138 ms·

I am usually one to treat EVERYTHING with a very healthy dose of skepticism, but who are any of us to say what is possible or what is not? I'm sure that a centu

I am usually one to treat EVERYTHING with a very healthy dose of skepticism, but who are any of us to say what is possible or what is not? I'm sure that a century ago, space was just something we would never reach. The US Military released rather intriguing, yet unexplained videos of objects outmaneuvering our top jets. You should go check those out. I've yet to see an explanation that covers all the data those jets collected. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing, but instantly writing things off as 'tin foil hat' while the guy has an actual legit legal retaliation case going on seems a bit premature.

dTal 3y ago
>I'm sure that a century ago, space was just something we would never reach. Far from it! From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne was written in 1865, and was a reasonable attempt at hard sci-fi. More scientifically, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky published "Exploration of Cosmic Space by Means of Reaction Devices" in 1903, some 6 years after deriving his famous rocket equation; it advanced the basic concept of the space rocket, that we all take for granted today. In 1923, exactly a century ago, Hermann Julius Oberth published his book "The Rocket in Interplanetary Space", a thoroughly practical treatment in which he argues that human-rated rocket-powered space flight was not just theoretically possible but feasible and maybe even profitable.[0] So century ago, not only was space firmly established as a place we could go, but also enough groundwork had been done that it was known how we would get there. [0] https://ia800304.us.archive.org/24/items/nasa_techdoc_19720008133/19720008133.pdf https://ia800304.us.archive.org/24/items/nasa_techdoc_197200...
nonethewiser 3y ago
It’s incredibly hard for people to say “we dont have an explanation.” Either it’s unexplained therefore aliens or an equally speculative yet mundane dismissal.
- themitigating 3y ago
  What about Occam's razor? Think about the reports as well. It's not like some alien was seen walking around by hundreds then disappeared we are talking about unexplained visuals and mass moving in an unexplained way. Why even go right to aliens? Because people already believe it's true and are looking for anything that can be attributed to it.
glenstein 3y ago
>but who are any of us to say what is possible or what is not? This is the tragic sentence which is letting the parade of carnival animals in through the back door. In some sense it's true that intellectual humility is necessary as we allow ourselves to be challenged by ideas we thought not possible. But it's true the way hallmark card quotes are true, as vague generalities. It does no work as a specific response to a specific set of facts, which should be determined by all kinds of specific contextual examinations. In that setting, it's an open-ended, unrestricted invitation to completely suspend all disbelief without any restraint or distinctions.
- osigurdson 3y ago
  If the problem is not outside the bounds of known physics, then it should be considered plausible. Otherwise, it is certainly not impossible, but pointless to speculate. If you enjoy speculating about such things, fill your boots, but realize that you are only doing it for your own amusement.
  - glenstein 3y ago
    I think you mean possible rather than plausible? But otherwise I would say you're right, it's an exercise for personal amusement. But I think as you can see from elsewhere even in this thread, people slip into this mode of half-joking where they might as well be describing their ideas for Deus Ex fan missions, and the dividing line between serious engagement with evidence and make believe is breaking down.
  - 2devnull 3y ago
    I would argue that play is a highly valuable intellectual activity. Speculating for one’s amusement falls into that category and is therefore not worthless. A lot of great ideas come from playing around with strange ideas that aren’t obviously useful.
- agentgumshoe 3y ago
  A thought experiment. The universe is extremely large and billions of years old. Let's imagine life has developed within a few of those billions of galaxies out there, then imagine this started 1 billion years before us. How advanced to you think we could get in another billion years (assuming we don't annihilate ourselves)? What's really impossible?
mlhpdx 3y ago
There are unexplained bugs in my software, but I’m pretty sure they weren’t the work of aliens.
- WJW 3y ago
  For sure. Even if we can't explain how or why some phenomenon occurred, the conclusion "we don't know of anything on Earth that does this, so it must be aliens" is so much less likely than "it is something on Earth we haven't figured out yet".
- bregma 3y ago
  I'm pretty convinced space aliens send the cosmic rays down that cause the bizarre runtime bugs in my software. I have never found a more amenable or rational explanation.
tialaramex 3y ago
You're sure that in 1923, space was "something we would never reach"? That's about ten years before a German guy starts his work on liquid rocket fuel technology, work that will (via a Nazi terror weapon) go on to result in the US manned space programme. If you said 1823 maybe I could sympathise, in 1823 they don't have everything together, they don't know about the Noble gases or dozens of other elements, they thought atoms were indivisible (hence the name), they don't have the First Network (the Universal Postal Union, yes, in 1823 you could not write a letter in say, Edinburgh, write an address in Berlin, and just post it, that idea hadn't been invented yet). But by 1923 they're in a much better place. Their atomic model is still wrong but it's like the model you're probably picturing in your head, the one where electrons are little whizzy balls orbiting a nucleus. Wrong, but not wrong enough to cause big problems for everyday purposes. Kurt Gödel hasn't come up with his clever trick yet, but the problem is right there and people are thinking about it. You say the videos are objects but I don't see evidence of objects. Just because you see a shape doesn't mean you saw an object. Did you know shadows can move faster than the speed of light? Because you see a shadow isn't a thing, it's just our mental model of events, and there are no limits on that model. We have plenty of ways to make a shape seem to move much faster than we can make an object move.
- Sunspark 3y ago
  In 1783 the Montgolfier brothers flew through the skies for the first time ever in a hot air balloon. It wasn't even sure if humans could survive being in the air so the King wouldn't let them send humans aloft until test animals survived first. Later that same year, the hydrogen balloon was invented and that one was flown to an altitude of 3 km high. And yes, the idea that you could write in Edinburgh and have it delivered to Berlin had already been invented much further back than after 1823. The Roman Empire had the Cursus Publicus which handled mail delivery between the Provinces and Italy.
  - strken 3y ago
    Do you mean someone of a high enough rank could have official communications and military dispatches delivered, or do you mean any person could have any letter delivered to any home? I think tialaramex was writing more about universal civilian letter delivery, and particularly about universal (well, global or near-global) addressing, rather than letter delivery between officials within an empire.
ivlad 3y ago
> I'm sure that a century ago, space was just something we would never reach. Tsiolkovsky developed his rocket equation in 1903 and in 1928 he published The Will of Universe dedicated to space colonisation. He clearly new it’s within reach of human mind. Jules Verne published From the Earth to the Moon and given that his works are some early examples of science fiction and not a pure fantasy, one could say even Verne envisioned space travels as possible.
singleshot_ 3y ago
“but who are any of us to say what is possible or what is not?” Those people are called experts.
mrandish 3y ago
> I've yet to see an explanation that covers all the data those jets collected. Here you go: https://www.youtube.com/c/mickwest https://www.youtube.com/c/mickwest. Mick has thoroughly investigated the most cited videos and shows them to be of entirely terrestrial origin - often atmospheric effects combined with optical lens, digital stabilization and thermal imaging artifacts. He even cites the technical documentation for the military camera equipment and often provides convincing demonstrations of the artifacts through recreations.
- Loquebantur 3y ago
  So you're telling me, some random game developer was more competent than the US military guys who literally are hired for such analysis? I suppose, having coded some "parallax effect" is sufficient in your book?
  - thworp 3y ago
    Yes he is. Have you ever interacted with the military or other public org in a technical capacity?
  - RyanCavanaugh 3y ago
    The US military made no claims that these videos showed unexplainable phenomena. They just sort of put them out there. The video they called "Gimbal" shows an artifact caused by a gimbal mechanism, for example
  - mrandish 3y ago
    > So you're telling me, some random game developer was more competent than the US military guys who literally are hired for such analysis? In the case of the most-cited "Gimbal" video, all the military has officially said is they can't determine for sure what the object the glare shown in the video is from. But everyone already agrees on that point. No one can tell from the video whether the glare shown is caused by an airplane many miles distant or some other object. No one representing the U.S. government has ever said the video could NOT be a magnified thermal glare from a distant airplane. Remember, the pilot never saw the object with his own eyes, it was far too distant to see visually even as a spec on the horizon. All the pilot ever saw was the same auto-tracking thermal video we've all seen. > I suppose, having coded some "parallax effect" is sufficient in your book? I don't know what you're referring to but it doesn't sound like Mick West's analysis video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsEjV8DdSbs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsEjV8DdSbs. Also, Mick only assembled the video. He acknowledges the evidence shown in the video is the work of many independent researchers working collaboratively over many months while iteratively sharing their data for peer review. There are links to all the source data shown as well as the entire open analysis discussion and review. The summary video is concise and only 20 minutes long. I challenge you to watch all of it and respond specifically. Which of the four points evidenced from the on-screen camera do you think is incorrect and why? IMHO, it's inarguable the detailed analysis provides conclusive and verifiable evidence the object is precisely consistent with a glare from an extremely distant object with a thermal imaging 'halo' artifact around it. The apparent rotation and erratic movement of the thermal glare observed in the highly-magnified video is a combined artifact of a) the Raytheon multi-axis camera tracking gimbal system used on that jet, b) the optical stabilization system, and c) the digital de-rotation system. If you respond, please at least give a clear "yes" or "no" as to whether you agree the apparent rotation is created by the rotating camera gimbal (which was then automatically digitally de-rotated) vs actual rotation of the distant object. If not, how do you explain all the obvious signs of gimbal rotation in the on-screen numeric data and the rest of the video frame around the center glare (eg the background clouds and sky)?
themitigating 3y ago
"but who are any of us to say what is possible or what is not" It's usually not a 50/50 percent probability on whether something is possible or exists. ECREE is a good rule to follow when trying to come up with probabilities lacking direct evidence. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagan_standard https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagan_standard For example imagine I told you I own a pencil. Would you ask me to prove it or doubt me? Even you don't know or trust me, probably not. Why? Because pencils exist, it's easy to get one, and I have no reason to lie (in this scenario). Now what if I told you I have an invisibility cloak. You'd call me a liar and want proof, hell probably an in person demonstration. Think about why. -------------- "I'm sure that a century ago, space was just something we would never reach." Whether or not aliens exist is not the same as not reaching space. Say it's the year 1876- 1. Aliens may or may not exist, it's unknown 2. it's a true fact that humans haven't gone to space. I get that you mean the amount of technological advancment in the last 300 years has been crazy. The reason the burden of proof is on whether something occurred or exists is because the number of events that haven't occured and what doesn't exist is infinite. Finally you also ask about who is to say and I assume you also mean "why not". There's always a downside to believing false things, maybe it's small for some people or maybe a crazy person adds aliens to the pile of "government lies" then decides to shoot up some government agency.
jonathanstrange 3y ago
Of course, it's possible. Almost anything is possible on some abstract level if we allow our imagination to roam freely. I'm all for asking the US government: "Do you hide alien UFOs?" The question is how you react when the answer is "No." If you keep insisting the government is lying, then you're more and more getting into 'tin foil hat' territory, especially if you're a government employee and have no evidence other than alleged hearsay. It depends on your strength of belief in the contrarian opinion. Saying that it's possible is one thing, saying "they're doing it but I don't have proof" is another.
- lemming 3y ago
  Given the article, the more interesting question is how we react if the answer is "Yes".
- dsfsder3423 3y ago
  For almost hundreds of reasons, if any government, but specially super-power government would have UFO's tech hidden, and everybody else is almost certain UFOs are a myth, some wacko-level talk for internet forums They would be strategically obligued to deny everything, so the answer would "No, no such a thing like UFOs here". i.e. what happened with the NSA programs, most were almost fully known for the "conspiracy wackos" except by the name of the program, even decades before Snowden. But just were confirmed to be real maybe 30 years after the first mentions in the 70s,80s,90s.
  - jjk166 3y ago
    Alternatively, if you had access to an immense and unassailable technological advantage over everyone, wouldn't you want to leverage that? Wouldn't it be nice to tell our enemies "we don't care how many nukes you have, we can do whatever we want with impunity or else we'll use our alien tech to protect ourselves and destroy our enemies" or to tell our allies "stick with us we're gonna be rolling out a stream of inventions that will each dramatically increase our prosperity for decades to come"? You only keep your strength hidden if it could potentially be negated - i.e. that they could develop the same technology or an effective counter without having access to alien spacecraft.
2devnull 3y ago
I think you’re noticing the big five trait called “openness.” Some people are very open, some not at all. I’m happy I’m open to things. God, Love, Art. Some people tell you it’s all make believe, there’s no free will, just machines acting out biological imperatives in a world that’s so well understood by science that we’ve reached the end of history. No way!
scotty79 3y ago
> The US Military released rather intriguing, yet unexplained videos of objects outmaneuvering our top jets. Those videos show no such thing. All the stuff about outmanoeuvring is a fantastic narration. Videos show only dots which can be (and were) explained as a bird from above, plane from behind and glitchy camera mount with a bit of optical artifacts on top. Which is infinitely more plausible than aliens from another star or another dimension. > but who are any of us to say what is possible or what is not? I feel like learning physics increased my ability to tell possible from impossible things tremendously. Second factor is learning as much as you can about scams and liers. With those two foundations you should have a solid capacity to appreciate reality
- storkhm 3y ago
  To me, if you watch videos of what amateurs can do with the maneuverability of a $300 racing FPV drone it is most likely those are military drones of some sort. Even a $300 racing drone looks pretty alien if you have never seen one. A $3 million dollar one would absolutely look like it is from another planet.
- ElMocambo_x4 3y ago
  The USAF and the Pentagon themselves released those videos, labeling those recording as "unexplainable". Let me point them, and the fighter jet pilots, to "Scotty79-from-the-internet", so that they can all understand that what they all saw or recorded were in fact birds. :p
  - scotty79 3y ago
    > "unexplainable" Just unexplained, which means noone there bothered to explain them seriously enough to create an official document. Which was correct (lack of) action to take because those observations were irrelevant for anyone except the most keen ufologists. > Let me point them, and the fighter jet pilots Jet pilots are good at flying jets. It's kinda hard so they don't have much capacity left to be good at anything else. Like explaining visual glitches and unusual outputs of highly complicated machinery. > to "Scotty79-from-the-internet" That weren't my explanations. I was merely citing the ones given by a guy with doctorate in physics and expeirience with IR cameras. There are others. All infinitely more plausible than "it's aliens".
thworp 3y ago
I don't know what you've seen, but the 3 video released a few years are mostly parallax, optical phenomenon (the "tic tac") and sensors trying and failing to track tiny objects (birds, balloons and similar) at distances of a few kilometres.

dTal 3y ago

>I'm sure that a century ago, space was just something we would never reach. Far from it! From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne was written in 1865, and was a reasonable attempt at hard sci-fi. More scientifically, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky published "Exploration of Cosmic Space by Means of Reaction Devices" in 1903, some 6 years after deriving his famous rocket equation; it advanced the basic concept of the space rocket, that we all take for granted today. In 1923, exactly a century ago, Hermann Julius Oberth published his book "The Rocket in Interplanetary Space", a thoroughly practical treatment in which he argues that human-rated rocket-powered space flight was not just theoretically possible but feasible and maybe even profitable.[0] So century ago, not only was space firmly established as a place we could go, but also enough groundwork had been done that it was known how we would get there. [0] https://ia800304.us.archive.org/24/items/nasa_techdoc_19720008133/19720008133.pdf https://ia800304.us.archive.org/24/items/nasa_techdoc_197200...

nonethewiser 3y ago

It’s incredibly hard for people to say “we dont have an explanation.” Either it’s unexplained therefore aliens or an equally speculative yet mundane dismissal.

themitigating 3y ago
What about Occam's razor? Think about the reports as well. It's not like some alien was seen walking around by hundreds then disappeared we are talking about unexplained visuals and mass moving in an unexplained way. Why even go right to aliens? Because people already believe it's true and are looking for anything that can be attributed to it.

glenstein 3y ago

>but who are any of us to say what is possible or what is not? This is the tragic sentence which is letting the parade of carnival animals in through the back door. In some sense it's true that intellectual humility is necessary as we allow ourselves to be challenged by ideas we thought not possible. But it's true the way hallmark card quotes are true, as vague generalities. It does no work as a specific response to a specific set of facts, which should be determined by all kinds of specific contextual examinations. In that setting, it's an open-ended, unrestricted invitation to completely suspend all disbelief without any restraint or distinctions.

osigurdson 3y ago
If the problem is not outside the bounds of known physics, then it should be considered plausible. Otherwise, it is certainly not impossible, but pointless to speculate. If you enjoy speculating about such things, fill your boots, but realize that you are only doing it for your own amusement.
- glenstein 3y ago
  I think you mean possible rather than plausible? But otherwise I would say you're right, it's an exercise for personal amusement. But I think as you can see from elsewhere even in this thread, people slip into this mode of half-joking where they might as well be describing their ideas for Deus Ex fan missions, and the dividing line between serious engagement with evidence and make believe is breaking down.
- 2devnull 3y ago
  I would argue that play is a highly valuable intellectual activity. Speculating for one’s amusement falls into that category and is therefore not worthless. A lot of great ideas come from playing around with strange ideas that aren’t obviously useful.
agentgumshoe 3y ago
A thought experiment. The universe is extremely large and billions of years old. Let's imagine life has developed within a few of those billions of galaxies out there, then imagine this started 1 billion years before us. How advanced to you think we could get in another billion years (assuming we don't annihilate ourselves)? What's really impossible?

mlhpdx 3y ago

There are unexplained bugs in my software, but I’m pretty sure they weren’t the work of aliens.

WJW 3y ago
For sure. Even if we can't explain how or why some phenomenon occurred, the conclusion "we don't know of anything on Earth that does this, so it must be aliens" is so much less likely than "it is something on Earth we haven't figured out yet".
bregma 3y ago
I'm pretty convinced space aliens send the cosmic rays down that cause the bizarre runtime bugs in my software. I have never found a more amenable or rational explanation.

tialaramex 3y ago

You're sure that in 1923, space was "something we would never reach"? That's about ten years before a German guy starts his work on liquid rocket fuel technology, work that will (via a Nazi terror weapon) go on to result in the US manned space programme. If you said 1823 maybe I could sympathise, in 1823 they don't have everything together, they don't know about the Noble gases or dozens of other elements, they thought atoms were indivisible (hence the name), they don't have the First Network (the Universal Postal Union, yes, in 1823 you could not write a letter in say, Edinburgh, write an address in Berlin, and just post it, that idea hadn't been invented yet). But by 1923 they're in a much better place. Their atomic model is still wrong but it's like the model you're probably picturing in your head, the one where electrons are little whizzy balls orbiting a nucleus. Wrong, but not wrong enough to cause big problems for everyday purposes. Kurt Gödel hasn't come up with his clever trick yet, but the problem is right there and people are thinking about it. You say the videos are objects but I don't see evidence of objects. Just because you see a shape doesn't mean you saw an object. Did you know shadows can move faster than the speed of light? Because you see a shadow isn't a thing, it's just our mental model of events, and there are no limits on that model. We have plenty of ways to make a shape seem to move much faster than we can make an object move.

Sunspark 3y ago
In 1783 the Montgolfier brothers flew through the skies for the first time ever in a hot air balloon. It wasn't even sure if humans could survive being in the air so the King wouldn't let them send humans aloft until test animals survived first. Later that same year, the hydrogen balloon was invented and that one was flown to an altitude of 3 km high. And yes, the idea that you could write in Edinburgh and have it delivered to Berlin had already been invented much further back than after 1823. The Roman Empire had the Cursus Publicus which handled mail delivery between the Provinces and Italy.
- strken 3y ago
  Do you mean someone of a high enough rank could have official communications and military dispatches delivered, or do you mean any person could have any letter delivered to any home? I think tialaramex was writing more about universal civilian letter delivery, and particularly about universal (well, global or near-global) addressing, rather than letter delivery between officials within an empire.

ivlad 3y ago

> I'm sure that a century ago, space was just something we would never reach. Tsiolkovsky developed his rocket equation in 1903 and in 1928 he published The Will of Universe dedicated to space colonisation. He clearly new it’s within reach of human mind. Jules Verne published From the Earth to the Moon and given that his works are some early examples of science fiction and not a pure fantasy, one could say even Verne envisioned space travels as possible.

singleshot_ 3y ago

“but who are any of us to say what is possible or what is not?” Those people are called experts.

mrandish 3y ago

> I've yet to see an explanation that covers all the data those jets collected. Here you go: https://www.youtube.com/c/mickwest https://www.youtube.com/c/mickwest. Mick has thoroughly investigated the most cited videos and shows them to be of entirely terrestrial origin - often atmospheric effects combined with optical lens, digital stabilization and thermal imaging artifacts. He even cites the technical documentation for the military camera equipment and often provides convincing demonstrations of the artifacts through recreations.

Loquebantur 3y ago
So you're telling me, some random game developer was more competent than the US military guys who literally are hired for such analysis? I suppose, having coded some "parallax effect" is sufficient in your book?
- thworp 3y ago
  Yes he is. Have you ever interacted with the military or other public org in a technical capacity?
- RyanCavanaugh 3y ago
  The US military made no claims that these videos showed unexplainable phenomena. They just sort of put them out there. The video they called "Gimbal" shows an artifact caused by a gimbal mechanism, for example
- mrandish 3y ago
  > So you're telling me, some random game developer was more competent than the US military guys who literally are hired for such analysis? In the case of the most-cited "Gimbal" video, all the military has officially said is they can't determine for sure what the object the glare shown in the video is from. But everyone already agrees on that point. No one can tell from the video whether the glare shown is caused by an airplane many miles distant or some other object. No one representing the U.S. government has ever said the video could NOT be a magnified thermal glare from a distant airplane. Remember, the pilot never saw the object with his own eyes, it was far too distant to see visually even as a spec on the horizon. All the pilot ever saw was the same auto-tracking thermal video we've all seen. > I suppose, having coded some "parallax effect" is sufficient in your book? I don't know what you're referring to but it doesn't sound like Mick West's analysis video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsEjV8DdSbs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsEjV8DdSbs. Also, Mick only assembled the video. He acknowledges the evidence shown in the video is the work of many independent researchers working collaboratively over many months while iteratively sharing their data for peer review. There are links to all the source data shown as well as the entire open analysis discussion and review. The summary video is concise and only 20 minutes long. I challenge you to watch all of it and respond specifically. Which of the four points evidenced from the on-screen camera do you think is incorrect and why? IMHO, it's inarguable the detailed analysis provides conclusive and verifiable evidence the object is precisely consistent with a glare from an extremely distant object with a thermal imaging 'halo' artifact around it. The apparent rotation and erratic movement of the thermal glare observed in the highly-magnified video is a combined artifact of a) the Raytheon multi-axis camera tracking gimbal system used on that jet, b) the optical stabilization system, and c) the digital de-rotation system. If you respond, please at least give a clear "yes" or "no" as to whether you agree the apparent rotation is created by the rotating camera gimbal (which was then automatically digitally de-rotated) vs actual rotation of the distant object. If not, how do you explain all the obvious signs of gimbal rotation in the on-screen numeric data and the rest of the video frame around the center glare (eg the background clouds and sky)?

themitigating 3y ago

"but who are any of us to say what is possible or what is not" It's usually not a 50/50 percent probability on whether something is possible or exists. ECREE is a good rule to follow when trying to come up with probabilities lacking direct evidence. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagan_standard https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagan_standard For example imagine I told you I own a pencil. Would you ask me to prove it or doubt me? Even you don't know or trust me, probably not. Why? Because pencils exist, it's easy to get one, and I have no reason to lie (in this scenario). Now what if I told you I have an invisibility cloak. You'd call me a liar and want proof, hell probably an in person demonstration. Think about why. -------------- "I'm sure that a century ago, space was just something we would never reach." Whether or not aliens exist is not the same as not reaching space. Say it's the year 1876- 1. Aliens may or may not exist, it's unknown 2. it's a true fact that humans haven't gone to space. I get that you mean the amount of technological advancment in the last 300 years has been crazy. The reason the burden of proof is on whether something occurred or exists is because the number of events that haven't occured and what doesn't exist is infinite. Finally you also ask about who is to say and I assume you also mean "why not". There's always a downside to believing false things, maybe it's small for some people or maybe a crazy person adds aliens to the pile of "government lies" then decides to shoot up some government agency.

jonathanstrange 3y ago

Of course, it's possible. Almost anything is possible on some abstract level if we allow our imagination to roam freely. I'm all for asking the US government: "Do you hide alien UFOs?" The question is how you react when the answer is "No." If you keep insisting the government is lying, then you're more and more getting into 'tin foil hat' territory, especially if you're a government employee and have no evidence other than alleged hearsay. It depends on your strength of belief in the contrarian opinion. Saying that it's possible is one thing, saying "they're doing it but I don't have proof" is another.

lemming 3y ago
Given the article, the more interesting question is how we react if the answer is "Yes".
dsfsder3423 3y ago
For almost hundreds of reasons, if any government, but specially super-power government would have UFO's tech hidden, and everybody else is almost certain UFOs are a myth, some wacko-level talk for internet forums They would be strategically obligued to deny everything, so the answer would "No, no such a thing like UFOs here". i.e. what happened with the NSA programs, most were almost fully known for the "conspiracy wackos" except by the name of the program, even decades before Snowden. But just were confirmed to be real maybe 30 years after the first mentions in the 70s,80s,90s.
- jjk166 3y ago
  Alternatively, if you had access to an immense and unassailable technological advantage over everyone, wouldn't you want to leverage that? Wouldn't it be nice to tell our enemies "we don't care how many nukes you have, we can do whatever we want with impunity or else we'll use our alien tech to protect ourselves and destroy our enemies" or to tell our allies "stick with us we're gonna be rolling out a stream of inventions that will each dramatically increase our prosperity for decades to come"? You only keep your strength hidden if it could potentially be negated - i.e. that they could develop the same technology or an effective counter without having access to alien spacecraft.

2devnull 3y ago

I think you’re noticing the big five trait called “openness.” Some people are very open, some not at all. I’m happy I’m open to things. God, Love, Art. Some people tell you it’s all make believe, there’s no free will, just machines acting out biological imperatives in a world that’s so well understood by science that we’ve reached the end of history. No way!

scotty79 3y ago

> The US Military released rather intriguing, yet unexplained videos of objects outmaneuvering our top jets. Those videos show no such thing. All the stuff about outmanoeuvring is a fantastic narration. Videos show only dots which can be (and were) explained as a bird from above, plane from behind and glitchy camera mount with a bit of optical artifacts on top. Which is infinitely more plausible than aliens from another star or another dimension. > but who are any of us to say what is possible or what is not? I feel like learning physics increased my ability to tell possible from impossible things tremendously. Second factor is learning as much as you can about scams and liers. With those two foundations you should have a solid capacity to appreciate reality

storkhm 3y ago
To me, if you watch videos of what amateurs can do with the maneuverability of a $300 racing FPV drone it is most likely those are military drones of some sort. Even a $300 racing drone looks pretty alien if you have never seen one. A $3 million dollar one would absolutely look like it is from another planet.
ElMocambo_x4 3y ago
The USAF and the Pentagon themselves released those videos, labeling those recording as "unexplainable". Let me point them, and the fighter jet pilots, to "Scotty79-from-the-internet", so that they can all understand that what they all saw or recorded were in fact birds. :p
- scotty79 3y ago
  > "unexplainable" Just unexplained, which means noone there bothered to explain them seriously enough to create an official document. Which was correct (lack of) action to take because those observations were irrelevant for anyone except the most keen ufologists. > Let me point them, and the fighter jet pilots Jet pilots are good at flying jets. It's kinda hard so they don't have much capacity left to be good at anything else. Like explaining visual glitches and unusual outputs of highly complicated machinery. > to "Scotty79-from-the-internet" That weren't my explanations. I was merely citing the ones given by a guy with doctorate in physics and expeirience with IR cameras. There are others. All infinitely more plausible than "it's aliens".

thworp 3y ago

I don't know what you've seen, but the 3 video released a few years are mostly parallax, optical phenomenon (the "tic tac") and sensors trying and failing to track tiny objects (birds, balloons and similar) at distances of a few kilometres.