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When military aviation says it "observed" something, you can safely assume it means they observed something on multiple spectrums (eg. visible light, infrared,

When military aviation says it "observed" something, you can safely assume it means they observed something on multiple spectrums (eg. visible light, infrared, radar, etc) and even by multiple aircraft. We're not dumb, we're trained in observation and identification, and we see (visible light|single-spectrum) anomalies all the time and those get dismissed as whatever. On the other side of the coin, we often do see stuff like Mylar balloons and other odd, but un-shocking aerial phenomena, so it's important to keep investigations scientifically-rigorous. If you click on some of the report links in the article, they lead to some reports about the "sphere in translucent cube" UAPs, along with many reports about what are clearly off-the-shelf and customized drones (eg. DJI and custom builds and the like). There's definitely something odd going on, but I feel like the news media is really trying to trump it up for clicks.

Loquebantur 3y ago
The problem isn't the US military being incompetent, it's american citizens living in fear of loosing control. The fantasy of pilots circling around balloons in unceasing awe and amazement provides a feeling of superiority, the "obvious" resolution there just as in stories such as GP's instill the idea of being in perfect command of the relevant context. UAPs on the other hand, the idea of them being indications of the presence of some superior non-human intelligence, that is representing ultimate loss of control. Threatening to call into question too many comfortable convictions.
- scrubs 3y ago
  Well sure. Most mono theistic religions will struggle to incorporate alien life. Alas fundamentalist Christianity has a sufficiently ill-defined theology that it can incorporate most anything despite the fact the old testament creation story says nothing about alien civilizations in any meaningful way. Consistency with completeness have never been a pressing problem for it.
  - AtlasBarfed 3y ago
    I suspect the fear is a wee bit more primal, as in native Americans viewing European ships.
  - Amezarak 3y ago
    If you're willing to accept the existence of magic, physics-defying UFOs, then at least some fundamentalists seem equally well grounded in providing an entirely different non-spacefaring-alien explanation for them. At any rate, I don't think anyone claims to offer a complete explanation for everything that exists.
    - scrubs 3y ago
      Maybe your rain check with evangelical Christians has expired? By construction, by definition in their mind God is cause and explanation fir everything and the 66 books of the Bible is the bona-fide bottom line as they see it. And most cases it's literal truth.
      - Amezarak 3y ago
        God is the ultimate cause for everything, but that doesn't make it "complete" or mean it claims to be complete or anyone claims it to be complete, anymore than anyone would claim the Big Bang makes physics complete. The evangelical line is that the bible is both true and sufficient to understand all you need to know for salvation, not that it's sufficient to understand everything. All phenomena are not claimed to be explained or even described. But that's really beside the point, the point is that, with our current level of scientific knowledge, believing in FTL aliens who are zipping around Earth and performing other stunts in violation of the known laws of physics is not different than believing in magic and demons. The only thing that's changed is your interpretive lens - one has a lot more cachet in a world where science fiction is more read than theology.
        scrubs 3y ago
        The evangelical line --- since we're post new Testament --- is we're in end times. Satan will take over eventually, and at any time final judgement will occur which is why salvation is a pressing issue. It's a apocalyptic stance that for some (certainly not all) creates a nasty dis-association with the here and now. After all if heaven/hell was always the only point, then this life is like a Las Vegas weekend. It's not our place, not our home and in 72hrs we're out anyway. I wrote before evangelical theology is sufficiently ill-defined such that it can incorporate major changes in understanding which is a kind of consistency problem. Nobody with a dose of common sense about the prevailing attitudes in monotheistic religions would say detection of non-earth based life changes nothing. The old testament creation story is all earth centered, and all earth-man centered all the time. You might enjoy Ken Wilbur's "Quantum Questions" in this context. He writes a mini biography on all the major 20th century scientists many of whom held a spiritual core although (as far as I can remember) not an American evangelical line. I think the book makes a good point. No scientist uses science as means to prove or disprove God/theology. And no scientists uses the Bible to disprove or prove rational facts about the world we live in. Either way it's a corruption of the other. Nonetheless the evangelical line and its literal take on the new Testament is what it is. There is no God. We're not living in end-times. Satan doesn't exist. Final judgement isn't pending. Salvation is an unforced problem. And no proof of aliens or even bacterial life off-earth is demonstrated with rational evidence. This brings us to a world more like Camus'. Existence is absurd. Meaning is living a full live despite the absurdness of it akin to Sisyphus pushing the rock up the hill to have to retrieve it when it rolls down and push it up again. Our job is to make something of that while we can.
stareatgoats 3y ago
> even by multiple aircraft I have another interesting story about that, from the century before the last one as it happens: my great grandfather and a friend of his was walking along a road on a misty evening, talking about this and that. After a while another man caught up with them and made them company for a stretch, but without saying anything. After another while the man dropped off and disappeared into the fog. My great grandfather and his friend continued for a while in silence, until the friend felt he had to say what he sensed was on both of their minds: "Uhum, did you notice something odd about that man that made us company just now?", "yes! I certainly did" said my great grandfather "but I didn't want to say. He didn't have a head!". "Exactly!" said the friend. To this day nobody can understand how a man without a head could be seen walking around in the Danish countryside.
- deserialized 3y ago
  This sounds like a hilarious ye-olde prank of pulling your jacket over your head and stumling around trying to scare people but getting bored and wandering off when they didn't react lmao
  - stareatgoats 3y ago
    Could be, maybe even probable. And maybe they figured it out too, but decided to stick to their story of the headless man because, well that's more interesting innit? And one more thing, this was in the days when capital punishment was still in effect, but with a growing opposition from the humanitarian, enlightened liberal bourgeoisie. And a story about how a decapitated criminal is haunting arbitrary pedestrians does fit that agenda. All subconsciously construed of course.
gitfan86 3y ago
What I find odd is that if there are aliens here, why are they making themselves just barely visible and how are they accomplishing this small level of visibility? How do they know exactly where to be so that multiple aircraft can kind of see them, but zero people are able to get high quality video or pictures? It seems like a very narrow window of exposing your existence. So narrow that it could only be intentional. But why do it at all?
- krapp 3y ago
  Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from bullshit.
- prirun 3y ago
  Maybe they have tech that shows them our radar scanning patterns, so they know where to be. And maybe other tech to make themselves less visible via vision, ie, light bending or something like that. They might want to see how humans react to the possibility of aliens, without completely freaking the planet out by landing somewhere, walking out of a ship, and saying "take me to your leader".
- akomtu 3y ago
  Once in a while we send a bathyscaphe or two to the deep to explore the oceans bottom and the lifeforms there. The conditions there are unsuitable for us, and it takes a good deal of effort to make those expeditions. The strange lifeforms in the deep observe the occasional spherical objects that briefly enter their habitat and then mysteriosly disappear. If our science advances enough, we'll establish a research station there, and maybe even a colony if we find something valuable on the bottom.
- harleypig 3y ago
  > How do they know exactly where to be savegames > But why do it at all? Why ... there's no needin' to explain a "fuckin' with" ...
breakyerself 3y ago
Why can you safely assume that? They've already released videos they couldn't explain which had very easy explanations. The US military isn't in the UFO debunking business. They're in the blowing things up business.
- maxbond 3y ago
  And indeed, US intelligence has historically been in the "deliberately stoke UFO (UAP) conspiracy theories to protect our intelligence interests" business. I don't wanna be one of those people on the internet who says everything is a psyop, but when the US government produces evidence of UAPs, historically it has been, and our prior should be that it's misinformation probably meant to sabotage some other nation's intelligence efforts in a manner we don't have the context to understand (if I had to take a guess, which I'm not particularly qualified to do, by pretending they've been so thoroughly bamboozled by the current generation of aerial surveillance platforms that they think it's aliens, thereby delaying the deployment of improved craft. It's not a particularly compelling hypothesis, it's just the one I am aware of which I judge most likely.).
- flandish 3y ago
  Right. They’re also in the “manufacture consent” business - and UAPs mean “possible enemy tech we need to race to beat,” when needed as a reason. The military is not into scientific rigor as much as it is into blowing things up and supporting contractors while chasing/developing tech. We are conveniently in arms races with: China, Russia, etc.. and starting a most likely terrible election cycle with lots of new tech to be used. It follows that UAP concerns can easily pivot into “enemy tech” arms races, when necessary.
  - mhoad 3y ago
    I mean one of the pretty clear implications of that research is that there is a real chance those are Chinese aircraft that have figured out how to avoid radar detection and even most close range observation. If that does turn out to be true it’s a major turning point in world history as the US discovers they are now are no longer the most powerful airforce in the world and has some very real and very serious knock on effects that come with it.
PKop 3y ago
Or that they're lying for geopolitical gain. I'm not sure that we just can assume what we are told by the government is the truth.

Loquebantur 3y ago

The problem isn't the US military being incompetent, it's american citizens living in fear of loosing control. The fantasy of pilots circling around balloons in unceasing awe and amazement provides a feeling of superiority, the "obvious" resolution there just as in stories such as GP's instill the idea of being in perfect command of the relevant context. UAPs on the other hand, the idea of them being indications of the presence of some superior non-human intelligence, that is representing ultimate loss of control. Threatening to call into question too many comfortable convictions.

scrubs 3y ago
Well sure. Most mono theistic religions will struggle to incorporate alien life. Alas fundamentalist Christianity has a sufficiently ill-defined theology that it can incorporate most anything despite the fact the old testament creation story says nothing about alien civilizations in any meaningful way. Consistency with completeness have never been a pressing problem for it.
- AtlasBarfed 3y ago
  I suspect the fear is a wee bit more primal, as in native Americans viewing European ships.
- Amezarak 3y ago
  If you're willing to accept the existence of magic, physics-defying UFOs, then at least some fundamentalists seem equally well grounded in providing an entirely different non-spacefaring-alien explanation for them. At any rate, I don't think anyone claims to offer a complete explanation for everything that exists.
  - scrubs 3y ago
    Maybe your rain check with evangelical Christians has expired? By construction, by definition in their mind God is cause and explanation fir everything and the 66 books of the Bible is the bona-fide bottom line as they see it. And most cases it's literal truth.
    - Amezarak 3y ago
      God is the ultimate cause for everything, but that doesn't make it "complete" or mean it claims to be complete or anyone claims it to be complete, anymore than anyone would claim the Big Bang makes physics complete. The evangelical line is that the bible is both true and sufficient to understand all you need to know for salvation, not that it's sufficient to understand everything. All phenomena are not claimed to be explained or even described. But that's really beside the point, the point is that, with our current level of scientific knowledge, believing in FTL aliens who are zipping around Earth and performing other stunts in violation of the known laws of physics is not different than believing in magic and demons. The only thing that's changed is your interpretive lens - one has a lot more cachet in a world where science fiction is more read than theology.
      - scrubs 3y ago
        The evangelical line --- since we're post new Testament --- is we're in end times. Satan will take over eventually, and at any time final judgement will occur which is why salvation is a pressing issue. It's a apocalyptic stance that for some (certainly not all) creates a nasty dis-association with the here and now. After all if heaven/hell was always the only point, then this life is like a Las Vegas weekend. It's not our place, not our home and in 72hrs we're out anyway. I wrote before evangelical theology is sufficiently ill-defined such that it can incorporate major changes in understanding which is a kind of consistency problem. Nobody with a dose of common sense about the prevailing attitudes in monotheistic religions would say detection of non-earth based life changes nothing. The old testament creation story is all earth centered, and all earth-man centered all the time. You might enjoy Ken Wilbur's "Quantum Questions" in this context. He writes a mini biography on all the major 20th century scientists many of whom held a spiritual core although (as far as I can remember) not an American evangelical line. I think the book makes a good point. No scientist uses science as means to prove or disprove God/theology. And no scientists uses the Bible to disprove or prove rational facts about the world we live in. Either way it's a corruption of the other. Nonetheless the evangelical line and its literal take on the new Testament is what it is. There is no God. We're not living in end-times. Satan doesn't exist. Final judgement isn't pending. Salvation is an unforced problem. And no proof of aliens or even bacterial life off-earth is demonstrated with rational evidence. This brings us to a world more like Camus'. Existence is absurd. Meaning is living a full live despite the absurdness of it akin to Sisyphus pushing the rock up the hill to have to retrieve it when it rolls down and push it up again. Our job is to make something of that while we can.

stareatgoats 3y ago

> even by multiple aircraft I have another interesting story about that, from the century before the last one as it happens: my great grandfather and a friend of his was walking along a road on a misty evening, talking about this and that. After a while another man caught up with them and made them company for a stretch, but without saying anything. After another while the man dropped off and disappeared into the fog. My great grandfather and his friend continued for a while in silence, until the friend felt he had to say what he sensed was on both of their minds: "Uhum, did you notice something odd about that man that made us company just now?", "yes! I certainly did" said my great grandfather "but I didn't want to say. He didn't have a head!". "Exactly!" said the friend. To this day nobody can understand how a man without a head could be seen walking around in the Danish countryside.

deserialized 3y ago
This sounds like a hilarious ye-olde prank of pulling your jacket over your head and stumling around trying to scare people but getting bored and wandering off when they didn't react lmao
- stareatgoats 3y ago
  Could be, maybe even probable. And maybe they figured it out too, but decided to stick to their story of the headless man because, well that's more interesting innit? And one more thing, this was in the days when capital punishment was still in effect, but with a growing opposition from the humanitarian, enlightened liberal bourgeoisie. And a story about how a decapitated criminal is haunting arbitrary pedestrians does fit that agenda. All subconsciously construed of course.

gitfan86 3y ago

What I find odd is that if there are aliens here, why are they making themselves just barely visible and how are they accomplishing this small level of visibility? How do they know exactly where to be so that multiple aircraft can kind of see them, but zero people are able to get high quality video or pictures? It seems like a very narrow window of exposing your existence. So narrow that it could only be intentional. But why do it at all?

krapp 3y ago
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from bullshit.
prirun 3y ago
Maybe they have tech that shows them our radar scanning patterns, so they know where to be. And maybe other tech to make themselves less visible via vision, ie, light bending or something like that. They might want to see how humans react to the possibility of aliens, without completely freaking the planet out by landing somewhere, walking out of a ship, and saying "take me to your leader".
akomtu 3y ago
Once in a while we send a bathyscaphe or two to the deep to explore the oceans bottom and the lifeforms there. The conditions there are unsuitable for us, and it takes a good deal of effort to make those expeditions. The strange lifeforms in the deep observe the occasional spherical objects that briefly enter their habitat and then mysteriosly disappear. If our science advances enough, we'll establish a research station there, and maybe even a colony if we find something valuable on the bottom.
harleypig 3y ago
> How do they know exactly where to be savegames > But why do it at all? Why ... there's no needin' to explain a "fuckin' with" ...

breakyerself 3y ago

Why can you safely assume that? They've already released videos they couldn't explain which had very easy explanations. The US military isn't in the UFO debunking business. They're in the blowing things up business.

maxbond 3y ago
And indeed, US intelligence has historically been in the "deliberately stoke UFO (UAP) conspiracy theories to protect our intelligence interests" business. I don't wanna be one of those people on the internet who says everything is a psyop, but when the US government produces evidence of UAPs, historically it has been, and our prior should be that it's misinformation probably meant to sabotage some other nation's intelligence efforts in a manner we don't have the context to understand (if I had to take a guess, which I'm not particularly qualified to do, by pretending they've been so thoroughly bamboozled by the current generation of aerial surveillance platforms that they think it's aliens, thereby delaying the deployment of improved craft. It's not a particularly compelling hypothesis, it's just the one I am aware of which I judge most likely.).
flandish 3y ago
Right. They’re also in the “manufacture consent” business - and UAPs mean “possible enemy tech we need to race to beat,” when needed as a reason. The military is not into scientific rigor as much as it is into blowing things up and supporting contractors while chasing/developing tech. We are conveniently in arms races with: China, Russia, etc.. and starting a most likely terrible election cycle with lots of new tech to be used. It follows that UAP concerns can easily pivot into “enemy tech” arms races, when necessary.
- mhoad 3y ago
  I mean one of the pretty clear implications of that research is that there is a real chance those are Chinese aircraft that have figured out how to avoid radar detection and even most close range observation. If that does turn out to be true it’s a major turning point in world history as the US discovers they are now are no longer the most powerful airforce in the world and has some very real and very serious knock on effects that come with it.

PKop 3y ago

Or that they're lying for geopolitical gain. I'm not sure that we just can assume what we are told by the government is the truth.