3 ms·

Funny, though tbh it seems like there are cheaper ways to cause the US to spend gobs of cash. I even hesitate to mention some ideas that immediately come to min

Funny, though tbh it seems like there are cheaper ways to cause the US to spend gobs of cash. I even hesitate to mention some ideas that immediately come to mind that would be easier/more efficient to really nail than the Pringles can idea. Plus many of the more prominent base-personnel sightings land quite a bit far from that particular ballpark. Take a look into the Rendlesham Forest incident for example. The problem with "summing up UFO contact" is that the variety of encounters is absolutely insane. Compare Rendlesham to Varginha, etc. It really starts to bring out the "inter" in the more colorful inter-dimensional contact theories.

r3trohack3r 4y ago
Had never heard of the Rendlesham Forest incident - what a rabbit hole. Thank you for sharing.
- cpursley 4y ago
  Knowledge like this is what keeps bringing me back to HN.
GartzenDeHaes 4y ago
If you know something about how the USAF responds to incidents, the idea of the deputy base commander and disaster preparedness running around in the middle of the night chasing UFO's is hilarious. It's obviously a practical joke that got out of hand.
- r3trohack3r 4y ago
  Just watched some interviews. The guys claiming to have “downloaded” an alien signal by touching the craft. The signal was transmitted in binary and just happened to be ASCII encoded English. Odd that a ship from 8100 transmitted data in an archaic dialect of an ancient language using an ancient encoding that just happened to match the language and encoding in widespread use during this guys lifetime. Having a hard time with this.
JohnBooty 4y ago
Funny, though tbh it seems like there are cheaper ways to cause the US to spend gobs of cash. Yeah. My best understanding based on watching a lot of retired military personnel is that isolated incidents cost the US almost exactly zero additional dollars. The way an Air Force base works is this: there is a budget. This covers the (considerable) costs of the base itself, the personnel, the equipment, and so on. Active-duty fighter pilots must fly a certain number of hours per month to remain on active status. Just like any other demanding activity (sports, competitive gaming, whatever) their skills require constant maintenance. These flying hours are of course budgeted. (This will be true of literally any air force; it's not specifically a USAF thing) Things like these incident responses, and even things like flyovers before sporting events, come out of those predetermined budgeted flying hours that they were going to fly anyway. So isolated incidents like these don't really increase USAF expenses in a meaningful way. Those $400K/ea missiles will presumably need to be replenished but this must be compared to the USAF's total budget of $180 billion. To put any strain whatsoever on the US's capabilities our foes would need to start sending large amounts of drones: essentially, a saturation attack. More than we can comfortably respond to. Which is of course... extremely possible. But as long as these remain isolated incidents we can surmise that our adversary's goal is not "cost the US a bunch of money."
- mistermann 4y ago
  A potential flaw in this plan: while everything you say may be true, it is not broadly known. If China (or whoever) was to keep floating these things our way and we kept shooting them down at a don't worry about it, we're pot committed rate of ~$400k per incident, maybe people's blind faith in the military and politicians might be replaced with some rare curiosity, and maybe even displeasure! (Though: it's not like they have an alternative to vote for, but that too is not immutable, it only seems that way.) Keeping people immersed in a complex narrative is a lot easier than one would think, but it is also a very tricky balancing act that can get upset by the weirdest things. Personally, I'm all for it - anything that has the potential to wake up the American/Western public from their dream state is a good thing in my books, plus it makes for good entertainment.
  - 4y ago
LarryMullins 4y ago
> it seems like there are cheaper ways to cause the US to spend gobs of cash. Yeah, the Mig-25 / F-15 thing comes to mind. Soviets develop a super secret jet, very big, very fast.. it must be very impressive fighter jet! America is spooked so tons of resources are poured into the F-15 to make the absolute best possible air superiority fighter jet they can, to counter this new Soviet threat. Except then it turns out that the Mig-25 was never a fighter jet, it was an interceptor that was very fast in a straight line but not much more. So the US built an incredible air superiority fighter to counter a phantom of a jet that never really existed in the way America thought. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-15_Eagle#Focus_on_air_superiority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-15_Eagle#F... Come to think of it, maybe China is going low-tech with balloons to avoid this dynamic?
- HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
  > So the US built an incredible air superiority fighter to counter a phantom of a jet that never really existed in the way America thought. Are you sure that's what really happened, or did a group of people in the Air Force want an air superiority fighter and use the Mig-25 as the excuse?
  - LarryMullins 4y ago
    By all accounts I have read, the defection of Viktor Belenko with a Mig-25 really did change the way NATO understood the Mig-25.
- somat 4y ago
  But it does not end there. The f-15 in turn spooked the soviets, and they put a bunch of money into the Su-27 program.

r3trohack3r 4y ago

Had never heard of the Rendlesham Forest incident - what a rabbit hole. Thank you for sharing.

cpursley 4y ago
Knowledge like this is what keeps bringing me back to HN.

GartzenDeHaes 4y ago

If you know something about how the USAF responds to incidents, the idea of the deputy base commander and disaster preparedness running around in the middle of the night chasing UFO's is hilarious. It's obviously a practical joke that got out of hand.

r3trohack3r 4y ago
Just watched some interviews. The guys claiming to have “downloaded” an alien signal by touching the craft. The signal was transmitted in binary and just happened to be ASCII encoded English. Odd that a ship from 8100 transmitted data in an archaic dialect of an ancient language using an ancient encoding that just happened to match the language and encoding in widespread use during this guys lifetime. Having a hard time with this.

JohnBooty 4y ago

Funny, though tbh it seems like there are cheaper ways to cause the US to spend gobs of cash. Yeah. My best understanding based on watching a lot of retired military personnel is that isolated incidents cost the US almost exactly zero additional dollars. The way an Air Force base works is this: there is a budget. This covers the (considerable) costs of the base itself, the personnel, the equipment, and so on. Active-duty fighter pilots must fly a certain number of hours per month to remain on active status. Just like any other demanding activity (sports, competitive gaming, whatever) their skills require constant maintenance. These flying hours are of course budgeted. (This will be true of literally any air force; it's not specifically a USAF thing) Things like these incident responses, and even things like flyovers before sporting events, come out of those predetermined budgeted flying hours that they were going to fly anyway. So isolated incidents like these don't really increase USAF expenses in a meaningful way. Those $400K/ea missiles will presumably need to be replenished but this must be compared to the USAF's total budget of $180 billion. To put any strain whatsoever on the US's capabilities our foes would need to start sending large amounts of drones: essentially, a saturation attack. More than we can comfortably respond to. Which is of course... extremely possible. But as long as these remain isolated incidents we can surmise that our adversary's goal is not "cost the US a bunch of money."

mistermann 4y ago
A potential flaw in this plan: while everything you say may be true, it is not broadly known. If China (or whoever) was to keep floating these things our way and we kept shooting them down at a don't worry about it, we're pot committed rate of ~$400k per incident, maybe people's blind faith in the military and politicians might be replaced with some rare curiosity, and maybe even displeasure! (Though: it's not like they have an alternative to vote for, but that too is not immutable, it only seems that way.) Keeping people immersed in a complex narrative is a lot easier than one would think, but it is also a very tricky balancing act that can get upset by the weirdest things. Personally, I'm all for it - anything that has the potential to wake up the American/Western public from their dream state is a good thing in my books, plus it makes for good entertainment.
- 4y ago

LarryMullins 4y ago

> it seems like there are cheaper ways to cause the US to spend gobs of cash. Yeah, the Mig-25 / F-15 thing comes to mind. Soviets develop a super secret jet, very big, very fast.. it must be very impressive fighter jet! America is spooked so tons of resources are poured into the F-15 to make the absolute best possible air superiority fighter jet they can, to counter this new Soviet threat. Except then it turns out that the Mig-25 was never a fighter jet, it was an interceptor that was very fast in a straight line but not much more. So the US built an incredible air superiority fighter to counter a phantom of a jet that never really existed in the way America thought. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-15_Eagle#Focus_on_air_superiority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-15_Eagle#F... Come to think of it, maybe China is going low-tech with balloons to avoid this dynamic?

HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
> So the US built an incredible air superiority fighter to counter a phantom of a jet that never really existed in the way America thought. Are you sure that's what really happened, or did a group of people in the Air Force want an air superiority fighter and use the Mig-25 as the excuse?
- LarryMullins 4y ago
  By all accounts I have read, the defection of Viktor Belenko with a Mig-25 really did change the way NATO understood the Mig-25.
somat 4y ago
But it does not end there. The f-15 in turn spooked the soviets, and they put a bunch of money into the Su-27 program.