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If the military has developed several breakthrough technologies, why in the world would they patent them, thereby making them public? Given a revolutionary new

If the military has developed several breakthrough technologies, why in the world would they patent them, thereby making them public? Given a revolutionary new tech, no foreign government would respect a U.S. patent, nor would it be enforceable in the first place. It's amazing to me that the ET/UFO cranks would take the publication of these patents at face value. As others have posited, likely another explanation is warranted: 1) luring foreign militaries down blind alley's of expensive research, 2) putting out these patents to only later debunk them and thereby possibly muddying the waters for some legitimate revelations, 3) a simple prank, etc. etc. Is it possible to verify that the filer is legitimately the U.S. Navy, or could anyone just file a patent and list the Navy as the assignee?

Zenst 7y ago
Let us not forget SDI (Strategic Defence Initiative - aka StarWars) from the Reagan era. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative Which, with how it panned out, does fit: "1) luring foreign militaries down blind alleys of expensive research" most aptly, albeit not put into the wild via a patent and more case of funky CGI graphics pushing a dream as reality.
- colechristensen 7y ago
  That is also a really good way to spin failing to achieve something you tried really hard at,
  - Zenst 7y ago
    Yes, the spin rabbit hole goes to infinity and beyond. But certainly a plausible situation. We may never know and suspect that very few people ever knew in such secretive projects. Remember this was still with the whole Moon landing era fresh in mind for so many, that was also a President's speech dream, that seemed equally as wild and fantasy at the time. Yet that happened. SDI was, given the media mindsets of that era, easily to latch onto as - it's going to happen. Today, we are more cynical/pragmatic/realistic in mindset and with that, do question things and able to do so en-mass more easily with the internet than ever before.
- philwelch 7y ago
  Except much of the technology in SDI is scientifically feasible and much of it is either deployed today or in active development. The Patriot missiles that were used to shoot down Iraqi Scuds in the Gulf War were developed under SDI and are still in use for ballistic missile defense today. Even directed energy weapons are still in active development.
  - Zenst 7y ago
    Worth watching the initial announcement by Reagan: https://www.pbs.org/video/american-experience-reagan-announces-sdi/ https://www.pbs.org/video/american-experience-reagan-announc... Starts with "American does possess NOW, the technologies..." tails into - hey scientists, show us something cool we can use to do this. So initially it was a big pot of money for ideas to achieve it. Then you had the big companies set the direction with space lasers, few CGI's (that cost loads to make) in a time that it was still very new for TV and suddenly you have the media and directional focus going with that - as a majority of people of that era will recall it due to media focus upon that, at the time -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smrZrimAuis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smrZrimAuis "STRATEGIC DEFENSE INITIATIVE STAR WARS RONALD REAGAN 33112" But 30 years later, and only starting to see lasers deployed upon very large ships - shows how long it can take from feasible towards practical and dare say, still kinda in the flintlock stage of it's evolutionary cycle. But then, we may well see power generating inventions born out of the need to power these things, trickling down into consumer hands, which would tie in with the title most aptly.
JulianMorrison 7y ago
It's not so out of character. Consider the recent disclosure that certain famous UFO video clips are genuine and show unidentified phenomena. Why would they disclose that when shutting up would work and was working? The answer is they want to. There are factions within the US government and it seems that the "tell them, but take it real slow" faction is presently in the ascendant.
- xibalba 7y ago
  The military verified that, yes, those were videos captured by the them. However, the videos themselves are inconclusive. As Neil DeGrasse Tyson said (paraphrasing), "the 'O' in UFO is highly non-specific". Others have suggested explanations such as: equipment malfunction or misinterpretation, misinterpretation of known natural phenomena, or classified US gov tech. Further, these too could be an intentional ploy by the military/gov for unknown but rational and non-ET related motives. These are just a sampling of possible explanations. You seem to be leaning toward an extraterrestrial explanation. I'm not saying you are definitely wrong, but it seems like a very low probability explanation and one that defies the principle of parsimony.
  - JulianMorrison 7y ago
    The videos are subsets of what they have, supposedly (say people who have watched them) the full video has even more amazing things. It's not an accident that the inconclusive part is what got released. It was chosen. They have been sitting on this stuff. They still are sitting on 99.9999% of it, is a reasonable assumption. They are choosing, deliberately, to gradually change attitudes. Part of the gradualness is maintaining intentional levels of ambiguity that can be slowly, slowly dialled down. All of this is kind of orthogonal to what they are sitting on. Doesn't have to be ET.
    - xibalba 7y ago
      > (say people who have watched them) the full video has even more amazing things Link? Who are these people? Are they credible? Do they seem rational, reasonable, and (highly) skeptical? > They still are sitting on 99.9999% of it, is a reasonable assumption There is nothing reasonable about this assumption. > All of this is kind of orthogonal to what they are sitting on Huh? How? Why? This is all veering into conspiracy-theorist-cum-crackpot territory. You are doing some extreme extrapolation from very thin and inconclusive evidence.
noodle_face_ 7y ago
I tend to agree over all, I think there is some kind of disinformation campaign behind it. There very well may be some nuggets of truth in there - I wouldn't at all be surprised to learn the US govt has tech that would blow us away today - but I think they're heavily exaggerating things at the least. At the end of the day, they're either trying to convince other world powers that we have tech we don't, or they're warning others that we do. The only other possibility is, as you suggested, some kind of hoax or prank. Who knows where the truth really is.

Zenst 7y ago

Let us not forget SDI (Strategic Defence Initiative - aka StarWars) from the Reagan era. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative Which, with how it panned out, does fit: "1) luring foreign militaries down blind alleys of expensive research" most aptly, albeit not put into the wild via a patent and more case of funky CGI graphics pushing a dream as reality.

colechristensen 7y ago
That is also a really good way to spin failing to achieve something you tried really hard at,
- Zenst 7y ago
  Yes, the spin rabbit hole goes to infinity and beyond. But certainly a plausible situation. We may never know and suspect that very few people ever knew in such secretive projects. Remember this was still with the whole Moon landing era fresh in mind for so many, that was also a President's speech dream, that seemed equally as wild and fantasy at the time. Yet that happened. SDI was, given the media mindsets of that era, easily to latch onto as - it's going to happen. Today, we are more cynical/pragmatic/realistic in mindset and with that, do question things and able to do so en-mass more easily with the internet than ever before.
philwelch 7y ago
Except much of the technology in SDI is scientifically feasible and much of it is either deployed today or in active development. The Patriot missiles that were used to shoot down Iraqi Scuds in the Gulf War were developed under SDI and are still in use for ballistic missile defense today. Even directed energy weapons are still in active development.
- Zenst 7y ago
  Worth watching the initial announcement by Reagan: https://www.pbs.org/video/american-experience-reagan-announces-sdi/ https://www.pbs.org/video/american-experience-reagan-announc... Starts with "American does possess NOW, the technologies..." tails into - hey scientists, show us something cool we can use to do this. So initially it was a big pot of money for ideas to achieve it. Then you had the big companies set the direction with space lasers, few CGI's (that cost loads to make) in a time that it was still very new for TV and suddenly you have the media and directional focus going with that - as a majority of people of that era will recall it due to media focus upon that, at the time -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smrZrimAuis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smrZrimAuis "STRATEGIC DEFENSE INITIATIVE STAR WARS RONALD REAGAN 33112" But 30 years later, and only starting to see lasers deployed upon very large ships - shows how long it can take from feasible towards practical and dare say, still kinda in the flintlock stage of it's evolutionary cycle. But then, we may well see power generating inventions born out of the need to power these things, trickling down into consumer hands, which would tie in with the title most aptly.

JulianMorrison 7y ago

It's not so out of character. Consider the recent disclosure that certain famous UFO video clips are genuine and show unidentified phenomena. Why would they disclose that when shutting up would work and was working? The answer is they want to. There are factions within the US government and it seems that the "tell them, but take it real slow" faction is presently in the ascendant.

xibalba 7y ago
The military verified that, yes, those were videos captured by the them. However, the videos themselves are inconclusive. As Neil DeGrasse Tyson said (paraphrasing), "the 'O' in UFO is highly non-specific". Others have suggested explanations such as: equipment malfunction or misinterpretation, misinterpretation of known natural phenomena, or classified US gov tech. Further, these too could be an intentional ploy by the military/gov for unknown but rational and non-ET related motives. These are just a sampling of possible explanations. You seem to be leaning toward an extraterrestrial explanation. I'm not saying you are definitely wrong, but it seems like a very low probability explanation and one that defies the principle of parsimony.
- JulianMorrison 7y ago
  The videos are subsets of what they have, supposedly (say people who have watched them) the full video has even more amazing things. It's not an accident that the inconclusive part is what got released. It was chosen. They have been sitting on this stuff. They still are sitting on 99.9999% of it, is a reasonable assumption. They are choosing, deliberately, to gradually change attitudes. Part of the gradualness is maintaining intentional levels of ambiguity that can be slowly, slowly dialled down. All of this is kind of orthogonal to what they are sitting on. Doesn't have to be ET.
  - xibalba 7y ago
    > (say people who have watched them) the full video has even more amazing things Link? Who are these people? Are they credible? Do they seem rational, reasonable, and (highly) skeptical? > They still are sitting on 99.9999% of it, is a reasonable assumption There is nothing reasonable about this assumption. > All of this is kind of orthogonal to what they are sitting on Huh? How? Why? This is all veering into conspiracy-theorist-cum-crackpot territory. You are doing some extreme extrapolation from very thin and inconclusive evidence.

noodle_face_ 7y ago

I tend to agree over all, I think there is some kind of disinformation campaign behind it. There very well may be some nuggets of truth in there - I wouldn't at all be surprised to learn the US govt has tech that would blow us away today - but I think they're heavily exaggerating things at the least. At the end of the day, they're either trying to convince other world powers that we have tech we don't, or they're warning others that we do. The only other possibility is, as you suggested, some kind of hoax or prank. Who knows where the truth really is.