8 ms·

U.S. unable to explain more than 140 unidentified flying objects, but no aliens

48 points by czottmann 5y ago

tdfx 5y ago
Bypass paywall: https://archive.ph/v9mZM https://archive.ph/v9mZM
drewem 5y ago
I think the Wall Street Journal had the best lede on this: “U.S. intelligence officials have examined more than a dozen sightings of unexplained aerial objects that displayed no visible propulsion or that used technology beyond the known capabilities of the U.S. or its adversaries, according to a senior U.S. official describing a new report.“
- chiefalchemist 5y ago
  Not to get too far off topic but the intelligence community isn't exactly a benchmark for truth and transparency. Within its arsenal is misinformation, and it's not afraid to use it. Also, the recent reports I've watched and read all eventually mentioned "national security." Such mentions are euphemisms for more funding, more DOD budget, etc. Granted, it could be aliens. Nonetheless there are plenty of earthlings who benefit from a misinfomation based narratives. Some of those benefitees are the source of the narrative. Let's not lose track of the context. It matters.
  - gameswithgo 5y ago
    people are also just wrong, and crazy, all the time.
  - BitwiseFool 5y ago
    Intelligence Agencies are designed to deceive. That's their primary function. It is completely within the realm of possibility that this is some psyop, ploy for funding, or tool designed to throw off some foreign adversary about our technical capabilities.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > Intelligence Agencies are designed to deceive. No, their primary function is to acquire information useful to decisions makers, including info others want to keep secret. Counterintelligence agencies, which are sometimes conjoined to intelligence agencies and sometimes separate have a primary function of preventing information that decisionmakers want to remain secret from being discovered. Deception is frequently an important technique in both intelligence and counterintelligence, and if understood broadly enough is integral to the purpose of counterintelligence.
      - chiefalchemist 5y ago
        Yes. But the USA doesn't have designated counterintelligence agencies. They're consistently referred to strictly as intelligence agencies. So it's important to clarify that the counterintelligence role is there even if it's not directly identified. And, no their primary function is not to acquire information. Their primary funtion is to push and pull "information" to acheive the goals of The Republic. It's chess, not checkers.
        wahern 5y ago
        Maybe not agencies as you mean, but it does have: * Marine Corps Counterintelligence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Corps_Intelligence#Marine_Corps_Counterintelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Corps_Intelligence#Mari... * United States Army Counterintelligence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Counterintelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Counterinte... * Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Counterintelligence_and_Security_Agency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Counterintelligence_an... * National Counterintelligence and Security Center: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Counterintelligence_and_Security_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Counterintelligence_a... Found via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_counterintelligence_organizations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_counterintelligence_or... AFAICT the NCSC is independent from the CIA, though both do fall under the DNI. And the DCSA does have "agency" in its name. ;) The hierarchy became more complex and confusing after the 9/11 reorganization, and apparently has continued to do so.
jmkni 5y ago
Paywalled
jotato 5y ago
Does anyone have a link that isn't behind a paywall?
- drewem 5y ago
  Stars and Stripes: https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2021-06-25/ufos-military-encounters-pilots-defense-department-1844528.html https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2021-06-25/ufos-military...
ALittleLight 5y ago
This is a poor title. What part of advanced technology and flying at considerable speed without discernable means of propulsion rules out aliens? Aliens weren't confirmed, or even mentioned, but my reading of the report is that aliens are more likely an explanation than I thought them to be yesterday, not less.
- eindiran 5y ago
  Once you have decided that the UAPs are technological objects, sure, it starts to seem more plausible that aliens are involved. But nothing in the report [0] indicates to me that there is any degree of confidence that the weird, unexplainable UAPs are technological objects. [0] https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/documents/03cb4676-83e3-4db1-8724-207722ec79d0/note/15721400-c1bf-4645-8771-69ffb867396f https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/do....
- hn8788 5y ago
  That's how I felt after reading it as well. Plus the part where it says that it's possible that we aren't getting any readings from them because they have advanced technology that we don't know how to create sensors for.
  - viraptor 5y ago
    There are at least two possible ideas when you are something that doesn't show on the radar: 1. A technology so advanced it doesn't show up on sensors. 2. Light / condensation / ... effect which makes you think you're looking at a solid object where the isn't any.
- SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
  > What part of... rules out aliens? Because 1) Ruling _in_ aliens requires proof. Insisting that this specific scenario be ruled out is classic "shifting the burden of proof" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(philosophy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(philosophy) The train of thought that "we don't know what we saw, so ... aliens!" is somewhere between wishful and nutty. Extra-ordinary claims require extra-ordinary proof. 2) claiming that it's _definitely_ "technology and flying at considerable speed without discernible means of propulsion" is itself a stretch. Given the supposed behaviour, a _very_ big stretch. More likely it's equipment failure, lens flare, sundog, bug-on-the-lens, etc. 3) the strong argument against this being real is how it is "perpetually liminal" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27354021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27354021
viraptor 5y ago
There are two things that just don't seem plausible at all for me in those stories: 1. Previous article mentions "For some Navy pilots, UFO sightings were an ordinary event: ‘Every day for at least a couple years’" (https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/05/17/ufo-sightings-navy-ryan-graves/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/05/17/ufo-sightin...) Is DoD too cheap for a bunch of GoPros? If the incidents are that common and a potential security issue, why don't we have validated days worth of high quality video footage already? It seems we can't keep army secrets secure from soldiers taking selfies, but a daily occurrence has barely one annual photo? 2. Given how many non-military flights there are every single day, how do we not have people noticing the same objects from them? Where are the flights with multiple people taking independent videos of the same unidentified object on their phones? (Essentially this issue https://xkcd.com/1235/ https://xkcd.com/1235/)
- creamytaco 5y ago
  1. Why do you assume that all the data that was made public is all the data there is? It's highly likely the government has additional classified information of much higher fidelity. 2. These phenomena are concentrated around military bases and other areas of "interest". Hardly places where you'd expect non-military flights to frequent.
  - viraptor 5y ago
    1. "government has additional classified information" is basically "information doesn't exist" for us. It may also have classified information on Bigfoot or anything else. 2. The objects have to get to those places though. So either the assumption is that they're deployed right next to the base and the launch sites can't be detected, or it can travel in science-defying ways while avoiding all commercial air traffic, but can't avoid military aircraft and just taunts them. I still find both much less plausible than visual artefacts or people lying.
issa 5y ago
I would love for it to be aliens, but it seems like one of the least likely explanations. Occam's razor doesn't magically give you an answer, but humans flying drones seems like it should be the obvious explanation.
- dheera 5y ago
  If aliens showed up on Earth it would be FAR more likely to be observed and photographed by multiple civilians than the military. Civilian eyeballs outnumber the military by a couple orders of magnitude. You'd probably see it on Instagram first.
  - 0xy 5y ago
    You've got this opposite. If aliens were observing us, they would be far more likely to observe our capabilities and military installations than civilian stuff.
    - LaMarseillaise 5y ago
      How do you know? If I were studying a primitive species, I would be no more interested in their war fighting than any other aspect of their society. Maybe that is just me. If they are concerned about our militaries more than other things, why would they not always be perfectly concealed?
  - atweiden 5y ago
    Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport, 2010: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CYFEZFNl6E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CYFEZFNl6E Milwaukee, 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mkRgPGncn0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mkRgPGncn0 https://old.reddit.com/r/UFOVHS/ https://old.reddit.com/r/UFOVHS/
- bad_alloc 5y ago
  This would be terrible since it means encountering a species with an aggressive first-contact approach and technological superiority.
lurkmurk 5y ago
What is the goal of this campain to re-introduce aliens into the public discourse? Interestingly, it seems that the "smart" people are now falling for it (washington post, hn, certain subreddits and podcasts...).
- gruez 5y ago
  >What is the goal of this campain to re-introduce aliens into the public discourse To what end?
- tyleo 5y ago
  I doubt that. The interesting part is that there _is_ a goal even if we don't know what it is: * US Government is telling the truth - goal may be to figure out what these are. * US Government is lying - goal may be to mislead an adversary. Those are just two examples. I find UFOs interesting because its hard to understand the government's intention here and fun to speculate.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
    Assuming that "US Government" has a single coherent goal is an event worse error than assuming the same of e.g. Microsoft (1) Quite possibly: one faction in one branch of "US Government" is manoeuvring for power / money / status from another branch. Uncovering "truth" might be quite irrelevant to this goal; there's a lot of post-truth stuff happening there at present. https://ritholtz.com/2013/07/organizational-charts-of-amazon-apple-facebook-microsoft/ https://ritholtz.com/2013/07/organizational-charts-of-amazon...
- staticassertion 5y ago
  When did aliens leave the public discourse? Right now there's a bit of a flare up, because that's how modern media works - some story is done, gets clicks, everyone rides the SEO trend for a while until something else crops up. I don't think there's much more to it than that.
spfzero 5y ago
You can read the report itself here: https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/press-releases-2021/item/2223-UAP#content https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/press-...
- makeworld 5y ago
  Actual PDF: https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelima...
okareaman 5y ago
The most obvious explanation is that the American defense department is probing Chinese and Russian military with advanced drone technology and they would like the Chinese and Russians to think that the American military is also being probed and are equally baffled by it. PsyOps in other words. I doubt they are buying it. I assume that when the Chinese or Russians encounter any unexplained tech it is assumed to be the American military given our vast expenditures on military tech and our track record of high tech accomplishments.
- sschueller 5y ago
  I think it is way simpler than that. They want money for a new thing that will cost a lot and yield no results requiring more money. Hunting UFOs is an endless money pit.
  - okareaman 5y ago
    Since when did the defense department need elaborate pretexts for their endless money pits?
    - leesalminen 5y ago
      See Iraq, as just one example. Remember Colin Powell’s charade at the UN?
      - okareaman 5y ago
        That was a dumb pretext. Scott Ritter and others had debunked the weapons of mass destruction claim prior. Everyone knew George W. Bush was going to invade Iraq because Saddam had threatened to kill his father. He was going to finish the job daddy had failed to complete.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        5y ago
excalibur 5y ago
This just in: The government is not able to identify what UFOs actually are.
dang 5y ago
Related ongoing thread: Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27635934 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27635934
xrayarx 5y ago
Where is the actual report? The referenced article does not contain a link. Where is it?

48 points by czottmann 5y ago

tdfx 5y ago

Bypass paywall: https://archive.ph/v9mZM https://archive.ph/v9mZM

I think the Wall Street Journal had the best lede on this: “U.S. intelligence officials have examined more than a dozen sightings of unexplained aerial objects that displayed no visible propulsion or that used technology beyond the known capabilities of the U.S. or its adversaries, according to a senior U.S. official describing a new report.“

chiefalchemist 5y ago
Not to get too far off topic but the intelligence community isn't exactly a benchmark for truth and transparency. Within its arsenal is misinformation, and it's not afraid to use it. Also, the recent reports I've watched and read all eventually mentioned "national security." Such mentions are euphemisms for more funding, more DOD budget, etc. Granted, it could be aliens. Nonetheless there are plenty of earthlings who benefit from a misinfomation based narratives. Some of those benefitees are the source of the narrative. Let's not lose track of the context. It matters.
- gameswithgo 5y ago
  people are also just wrong, and crazy, all the time.
- BitwiseFool 5y ago
  Intelligence Agencies are designed to deceive. That's their primary function. It is completely within the realm of possibility that this is some psyop, ploy for funding, or tool designed to throw off some foreign adversary about our technical capabilities.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Intelligence Agencies are designed to deceive. No, their primary function is to acquire information useful to decisions makers, including info others want to keep secret. Counterintelligence agencies, which are sometimes conjoined to intelligence agencies and sometimes separate have a primary function of preventing information that decisionmakers want to remain secret from being discovered. Deception is frequently an important technique in both intelligence and counterintelligence, and if understood broadly enough is integral to the purpose of counterintelligence.
    - chiefalchemist 5y ago
      Yes. But the USA doesn't have designated counterintelligence agencies. They're consistently referred to strictly as intelligence agencies. So it's important to clarify that the counterintelligence role is there even if it's not directly identified. And, no their primary function is not to acquire information. Their primary funtion is to push and pull "information" to acheive the goals of The Republic. It's chess, not checkers.
      - wahern 5y ago
        Maybe not agencies as you mean, but it does have: * Marine Corps Counterintelligence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Corps_Intelligence#Marine_Corps_Counterintelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Corps_Intelligence#Mari... * United States Army Counterintelligence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Counterintelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Counterinte... * Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Counterintelligence_and_Security_Agency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Counterintelligence_an... * National Counterintelligence and Security Center: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Counterintelligence_and_Security_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Counterintelligence_a... Found via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_counterintelligence_organizations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_counterintelligence_or... AFAICT the NCSC is independent from the CIA, though both do fall under the DNI. And the DCSA does have "agency" in its name. ;) The hierarchy became more complex and confusing after the 9/11 reorganization, and apparently has continued to do so.

jmkni 5y ago

Paywalled

jotato 5y ago

Does anyone have a link that isn't behind a paywall?

drewem 5y ago
Stars and Stripes: https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2021-06-25/ufos-military-encounters-pilots-defense-department-1844528.html https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2021-06-25/ufos-military...

ALittleLight 5y ago

This is a poor title. What part of advanced technology and flying at considerable speed without discernable means of propulsion rules out aliens? Aliens weren't confirmed, or even mentioned, but my reading of the report is that aliens are more likely an explanation than I thought them to be yesterday, not less.

eindiran 5y ago
Once you have decided that the UAPs are technological objects, sure, it starts to seem more plausible that aliens are involved. But nothing in the report [0] indicates to me that there is any degree of confidence that the weird, unexplainable UAPs are technological objects. [0] https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/documents/03cb4676-83e3-4db1-8724-207722ec79d0/note/15721400-c1bf-4645-8771-69ffb867396f https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/do....
hn8788 5y ago
That's how I felt after reading it as well. Plus the part where it says that it's possible that we aren't getting any readings from them because they have advanced technology that we don't know how to create sensors for.
- viraptor 5y ago
  There are at least two possible ideas when you are something that doesn't show on the radar: 1. A technology so advanced it doesn't show up on sensors. 2. Light / condensation / ... effect which makes you think you're looking at a solid object where the isn't any.
SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
> What part of... rules out aliens? Because 1) Ruling _in_ aliens requires proof. Insisting that this specific scenario be ruled out is classic "shifting the burden of proof" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(philosophy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(philosophy) The train of thought that "we don't know what we saw, so ... aliens!" is somewhere between wishful and nutty. Extra-ordinary claims require extra-ordinary proof. 2) claiming that it's _definitely_ "technology and flying at considerable speed without discernible means of propulsion" is itself a stretch. Given the supposed behaviour, a _very_ big stretch. More likely it's equipment failure, lens flare, sundog, bug-on-the-lens, etc. 3) the strong argument against this being real is how it is "perpetually liminal" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27354021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27354021

viraptor 5y ago

There are two things that just don't seem plausible at all for me in those stories: 1. Previous article mentions "For some Navy pilots, UFO sightings were an ordinary event: ‘Every day for at least a couple years’" (https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/05/17/ufo-sightings-navy-ryan-graves/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/05/17/ufo-sightin...) Is DoD too cheap for a bunch of GoPros? If the incidents are that common and a potential security issue, why don't we have validated days worth of high quality video footage already? It seems we can't keep army secrets secure from soldiers taking selfies, but a daily occurrence has barely one annual photo? 2. Given how many non-military flights there are every single day, how do we not have people noticing the same objects from them? Where are the flights with multiple people taking independent videos of the same unidentified object on their phones? (Essentially this issue https://xkcd.com/1235/ https://xkcd.com/1235/)

creamytaco 5y ago
1. Why do you assume that all the data that was made public is all the data there is? It's highly likely the government has additional classified information of much higher fidelity. 2. These phenomena are concentrated around military bases and other areas of "interest". Hardly places where you'd expect non-military flights to frequent.
- viraptor 5y ago
  1. "government has additional classified information" is basically "information doesn't exist" for us. It may also have classified information on Bigfoot or anything else. 2. The objects have to get to those places though. So either the assumption is that they're deployed right next to the base and the launch sites can't be detected, or it can travel in science-defying ways while avoiding all commercial air traffic, but can't avoid military aircraft and just taunts them. I still find both much less plausible than visual artefacts or people lying.

issa 5y ago

I would love for it to be aliens, but it seems like one of the least likely explanations. Occam's razor doesn't magically give you an answer, but humans flying drones seems like it should be the obvious explanation.

dheera 5y ago
If aliens showed up on Earth it would be FAR more likely to be observed and photographed by multiple civilians than the military. Civilian eyeballs outnumber the military by a couple orders of magnitude. You'd probably see it on Instagram first.
- 0xy 5y ago
  You've got this opposite. If aliens were observing us, they would be far more likely to observe our capabilities and military installations than civilian stuff.
  - LaMarseillaise 5y ago
    How do you know? If I were studying a primitive species, I would be no more interested in their war fighting than any other aspect of their society. Maybe that is just me. If they are concerned about our militaries more than other things, why would they not always be perfectly concealed?
- atweiden 5y ago
  Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport, 2010: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CYFEZFNl6E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CYFEZFNl6E Milwaukee, 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mkRgPGncn0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mkRgPGncn0 https://old.reddit.com/r/UFOVHS/ https://old.reddit.com/r/UFOVHS/
bad_alloc 5y ago
This would be terrible since it means encountering a species with an aggressive first-contact approach and technological superiority.

lurkmurk 5y ago

What is the goal of this campain to re-introduce aliens into the public discourse? Interestingly, it seems that the "smart" people are now falling for it (washington post, hn, certain subreddits and podcasts...).

gruez 5y ago
>What is the goal of this campain to re-introduce aliens into the public discourse To what end?
tyleo 5y ago
I doubt that. The interesting part is that there _is_ a goal even if we don't know what it is: * US Government is telling the truth - goal may be to figure out what these are. * US Government is lying - goal may be to mislead an adversary. Those are just two examples. I find UFOs interesting because its hard to understand the government's intention here and fun to speculate.
- SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
  Assuming that "US Government" has a single coherent goal is an event worse error than assuming the same of e.g. Microsoft (1) Quite possibly: one faction in one branch of "US Government" is manoeuvring for power / money / status from another branch. Uncovering "truth" might be quite irrelevant to this goal; there's a lot of post-truth stuff happening there at present. https://ritholtz.com/2013/07/organizational-charts-of-amazon-apple-facebook-microsoft/ https://ritholtz.com/2013/07/organizational-charts-of-amazon...
staticassertion 5y ago
When did aliens leave the public discourse? Right now there's a bit of a flare up, because that's how modern media works - some story is done, gets clicks, everyone rides the SEO trend for a while until something else crops up. I don't think there's much more to it than that.

spfzero 5y ago

You can read the report itself here: https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/press-releases-2021/item/2223-UAP#content https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/press-...

makeworld 5y ago
Actual PDF: https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelima...

okareaman 5y ago

The most obvious explanation is that the American defense department is probing Chinese and Russian military with advanced drone technology and they would like the Chinese and Russians to think that the American military is also being probed and are equally baffled by it. PsyOps in other words. I doubt they are buying it. I assume that when the Chinese or Russians encounter any unexplained tech it is assumed to be the American military given our vast expenditures on military tech and our track record of high tech accomplishments.

sschueller 5y ago
I think it is way simpler than that. They want money for a new thing that will cost a lot and yield no results requiring more money. Hunting UFOs is an endless money pit.
- okareaman 5y ago
  Since when did the defense department need elaborate pretexts for their endless money pits?
  - leesalminen 5y ago
    See Iraq, as just one example. Remember Colin Powell’s charade at the UN?
    - okareaman 5y ago
      That was a dumb pretext. Scott Ritter and others had debunked the weapons of mass destruction claim prior. Everyone knew George W. Bush was going to invade Iraq because Saddam had threatened to kill his father. He was going to finish the job daddy had failed to complete.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - 5y ago

excalibur 5y ago

This just in: The government is not able to identify what UFOs actually are.

dang 5y ago

Related ongoing thread: Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27635934 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27635934

xrayarx 5y ago

Where is the actual report? The referenced article does not contain a link. Where is it?