3 ms·
"Another U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the military had seen no evidence suggesting any of the objects in question were of ext
by mlqnl 4y ago
"Another U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the military had seen no evidence suggesting any of the objects in question were of extraterrestrial origin."
Interesting that anonymity is required for such a banal issue. But lots of funding hinges on perpetuating the scare for as long as possible, so I guess that explains it.
- mc32 4y agoNo, I think they've been conditioned to be extraordinarily careful in their wording, lest they be occasionally wrong and get rained on for being technically wrong on something minor. So instead of having a rubric of "be cautious if it could incite war" it's "be cautious everywhere because we do not trust your judgement on anything"
- MonkeyMalarky 4y agoAnd so we have "object" being the most generic and useless way to refer to something.
- mc32 4y agoI mean phenomenon was pretty generic. Though I suppose they could get childish and start calling them "things" or "stuff" like small children do. Maybe the military is about to degenerate into Munro's limit of 1000 basic words to describe everything.
- chasd00 4y agoIf you’re not authorized to speak even mentioning the lunch menu is enough to get you, your neighbors, and your neighbors friends in a lot of trouble. It gets a little ridiculous.
- dynamite-ready 4y agoThe military was happy to reveal the providence of the so called spy balloon. Not sure what the reason for the current course of action is, but if they're shooting stuff down, then perhaps it's not that banal. Even it ends up being a pair of teenagers pulling off an elaborate hoax.