I've noticed that smug skepticism is indistinguishable from fear. Most people have enough to deal with trying to figure out their social standing vs their neig

I've noticed that smug skepticism is indistinguishable from fear. Most people have enough to deal with trying to figure out their social standing vs their neighbors and fighting off the vague dread of their own eventual death. The HN crowd is absolutely not the exception here, though we could probably swap "social standing" with "JS framework anxiety". Two possibilities: 1. UFOs are visiting Earth. 2. The US military wants to convince us they are. I'm not sure which is scarier. My father, who had both respected military and civilian careers, had a close encounter when he was a boy. He did not encounter a UFO in his career (though his was one of the careers where you might) or, if he did, he took his security oath too seriously to talk about it. My brother, who had a military career of some note, and top secret (or better?) clearance, admitted to me that the official line is they're visiting Earth but not occupied -- in other words, UFOs are real, and you might encounter them, but let's not talk about aliens. (This was years ago.) You'll notice that's exactly what they're doing now -- saying, hey, this is happening, but we're not going to editorialize.