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The prevalence of mental illnesses leading to visual hallucination is very low actually. The idea of whole departments in the US government being staffed with

The prevalence of mental illnesses leading to visual hallucination is very low actually. The idea of whole departments in the US government being staffed with them is absurdist nonsense.

gitfan86 3y ago
"normally functioning" brains see things that are not actually there ALL the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_illusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_illusion Most UFO reports fall into the Optical Illusion category rather than extreme schizophrenia.
- Loquebantur 3y ago
  Optical illusions are not at all the same thing as visual hallucinations. Your allegation about UFO reports is accordingly simply incorrect.
  - gitfan86 3y ago
    Right, so your point about people not having hallucinations frequently is valid. But most people do see optical illusions. So it seems strange that you have jumped to the conclusion that these must be real UFOs since most people do not hallucinate.
    - Loquebantur 3y ago
      I did not jump to that conclusion, you are putting words in my mouth. The whistleblower reports of the existence of a research program that he was briefed about. He testifies this program was stuying non-human technology, among that functioning craft, aka "flying saucers". The determination of it being non-human in orgin was due to extensive material analysis, evident morphology and working characteistics of those devices.
      - gitfan86 3y ago
        "Someone claims that someone else told him material exists that is from aliens."
        xpe 3y ago
        > "Someone claims that someone else told him material exists that is from aliens." I think I take your point: he doesn't have firsthand experience seeing the evidence. That said, the quote "Someone claims that someone else told him material exists that is from aliens." doesn't by itself convey the significance of these other people being high ranking intelligence officials. A trained intelligence professional has much more analytical skill and credibility than a person randomly sampled from the U.S. population. > The Debrief reported that Grusch’s knowledge of non-human materials and vehicles was based on “extensive interviews with high-level intelligence officials”. He said he had reported the existence of a UFO material “recovery program” to Congress. > “Grusch said that the craft recovery operations are ongoing at various levels of activity and that he knows the specific individuals, current and former, who are involved,” the Debrief reported. > In the Debrief article, Grusch does not say he has personally seen alien vehicles, nor does he say where they may be being stored. He asked the Debrief to withhold details of retaliation by government officials due to an ongoing investigation.
- stef25 3y ago
  > Most UFO reports fall into the Optical Illusion category Indeed. Here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendlesham_Forest_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendlesham_Forest_incident you can listen to the audio recording of some soldiers investigating what happened at the site of a proposed UFO landing, where they observe weird lights and scorch marks on trees. There's another page some guy set up where he posts photos he took himself at the site and even used screenshots from a TV interview of one of the witnesses of the event to clearly show that those lights were easily explain by surrounding structures (light house etc) and the marks on trees were probably left by lumberjacks. I'm baffled how a bunch of trained soldiers investigating over several days can just "conclude" that it was all very mysterious stuff going on and that, despite it being clearly debunked, this event is still seen as THE UFO event in the UK. Then again I have no idea how these latest videos of flying objects can be explained. To a lay person like myself it just seems completely crazy. How can a pilot claiming to see things fly at supersonic speeds doing impossible maneuvers be explained by a problem with the lens and / or "it's just a weather balloon". The "explanations" of it being ufos seem completely believable to me.
dsfsder3423 3y ago
Really low chances that the cameras and other 70 sensor arrays located across an entire fleet of the US Navy are hallucinating simultaneously that they seeing, detecting an UAP. Or 20 UAPs zooming around, in and out from water, up and down from low Earth orbit in seconds.
- gitfan86 3y ago
  You have the math backwards. It would be like saying that someone who guesses your 4 letter pin code is a mind reader because the likelihood of that is low. You are not factoring in how many times he has tried to guess other people's pins. Or if some pins are more common than others. Similarly here you are not factoring in how often an entire group of sensors has the same big and repots incorrect data at the same time in the same way. You are Cherry picking the one time the data looked like it might be a UFO. This is also a form of confirmation bias.
jjk166 3y ago
It's less of a hallucination and more like a mirage - there's some real stimulus but the mind grossly misinterprets it. Most people don't see mirages regularly, but anyone could see a mirage under the right circumstances.
George83728 3y ago
Maybe so, but presuming such a visual hallucination phenomena exists, who said it's limited to aliens? xpe didn't say it only manifests as UFO sightings. Besides UFOs, you've got tons of people claiming to see big foot, ghosts, monster fish, angels, ball lightning, etc...
stef25 3y ago
> The idea of whole departments in the US government being staffed with them is absurdist nonsense. Someone who works in astrophysics for a govt entity in the US told me they have such massive budgets that it's not uncommon to throw some of it to some weird department just as a favor or to keep up the public's interest in "space stuff". Another person (working at ESA) confirmed it, they both rolled their eyes and claimed it was all BS. NOT saying this is definitive truth.

The prevalence of mental illnesses leading to visual hallucination is very low actually. The idea of whole departments in the US government being staffed with them is absurdist nonsense.

gitfan86 3y ago

"normally functioning" brains see things that are not actually there ALL the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_illusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_illusion Most UFO reports fall into the Optical Illusion category rather than extreme schizophrenia.

Loquebantur 3y ago
Optical illusions are not at all the same thing as visual hallucinations. Your allegation about UFO reports is accordingly simply incorrect.
- gitfan86 3y ago
  Right, so your point about people not having hallucinations frequently is valid. But most people do see optical illusions. So it seems strange that you have jumped to the conclusion that these must be real UFOs since most people do not hallucinate.
  - Loquebantur 3y ago
    I did not jump to that conclusion, you are putting words in my mouth. The whistleblower reports of the existence of a research program that he was briefed about. He testifies this program was stuying non-human technology, among that functioning craft, aka "flying saucers". The determination of it being non-human in orgin was due to extensive material analysis, evident morphology and working characteistics of those devices.
    - gitfan86 3y ago
      "Someone claims that someone else told him material exists that is from aliens."
      - xpe 3y ago
        > "Someone claims that someone else told him material exists that is from aliens." I think I take your point: he doesn't have firsthand experience seeing the evidence. That said, the quote "Someone claims that someone else told him material exists that is from aliens." doesn't by itself convey the significance of these other people being high ranking intelligence officials. A trained intelligence professional has much more analytical skill and credibility than a person randomly sampled from the U.S. population. > The Debrief reported that Grusch’s knowledge of non-human materials and vehicles was based on “extensive interviews with high-level intelligence officials”. He said he had reported the existence of a UFO material “recovery program” to Congress. > “Grusch said that the craft recovery operations are ongoing at various levels of activity and that he knows the specific individuals, current and former, who are involved,” the Debrief reported. > In the Debrief article, Grusch does not say he has personally seen alien vehicles, nor does he say where they may be being stored. He asked the Debrief to withhold details of retaliation by government officials due to an ongoing investigation.
stef25 3y ago
> Most UFO reports fall into the Optical Illusion category Indeed. Here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendlesham_Forest_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendlesham_Forest_incident you can listen to the audio recording of some soldiers investigating what happened at the site of a proposed UFO landing, where they observe weird lights and scorch marks on trees. There's another page some guy set up where he posts photos he took himself at the site and even used screenshots from a TV interview of one of the witnesses of the event to clearly show that those lights were easily explain by surrounding structures (light house etc) and the marks on trees were probably left by lumberjacks. I'm baffled how a bunch of trained soldiers investigating over several days can just "conclude" that it was all very mysterious stuff going on and that, despite it being clearly debunked, this event is still seen as THE UFO event in the UK. Then again I have no idea how these latest videos of flying objects can be explained. To a lay person like myself it just seems completely crazy. How can a pilot claiming to see things fly at supersonic speeds doing impossible maneuvers be explained by a problem with the lens and / or "it's just a weather balloon". The "explanations" of it being ufos seem completely believable to me.

dsfsder3423 3y ago

Really low chances that the cameras and other 70 sensor arrays located across an entire fleet of the US Navy are hallucinating simultaneously that they seeing, detecting an UAP. Or 20 UAPs zooming around, in and out from water, up and down from low Earth orbit in seconds.

gitfan86 3y ago
You have the math backwards. It would be like saying that someone who guesses your 4 letter pin code is a mind reader because the likelihood of that is low. You are not factoring in how many times he has tried to guess other people's pins. Or if some pins are more common than others. Similarly here you are not factoring in how often an entire group of sensors has the same big and repots incorrect data at the same time in the same way. You are Cherry picking the one time the data looked like it might be a UFO. This is also a form of confirmation bias.

jjk166 3y ago

It's less of a hallucination and more like a mirage - there's some real stimulus but the mind grossly misinterprets it. Most people don't see mirages regularly, but anyone could see a mirage under the right circumstances.

George83728 3y ago

Maybe so, but presuming such a visual hallucination phenomena exists, who said it's limited to aliens? xpe didn't say it only manifests as UFO sightings. Besides UFOs, you've got tons of people claiming to see big foot, ghosts, monster fish, angels, ball lightning, etc...

stef25 3y ago

> The idea of whole departments in the US government being staffed with them is absurdist nonsense. Someone who works in astrophysics for a govt entity in the US told me they have such massive budgets that it's not uncommon to throw some of it to some weird department just as a favor or to keep up the public's interest in "space stuff". Another person (working at ESA) confirmed it, they both rolled their eyes and claimed it was all BS. NOT saying this is definitive truth.