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This is a push from Congress to force programs into the open that are secretly capturing Russian/Chinese UAVs right? Folks on the committees are angry that Chin

This is a push from Congress to force programs into the open that are secretly capturing Russian/Chinese UAVs right? Folks on the committees are angry that China is trolling US Navy vessels with UAVs and this isn’t being publicized. The “non-earth” origin is the smokescreen, “exotic” covers foreign secret research projects? Something a bit convoluted like this is orders of magnitude more probable in my world model. (Basically, the prior “aliens exist and have been covered up” rounds to zero, so given we are observing this public action, even extremely unlikely explanations could explain it.)

jrumbut 3y ago
I'd like to point out a couple of things. One is that, while this is written like a straight news article (until the last paragraph), this is in The Hill's Opinion section. In the past, I have seen this publication allow people of questionable credibility to post in their Opinion section. I have no idea who this writer is, but they are not a news reporter (or they weren't acting as one when they wrote this piece). The second is that the bill appears to be about Congress' authority to control funding and perform oversight. They are withdrawing funds from secret UFO projects and asking those involved to come forward, either with the greatest discovery in human history or (more likely) with a story about money being misappropriated and that misappropriation being hidden from the US Senate.
- gpm 3y ago
  It seems like all the author has written about in the past 10 months (at least that muckrack knows about) is UFOs https://muckrack.com/marik-von-rennenkampff/articles https://muckrack.com/marik-von-rennenkampff/articles
heavyset_go 3y ago
UFO narratives are convenient distractions from meaningful politics. IMO, what you're seeing is a legislative effort to avoid doing the jobs they were elected to do while appearing bipartisan and proactive.
themagician 3y ago
This is a push by the DoD to make American's believe in US military and intelligence superiority—only a supremely powerful government would be able to coverup the existence of extraterrestrial life for 50+ years. World order is changing. China is a rising military power. People may even see foreign spy aircraft (e.g. Chinese weather balloons) over US airspace. The DoD would rather you believe it's aliens. This kind of propaganda works great on older boomers in particular because they've been conditioned to believe it all their life. The US military is not able to coverup something like a crashed alien spacecraft. They couldn't even stop a dozen men with box cutters from crashing planes into buildings. I would not be surprised in the least to find out that the 9/11 conspiracies were funded by the DoD—probably by the same people doing this nonsense now. Again, "they" would rather you believe in a supremely powerful government with space lasers than have their true incompetence unmasked.
- abliefern 3y ago
  This does not track for me at all. I'm sorry but why would anybody in the DOD have an incentive to "make Americans believe in US military and intelligence superiority"?
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    To keep Americans happy about the over 3/4 Trillion dollars we spend on defense every year? “You spend a lot, but you get the best!” sounds a lot better than “You spend a lot, but we still suck!”
    - echelon 3y ago
      > “You spend a lot, but you get the best!” sounds a lot better than “You spend a lot, but we still suck!” This argument doesn't make any sense. The US military is better than the next top three militaries combined. The Ukraine war is showing the superiority of decades old Western tech.
      - sokoloff 3y ago
ezekg 3y ago
This wouldn't even be the first time the CIA has done something like this: https://web.archive.org/web/20230611032246/https://www.nytimes.com/1997/08/03/us/cia-admits-government-lied-about-ufo-sightings.html https://web.archive.org/web/20230611032246/https://www.nytim...
- heavyset_go 3y ago
  From the NY Times article: > "Over half of all U.F.O. reports from the late 1950's through the 1960's were accounted for by manned reconnaissance flights" over the United States, the C.I.A. study says. "This led the Air Force to make misleading and deceptive statements to the public in order to allay public fears and to protect an extraordinarily sensitive national security project." This is exactly what happened with the people and incidents that were exposed in the Mirage Men[1] documentary that covers how the government uses UFO and alien conspiracy theories to coverup information that they don't want the public to know. Well-meaning people stumbled upon classified projects, did the right thing by reporting them to the government, and then the government went out of its way to construct situations and fake evidence to convince them that what they saw were really aliens. In one incident, the government constructed a fake "alien crash landing" site in the mountains, and flew one of their victims to it and let them investigate it themselves in order to convince them that what they really saw were aliens. In the process of deceiving these people, the government even significantly contributed to a veteran's mental breakdown and paranoia via agents' lies and extensive surveillance of the victim's life. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srtrRbt77AE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srtrRbt77AE
  - esbranson 3y ago
    Every witness says there's not a chance in Hell that UFOs are human. But no one reports seeing aliens except abductees. People desperately want to believe aliens aren't real, and some real mental gymnastics to get there. Like believing "debunking" videos from crackpots and videogame programmers (which real pilots say are nonsensical), or "this one time in the 60s the CIA".
    - 3y ago
anon84873628 3y ago
Seems odd and counterproductive to include the "non-earth" and "exotic" language at all then. Why not refer to all "non-domestic aerospace material" instead? A group who provably knows they have Chinese hardware would be much harder to prosecute under the current language.
- theptip 3y ago
  They are getting way more press this way? Doesn’t seem counterproductive at all to me.
  - krapp 3y ago
    What does the press get them? The Russians/Chinese or whomever are flying these theoretical UAVs know they aren't alien, the US government knows they aren't alien, and now not only us the US exposing its intelligence capabilities (or lack thereof,) they're making themselves look like fools in the process.
    - heavyset_go 3y ago
      It's better for adversaries to think you're incompetent or dumb than it is to let them know that you're on to them and/or can defeat their latest measures if it comes down to it. They might try harder next time, and actually outclass you. One aspect of such surveillance missions is to see how the US responds to these incidents, in order to learn about technology and methods that are used and that adversaries might not know about.
      - krapp 3y ago
        It still seems like a boneheaded and ridiculous way to go about it, when simply not saying anything and running counterintelligence would also work and not make us look like clowns.
        heavyset_go 3y ago
        The UFO and aliens narratives serve multiple functions domestically, as the government's history with them shows. I figure that's why they're going about it this way instead of just staying silent like they normally would have.
noarchy 3y ago
>The “non-earth” origin is the smokescreen Or, is the credulity in the US at such a high point that any sort of conspiracy idea has currency?
hedora 3y ago
Russia's documented strategy for foreign propaganda campaigns includes a few steps where you undermine people's trust in increasingly core pillars of society. For example, they often start by undermining trust in media organizations, then elected leaders. The current trajectory the US is on is indistinguishable from the successful outcome of a propaganda operation based on that playbook.
red-iron-pine 3y ago
> This is a push from Congress to force programs into the open that are secretly capturing Russian/Chinese UAVs right? Folks on the committees are angry that China is trolling US Navy vessels with UAVs and this isn’t being publicized. Why? They could just say "we have advanced but secret systems that can tell China is up to something". There was just a balloon, and another round of em over Asia -- no one would be surprised. This isn't about China, it's about Trump and the hard-right conspiracy types going ape-shit, esp. since those indictments have teeth. The DoD has been doing this since the 90s and Oklahoma City.
gfodor 3y ago
No, it's a push from Congress to determine if the US has been storing retrieved non-human spacecraft. Hope that helps.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
Alex3917 3y ago
> This is a push from Congress to force programs into the open that are secretly capturing Russian/Chinese UAVs right? No. The USA has spent the last several decades putting most of its military budget into aircraft carriers, which will all be sunk within the first 24 hours of any conflict with China. This is just a last ditch effort to try to trick China into thinking we might have some kind of deterrent.
- optimalsolver 3y ago
  Out of curiosity, what happens after China sinks the carriers?
  - Alex3917 3y ago
    You learn to speak Chinese.
    - qingcharles 3y ago
      *Downloads Duolingo*
  - chihuahua 3y ago
    It goes like this: 1. sink carriers 2. ??? 3. profit
- dekhn 3y ago
  How do you sink an aircraft carrier? Not very easily, technically speaking.
stevenhuang 3y ago
It only rounds to zero if you are uninformed. Consider updating your priors on this topic
lithos 3y ago
Washington Power Brokers are just mad that they can't trade favors for access to foreign "skunkworks" style projects. Tons of power and corruption they're missing out on for trading access to such tech.

jrumbut 3y ago

I'd like to point out a couple of things. One is that, while this is written like a straight news article (until the last paragraph), this is in The Hill's Opinion section. In the past, I have seen this publication allow people of questionable credibility to post in their Opinion section. I have no idea who this writer is, but they are not a news reporter (or they weren't acting as one when they wrote this piece). The second is that the bill appears to be about Congress' authority to control funding and perform oversight. They are withdrawing funds from secret UFO projects and asking those involved to come forward, either with the greatest discovery in human history or (more likely) with a story about money being misappropriated and that misappropriation being hidden from the US Senate.

gpm 3y ago
It seems like all the author has written about in the past 10 months (at least that muckrack knows about) is UFOs https://muckrack.com/marik-von-rennenkampff/articles https://muckrack.com/marik-von-rennenkampff/articles

heavyset_go 3y ago

UFO narratives are convenient distractions from meaningful politics. IMO, what you're seeing is a legislative effort to avoid doing the jobs they were elected to do while appearing bipartisan and proactive.

themagician 3y ago

This is a push by the DoD to make American's believe in US military and intelligence superiority—only a supremely powerful government would be able to coverup the existence of extraterrestrial life for 50+ years. World order is changing. China is a rising military power. People may even see foreign spy aircraft (e.g. Chinese weather balloons) over US airspace. The DoD would rather you believe it's aliens. This kind of propaganda works great on older boomers in particular because they've been conditioned to believe it all their life. The US military is not able to coverup something like a crashed alien spacecraft. They couldn't even stop a dozen men with box cutters from crashing planes into buildings. I would not be surprised in the least to find out that the 9/11 conspiracies were funded by the DoD—probably by the same people doing this nonsense now. Again, "they" would rather you believe in a supremely powerful government with space lasers than have their true incompetence unmasked.

abliefern 3y ago
This does not track for me at all. I'm sorry but why would anybody in the DOD have an incentive to "make Americans believe in US military and intelligence superiority"?
- sokoloff 3y ago
  To keep Americans happy about the over 3/4 Trillion dollars we spend on defense every year? “You spend a lot, but you get the best!” sounds a lot better than “You spend a lot, but we still suck!”
  - echelon 3y ago
    > “You spend a lot, but you get the best!” sounds a lot better than “You spend a lot, but we still suck!” This argument doesn't make any sense. The US military is better than the next top three militaries combined. The Ukraine war is showing the superiority of decades old Western tech.
    - sokoloff 3y ago

ezekg 3y ago

This wouldn't even be the first time the CIA has done something like this: https://web.archive.org/web/20230611032246/https://www.nytimes.com/1997/08/03/us/cia-admits-government-lied-about-ufo-sightings.html https://web.archive.org/web/20230611032246/https://www.nytim...

heavyset_go 3y ago
From the NY Times article: > "Over half of all U.F.O. reports from the late 1950's through the 1960's were accounted for by manned reconnaissance flights" over the United States, the C.I.A. study says. "This led the Air Force to make misleading and deceptive statements to the public in order to allay public fears and to protect an extraordinarily sensitive national security project." This is exactly what happened with the people and incidents that were exposed in the Mirage Men[1] documentary that covers how the government uses UFO and alien conspiracy theories to coverup information that they don't want the public to know. Well-meaning people stumbled upon classified projects, did the right thing by reporting them to the government, and then the government went out of its way to construct situations and fake evidence to convince them that what they saw were really aliens. In one incident, the government constructed a fake "alien crash landing" site in the mountains, and flew one of their victims to it and let them investigate it themselves in order to convince them that what they really saw were aliens. In the process of deceiving these people, the government even significantly contributed to a veteran's mental breakdown and paranoia via agents' lies and extensive surveillance of the victim's life. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srtrRbt77AE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srtrRbt77AE
- esbranson 3y ago
  Every witness says there's not a chance in Hell that UFOs are human. But no one reports seeing aliens except abductees. People desperately want to believe aliens aren't real, and some real mental gymnastics to get there. Like believing "debunking" videos from crackpots and videogame programmers (which real pilots say are nonsensical), or "this one time in the 60s the CIA".
  - 3y ago

anon84873628 3y ago

Seems odd and counterproductive to include the "non-earth" and "exotic" language at all then. Why not refer to all "non-domestic aerospace material" instead? A group who provably knows they have Chinese hardware would be much harder to prosecute under the current language.

theptip 3y ago
They are getting way more press this way? Doesn’t seem counterproductive at all to me.
- krapp 3y ago
  What does the press get them? The Russians/Chinese or whomever are flying these theoretical UAVs know they aren't alien, the US government knows they aren't alien, and now not only us the US exposing its intelligence capabilities (or lack thereof,) they're making themselves look like fools in the process.
  - heavyset_go 3y ago
    It's better for adversaries to think you're incompetent or dumb than it is to let them know that you're on to them and/or can defeat their latest measures if it comes down to it. They might try harder next time, and actually outclass you. One aspect of such surveillance missions is to see how the US responds to these incidents, in order to learn about technology and methods that are used and that adversaries might not know about.
    - krapp 3y ago
      It still seems like a boneheaded and ridiculous way to go about it, when simply not saying anything and running counterintelligence would also work and not make us look like clowns.
      - heavyset_go 3y ago
        The UFO and aliens narratives serve multiple functions domestically, as the government's history with them shows. I figure that's why they're going about it this way instead of just staying silent like they normally would have.

noarchy 3y ago

>The “non-earth” origin is the smokescreen Or, is the credulity in the US at such a high point that any sort of conspiracy idea has currency?

hedora 3y ago

Russia's documented strategy for foreign propaganda campaigns includes a few steps where you undermine people's trust in increasingly core pillars of society. For example, they often start by undermining trust in media organizations, then elected leaders. The current trajectory the US is on is indistinguishable from the successful outcome of a propaganda operation based on that playbook.

red-iron-pine 3y ago

> This is a push from Congress to force programs into the open that are secretly capturing Russian/Chinese UAVs right? Folks on the committees are angry that China is trolling US Navy vessels with UAVs and this isn’t being publicized. Why? They could just say "we have advanced but secret systems that can tell China is up to something". There was just a balloon, and another round of em over Asia -- no one would be surprised. This isn't about China, it's about Trump and the hard-right conspiracy types going ape-shit, esp. since those indictments have teeth. The DoD has been doing this since the 90s and Oklahoma City.

gfodor 3y ago

No, it's a push from Congress to determine if the US has been storing retrieved non-human spacecraft. Hope that helps.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

Alex3917 3y ago

> This is a push from Congress to force programs into the open that are secretly capturing Russian/Chinese UAVs right? No. The USA has spent the last several decades putting most of its military budget into aircraft carriers, which will all be sunk within the first 24 hours of any conflict with China. This is just a last ditch effort to try to trick China into thinking we might have some kind of deterrent.

optimalsolver 3y ago
Out of curiosity, what happens after China sinks the carriers?
- Alex3917 3y ago
  You learn to speak Chinese.
  - qingcharles 3y ago
    *Downloads Duolingo*
- chihuahua 3y ago
  It goes like this: 1. sink carriers 2. ??? 3. profit
dekhn 3y ago
How do you sink an aircraft carrier? Not very easily, technically speaking.

stevenhuang 3y ago

It only rounds to zero if you are uninformed. Consider updating your priors on this topic

lithos 3y ago

Washington Power Brokers are just mad that they can't trade favors for access to foreign "skunkworks" style projects. Tons of power and corruption they're missing out on for trading access to such tech.