3 ms·

I had the opposite first reaction; give the conspiracy theorists a big dump of juicy mostly harmless nonsense to sink their teeth into, to get their minds off t

I had the opposite first reaction; give the conspiracy theorists a big dump of juicy mostly harmless nonsense to sink their teeth into, to get their minds off the more disturbing stuff, if only by a little.

knolax 6y ago
I wouldn't call UFO conspiracy theories harmless given the past occurrence of UFO suicide cults like Heaven's Gate.
- jsnk 6y ago
  You are assuming that suicide cults are somehow harmful to the goals of CIA.
- piracy1 6y ago
  But that's not UFO centric, that's death cult centric.
- stretchcat 6y ago
  This poll found that 33% of Americans believe alien spacecraft have visited earth: https://news.gallup.com/poll/266441/americans-skeptical-ufos-say-government-knows.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/266441/americans-skeptical-ufos... So while most people don't believe this stuff, it's not exactly fringe either. That's maybe a hundred million people who believe aliens are coming to earth, while Heaven's Gate was 41 people. Using belief in UFOs as the basis for a religion has happened a few times, but it's very fringe.
  - secfirstmd 6y ago
    To be fair a huge chunk of the American population and leadership believe a woman had a child without being inseminated by a man, that all of the animals in the world fit on an a big boat and that the Earth was created a few thousand years ago. By comparison aliens stopping by for a cigarette break on earth at some stage in the past 4.7 billion years sounds more likely.
    - stretchcat 6y ago
      Sure. My point here is that UFO belief can be characterized as mostly harmless. A few death cults have used it, but the vast majority of UFO believers aren't running off to join death cults.
godzillabrennus 6y ago
The fascists turned a pizza place into a conspiracy theory about pedophiles. They manufactured a conspiracy about some omnipotent leaker of facts and called this fictional character Q. UFO facts from government archives might make them declare war on the Pepe frog or some other bananas reaction.

knolax 6y ago

I wouldn't call UFO conspiracy theories harmless given the past occurrence of UFO suicide cults like Heaven's Gate.

jsnk 6y ago
You are assuming that suicide cults are somehow harmful to the goals of CIA.
piracy1 6y ago
But that's not UFO centric, that's death cult centric.
stretchcat 6y ago
This poll found that 33% of Americans believe alien spacecraft have visited earth: https://news.gallup.com/poll/266441/americans-skeptical-ufos-say-government-knows.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/266441/americans-skeptical-ufos... So while most people don't believe this stuff, it's not exactly fringe either. That's maybe a hundred million people who believe aliens are coming to earth, while Heaven's Gate was 41 people. Using belief in UFOs as the basis for a religion has happened a few times, but it's very fringe.
- secfirstmd 6y ago
  To be fair a huge chunk of the American population and leadership believe a woman had a child without being inseminated by a man, that all of the animals in the world fit on an a big boat and that the Earth was created a few thousand years ago. By comparison aliens stopping by for a cigarette break on earth at some stage in the past 4.7 billion years sounds more likely.
  - stretchcat 6y ago
    Sure. My point here is that UFO belief can be characterized as mostly harmless. A few death cults have used it, but the vast majority of UFO believers aren't running off to join death cults.

godzillabrennus 6y ago

The fascists turned a pizza place into a conspiracy theory about pedophiles. They manufactured a conspiracy about some omnipotent leaker of facts and called this fictional character Q. UFO facts from government archives might make them declare war on the Pepe frog or some other bananas reaction.