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From a first skim, it looks intentionally vague and noncommittal, and in classic form, released on a Friday afternoon to minimize coverage. Also of note: there

From a first skim, it looks intentionally vague and noncommittal, and in classic form, released on a Friday afternoon to minimize coverage. Also of note: there was no input at all drawn from the CIA, which is the agency most frequently associated with the topic for a variety of reasons, aside from the Air Force. "The majority of UAP data is from U.S. Navy reporting [i.e. not in-the-know] , but efforts are underway to standardize incident reporting across U.S. military services..." I'm also unconvinced they used serious statistical rigor in finding correlations around where sightings occur. For a better analysis of the UAP phenomenon in France, which concludes with a very low p value that there is a relationship between UAP's and nuclear facilities, see: [0]. Despite the baby steps being made in the process of disclosure, it seems more and more likely that deliberate disclosure has been and will continue to be a multi-decade, slow drip of information with no particularly historic address saying "There is nonhuman intelligence visiting and engaging with Earth. We could not tell you before for national security reasons, but now we can tell you." At least, not without many years of plausibly deniable hints before-hand. [0] https://cnes-geipan.fr/sites/default/files/2015-09-01_Spatial_Point_Pattern_Analysis_of_the_Unidentified.pdf https://cnes-geipan.fr/sites/default/files/2015-09-01_Spatia...

babelfish 5y ago
Perhaps it is because there is no evidence of nonhuman intelligence visiting and engaging with Earth. I'm not sure who's surprised by this report.
- tclancy 5y ago
  That’s because you’ve only looked on the top side. If you peek over the edge at the bottom you will see.
echelon 5y ago
> "There is nonhuman intelligence visiting and engaging with Earth. We could not tell you before for national security reasons, but now we can tell you." At least, not without many years of plausibly deniable hints before-hand. Do you really think that'll be the outcome? I'd be shocked. If there is nonhuman intelligence in our solar system, it's orders of magnitude smarter than us, and I'd also wager it's probably by design impossible for us detect.
- bb88 5y ago
  > I'd also wager it's probably by design impossible for us detect. Humans are orders of magnitude smarter than dolphins, yet that doesn't prevent humans from experimenting on them.
  - echelon 5y ago
    An interstellar intelligence is probably post-biology. Biological aliens are more than likely carbon and water based, and most likely use oxygen/oxidation for energy. The worlds that harbor these must be of a certain temperature and mass, which means the biological aliens evolved adapted to these conditions. Gravity, gravity wells, temperatures, metabolic and resource needs that are far from ideal for space. Let's also assume post-biology intelligence has the extra benefit of duplicating, transmitting, and modifying memories, experience, etc. and optimizing it. Compute nodes probably have access to more than the sum total of human knowledge at an instant, and can probably run math, chemical, and physical simulations rapidly. These intelligences will be orders of magnitude smarter than us. Imagine a trillion of the smartest humans operating at peak performance, except even smarter. These intelligences will also be concerned about other intelligences that have more resources and that may not take a friendly disposition. Unless there's an omnipotent intergalactic police force that prevents attack and extermination, intelligences will hide their presence by default. Since other adversarial intelligences probably also have technologies beyond our own, the technological needs and techniques for advanced cloaking may be beyond our present understanding. I didn't claim alien intelligence wouldn't study us. (They probably would.) I claimed they would remain very well hidden.
    - bb88 5y ago
      For observation, yes you're right. I'm not disagreeing there. We do that in nature all the time -- e.g. wildlife safaris with large telephoto lenses downwind lions/tigers/etc. But when we experiment with dolphins, the beach ball has to be visible so we can see what the dolphin does with it (even if we're hidden behind two-way glass). If it is aliens (and I'm not suggesting it is) why can't it be that they're measuring our intelligence capacity? This is the proverbial, beach ball, as it were.
DoreenMichele 5y ago
it looks intentionally vague and noncommittal, and in classic form, released on a Friday afternoon to minimize coverage. As a guess, they do that both because this is information gathered for security reasons and there are limits to what they can reasonably say without compromising security and because no matter how they write it it turns into wild speculation about aliens by the general public and conspiracy theories and the like. That stuff even creeps into HN discussion in a way and to a degree that is not the norm here. Minimizing the public furor is probably the least worst thing they can do, all things considered.
- lend000 5y ago
  "Security reasons" doesn't pass the smell test -- US adversaries are going to see the report regardless of what time it's released, whereas significantly fewer of its own citizens will. > That stuff even creeps into HN discussion in a way and to a degree that is not the norm here. HN discussion isn't some sacred thing, and probably never was. This is an interesting topic (and depending on the true nature of it, arguably the most interesting topic) and there's plenty of information to sift through. If HN discussions were meant to be stifled around official, manicured government and corporate press releases, that sounds more like naïveté than a free thinking scientifically-minded forum. Some of us are interested in other things besides the most elegant possible Haskell one-liner.
  - DoreenMichele 5y ago
    Let me try to say that a little more clearly: A. Maybe they keep it vague for security reasons knowing that other countries will read it, not just the American public. B. Maybe they publish it on a Friday in hopes of getting the least amount of nuttiness out of the American public. When you publish something for all the world to see, you have to take into account both of those dynamics, not just one or the other. They will both occur. Addressing only one or the other will go bad places.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
    One simple reason to not go into depth on the evidence is it would reveal the capabilities of radars and similar sensors. Likewise, if they know one of these was say a drone test by a contractor from a grey/black program they're obviously not going to disclose that. So there's a bunch of banal reasons security could apply here.
throwaway316943 5y ago
That’s presuming they actually have more information. If these phenomena really are of a nature that we have no previous experience with then they may be as much in the dark as the rest of us. That situation could be entirely due to the stigma they mention that surrounds reporting such things or if these incidents represent some unknown technology far beyond what we are capable of then it may be next to impossible to gather more information beyond chance radar returns and images without some concentrated effort.

babelfish 5y ago

Perhaps it is because there is no evidence of nonhuman intelligence visiting and engaging with Earth. I'm not sure who's surprised by this report.

tclancy 5y ago
That’s because you’ve only looked on the top side. If you peek over the edge at the bottom you will see.

echelon 5y ago

> "There is nonhuman intelligence visiting and engaging with Earth. We could not tell you before for national security reasons, but now we can tell you." At least, not without many years of plausibly deniable hints before-hand. Do you really think that'll be the outcome? I'd be shocked. If there is nonhuman intelligence in our solar system, it's orders of magnitude smarter than us, and I'd also wager it's probably by design impossible for us detect.

bb88 5y ago
> I'd also wager it's probably by design impossible for us detect. Humans are orders of magnitude smarter than dolphins, yet that doesn't prevent humans from experimenting on them.
- echelon 5y ago
  An interstellar intelligence is probably post-biology. Biological aliens are more than likely carbon and water based, and most likely use oxygen/oxidation for energy. The worlds that harbor these must be of a certain temperature and mass, which means the biological aliens evolved adapted to these conditions. Gravity, gravity wells, temperatures, metabolic and resource needs that are far from ideal for space. Let's also assume post-biology intelligence has the extra benefit of duplicating, transmitting, and modifying memories, experience, etc. and optimizing it. Compute nodes probably have access to more than the sum total of human knowledge at an instant, and can probably run math, chemical, and physical simulations rapidly. These intelligences will be orders of magnitude smarter than us. Imagine a trillion of the smartest humans operating at peak performance, except even smarter. These intelligences will also be concerned about other intelligences that have more resources and that may not take a friendly disposition. Unless there's an omnipotent intergalactic police force that prevents attack and extermination, intelligences will hide their presence by default. Since other adversarial intelligences probably also have technologies beyond our own, the technological needs and techniques for advanced cloaking may be beyond our present understanding. I didn't claim alien intelligence wouldn't study us. (They probably would.) I claimed they would remain very well hidden.
  - bb88 5y ago
    For observation, yes you're right. I'm not disagreeing there. We do that in nature all the time -- e.g. wildlife safaris with large telephoto lenses downwind lions/tigers/etc. But when we experiment with dolphins, the beach ball has to be visible so we can see what the dolphin does with it (even if we're hidden behind two-way glass). If it is aliens (and I'm not suggesting it is) why can't it be that they're measuring our intelligence capacity? This is the proverbial, beach ball, as it were.

DoreenMichele 5y ago

it looks intentionally vague and noncommittal, and in classic form, released on a Friday afternoon to minimize coverage. As a guess, they do that both because this is information gathered for security reasons and there are limits to what they can reasonably say without compromising security and because no matter how they write it it turns into wild speculation about aliens by the general public and conspiracy theories and the like. That stuff even creeps into HN discussion in a way and to a degree that is not the norm here. Minimizing the public furor is probably the least worst thing they can do, all things considered.

lend000 5y ago
"Security reasons" doesn't pass the smell test -- US adversaries are going to see the report regardless of what time it's released, whereas significantly fewer of its own citizens will. > That stuff even creeps into HN discussion in a way and to a degree that is not the norm here. HN discussion isn't some sacred thing, and probably never was. This is an interesting topic (and depending on the true nature of it, arguably the most interesting topic) and there's plenty of information to sift through. If HN discussions were meant to be stifled around official, manicured government and corporate press releases, that sounds more like naïveté than a free thinking scientifically-minded forum. Some of us are interested in other things besides the most elegant possible Haskell one-liner.
- DoreenMichele 5y ago
  Let me try to say that a little more clearly: A. Maybe they keep it vague for security reasons knowing that other countries will read it, not just the American public. B. Maybe they publish it on a Friday in hopes of getting the least amount of nuttiness out of the American public. When you publish something for all the world to see, you have to take into account both of those dynamics, not just one or the other. They will both occur. Addressing only one or the other will go bad places.
- jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
  One simple reason to not go into depth on the evidence is it would reveal the capabilities of radars and similar sensors. Likewise, if they know one of these was say a drone test by a contractor from a grey/black program they're obviously not going to disclose that. So there's a bunch of banal reasons security could apply here.

throwaway316943 5y ago

That’s presuming they actually have more information. If these phenomena really are of a nature that we have no previous experience with then they may be as much in the dark as the rest of us. That situation could be entirely due to the stigma they mention that surrounds reporting such things or if these incidents represent some unknown technology far beyond what we are capable of then it may be next to impossible to gather more information beyond chance radar returns and images without some concentrated effort.