7 ms·

Is anyone else here being asked about their opinions on UFOs a lot at the moment? I know I've been finding people in my family and friends suddenly becoming con

by kypro 5y ago

Is anyone else here being asked about their opinions on UFOs a lot at the moment? I know I've been finding people in my family and friends suddenly becoming convinced that aliens are visiting Earth, and have been for a while. This past year, more and more frequently, I've had to explain that just because the US government has a small UFO program and just because there has been some odd reports of UFO sightings this doesn't mean aliens are actually visiting Earth, or that this explanation is even remotely likely. Given how politicians, the media and tech companies have been putting so much time and money into cracking down on "conspiracy theory" content recently it strikes me as odd how this conspiracy is apparently perfectly fine by the standards of the very same media companies and tech companies cracking down on other conspiracy content. Some influential figures have even gone so far to simply declare on platforms like YouTuve that they believe aliens are probably visiting Earth and that the government is likely actively trying to cover this up. In some cases I've seen people suggesting that the aliens are trying to send us a message about (global warming|nuclear weapons|[some other potential dangerous technology]) and as far as I can tell this content is never restricted. Additionally, warnings or links to Wikipedia are never added to the content as you might see when it's content about 5G, COVID or flat Earth theory. Does anyone know why so many people in power are encouraging conspiratorial thinking when it comes to UFOs while seemingly holding a completely different perspective when it comes to other government conspiracies? To be clear, I'm personally fine with people believing and discussing whatever they want to online, but there seems to be a double standard when it comes to alien conspiracy theories.

skindoe 5y ago
Because they are involved in the conspiracy themselves...
20after4 5y ago
The only proper answer is that it's a conspiracy to cover up something!
dfxm12 5y ago
One way to forward a conspiracy theory is to make vague assertations about an idea that are impossible to disprove. To say Does anyone know why so many people in power are encouraging conspiratorial thinking... without giving any examples seems conspiratorial to me, someone who honestly hasn't seen anyone of note make these claims. I mean, it is a leading question and is impossible to answer without first taking it as a matter of fact.
hugh-avherald 5y ago
It doesn't seem so dissonant to me. Conspiracies regarding vaccines are squashed because they could damage public health efforts. With UFOs, even taking the more wild conspiracy theories, widespread belief is unlikely to actually interfere with normal government functions.
jigrlan 5y ago
Same reason we have religion in 2021 - People suffer in some way or the other - They crave/need an escape from that reality - A whole bunch of jobless people find employment catering to that need to escape giving them stories they want to hear. Large parts of the Media have been programmed to chase this crowd because the Like/View/Click data makes it easy to targets these people. And don't have any doubt there are people with serious delusions and mental health issues in journalism, military etc who find each other and reinforce beliefs. A networked world and its network effects makes escape easy. Some people even suggest its not a bad thing cause society isn't sophisticated enough to provide anything better than escape at scale - https://ubiquity.acm.org/article.cfm?id=3061712 https://ubiquity.acm.org/article.cfm?id=3061712
throwkeep 5y ago
It's strange. The biggest change isn't with the evidence, but with the narrative. For decades it was just pure crankery, but now we have 60 Minutes with a big episode with US Navy pilots, Obama talking about it, the mass media, late night shows, etc, all taking it seriously. This all would have been considered crazy just a year ago. It would appear we are being prepped to get comfortable with a new narrative. Sam Harris, who I'd consider trustworthy and hard to fool, was given a heads up about what's to come. If he's right about his source being reliable, then we may have to have to contend with this: "I got contacted by somebody who gave me a heads up with respect to all of this happening and he more or less told me listen, when this other shoe drops you’re going to be in the position of having to acknowledge that all the experts are on the same page, and there’s just this blanket declaration that we’re in the presence of alien technology, and we don’t know what to make of it. So prepare your brain for that and figure out what you’re going to do." https://samharris.org/podcasts/252-alone-universe/ https://samharris.org/podcasts/252-alone-universe/
- user-the-name 5y ago
  Sam Harris is definitely a fool.
  - lumberingjack 5y ago
    I'll never really understand why people latch onto a figure and think that they have all the best ideas and inside info they're not that special go get the inside info yourself
ostenning 5y ago
How is the idea of UFOs even a "conspiracy theory" anymore? UFOs or UAPs are now a verified phenomenon that seem to be observed fairly regularly by trained military, "every day for a couple of years" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBtMbBPzqHY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBtMbBPzqHY
- dfxm12 5y ago
  The parent poster is not talking about "the idea of UFOs", they're talking about aliens among us! This is an issue - as this disconnect shows, "UFO" clearly means different things to different people, so it's easy to see how a seemingly clear message can be understood very differently among a large group of people (and maybe a conspiracy is born/given more fuel). This doesn't just happen with "UFOs" either.
  - ostenning 5y ago
    "Visiting Earth" in my mind means entering Earths atmosphere, but yeah I cant comment on if aliens could be walking among us, but if they had made it to our atmosphere, why wouldn't they go the extra couple of km's?
    - jjk166 5y ago
      The point is that just because there is something unidentified does not mean its aliens.
    - orwin 5y ago
      why would they visit us? We have an average sun, a weird planet with a bit too much iron, but no more ressources than any other planetary system. Would they want to study us? In this case they have a technology capable of contourning any physic law we nknow of, and bypassing any method of detecting invisible objects based on particles that we know exist, and still manage to disable this tech at weird moments? Because of a glitch? And don't get me started on Alien "crashes". (also, if they are among us and capable of feat we can't imagine, this is hugely improbable that the presence is recent. Like one in a billion) There is two solutions: Either aliens visited us or they didn't. If they did, this would be VERY concerning that their software is glitching that bad. My rational theory is this: Aliens visited us or did not, and i don't really care (treating them the same as god or any new-age consciousness theory), but UFOs are a bigger proof of human bias than alien visit in any case.
Workaccount2 5y ago
It's because the DoD was ordered to release everything (sans classified stuff, I suppose what shows off too much of our own abilities) they know about UFO's by June 30th. This somehow got in one of the COVID relief bills from last year. The report is supposed to come out this Friday. Some congress people saw it last week, including the classified stuff that will remain classified, and pretty much just shrugged after the briefing. So all that is at least why the media has been talking about this so much lately. I'll also add that Sam Harris said he had someone from the DoD, or at least connected to the DoD reach out to him about "How do you go about revealing evidence of alien technology to the public". Sam's stance on this possible revelation has been "The source is legitimate, but we'll have to see what they actually come out with."
meetups323 5y ago
There must always be one or more distractions to keep the American people from thinking too hard about why we still don't have universal healthcare, sane vacation time, or any number of other European standards. Wars were the pastime of old, they've gone more or less out of fashion, you'd think a pandemic would encourage universal healthcare but of course those in power made sure that would not get any media cycles, and now we have aliens.
- mc32 5y ago
  Oh, there are so many other distractions, they don't need one more. In any case, people have been complacent with regards to your list of complaints anyway, it's not as though we're on the verge of a revolution (we're not VZ or NK or IR, needing vigorous distractions)
  - meetups323 5y ago
    Or maybe we're not VZ, NK, or IR precisely because our distraction machine is so darn productive, in that it gives us new distractions even when we don't need more. All the nonsense surrounding the Jan 6 riots goes in hand with this. Remember all the talk a year ago about the tremendous good that would come from Dem controlled house, prez, and senate? Yeah nah, we're just stuck debating possibly starting an investigation of a one time event from half a year ago.
    - mc32 5y ago
      I think a lot of that is just playing to a base. The Dem base is upset that they cannot achieve "a dream scenario" prog agenda, so the mainstream Dems throws them a bone. On the Repub side, the mainstream would throw the 'repeal ACA bone' in lieu of not being able to deliver their own "dream scenario." But I don't think that's classic redirection to avoid revolution Cuba-style. In those places it's eternally the day-after the revolution. Marches, efforts, pronouncements, denouncements, mobilizations, speeches, external scapegoating, etc.)
mc32 5y ago
You raise a very good question. Why are social media platforms Okay with some conspiracies but then totally complicit with other conspiracies, given their stated policies? I think this shows their hand. That they want to defend some interests (political, social, economic) but others that don't affect their positions are okay. When people bring up the possibility of Aliens in our vicinity, I ask them what laws of physics would allow this kind of interstellar travel. What strategies would they use to travel these vast distances and given those constraints what purpose would a visit have? If they are probes, how would information be sent back that is not stale and would be useful to presumably a future generation of theirs. Maybe I'm not being open enough to the possibilities. I'm all ears.
- edmundsauto 5y ago
  UFO conspiracies are seen as quaint and not harmful. The social media bans are based on what is a pretty flear “harm to others” standard. Antivax certainly harms others, but I can’t see how ufo believers harm others. All of your questions would be easily answered. Physics? We don’t know about it yet, but do you think we know so much that it’s impossible? Purpose? To explore. Etc. I’m not suggesting those are the right answers, but with the right motivated reasons, they are trivial to come up with, and unlikely to create a gotcha moment where the theory believers doubts their conspiracy theory.
  - mc32 5y ago
    I'm not so much trying to create a gotcha moment but rather have them logically explain how something would be possible. Hopefully we could think it through and determine if it made sense knowing what we know. If we leave it at "Magic" then that's okay, at least we know we don't have a currently viable explanation for the belief.
    - edmundsauto 5y ago
      Is there room between "evidence" and "magic"? We all believe a ton of things that we personally don't have a viable mechanism of action. (Just ask the average person to explain how a car works! Or the economy!)
beefok 5y ago
While there may always be unexplained phenomenon, it's hard to ascertain how long UAV/Quadcopter technology has existed. Perhaps the battery tech hasn't been here, but who's to say nuclear reactors aren't in play. People describe these things as big silent objects hovering. You have to wonder if nuclear engines haven't been a thing. To go from 'unidentified flying object' to sentience or some sort of being instead of just "some weird phenomenon" is the hardest point to make with people I talk to. It's frustrating.
lumberingjack 5y ago
Sort of makes me think that there's a they live situation where the government's being controlled and they're hoping the population catches on but they can't say a thing
bvknvxdg 5y ago
The legacy media has picked up on this conspiracy theory to push on their gullible viewers to fill the hole left in their ratings after they ran out of conspiracy theories about Trump[0][1][2][3] O https://taibbi.substack.com/p/rachel-maddow-is-bill-oreilly-d47 https://taibbi.substack.com/p/rachel-maddow-is-bill-oreilly-... 1 https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-bombshell-memory-hole-d20 https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-bombshell-memory-hole-d20 2 https://greenwald.substack.com/p/questions-about-the-fbis-role-in https://greenwald.substack.com/p/questions-about-the-fbis-ro... 3 https://mobile.twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1377964459491262465?lang=en https://mobile.twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/137796445949126...

by kypro 5y ago

skindoe 5y ago

Because they are involved in the conspiracy themselves...

20after4 5y ago

The only proper answer is that it's a conspiracy to cover up something!

dfxm12 5y ago

One way to forward a conspiracy theory is to make vague assertations about an idea that are impossible to disprove. To say Does anyone know why so many people in power are encouraging conspiratorial thinking... without giving any examples seems conspiratorial to me, someone who honestly hasn't seen anyone of note make these claims. I mean, it is a leading question and is impossible to answer without first taking it as a matter of fact.

hugh-avherald 5y ago

It doesn't seem so dissonant to me. Conspiracies regarding vaccines are squashed because they could damage public health efforts. With UFOs, even taking the more wild conspiracy theories, widespread belief is unlikely to actually interfere with normal government functions.

jigrlan 5y ago

Same reason we have religion in 2021 - People suffer in some way or the other - They crave/need an escape from that reality - A whole bunch of jobless people find employment catering to that need to escape giving them stories they want to hear. Large parts of the Media have been programmed to chase this crowd because the Like/View/Click data makes it easy to targets these people. And don't have any doubt there are people with serious delusions and mental health issues in journalism, military etc who find each other and reinforce beliefs. A networked world and its network effects makes escape easy. Some people even suggest its not a bad thing cause society isn't sophisticated enough to provide anything better than escape at scale - https://ubiquity.acm.org/article.cfm?id=3061712 https://ubiquity.acm.org/article.cfm?id=3061712

throwkeep 5y ago

It's strange. The biggest change isn't with the evidence, but with the narrative. For decades it was just pure crankery, but now we have 60 Minutes with a big episode with US Navy pilots, Obama talking about it, the mass media, late night shows, etc, all taking it seriously. This all would have been considered crazy just a year ago. It would appear we are being prepped to get comfortable with a new narrative. Sam Harris, who I'd consider trustworthy and hard to fool, was given a heads up about what's to come. If he's right about his source being reliable, then we may have to have to contend with this: "I got contacted by somebody who gave me a heads up with respect to all of this happening and he more or less told me listen, when this other shoe drops you’re going to be in the position of having to acknowledge that all the experts are on the same page, and there’s just this blanket declaration that we’re in the presence of alien technology, and we don’t know what to make of it. So prepare your brain for that and figure out what you’re going to do." https://samharris.org/podcasts/252-alone-universe/ https://samharris.org/podcasts/252-alone-universe/

user-the-name 5y ago
Sam Harris is definitely a fool.
- lumberingjack 5y ago
  I'll never really understand why people latch onto a figure and think that they have all the best ideas and inside info they're not that special go get the inside info yourself

ostenning 5y ago

How is the idea of UFOs even a "conspiracy theory" anymore? UFOs or UAPs are now a verified phenomenon that seem to be observed fairly regularly by trained military, "every day for a couple of years" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBtMbBPzqHY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBtMbBPzqHY

dfxm12 5y ago
The parent poster is not talking about "the idea of UFOs", they're talking about aliens among us! This is an issue - as this disconnect shows, "UFO" clearly means different things to different people, so it's easy to see how a seemingly clear message can be understood very differently among a large group of people (and maybe a conspiracy is born/given more fuel). This doesn't just happen with "UFOs" either.
- ostenning 5y ago
  "Visiting Earth" in my mind means entering Earths atmosphere, but yeah I cant comment on if aliens could be walking among us, but if they had made it to our atmosphere, why wouldn't they go the extra couple of km's?
  - jjk166 5y ago
    The point is that just because there is something unidentified does not mean its aliens.
  - orwin 5y ago
    why would they visit us? We have an average sun, a weird planet with a bit too much iron, but no more ressources than any other planetary system. Would they want to study us? In this case they have a technology capable of contourning any physic law we nknow of, and bypassing any method of detecting invisible objects based on particles that we know exist, and still manage to disable this tech at weird moments? Because of a glitch? And don't get me started on Alien "crashes". (also, if they are among us and capable of feat we can't imagine, this is hugely improbable that the presence is recent. Like one in a billion) There is two solutions: Either aliens visited us or they didn't. If they did, this would be VERY concerning that their software is glitching that bad. My rational theory is this: Aliens visited us or did not, and i don't really care (treating them the same as god or any new-age consciousness theory), but UFOs are a bigger proof of human bias than alien visit in any case.

Workaccount2 5y ago

It's because the DoD was ordered to release everything (sans classified stuff, I suppose what shows off too much of our own abilities) they know about UFO's by June 30th. This somehow got in one of the COVID relief bills from last year. The report is supposed to come out this Friday. Some congress people saw it last week, including the classified stuff that will remain classified, and pretty much just shrugged after the briefing. So all that is at least why the media has been talking about this so much lately. I'll also add that Sam Harris said he had someone from the DoD, or at least connected to the DoD reach out to him about "How do you go about revealing evidence of alien technology to the public". Sam's stance on this possible revelation has been "The source is legitimate, but we'll have to see what they actually come out with."

meetups323 5y ago

There must always be one or more distractions to keep the American people from thinking too hard about why we still don't have universal healthcare, sane vacation time, or any number of other European standards. Wars were the pastime of old, they've gone more or less out of fashion, you'd think a pandemic would encourage universal healthcare but of course those in power made sure that would not get any media cycles, and now we have aliens.

mc32 5y ago
Oh, there are so many other distractions, they don't need one more. In any case, people have been complacent with regards to your list of complaints anyway, it's not as though we're on the verge of a revolution (we're not VZ or NK or IR, needing vigorous distractions)
- meetups323 5y ago
  Or maybe we're not VZ, NK, or IR precisely because our distraction machine is so darn productive, in that it gives us new distractions even when we don't need more. All the nonsense surrounding the Jan 6 riots goes in hand with this. Remember all the talk a year ago about the tremendous good that would come from Dem controlled house, prez, and senate? Yeah nah, we're just stuck debating possibly starting an investigation of a one time event from half a year ago.
  - mc32 5y ago
    I think a lot of that is just playing to a base. The Dem base is upset that they cannot achieve "a dream scenario" prog agenda, so the mainstream Dems throws them a bone. On the Repub side, the mainstream would throw the 'repeal ACA bone' in lieu of not being able to deliver their own "dream scenario." But I don't think that's classic redirection to avoid revolution Cuba-style. In those places it's eternally the day-after the revolution. Marches, efforts, pronouncements, denouncements, mobilizations, speeches, external scapegoating, etc.)

mc32 5y ago

You raise a very good question. Why are social media platforms Okay with some conspiracies but then totally complicit with other conspiracies, given their stated policies? I think this shows their hand. That they want to defend some interests (political, social, economic) but others that don't affect their positions are okay. When people bring up the possibility of Aliens in our vicinity, I ask them what laws of physics would allow this kind of interstellar travel. What strategies would they use to travel these vast distances and given those constraints what purpose would a visit have? If they are probes, how would information be sent back that is not stale and would be useful to presumably a future generation of theirs. Maybe I'm not being open enough to the possibilities. I'm all ears.

edmundsauto 5y ago
UFO conspiracies are seen as quaint and not harmful. The social media bans are based on what is a pretty flear “harm to others” standard. Antivax certainly harms others, but I can’t see how ufo believers harm others. All of your questions would be easily answered. Physics? We don’t know about it yet, but do you think we know so much that it’s impossible? Purpose? To explore. Etc. I’m not suggesting those are the right answers, but with the right motivated reasons, they are trivial to come up with, and unlikely to create a gotcha moment where the theory believers doubts their conspiracy theory.
- mc32 5y ago
  I'm not so much trying to create a gotcha moment but rather have them logically explain how something would be possible. Hopefully we could think it through and determine if it made sense knowing what we know. If we leave it at "Magic" then that's okay, at least we know we don't have a currently viable explanation for the belief.
  - edmundsauto 5y ago
    Is there room between "evidence" and "magic"? We all believe a ton of things that we personally don't have a viable mechanism of action. (Just ask the average person to explain how a car works! Or the economy!)

beefok 5y ago

While there may always be unexplained phenomenon, it's hard to ascertain how long UAV/Quadcopter technology has existed. Perhaps the battery tech hasn't been here, but who's to say nuclear reactors aren't in play. People describe these things as big silent objects hovering. You have to wonder if nuclear engines haven't been a thing. To go from 'unidentified flying object' to sentience or some sort of being instead of just "some weird phenomenon" is the hardest point to make with people I talk to. It's frustrating.

lumberingjack 5y ago

Sort of makes me think that there's a they live situation where the government's being controlled and they're hoping the population catches on but they can't say a thing

bvknvxdg 5y ago

The legacy media has picked up on this conspiracy theory to push on their gullible viewers to fill the hole left in their ratings after they ran out of conspiracy theories about Trump[0][1][2][3] O https://taibbi.substack.com/p/rachel-maddow-is-bill-oreilly-d47 https://taibbi.substack.com/p/rachel-maddow-is-bill-oreilly-... 1 https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-bombshell-memory-hole-d20 https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-bombshell-memory-hole-d20 2 https://greenwald.substack.com/p/questions-about-the-fbis-role-in https://greenwald.substack.com/p/questions-about-the-fbis-ro... 3 https://mobile.twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1377964459491262465?lang=en https://mobile.twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/137796445949126...