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U.S. Navy drafting new guidelines for reporting UFOs
- vortico 7y agoMakes sense with the rise of unmanned enemy drone use.
- GlenTheMachine 7y agoWell... not in the sense that these things apparently exceed not just our own aircrafts' capabilities, but seem to use propulsion technologies that don't obey the known laws of physics. Enemy states have drones, for sure. But enemy states having drones that use super fast non-air-burning engines would be staggering.
- gtirloni 7y agoWe also have a powerful imagination. I'm not dismissing any sightings, just saying more discipline in documenting these things is always welcome. Sure, the Navy is probably interested in drone sightings but maybe we'll learn something more about other phenomenon.
- tomatotomato37 7y agoThere is a difference between having no air-burning engines and no visible air-burning engines. The B-2 and the F-117, which themselves were commonly mistaken for UFOs, both seem to have no thrust sources due to their buried engines and slitted exhaust vents
- grayed-down 7y agoNot at all sure why they're graying you down, but you make some very good points. There are just way too many credible witnesses who have observed objects in the sky far outperforming the principals of aeronautics and the laws of physics as we know them.
- codezero 7y agoHuman beings are almost never credible witnesses. We are deceived by the simplest optical illusions.
- grayed-down 7y agoI disagree. Reasonable people can see and understand things that they know to be unreasonable; like your comment for example.
- codezero 7y agoI agree with you. I think there is a spectrum on which a person can be very reliable and not at all reliable. I think that when seeing any unknown phenomenon there is nobody who can be 100% reliable. They can be a data point, but that should be the extent of it until more information is available.
- grayed-down 7y agoThen we probably agree more than disagree in this regard. What I do know as someone with degrees in mathematics and physics and several years in the USAF, is that some very smart people that I have personally spoken with have seen artificial objects in the sky that move in ways that they cannot explain nor do they have imaginative basis on which to speculate about such performances.
- nogridbag 7y agoThere are lots of incredibly smart people who believe in religion and believe their religion is the only true religion. Nine times out of ten their religion also happens to be the religion they were born into. If that example is too controversial, we can try another. There's plenty of smart people who voted for and still support Donald Trump.
- grayed-down 7y ago
- themodelplumber 7y agoI wonder if this video release impacted the decision? https://youtu.be/G9D8dzl4zGk https://youtu.be/G9D8dzl4zGk I remember when it came out it caused quite a stir. Edit: Here's the Wikipedia page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Nimitz_UFO_incident https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Nimitz_UFO_incident
- Abishek_Muthian 7y agoWas the video officially released by DoD? Traditionally, when govt sources added to UFO sensations it has been stated to divert attention from something else. Edit: Wasn't -> Was
- moftz 7y agoThat video is actually two separate events. The first video is called GIMBAL and the date and location weren't publicly released. The second video is called FLIR1 and starts when the information layout on the screen changes. Both were officially released by the Defense Department's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program.
- komali2 7y agoHaha, great video. Lots of very serious intro text about video trail of custody, declassification. A one minute step by step overview of a "best in class" sensor UI. Finally, "the audio you're about to hear is highly trained US air Force pilots and weapons operating specialists trying to make sense of what they see." "It's a fucking drone bro!"
- Circuits 7y agoYeah, personally, I would say it's pretty obvious that extraterrestrials, aliens, little green men, are visiting our planet and have been for some time now... not sure why this is so hard to accept but apparently there are a lot of people who would rather die in a fiery car crash than admit that the snake attached to their leg has in fact bitten them.
- 7y ago
- russellbeattie 7y agoThis story is a rewrite of a WaPo story which is a rewrite of a Politico story. The core of the story is that military pilots have been socially discouraged in the past from reporting UAP's because of their association with sci-fi UFOs, but the rise of sightings have made it important that they report whatever it is they see, without stigma. > There have been a number of reports of unauthorized and/or unidentified aircraft entering various military-controlled ranges and designated air space in recent years," the Navy said in a statement in response to questions from POLITICO. "For safety and security concerns, the Navy and the [U.S. Air Force] takes these reports very seriously and investigates each and every report. > "As part of this effort," it added, "the Navy is updating and formalizing the process by which reports of any such suspected incursions can be made to the cognizant authorities. A new message to the fleet that will detail the steps for reporting is in draft." Why it's taken the U.S. Military this long to formalize this is the only head shaking part. The word UFO in the headline is click bait.
- cronix 7y agoWe already learned they were fake with the Air Forces Project Bluebook in the 50s/60s. No need to look further. /s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Blue_Book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Blue_Book
- armitron 7y agoSummary of conclusions: """ + No UFO reported, investigated, and evaluated by the Air Force was ever an indication of threat to our national security; + There was no evidence submitted to or discovered by the Air Force that sightings categorized as "unidentified" represented technological developments or principles beyond the range of modern scientific knowledge; and + There was no evidence indicating that sightings categorized as "unidentified" were extraterrestrial vehicles. """ Where do you learn that they are "fake" ?
- cronix 7y ago/s = sarcasm. Thank you for the reply.
- pleemin 7y agoTom Delonge is HYPED.
- PhaedrusV 7y agoIndeed he must be
- slouch 7y agoDid he ever release the alloy of thin metals that he thinks was created in space? That was the thing I heard that caused me to think, "well, hey, if he's got this hunk of space metals, i should probably tune in again."
- PhaedrusV 7y agoI've been keeping half an eye on his "to the stars academy" ever since I heard him on Joe Rogan, but I haven't seen any tech releases yet.
- duxup 7y agoConsidering the possibility that an unknown thing might be something that an enemy has involvement with I'm surprised there wasn't a process already. The data documented could prove useful later as intelligence if you learn that it is something an enemy is up to, but maybe didn't know it at the time.
- all2 7y ago> ... I'm surprised there wasn't a process already. There was. The U.S. Airforce had the long-running Project Bluebook. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Blue_Book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Blue_Book
- hermitdev 7y agoAnd History Channel in the US has a historical fiction based upon the declassified Project Bluebook files. Only one season so far, but I found it interesting. Not having read the files themselves, I have no idea of the accuracy of the show to the files. But, the show has been interesting and entertaining to me. X Files reminiscent, but based on real reports. Seems they're trying to take actual real world UFO/alien encounter reports and wrap them into a fictional conspiracy (well, theoretical conspiracy) to make for an entertaining show. It also happens to star Aiden Gillen (Little Finger/Lord Baelish in Game of Thrones).
- komali2 7y agoThere ya go History Channel, finally finding a somewhat decent line between their history documentaries and Ancient Aliens.
- yters 7y agoUFO just means "unidentified flying object," which could include things like a balloon, a meteor, another airplane, etc. Not sure why everyone immediately jumps to "Navy admits there are aliens!"
- thestartup 7y agoWhile not a conclusion, the reports of objects that defy the known laws of physics are extensive by this point. If the incidents are not the result of "alien activity" perhaps the US Military does have supremely advanced technology under wraps and is demonstrating this technology to ambiguously create the idea that it could be "aliens".
- hopler 7y agoPlease link to some reports from reputable sources.
- vorpalhex 7y agoI don't know about "defying the laws of physics" (since if it could truly defy the laws of the physics that would be whack) but plenty of stealth bombers were reported as "mysterious UFOs" before they were officially revealed in any capacity - and I'm sure there is no shortage of experimental craft that never made the cut. Hell, even if someone saw a B-2 today they'd probably think it's alien.
- 0003 7y agoThey reference Chris Mellon, who is a part of Tom Delonge's To the Stars organization. I am not an expert here but he has this public benefit corporation that always struck me as weird. It's like a charity, but Tom Delonge gets interest and royalties from it. Also: in 2017 they recognized 25M in stock comp expense... Like WTF. That is not possible for a company that is basically worthless. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1710274/000114420419006365/tv509356_partiiandiii.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1710274/000114420419...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- hopler 7y agoTom Delonge of Blink-182 rock band. It seems this new thing is a mix of UFO hokum and music-related sales. Definitely some financial engineering shenanigans in there.
- dmix 7y ago> The company’s Science Division is a theoretical and experimental laboratory, challenging conventional thinking by discovering a new world of physics and consciousness-related possibilities and exploring how to use them to affect the world positively. Through its Advisory Board, TTS AAS has access to world-renowned scientists with advanced knowledge to pursue the company’s research projects, including Human Ultra-Experience Database, Engineering Space-Time Metrics, Brain-Computer Interface, and Telepathy. Yes this sounds a bit quacky... > The company’s Aerospace Division is dedicated to finding revolutionary breakthroughs in propulsion, energy, and communication. We currently employ and intend to employ additional lead engineers from major Department of Defense and aerospace companies with the capability to pursue an advanced engineering approach to fundamental aerospace topics ranging from Beamed-Energy Propulsion to warp drive metrics. Our team will seek to develop next-generation energy and propulsion concepts for spaceflight, as well as new technologies for space communications. The only thing that seems to be a real business if the entertainment division. Which makes sense as a part of their business. Selling ideas through media rather than actual useful science research.
- 7y ago
- cmroanirgo 7y agoFrom the article: > “If I came to you and said, ‘There are these things that can fly over our country with impunity, defying the laws of physics, and within moments could deploy a nuclear device at will’ — that would be a matter of national security.” What is it about the military mindset that absolutely must see everything not 101% under their control as something potentially hostile? If these really are craft from other systems, then it's pretty clear that they have exceedingly superior flight capabilities. So, for me at least, the logical extension to that thought is: "if they're here for a fight, they'll win." Considering that they are harrassing military installations rather than the general populace (ie, they buzz pilots and military bases, but not cities), isn't it congruent that they're trying to send a message rather than inflict interstellar war? (If that's what they are)
- TenaciousValor 7y agoIn the quoted statement, only one of those statements--"defying the laws of physics"--is perhaps beyond the purview of the military. We don't allow aircraft to willy-nilly cross borders, and neither does any other country in the world. (Border crossing is obviously permitted, but there are procedures and rules to follow. International incidents can arise when they aren't.) Also, using the example of deploying a nuclear device may be cliche, but what about a conventional weapon? Should there be any less concern about an unregulated aircraft capable of dropping explosive ordinance? At a fundamental level, any military is tasked with guarding the land its sovereign occupies. You can't blame them for being careful because there's always the small, remote chance that an adversarial, human government could inflict harm if the military isn't looking. But that's precisely it: no one knows where these craft come from. Based on the hard information available to us the public, it's equally possible that the craft came from another galaxy, Mars, Russia, or Canada. We just don't know, and we can't just sit back and watch because there may be a legitimate threat.
- Allvitende 7y agoSo you think that nothing should be done about it at all? It definitely seems like there should be a plan to at least assess the situation.
- dontbenebby 7y ago
- dontbenebby 7y agoMaybe the days of the US being the only country whose special access projects are mistaken for alien spacecraft are numbered: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/et-denied-many-ufos-are-just-super-secret-military-aircraft-23816 https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/et-denied-many-uf... It's a little amusing to me that people assume if it's not American, it must be alien. Maybe they're just Chinese? If another country is buzzing us with their new tech, it makes sense to not want some sailor to refuse to report it out of fear they'll be branded insane.
- nikkwong 7y agoOne question I have is why these objects are only detected via sight and radar. Don't we have so many telescopes pointing at the sky that if something were to be approaching our planet, someone would notice before they entered our airspace?
- gdubs 7y agoFrom my understanding, the sky is huge and most of the telescopes are focused on very tiny areas.
- ceejayoz 7y agoWe struggle to detect stealth aircraft from our own civilization more than a few dozen miles away. If a species can travel from star to star, it can likely evade our detection. Telescopes are basically worthless for spotting anything small or stealthy - asteroids are fairly regularly discovered after they whiz by the planet. Of course, the other part of the answer is that these things are likely terrestrial, and didn't come from space in the first place.
- sidcool 7y agoThe sci-fi fan inside me badly wants this to be an alien encounter. I am holding on to life just so that I get to witness humanity's first encounter with extra terrestrial intelligence. But that's probably unlikely.
- logjammin 7y agoI'm not seeing the usual web indications that this is sarcasm or irony, so I wanna say that if you're really just "holding on to life" for whatever single reason, aliens or not, there's good help out there if you want it. You're loved and needed. Be well dude/dudette.
- craftinator 7y agoYour tax dollars at work =D
- dredmorbius 7y agoSee also at WashPo: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2019/04/24/how-angry-pilots-got-navy-stop-dismissing-ufo-sightings/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2019/04/24/...
- Tossrock 7y agoPeople seem to break it down into three potential categories: misinterpretted/bad data/not real, secret project carried out by other nation, or extraterrestrial craft. Extraterrestrial doesn't make sense, because of the difficulty in crossing interstellar distances. But in the case of really solid evidence, eg the Nimitz incident, neither of the first two categories really make sense either. I think there's a fourth category that people aren't considering: Von Neumann probes which self-replicated in-situ and are performing scouting / intelligence gathering. When people consider Von Neumann probes independently, there's always the question of, why don't we see any around? Given even modest rates of travel and self replication, they should be at every star system in the galaxy, if any were ever created. Well, maybe they are around, and we have seen them.
- noetic_techy 7y agoIt’s the same answer for the Fermie paradox: If they are out there we would see them... well what if we do? The problem is, people assume presence equals contact. However Steven Hawking was right that contact would be dangerous and stupid for any species bent on self preservation. Any sufficiently advance species would likely STFU. I’ll posit a 5th option: The emergence of a super intelligent AI thats mastered certain technologies and is trying to hide its presence. Any sufficiently advanced technology would appear as magic/alien to us. I also have always had a problem with the dismissal of FTL travel. “It cannot be therefore it must not be” is not at all sound logic given our history with technology. If you went back in time and gave the queen of England a nuclear submarine, could she reproduce it? Her best and brightest advisor would look at its propulsion system and declare “It cannot exist therefore it must not be what it appears because only the wind can move you through the water!” You’d be relegated to the same categories as the scientists who said traveling faster than sound was impossible. The standard model of physics IS WRONG and we know it, just like newtonian mechanics ultimately was wrong. Just because we cannot fathom FTL does not preclude its existence.
- segfaultbuserr 7y ago> I also have always had a problem with the dismissal of FTL travel. “It cannot be therefore it must not be” is not at all sound logic given our history with technology. There is an important difference here. In the history of technology, "high-level disciplines" may sometimes be "overthrown" and completely be rewritten frequently, making something impossible to be possible. But it rarely occurs in foundation of mechanics. Even it has been revisited multiple times in the past 200 years, things that were impossible in the past is still impossible now, and possibly in the future, at least from a macroscopic scale. The mere existence of a nuclear submarine navigating the ocean in 1800s England, as an object, is compatible with the Newton's Laws of Motion. Although nuclear reaction itself violates other known physics at the time, But if compared to Newton's Laws of Motion, they are not as important. And nowadays, Einstenian mechanics have replaced Newtonian mechanics, and it has the same status as Newtonian mechanics had before. That is, among all rational conclusions, those that is directly based on the foundation of mechanics have the most "weight" than anything else, so comparing to "640 KiB is enough for everyone", "humans have no means to survive in the vacuum of outer space", "atomic weapons are impossible", "supersonic flights are impossible", "cooling to absolute zero is impossible", "accelerating to c is impossible", the last statement is more likely than other statements. This is why I believe "no-FTL" argument has a strong point. But well, I lied... It's well-known that general relativity does not directly forbid one to wrap the spacetime to create worm-holes. So I agree with you, the "no-FTL" has a strong point, but it's a non-issue anyway.
- nkamoah17 7y agoHey, check this out! I made a really cool map of all UFO sightings across the world for a hackathon at my school.(3 months ago) This news reminded me of it. Looking at the map, it makes sense that the US Navy is worried. :) Data was scraped from National UFO Reporting Center. The map is available at: https://fusiontables.google.com/data?docid=15hfFOU0UAwfx7U95YqfY1IZeaxhCEXLg0FJZ5-bx#map:id=3 https://fusiontables.google.com/data?docid=15hfFOU0UAwfx7U95...
- TomMckenny 7y agoI would worry a great deal more about the fact that advanced Naval units can't identify (let alone deal with) some classes of aircraft than I would worry about aliens.
- tehjoker 7y ago"Langley won't tell us what they're doing in our training airspace so we'll make a public stink until they spill the beans."
- Paperweight 7y agoThe thing I don't get about UFOs, assuming the alien hypothesis, is why are there so many different kinds of them. Surely aliens would have settled on one, perfect, scalable vehicle design after millions of years of refinement? Spherical, probably. Instead, we get saucers, spheres, cigars, triangles...
- adrianN 7y agoFashion might be important to rich alien kids too.