3 ms·

That was a great podcast, and the entirety of Kean's journalistic research and integrity basically amounts to "I trust Grusch because he seems like a decent guy

by sph 3y ago

That was a great podcast, and the entirety of Kean's journalistic research and integrity basically amounts to "I trust Grusch because he seems like a decent guy and I've been told he's trustworthy. But yeah, he's never seen any UFO, just reports and heard people talk about them, but since I trust him, I implicitly trust their words as well." I love how Ezra asks her obvious questions about her research like "how is it possible the Pentagon approves of people talking about UFO retrieval if it is such a close-guarded secret?" and she says "good question! I'm not entirely sure!". Seriously? You haven't asked yourself that question before? This entire UFO saga comes from people with X-files' "I want to believe" poster in their office, and they don't let confirmation bias stop them.

TechBro8615 3y ago
The entire field of ufology is a paradox of distrusting the government (because they've engaged in a coverup for 70 years) but also trusting the government (because the only evidence offered that the government lied is appeal to authority of someone from the government - muh classified intel! muh Q clearance! - saying it lied). For me, any evidence of aliens needs to either resolve or sidestep this paradox. Ideally that evidence would take the form of a personal experience with the aliens. Less ideally, maybe I could accept documented and consistently observable photographic or videographic evidence from non-government citizens. What I will not accept is evidence that comes in the form of second-hand hearsay from a government "whistleblower" who gets approval for what he speaks about publicly. That's not a whistleblower, it's a spokesperson - and his claims do not resolve the paradox because it's effectively one entity telling me "we lied to you, but now we're telling the truth" - either you're telling the truth but I can't believe you because you lied to me, or you're lying to me and I'm not surprised because you've always lied to me. In other words, this is institutional gaslighting. For me to accept evidence from a government "whistleblower," I need to see them overcoming some form of institutional resistance. Snowden was a whistleblower. His claims were obviously credible because they made a lot of people very mad, and they chased him to the end of the earth trying to imprison or kill him. Bill Binney was not a whistleblower, despite his claims, because the NSA never prosecuted him and so obviously everything he says during his ongoing speaking tour is somewhat sanctioned by them. For me to believe aliens are here, based on the words of a "whistleblower," he needs to release documents and photos and videos and scientific data about the craft, and the DoD needs to prosecute or at least ridicule him. But this current situation of passive acceptance by the DoD (or "soft disclosure" in the words of Lue Anon followers) is absolutely unconvincing, and just pisses me off because either my government thinks I'm stupid enough to fall for it, or too stupid to handle the full truth.
throwaway743 3y ago
This thread is full of "I don't want to believe and/or can't". If it's legit, could people itt put down their confirmation bias and handle that we're not the smartest around, not top of the food chain, that our governments have lied to us and kept it wrapped sealed through compartmentalization/removed from oversight through third party contractors for decades, have hidden clean energy tech from tax payers so private entities could profit, that people have been murdered to hide this tech/reality, among a long long list of other implications? Of course if true, but from the looks of what's coming down the pipeline, it's no longer "haha little green men believing, xfiles wishing, tinfoil wearers", and more of "criminal acts have been committed out of greed and keeping control. Better get our heads out of the sand". Pucker up, because this is likely going to flip all of our realities upside down in a weird, maybe even frightful, and extreme way within the next few years.
- ggm 3y ago
  Or alternatively, not. It's not grand conspiracy, don't pucker up, do continue to think about applications of Hanlon's and Occam's razor. A stoicism point of view here is that none of your wishful thinking of change would necessarily be good or bad, it's too early to say. And since this is a fantasy grab-basket of meme food, the most likely stoical outcome is that nothing to see here, move along is actually the best choice.
  - z7 3y ago
    Not the parent, but how do you explain something like this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_Washington,_D.C.,_UFO_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_Washington,_D.C.,_UFO_inc...
    - nobody9999 3y ago
      >Not the parent, but how do you explain something like this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_Washington,_D.C.,_UFO_inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_Washington,_D.C.,_UFO_inc... I don't have to. Your link did so for me: "At the request of the Air Force, the CAA's Technical Development and Evaluation Center did an analysis of the radar sightings. Their conclusion was that "a temperature inversion had been indicated in almost every instance when the unidentified radar targets or visual objects had been reported."[29] Project Blue Book would eventually label the unknown Washington radar blips as false images caused by temperature inversion, and the visual sightings as misidentified meteors, stars, and city lights.[30] In later years two prominent UFO skeptics, Donald Menzel, an astronomer at Harvard University, and Philip Klass, a senior editor for Aviation Week magazine, would also argue in favor of the temperature inversion/mirage hypothesis.[31] In 2002 Klass told a reporter that "radar technology in 1952 wasn't sophisticated enough to filter out many ordinary objects, such as flocks of birds, weather balloons, or temperature inversions."[7] The reporter added that "UFO proponents argue that even then seasoned controllers could differentiate between spurious targets and solid, metallic objects. Klass disagrees. It may be that 'we had two dumb controllers at National Airport on those nights'...[Klass] added that the introduction of digital filters in the 1970s led to a steep decline in UFO sightings on radar."[7]"

by sph 3y ago

TechBro8615 3y ago

The entire field of ufology is a paradox of distrusting the government (because they've engaged in a coverup for 70 years) but also trusting the government (because the only evidence offered that the government lied is appeal to authority of someone from the government - muh classified intel! muh Q clearance! - saying it lied). For me, any evidence of aliens needs to either resolve or sidestep this paradox. Ideally that evidence would take the form of a personal experience with the aliens. Less ideally, maybe I could accept documented and consistently observable photographic or videographic evidence from non-government citizens. What I will not accept is evidence that comes in the form of second-hand hearsay from a government "whistleblower" who gets approval for what he speaks about publicly. That's not a whistleblower, it's a spokesperson - and his claims do not resolve the paradox because it's effectively one entity telling me "we lied to you, but now we're telling the truth" - either you're telling the truth but I can't believe you because you lied to me, or you're lying to me and I'm not surprised because you've always lied to me. In other words, this is institutional gaslighting. For me to accept evidence from a government "whistleblower," I need to see them overcoming some form of institutional resistance. Snowden was a whistleblower. His claims were obviously credible because they made a lot of people very mad, and they chased him to the end of the earth trying to imprison or kill him. Bill Binney was not a whistleblower, despite his claims, because the NSA never prosecuted him and so obviously everything he says during his ongoing speaking tour is somewhat sanctioned by them. For me to believe aliens are here, based on the words of a "whistleblower," he needs to release documents and photos and videos and scientific data about the craft, and the DoD needs to prosecute or at least ridicule him. But this current situation of passive acceptance by the DoD (or "soft disclosure" in the words of Lue Anon followers) is absolutely unconvincing, and just pisses me off because either my government thinks I'm stupid enough to fall for it, or too stupid to handle the full truth.

throwaway743 3y ago

This thread is full of "I don't want to believe and/or can't". If it's legit, could people itt put down their confirmation bias and handle that we're not the smartest around, not top of the food chain, that our governments have lied to us and kept it wrapped sealed through compartmentalization/removed from oversight through third party contractors for decades, have hidden clean energy tech from tax payers so private entities could profit, that people have been murdered to hide this tech/reality, among a long long list of other implications? Of course if true, but from the looks of what's coming down the pipeline, it's no longer "haha little green men believing, xfiles wishing, tinfoil wearers", and more of "criminal acts have been committed out of greed and keeping control. Better get our heads out of the sand". Pucker up, because this is likely going to flip all of our realities upside down in a weird, maybe even frightful, and extreme way within the next few years.

ggm 3y ago
Or alternatively, not. It's not grand conspiracy, don't pucker up, do continue to think about applications of Hanlon's and Occam's razor. A stoicism point of view here is that none of your wishful thinking of change would necessarily be good or bad, it's too early to say. And since this is a fantasy grab-basket of meme food, the most likely stoical outcome is that nothing to see here, move along is actually the best choice.
- z7 3y ago
  Not the parent, but how do you explain something like this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_Washington,_D.C.,_UFO_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_Washington,_D.C.,_UFO_inc...
  - nobody9999 3y ago
    >Not the parent, but how do you explain something like this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_Washington,_D.C.,_UFO_inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_Washington,_D.C.,_UFO_inc... I don't have to. Your link did so for me: "At the request of the Air Force, the CAA's Technical Development and Evaluation Center did an analysis of the radar sightings. Their conclusion was that "a temperature inversion had been indicated in almost every instance when the unidentified radar targets or visual objects had been reported."[29] Project Blue Book would eventually label the unknown Washington radar blips as false images caused by temperature inversion, and the visual sightings as misidentified meteors, stars, and city lights.[30] In later years two prominent UFO skeptics, Donald Menzel, an astronomer at Harvard University, and Philip Klass, a senior editor for Aviation Week magazine, would also argue in favor of the temperature inversion/mirage hypothesis.[31] In 2002 Klass told a reporter that "radar technology in 1952 wasn't sophisticated enough to filter out many ordinary objects, such as flocks of birds, weather balloons, or temperature inversions."[7] The reporter added that "UFO proponents argue that even then seasoned controllers could differentiate between spurious targets and solid, metallic objects. Klass disagrees. It may be that 'we had two dumb controllers at National Airport on those nights'...[Klass] added that the introduction of digital filters in the 1970s led to a steep decline in UFO sightings on radar."[7]"