The figures at the top of the To The Stars page guarantee there will be more coverage on the topic.
- kneel 9y ago
  I really wanted to believe this was real until I went to the 'to the stars academy' website. Luis Elizondo is on their board. This 'academy' and all its directors have a huge financial incentive to convince others that they're onto something. The top of their front page has a large 'invest' button. You can purchase shares in this 'academy'. This reeks of a scam, or at least a bunch of psuedo-scientific conspiracy fueled 'research' that will never amount to anything other than begging for more funds and blaming shortcomings on gov coverups. What are people going to do with their UFO research shares?...
joering2 9y ago
I'm not concerned about aliens, as much as I am concerned about all the hype we are experiencing recently related to extra-terrestrials. For decades government came short of making fun of people who believed in "green man from outer space" ... now all of sudden all this hype in media makes me wonder... is someone in gov capable of pulling strings on taxpayers' dollars are preparing some huge tax bill to shove in peoples faces, [call it for example AARA (Affordable Alien Research Act)] just to find another reason to take more from tax payers pockets? Otherwise I don't get all this fear-mongering... anyone?
- GVIrish 9y ago
  It could well be propaganda aimed at securing funding for pie in the sky military spending. But consider what would be the logical course of action if you're a government who comes across evidence of extraterrestrials, especially in decades past. First, you have to weigh whether telling the general public will cause panic. I don't know that if the US govt told people aliens were visiting in the 1960's, people would've taken it well. Then think about how your adversaries might respond. It stands to reason that if any country were able to gain control of alien technology either by making contact, observation or recovering crashed spacecraft, it could dramatically alter the balance of power for the next century or more. Imagine alien technology that allowed a Nation to build aircraft/spacecraft that could out accelerate and out maneuver any ballistic missile. All of a sudden mutually assured destruction falls apart and nuclear weapons are rendered obsolete by anyone without alien tech. So if you're a Nation state that knows about aliens, you'd probably want to keep it under wraps and one way you'd do that is discredit any public reports while quietly trying to figure out everything you could.
sidcool 9y ago
I have an inkling that these press releases are aimed at ramping up to the news of existence of Aliens by the governments. Sort of delivering the news slowly.
- gmueckl 9y ago
  I am not trusting the source, though. The Pentagon has a history of nutjob projects and fishy research results (in addition to some solid stuff from DARPA).
- tzahola 9y ago
  Project Blue Beam imminent
- ubernostrum 9y ago
  The program involved seems to have been a way to divert a few millions of dollars to a politician's friend, and it's not terribly hard to find earnest, believing people who are still basically cranks and put them in charge of it so that the reports coming out sound like it's genuinely important work.
whatshisface 9y ago
I'm seeing a lot of comments here beginning with something to the effect of, "assuming there's no lying involved." Well, assuming there's no lying involved, the NSA never tracked us, Iraq had WMDs, and Bill Clinton did not have sex with that woman. There's a broader epistemological problem afoot here: the NSA could easily design a flawed zero-knowledge proof mechanism that I would never see a flaw in. Likewise, it's always going to be easier to fake a video of magitek than it will be to invent it for real. As a result it's essentially impossible to believe these stories under any circumstances short of an actual leak of the magitek.
- Asooka 9y ago
  Feels to me most like an attention diversion tactic. Except I'm not sure what they're trying to divert attention from. Net Neutrality?
- ern 9y ago
  Iraqi WMDs are an interesting case against broad government conspiracies. Before the invasion, the evidence was weak and fragmentary. After the invasion, it would have been a lot easier (and less embarrassing) to fake the WMDs if they had the capability. The fact that they couldn’t tells me that they aren’t good at high profile hoaxes of physical evidence with lots of witnesses.
  - wallace_f 9y ago
    Similarly the Gulf of Tonkin incident was lied about and also resulted in LBJ being granted war powers without congressional approval--even though the incident was also easily dismissed as false. If anything, it served as a blueprint that these two easy tricks could be used again--like in Iraq. And in both cases, they got everything they wanted and no one held them accountable. Why would they need to cover anything up if no one holds them accountable? Focusing on a cover up might have a Streissand effect. So I do think there are broad government conspiracies... The NSA surveillance was a conspiracy theory until recently.
    - evgen 9y ago
demarq 9y ago
Why is Pentagon in the title. At what point did the pentagon confirm the above title.
- dang 9y ago
  The title was rewritten in a misleading way ("'UFO Existence Proven Beyond a Resonable Doubt' – Pentagon"). We've restored the original title, or rather a shortened version of it to fit the 80 char limit while preserving its meaning.
planck01 9y ago
I am obviously very skeptical about these kinds of claims, especially if extraterrastiality is claimed. There is nothing in the article supporting this and there are so many extraordinary events that have had to occur for this to hold. From breaking our understanding of physical speedlimits, to motifs for hiding and appearing on very specific sites. I always love the Mitchell and Webb sketches that show the absurdity of these kind of claims: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=59zLZ6PpeSA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=59zLZ6PpeSA
nisten 9y ago
Let's do a first principles analysis. If alien's were present here in biological form, having superior intelligence capabilities, they would have already taken control of us. Given the stupid amount of pollution we keep outputting to the planet, this is definitely not the case. There's no intelligent alien life here because it's still us in control. Could it be an alien drone though? Yes. If it was it means it came here either by a lightsail, or some other sub-lightspeed travel technology. Or it was dropped through blackwhole or something and it just showed up. If it teleported here, then it probably has next level quantum tech and whatever. It could've teleported back a signal, taken over all communications and they would have already physically taken over our planet. So that's not likely the case, unless the drone is just capable of surviving faster than light travel but is still limited by the same physical problems in integrated circuits and power generations that we already know. Okay.Now, if it traveled at sub-lightspeed it's likely to have taken at least a few thousand light years at minimum ( given by our observation of what planets are close to us ) to get here. More likely a few hundred thousand. That means another few hundred thousand to send a signal back. In that case that they would try to colonize us before we get too powerful, by sending a colony ship or something, which would take even more time. We're likely to go extinct on our own before that happens so there's no point worrying about aliens. This is assuming that they've reached the same physical limits in technology that we have. Those being the speed of travel limit, and quantum computing not being Turing complete. Meaning this drone can not break cryptography, or run an overpowering AI that takes over all our communications and controls us.
- badcede 9y ago
  "they would have already taken control of us" This assumes that they would be just like humans, and only the rapacious ones at that.
  - nisten 9y ago
    Think of it this way, if us humans were technologically capable of taking over their planet, we would very likely do so. Unless we completely edit out past warmongering from our gene pool. Therefore their only logical choice would be to stop us from getting capable enough to do that. Right?
sunseb 9y ago
It's like you are walking in the woods and you find a tribe of monkeys : why would you interact with them?
- danaliv 9y ago
  Who will be the Jane Goodall of aliens?
meri_dian 9y ago
Unless everyone involved with this is lying, something very strange is going on. I mean, just let it sink in. We have high level government recognition that objects with incredibly advanced flight capabilities exist and we have no idea what they are or where they come from. How do you dismiss this? When the encounter in the recently released video involved multiple military assets monitoring the UFO with a high level of precision that pretty much rules out explanations that rely on illusions or other misleading sensory phenomena?
- akhilcacharya 9y ago
  I’m skeptical of the ET hypothesis, or even the advanced Air Force research tech hypothesis, but one thing has puzzled me about the released video. It only shows the object rotating and then is cut off - what happened after?
- redial 9y ago
  > How do you dismiss this? You don't. But you also don't have to accept their baseless implications of extraterrestrial origin.
sunseb 9y ago
It reminds me this great scene from the movie "Men In Black": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vmGcngRA24 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vmGcngRA24
deepnotderp 9y ago
From bufferoverflow's comment: The problem with the UFO evidence is, it's shitty every single time. With 4K cameras in cheap smartphones, 50x optical zoom cheap consumer cameras, cheap telescopes widely available, our UFO videos haven't gotten any better. the same situation with loch ness monsters, Sasquatch, etc.
- brango 9y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSZ2mSnaC44 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSZ2mSnaC44 It's not perfect, but shows the same object from multiple angles.
  - ilitirit 9y ago
    https://www.livescience.com/12826-jerusalem-ufo-hoax.html https://www.livescience.com/12826-jerusalem-ufo-hoax.html
    - brango 9y ago
      Damn video editing software :-(
- cesarb 9y ago
  It makes sense to me that all UFO evidence would have shitty quality. UFOs are unidentified flying objects; once the image quality is good enough to identify what it is, it's no longer an UFO. So all that's left in the "UFO" category are the ones where the image quality was not good enough to make an identification.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
rjromero 9y ago
The odds we encounter aliens are remarkably low, but what are the odds we encounter aliens with a similar evolution pattern, that is, reproductive-driven intelligence and similar somatic senses? We could stumble upon some weird aseuxal amoeba type beings who don't even have a personal ego or concept of private property, they just float around on organic ships and communicate through flows of slimy alien-goo. Whew, what a bummer would that be.
- PoachedSausage 9y ago
  ET finally shows up and it turns out they're Marxists, that is really going to upset quite few people.
digi_owl 9y ago
I see some talk about radar measurements, and i find myself wondering how some early stealth tests would look on such equipment. Could perhaps the speed or altitude readings shift drastically as the vehicle banked and thus exposed more or less reflective surfaces to the radar source?
dragonwriter 9y ago
The existence of unidentified flying objects—observed aerial phenomena without a contemporaneous clear explanation—has never been in even the slightest bit of doubt. What has been (and remains) in considerable doubt is particular proposed identifications for some subsets of UFOs, particularly, the explanation that some are extraterrestrial spacecraft. And the ET explanation has not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt; it is, at best, for some UFO incidents among the explanations which cannot be unequivocally rejected based on existing evidence.
- emerged 9y ago
  Even if I personally saw a green little man flying around my living room, my mind would more likely assume it was government technology masquerading as an alien. It'd take something pretty incredible, orders of magnitude more advanced than I could phathom humans creating, to convince me of legit alien intelligent life.
ggggtez 9y ago
Count one vote for: Mass delusion. Being educated doesn't immunize you against seeing patterns that aren't there.
tudorw 9y ago
I have not checked yet, but maybe someone else is aware of the other news story this wave of headline making news is burying?
ilitirit 9y ago
This does pose a conundrum for UFO conspiracy theorists though. i.e. Why would the Pentagon spend millions on a UFO program if, as conspiracy theorists believe, they've had evidence about them since at least the Roswell incident? Bob Lazar in fact has claimed to have actually worked on these craft and have witnessed humans fly them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Lazar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Lazar The interviews with him about this are on Youtube. So either, the US government knew about them but didn't tell the Pentagon; or the Pentagon had no such program; this program was meant to spread misinformation; neither the US gov nor the Pentagon ever had any evidence of UFOs.
emmelaich 9y ago
What I find difficult to believe is that presumably intelligent people put any store in these ridiculous pictures at all. There's a a thousand explanations, most of which would not occur to most people. Let me add this comment that I made to a dupe on this UFO thing a little while back: "I can give my own example of an utterly astonishing gob-smacking sight which turned out to have a fairly simple explanation. I invite people to speculate on what it was... About 7am I was travelling in a ferry on Sydney Harbour about 400m east of the bridge. I saw a giant (50m diameter?) golden glowing ball hover on the other (west) side of the bridge. It was definitely not on the bridge. It maintained its position for over 30 seconds. Then it changed and the actuality was revealed." Follow this link for the discussion and explanation. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15948600 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15948600
pelasaco 9y ago
Maybe they are guilt by the global warming :P
lolc 9y ago
And again grainy footage of an UFO. Some people conclude from this that unknown life crosses oceans of vacuum only to skip around in our tiny puddle of an atmosphere. But lifeforms capable of bridging light-years would look nothing like us. Why assume they would enjoy a ride in our atmosphere?
ninjamayo 9y ago
The whole assumption/connection of UFOs to extraterrestrials has to be eliminated in order to understand what these objects truly are. For some reason for decades the majority of people simply cannot think in a scientific way about UFOs, it's like they are blocked. Yes there are exceptions of people but they usually get ridiculed. If we start from the premise that UFOs exist, stop thinking aliens and see what else is there then maybe we will get to the truth. Other options we can look into: 1) Someone or some people have the technology to build these. We simply don't know who they are and what they represent 2) It's a natural phenomenon that can be explained but needs proper investigation 3) They are drones from our planet but maybe built at a different time remnants or an old civilisation. Do we understand the entire history of earth and it's past civilisations? Maybe yes but also maybe we are missing something 4) Theory of multiverses and other dimensions could be something to think about 5) Or they are simply projections to our brains sophisticated enough to make us think these things actually exist It could be none of the above and just governments messing around with us in order to see how we react but this has to be one of the most complex and long term projects any government has got into. Point is more people need to look at this scientifically rather than dismiss all the evidence straight away.
mekazu 9y ago
Is this reddit now?
rdtsc 9y ago
Yes, without a doubt we have not been able to identify these flying objects. Headline sounds impressive but it isn't really. Just because there is something we saw and couldn't identify it doesn't mean it's aliens.
booleandilemma 9y ago
There are 4.77 billion people walking around with a camera[1] in their pocket, so until we see something that doesn’t look like the bigfoot video from the 60s, I’m going to continue to believe that this recent alien talk is our government trying to distract us from the real issues. Also, usually when something real happens, like a meteor falling in Russia, it’s caught by multiple, independent cameras. Show me a UFO video filmed by different people from different angles. 1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/274774/forecast-of-mobile-phone-users-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/274774/forecast-of-mobil...
- leephillips 9y ago
  It's not "our government", it's one guy who's miffed that his office was defunded. And his quotes in the article make no sense to me; I can't parse the syntax and don't know what he's trying to say. It he's being quoted correctly, he sounds addle-headed.
- Houshalter 9y ago
  Smartphone cameras are shit. But even when someone gets clear videos of UFOs, you just say "they are probably drones or CGI". Video evidence means shit in 2017.
interfixus 9y ago
I shall remain sceptical until presented with some kind of highly irrefutable evidence. But assuming for the sake of argument that some of these observations are actually founded in somthing real, then where on earth does the idea of aliens enter the picture? Bugs or vira in the metaprogram sound no more farfetched, nor does my personal favourite, that it's just our great^n grandchildren visiting from a more or less distant future.
Istribitel 9y ago
Take away the background story and the audio. You're left with what looks like a moth in the optics.
cirgue 9y ago
Whatever your position on UFOs, this guy is a publicity crank. He gave an interview with NPR where he implied that quantum teleportation was an instantaneous form of communication and seems to conflate the idea of unidentified flying objects and alien spacecraft.
rurban 9y ago
"First material evidence please, then you get some more money". They spent their entire first budget on a warehouse near Las Vegas to store such potential material evidence. Without any convincing material evidence. So what else does he want?
redial 9y ago
To paraphrase the great Mitch Hedberg...the problem is not the evidence, the real problem is that aliens are blurry.
Houshalter 9y ago
This is a really interesting video on old cases of UFOs that convinced me there might be something to them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fb7T1v_VHpE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fb7T1v_VHpE
gcb0 9y ago
unidentified doesn't equate extra terrestrial.
ap3 9y ago
This is not the pentagon but the former pentagon employee. Doesn’t carry as much weight as the pentagon implies Would like to see international confirmation - Russia and China admitting that there are flying objects that can’t be identified to rule out some advanced esrthly technology.
amazeon 9y ago
Total mecca for UFO media. https://www.gaia.com/search?q=ufo https://www.gaia.com/search?q=ufo also I mean this shouldn't this be more compelling than some grainy video or is it so WTF that we just auto-NO. https://www.gaia.com/series/unearthing-nazca https://www.gaia.com/series/unearthing-nazca
thrill 9y ago
Aliens. Smart enough to transit the Universe. Not smart enough to have even human level stealth.
- V-2 9y ago
  They might not care that much. What difference has it made so far, after all? Maybe they settle for "stealthy enough for practical purposes".
scotty79 9y ago
> “In my opinion, if this was a court of law, we have reached the point of ‘beyond reasonable doubt.’” ...which, if true, should make us weep about state of US justice system.

156 points by n-exploit 9y ago

Well I suppose it's significant that the Pentagon confirms that these are actually flying objects and not swamp gas from a weather balloon trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus.

tigershark 9y ago
Where did the pentagon confirmed this?
- Apocryphon 9y ago
  UFO literally stands for unidentified flying object. So meaning these weren't optical illusions or visual hallucinations. People are saying that UFO just means an unidentified flying object (not alien spacecraft as in the popular meaning) and so this is a non-story. My joke is that even if UFOs just turn out to be flocks of birds or unreported aircraft, it's still at least a little significant, because it means something's up there.

mankash666 9y ago

If this object indeed exists, it being a covert US government agency project is highly likely. So, in my opinion, one arm of the government is being funded to investigate the covert operations of another, without the former knowing about it. Like in many narcotics themed movies and TV series inspired by real events, the DEA spends considerable time and effort, only to find the CIA masterminding an operation

everdev 9y ago

UFO != Aliens I think many would agree that there are unidentified flying objects beyond a reasonable doubt. My guess is that just as it's hard to identify something in the distance, most of these experiences are from distance with poor resolution for the simple reason that if you were to get close enough you'd be able to tell what it was which is probably something other than an extraterrestrial spaceship.

TheRealPomax 9y ago

To save people some time: "The existence of UFOs had been “proved beyond reasonable doubt,” according the head of the secret Pentagon program that analyzed the mysterious aircrafts." and given that UFOs by definition exist (because we needed a term for Unidentified Flying Objects): no, actually, the title and this article are drivel. Thanks for the clickbait.

choxi 9y ago
Yes, but the Pentagon official they interviewed is saying he believes that extraterrestrial UFOs exist: > I hate to use the term UFO but that’s what we’re looking at,” he added. “I think it’s pretty clear this is not us, and it’s not anyone else, so no one has to ask questions where they’re from. So it's not really misleading. I think he believes that aliens exist and have visited Earth.
- wavefunction 9y ago
  "It's not us, and it's not anyone else." I might take this more seriously if the guy said "It's not any humans."
  - servsys 9y ago
    Who else is there other than humans?

friedButter 9y ago

UFO = Unidentified Flying Object Its fair to say that some flying objects would be unidentified after all

NiklasMort 9y ago

some more info on that video: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/unidentified-flying-object-navy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/unidentified-...

joering2 9y ago
paywall :(

ShabbosGoy 9y ago

> In his resignation letter to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, he asked, “Why aren’t we spending more time and effort on this issue? There remains a vital need to ascertain capability and intent of these phenomena for the benefit of the armed forces and the nation." I stopped reading after that.

mwfunk 9y ago
Why?
dang 9y ago
Please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN, especially not when they're also internet tropes.

hliyan 9y ago

I went through the following sources, and assuming that there is no lying involved, I'm having some difficulty explaining the observations: 1. https://theaviationist.com/2017/12/17/u-s-department-of-defense-video-shows-unknown-object-intercepted-by-u-s-navy-super-hornet-and-we-have-no-idea-what-it-was/ https://theaviationist.com/2017/12/17/u-s-department-of-defe... 2. https://fightersweep.com/1460/x-files-edition/ https://fightersweep.com/1460/x-files-edition/ The difficulties: 1. Multiple corroborating observations - radar contact, two sets of aircraft crews visual observations, one set of FLIR footage 2. Very high acceleration and deceleration - powered descent from 80K feet to 20 feet in a matter of seconds; high G turns and acceleration, BUT with no visible high temperature engine exhaust visible on FLIR footage. It's possible to mask engine exhaust and it's possible to achieve very high G's, but I can't imagine how to achieve both simultaneously. Theories: Assuming that there is no lying involved, based on (1) we can safely assume that there _were_ actual physical flying objects in the area. However, before we go off-Earth, I think we should look at propulsion systems that do not rely on thermal expansion of gases. 1. What if it's just an extremely powerful electric propellor based drone? 2. What if it can achieve burst acceleration by releasing compressed gases (which actually reduces temperature)?

tristanj 9y ago
Here is another UFO incident from another country (Belgium) with multiple corroborating observations and very high acceleration/deceleration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_UFO_wave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_UFO_wave The evidence includes: 1. Statements by thirty different groups of witnesses, three separate groups of police officers, documenting the sight of a large object flying at low altitude. An estimated 13,500 people on the ground saw the object, of which 2,600 filed written statements describing in detail what they saw. 2. Detection on radar of the object from two F-16 Fighter jets scrambled to intercept the object 3. Secondary detection of the object from ground radar at a nearby military airfield 4. Data from the F-16s suggesting near impossible maneuvers. Quoting wikipedia: "During the first radar lock, the target accelerated from 240 km/h to over 1,770 km/h while changing altitude from 2,700 m to 1,500 m, then up to 3,350 m before descending to almost ground level – the first descent of more than 900 m taking less than two seconds. Similar maneuvers were observed during both subsequent radar locks. On no occasion were the F-16 pilots able to make visual contact with the targets [NB: it was around midnight hence poor visibility] and at no point, despite the speeds involved, was there any indication of a sonic boom." 5. A low quality photo, which may have been faked. With regards to the evidence presented, I find it very difficult to come up with a convincing explanation of this incident.

narrator 9y ago

So let's assume this is real for a moment. It's either the "breakaway civilization"[1], otherwise known as the secret space program or it must be the Strugatsky's "Roadside Picnic"[2] scenario. In support of "Roadside Picnic", if they've been hanging around all these years and just making the ocassional look-around and flybys without landing on the white house lawn and asking us to join the Interstellar Federation, we must be extremely unimpressive. Basically, life is common in the universe. We are a somewhat interesting tourist attraction and pit stop on the way to alpha centauri or whatever, but not really that special. They get here, pick up water and air maybe, take some pictures, some dna samples and fly off to wherever they were on their way to. Everything we have here they have in a million other places all around the galaxy. The breakaway civilization seems more plausible if one assumes that travelling interstellar distances is flat out impossible though. However, there could be a mix of the two... Now if this is all just a bug on the windshield "swamp gas", I understand the downvotes, but otherwise please tell me how it's not one or the other given the evidence. 1.http://www.theeventchronicle.com/study/breakaway-civilization-means-us-2/# http://www.theeventchronicle.com/study/breakaway-civilizatio... 2.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadside_Picnic https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadside_Picnic

GVIrish 9y ago
Option 3, intelligent life that builds a civilization is not common in the universe, so they want to study us. Much the same way we study great apes or dolphins. In that case, they might want to observe us without interfering to see how we behave naturally. Or maybe they have a sort of prime directive. Or maybe they realize that if they interact with us and expose us to their level of technology, we might destroy ourselves given the level of conflict and violence we're still prone to.
- fbnlsr 9y ago
  > Much the same way we study great apes or dolphins. Unfortunately, humans are known to study other species by locking them in cages and cutting them open. :(
  - 9y ago

poisonarena 9y ago

this is the hacker news title I have been waiting for my whole life...

vixen99 9y ago
But it's merely pointing to a lack of identification on the part of some flying objects! I'm rather looking forward to something more exciting.

vadimberman 9y ago

While both the incident and the program are interesting enough to warrant further inquiry (let alone declassification), the kind of organisations that Elizondo is associated with, do not make him sound credible. This is "To The Stars" association, cofounded by him and Tom DeLonge: https://dpo.tothestarsacademy.com/#how-we-work https://dpo.tothestarsacademy.com/#how-we-work. A promise to invent "beamed energy propulsion" and "advanced electrogravitic propulsion" already makes me scratch my head. I see that there are lots of retired top brass there, like the former head of Skunk Works. There is Gary Nolan, who diligently analysed the so-called "Starchild" skull to conclude that it's probably nothing special. But then, there is Hal Puthoff (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_E._Puthoff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_E._Puthoff), of the Stargate ("Men who stare at goats") and "zero-point energy" fame. Finally, while there is nothing wrong with DeLonge as a musician, the pairing of a UFO enthusiast musician and former DC functionaries does not make a lot of sense. I mean... at this point Elizondo is offering one short video with the clarity of a Rorschach test, and extraordinary claims. The figures at the top of the To The Stars page guarantee there will be more coverage on the topic.

kneel 9y ago
I really wanted to believe this was real until I went to the 'to the stars academy' website. Luis Elizondo is on their board. This 'academy' and all its directors have a huge financial incentive to convince others that they're onto something. The top of their front page has a large 'invest' button. You can purchase shares in this 'academy'. This reeks of a scam, or at least a bunch of psuedo-scientific conspiracy fueled 'research' that will never amount to anything other than begging for more funds and blaming shortcomings on gov coverups. What are people going to do with their UFO research shares?...

joering2 9y ago

I'm not concerned about aliens, as much as I am concerned about all the hype we are experiencing recently related to extra-terrestrials. For decades government came short of making fun of people who believed in "green man from outer space" ... now all of sudden all this hype in media makes me wonder... is someone in gov capable of pulling strings on taxpayers' dollars are preparing some huge tax bill to shove in peoples faces, [call it for example AARA (Affordable Alien Research Act)] just to find another reason to take more from tax payers pockets? Otherwise I don't get all this fear-mongering... anyone?

GVIrish 9y ago
It could well be propaganda aimed at securing funding for pie in the sky military spending. But consider what would be the logical course of action if you're a government who comes across evidence of extraterrestrials, especially in decades past. First, you have to weigh whether telling the general public will cause panic. I don't know that if the US govt told people aliens were visiting in the 1960's, people would've taken it well. Then think about how your adversaries might respond. It stands to reason that if any country were able to gain control of alien technology either by making contact, observation or recovering crashed spacecraft, it could dramatically alter the balance of power for the next century or more. Imagine alien technology that allowed a Nation to build aircraft/spacecraft that could out accelerate and out maneuver any ballistic missile. All of a sudden mutually assured destruction falls apart and nuclear weapons are rendered obsolete by anyone without alien tech. So if you're a Nation state that knows about aliens, you'd probably want to keep it under wraps and one way you'd do that is discredit any public reports while quietly trying to figure out everything you could.

sidcool 9y ago

I have an inkling that these press releases are aimed at ramping up to the news of existence of Aliens by the governments. Sort of delivering the news slowly.

gmueckl 9y ago
I am not trusting the source, though. The Pentagon has a history of nutjob projects and fishy research results (in addition to some solid stuff from DARPA).
tzahola 9y ago
Project Blue Beam imminent
ubernostrum 9y ago
The program involved seems to have been a way to divert a few millions of dollars to a politician's friend, and it's not terribly hard to find earnest, believing people who are still basically cranks and put them in charge of it so that the reports coming out sound like it's genuinely important work.

whatshisface 9y ago

I'm seeing a lot of comments here beginning with something to the effect of, "assuming there's no lying involved." Well, assuming there's no lying involved, the NSA never tracked us, Iraq had WMDs, and Bill Clinton did not have sex with that woman. There's a broader epistemological problem afoot here: the NSA could easily design a flawed zero-knowledge proof mechanism that I would never see a flaw in. Likewise, it's always going to be easier to fake a video of magitek than it will be to invent it for real. As a result it's essentially impossible to believe these stories under any circumstances short of an actual leak of the magitek.

Asooka 9y ago
Feels to me most like an attention diversion tactic. Except I'm not sure what they're trying to divert attention from. Net Neutrality?
ern 9y ago
Iraqi WMDs are an interesting case against broad government conspiracies. Before the invasion, the evidence was weak and fragmentary. After the invasion, it would have been a lot easier (and less embarrassing) to fake the WMDs if they had the capability. The fact that they couldn’t tells me that they aren’t good at high profile hoaxes of physical evidence with lots of witnesses.
- wallace_f 9y ago
  Similarly the Gulf of Tonkin incident was lied about and also resulted in LBJ being granted war powers without congressional approval--even though the incident was also easily dismissed as false. If anything, it served as a blueprint that these two easy tricks could be used again--like in Iraq. And in both cases, they got everything they wanted and no one held them accountable. Why would they need to cover anything up if no one holds them accountable? Focusing on a cover up might have a Streissand effect. So I do think there are broad government conspiracies... The NSA surveillance was a conspiracy theory until recently.
  - evgen 9y ago

demarq 9y ago

Why is Pentagon in the title. At what point did the pentagon confirm the above title.

dang 9y ago
The title was rewritten in a misleading way ("'UFO Existence Proven Beyond a Resonable Doubt' – Pentagon"). We've restored the original title, or rather a shortened version of it to fit the 80 char limit while preserving its meaning.

planck01 9y ago

I am obviously very skeptical about these kinds of claims, especially if extraterrastiality is claimed. There is nothing in the article supporting this and there are so many extraordinary events that have had to occur for this to hold. From breaking our understanding of physical speedlimits, to motifs for hiding and appearing on very specific sites. I always love the Mitchell and Webb sketches that show the absurdity of these kind of claims: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=59zLZ6PpeSA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=59zLZ6PpeSA

nisten 9y ago

Let's do a first principles analysis. If alien's were present here in biological form, having superior intelligence capabilities, they would have already taken control of us. Given the stupid amount of pollution we keep outputting to the planet, this is definitely not the case. There's no intelligent alien life here because it's still us in control. Could it be an alien drone though? Yes. If it was it means it came here either by a lightsail, or some other sub-lightspeed travel technology. Or it was dropped through blackwhole or something and it just showed up. If it teleported here, then it probably has next level quantum tech and whatever. It could've teleported back a signal, taken over all communications and they would have already physically taken over our planet. So that's not likely the case, unless the drone is just capable of surviving faster than light travel but is still limited by the same physical problems in integrated circuits and power generations that we already know. Okay.Now, if it traveled at sub-lightspeed it's likely to have taken at least a few thousand light years at minimum ( given by our observation of what planets are close to us ) to get here. More likely a few hundred thousand. That means another few hundred thousand to send a signal back. In that case that they would try to colonize us before we get too powerful, by sending a colony ship or something, which would take even more time. We're likely to go extinct on our own before that happens so there's no point worrying about aliens. This is assuming that they've reached the same physical limits in technology that we have. Those being the speed of travel limit, and quantum computing not being Turing complete. Meaning this drone can not break cryptography, or run an overpowering AI that takes over all our communications and controls us.

badcede 9y ago
"they would have already taken control of us" This assumes that they would be just like humans, and only the rapacious ones at that.
- nisten 9y ago
  Think of it this way, if us humans were technologically capable of taking over their planet, we would very likely do so. Unless we completely edit out past warmongering from our gene pool. Therefore their only logical choice would be to stop us from getting capable enough to do that. Right?

sunseb 9y ago

It's like you are walking in the woods and you find a tribe of monkeys : why would you interact with them?

danaliv 9y ago
Who will be the Jane Goodall of aliens?

meri_dian 9y ago

Unless everyone involved with this is lying, something very strange is going on. I mean, just let it sink in. We have high level government recognition that objects with incredibly advanced flight capabilities exist and we have no idea what they are or where they come from. How do you dismiss this? When the encounter in the recently released video involved multiple military assets monitoring the UFO with a high level of precision that pretty much rules out explanations that rely on illusions or other misleading sensory phenomena?

akhilcacharya 9y ago
I’m skeptical of the ET hypothesis, or even the advanced Air Force research tech hypothesis, but one thing has puzzled me about the released video. It only shows the object rotating and then is cut off - what happened after?
redial 9y ago
> How do you dismiss this? You don't. But you also don't have to accept their baseless implications of extraterrestrial origin.

sunseb 9y ago

It reminds me this great scene from the movie "Men In Black": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vmGcngRA24 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vmGcngRA24

deepnotderp 9y ago

From bufferoverflow's comment: The problem with the UFO evidence is, it's shitty every single time. With 4K cameras in cheap smartphones, 50x optical zoom cheap consumer cameras, cheap telescopes widely available, our UFO videos haven't gotten any better. the same situation with loch ness monsters, Sasquatch, etc.

brango 9y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSZ2mSnaC44 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSZ2mSnaC44 It's not perfect, but shows the same object from multiple angles.
- ilitirit 9y ago
  https://www.livescience.com/12826-jerusalem-ufo-hoax.html https://www.livescience.com/12826-jerusalem-ufo-hoax.html
  - brango 9y ago
    Damn video editing software :-(
cesarb 9y ago
It makes sense to me that all UFO evidence would have shitty quality. UFOs are unidentified flying objects; once the image quality is good enough to identify what it is, it's no longer an UFO. So all that's left in the "UFO" category are the ones where the image quality was not good enough to make an identification.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

rjromero 9y ago

The odds we encounter aliens are remarkably low, but what are the odds we encounter aliens with a similar evolution pattern, that is, reproductive-driven intelligence and similar somatic senses? We could stumble upon some weird aseuxal amoeba type beings who don't even have a personal ego or concept of private property, they just float around on organic ships and communicate through flows of slimy alien-goo. Whew, what a bummer would that be.

PoachedSausage 9y ago
ET finally shows up and it turns out they're Marxists, that is really going to upset quite few people.

digi_owl 9y ago

I see some talk about radar measurements, and i find myself wondering how some early stealth tests would look on such equipment. Could perhaps the speed or altitude readings shift drastically as the vehicle banked and thus exposed more or less reflective surfaces to the radar source?

dragonwriter 9y ago

The existence of unidentified flying objects—observed aerial phenomena without a contemporaneous clear explanation—has never been in even the slightest bit of doubt. What has been (and remains) in considerable doubt is particular proposed identifications for some subsets of UFOs, particularly, the explanation that some are extraterrestrial spacecraft. And the ET explanation has not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt; it is, at best, for some UFO incidents among the explanations which cannot be unequivocally rejected based on existing evidence.

emerged 9y ago
Even if I personally saw a green little man flying around my living room, my mind would more likely assume it was government technology masquerading as an alien. It'd take something pretty incredible, orders of magnitude more advanced than I could phathom humans creating, to convince me of legit alien intelligent life.

ggggtez 9y ago

Count one vote for: Mass delusion. Being educated doesn't immunize you against seeing patterns that aren't there.

tudorw 9y ago

I have not checked yet, but maybe someone else is aware of the other news story this wave of headline making news is burying?

ilitirit 9y ago

This does pose a conundrum for UFO conspiracy theorists though. i.e. Why would the Pentagon spend millions on a UFO program if, as conspiracy theorists believe, they've had evidence about them since at least the Roswell incident? Bob Lazar in fact has claimed to have actually worked on these craft and have witnessed humans fly them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Lazar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Lazar The interviews with him about this are on Youtube. So either, the US government knew about them but didn't tell the Pentagon; or the Pentagon had no such program; this program was meant to spread misinformation; neither the US gov nor the Pentagon ever had any evidence of UFOs.

emmelaich 9y ago

What I find difficult to believe is that presumably intelligent people put any store in these ridiculous pictures at all. There's a a thousand explanations, most of which would not occur to most people. Let me add this comment that I made to a dupe on this UFO thing a little while back: "I can give my own example of an utterly astonishing gob-smacking sight which turned out to have a fairly simple explanation. I invite people to speculate on what it was... About 7am I was travelling in a ferry on Sydney Harbour about 400m east of the bridge. I saw a giant (50m diameter?) golden glowing ball hover on the other (west) side of the bridge. It was definitely not on the bridge. It maintained its position for over 30 seconds. Then it changed and the actuality was revealed." Follow this link for the discussion and explanation. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15948600 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15948600

pelasaco 9y ago

Maybe they are guilt by the global warming :P

lolc 9y ago

And again grainy footage of an UFO. Some people conclude from this that unknown life crosses oceans of vacuum only to skip around in our tiny puddle of an atmosphere. But lifeforms capable of bridging light-years would look nothing like us. Why assume they would enjoy a ride in our atmosphere?

ninjamayo 9y ago

The whole assumption/connection of UFOs to extraterrestrials has to be eliminated in order to understand what these objects truly are. For some reason for decades the majority of people simply cannot think in a scientific way about UFOs, it's like they are blocked. Yes there are exceptions of people but they usually get ridiculed. If we start from the premise that UFOs exist, stop thinking aliens and see what else is there then maybe we will get to the truth. Other options we can look into: 1) Someone or some people have the technology to build these. We simply don't know who they are and what they represent 2) It's a natural phenomenon that can be explained but needs proper investigation 3) They are drones from our planet but maybe built at a different time remnants or an old civilisation. Do we understand the entire history of earth and it's past civilisations? Maybe yes but also maybe we are missing something 4) Theory of multiverses and other dimensions could be something to think about 5) Or they are simply projections to our brains sophisticated enough to make us think these things actually exist It could be none of the above and just governments messing around with us in order to see how we react but this has to be one of the most complex and long term projects any government has got into. Point is more people need to look at this scientifically rather than dismiss all the evidence straight away.

mekazu 9y ago

Is this reddit now?

rdtsc 9y ago

Yes, without a doubt we have not been able to identify these flying objects. Headline sounds impressive but it isn't really. Just because there is something we saw and couldn't identify it doesn't mean it's aliens.

booleandilemma 9y ago

There are 4.77 billion people walking around with a camera[1] in their pocket, so until we see something that doesn’t look like the bigfoot video from the 60s, I’m going to continue to believe that this recent alien talk is our government trying to distract us from the real issues. Also, usually when something real happens, like a meteor falling in Russia, it’s caught by multiple, independent cameras. Show me a UFO video filmed by different people from different angles. 1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/274774/forecast-of-mobile-phone-users-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/274774/forecast-of-mobil...

leephillips 9y ago
It's not "our government", it's one guy who's miffed that his office was defunded. And his quotes in the article make no sense to me; I can't parse the syntax and don't know what he's trying to say. It he's being quoted correctly, he sounds addle-headed.
Houshalter 9y ago
Smartphone cameras are shit. But even when someone gets clear videos of UFOs, you just say "they are probably drones or CGI". Video evidence means shit in 2017.

interfixus 9y ago

I shall remain sceptical until presented with some kind of highly irrefutable evidence. But assuming for the sake of argument that some of these observations are actually founded in somthing real, then where on earth does the idea of aliens enter the picture? Bugs or vira in the metaprogram sound no more farfetched, nor does my personal favourite, that it's just our great^n grandchildren visiting from a more or less distant future.

Istribitel 9y ago

Take away the background story and the audio. You're left with what looks like a moth in the optics.

cirgue 9y ago

Whatever your position on UFOs, this guy is a publicity crank. He gave an interview with NPR where he implied that quantum teleportation was an instantaneous form of communication and seems to conflate the idea of unidentified flying objects and alien spacecraft.

rurban 9y ago

"First material evidence please, then you get some more money". They spent their entire first budget on a warehouse near Las Vegas to store such potential material evidence. Without any convincing material evidence. So what else does he want?

redial 9y ago

To paraphrase the great Mitch Hedberg...the problem is not the evidence, the real problem is that aliens are blurry.

Houshalter 9y ago

This is a really interesting video on old cases of UFOs that convinced me there might be something to them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fb7T1v_VHpE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fb7T1v_VHpE

gcb0 9y ago

unidentified doesn't equate extra terrestrial.

ap3 9y ago

This is not the pentagon but the former pentagon employee. Doesn’t carry as much weight as the pentagon implies Would like to see international confirmation - Russia and China admitting that there are flying objects that can’t be identified to rule out some advanced esrthly technology.

amazeon 9y ago

Total mecca for UFO media. https://www.gaia.com/search?q=ufo https://www.gaia.com/search?q=ufo also I mean this shouldn't this be more compelling than some grainy video or is it so WTF that we just auto-NO. https://www.gaia.com/series/unearthing-nazca https://www.gaia.com/series/unearthing-nazca

thrill 9y ago

Aliens. Smart enough to transit the Universe. Not smart enough to have even human level stealth.

V-2 9y ago
They might not care that much. What difference has it made so far, after all? Maybe they settle for "stealthy enough for practical purposes".

scotty79 9y ago

> “In my opinion, if this was a court of law, we have reached the point of ‘beyond reasonable doubt.’” ...which, if true, should make us weep about state of US justice system.