6 ms·

Congress Looks for Answers on UFO Sightings

25 points by air7 3y ago

aurareturn 3y ago
Are there any very important things that congress/US government is doing right now? In other words, is this UFO thing trying to distract the public from something very important?
- davidhyde 3y ago
  Yes, shutting down end-to-end encryption. Not just the US though. It’s happening all over the west. No coverage (or heavily biased coverage) of it in popular news.
  - INGSOCIALITE 3y ago
    It’s just misdirection, the old magicians trick they always do. News about ufo or aliens is going to grab everyone’s attention. Make it seem credible with congressional involvement. Take all eyes off the real news and onto the charade.
- NeoPotent 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - justinclift 3y ago
    We've been around long enough to see some things maybe?
  - boffinAudio 3y ago
    The important question is, why aren't you? Conspiracies happen. Rejecting them outright is a terrible disservice to those fellow members of your society who are actively seeking justice for the world. If it weren't for conspiracy theorists, where would we be today? More good has been done for the world than harm, by a wide margin, because someone decided to question the official collectively-derived narrative and look, instead, under the covers to reveal the truth.
    - NeoPotent 3y ago
      When something like this happens in the news, why would I automatically assume it's a misdirection with no evidence? How is that any better than believing the 'official collectively-derived narrative'?
      - boffinAudio 3y ago
        On the basis of a long history of government misdirection? But I guess you'd have to have been paying attention in the first place ..
        NeoPotent 3y ago
        So do you assume every news story is a government misdirection? How does you selection process work? Let's assume you're correct and say there has been government misdirection in the past. Has this completely poisoned the well for you?
        boffinAudio 3y ago
        When the media reporting the news is factually owned and operated by the manufacturers of bombs, who are also well in bed with government and military agencies, then yes - pretty much every news story is misdirection away from the things that will effect that bomb-makers'/news-makers'/politician-pocketers' bottom line .. the time for paying attention to this was when the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was passed, allowing massive wholesale capture of America's propaganda industry by its military complex. See also: the Smith-Mundt Act.
- alphakilo 3y ago
  There's some crypto legislation. love crypto or hate it, it is defining the industry
- King-Aaron 3y ago
  I would say this might be the case if the media and government weren't actively trying to distract people away from this particular topic - There are far more televised things the government are doing to cause distraction than this.
hker999 3y ago
Proof or gtfo
- credit_guy 3y ago
  No need for profanities when one xkdc can do it: https://xkcd.com/1235/ https://xkcd.com/1235/
  - arcastroe 3y ago
    The problem is that as soon as everyone got cameras, everyone also got the ability to realistically edit photos. Same with video.. even with proof, when the proof can be doctored, it's not proof.
thesaintlives 3y ago
3 different people giving testimony. Taken as one you could just dismiss it. Collectively I found the statements very convincing. Something is most certainly going on that is pretty weird to put it mildly...
- ben_w 3y ago
  """Pang Cong asked the King of Wei whether he would hypothetically believe in one civilian's report that a tiger was roaming the markets in the capital city, to which the King replied no. Pang Cong asked what the King thought if two people reported the same thing, and the King said he would begin to wonder. Pang Cong then asked, "what if three people all claimed to have seen a tiger?" The King replied that he would believe in it. Pang Cong reminded the King that the notion of a live tiger in a crowded market was absurd, yet when repeated by numerous people, it seemed real.""" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_men_make_a_tiger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_men_make_a_tiger
  - probably_wrong 3y ago
    Cool proverb, I was not aware of it. Having said that, I disagree with the conclusion. There are few areas where one can confidently dismiss something as absurd (perpetual motion comes to mind). Perhaps an enemy of the King has indeed released a tiger in the market, and then what? How many reports are needed before the King actually looks into the matter? I agree with the deeper explanation that a person as powerful as Pang Cong would easily have three enemies willing to discredit him in front of the King, but I feel that dismissing something as "that cannot happen" is how (say) my local bureaucracy gets angry at me for registering late because my explanation (that the system is overloaded) is absurd and therefore a lie.
- mcjiggerlog 3y ago
  There are 1.3 million active military personnel in the United States.
GnarfGnarf 3y ago
A dog turd is "non-human" biologics.
- CodeLikeHell 3y ago
  This would meet the criteria too https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon
jonhysilvers 3y ago
For me at least, the reason not to care is the timeline. us_agency: ufo's are not real, there's no proof ny_times: us_agency spends at least 22 million in ufo program w/ no results and no oversight. us_agency: ufo's are real. NYT article: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-prog... (most likely common knowledge by now, but just in case)
- kromem 3y ago
  Yeah, but go even further back in that timeline. Like 1952 when multiple newspapers have front page news about UFO sightings over Washington DC. And then in 1952 Gene Pope, a graduate of MIT in only three years, leaves his position in CIA psyops to buy up a failing periodical that two years later he rebrands as the National Enquirer which frequently covers UFO stories alongside claims Elvis isn't really dead, etc. (And then later has Weekly World News with batboy.) Suddenly no more newspapers will touch UFO stories with a 10' pole and everyone that thinks Elvis is still alive also thinks there's aliens. Probably one of the most successful propaganda campaigns in history, so effective that even today multiple career military witnesses being interviewed in front of Congress taking their claims seriously and looking to get private follow-up details - much of which alleges defense contractors funneling tax dollars to unaccountable projects - is largely brushed off by both the news media and commentators as "nothing to see." So yes, sure, look at the timeline - but maybe cast a wider net.
  - euroderf 3y ago
    > Like 1952 when multiple newspapers have front page news about UFO sightings over Washington DC. I spent an afternoon reading these stories in university (G.U.) microfilm archives of the Washington Post. Fascinating stuff. Many, many occurrences over the course of a month or two.
  - Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
    > Suddenly no more newspapers will touch UFO stories with a 10' pole and everyone that thinks Elvis is still alive also thinks there's aliens. Pedantic nitpick: I believe 100% that aliens exist. The universe is way too vast for us to be the only intelligent life. But I also 100% believe that they have not visited our planet. Unless faster-than-light travel is actually possible, the universe is simply too vast for intergalactic travel.
mcjiggerlog 3y ago
As the adage goes - extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence - and we still haven't seen any. Until there is some actual data to back any of this up, there's not really anything to talk about.
- postalrat 3y ago
  Are you against government transparency in regard to UFO sightings?
  - bigger_inside 3y ago
    not the OP, but "government publicizing something" != "transparency". Usually, historically, it's quite often the opposite.
- gala8y 3y ago
  > extraordinary evidence That's for starters. And on the other side of evidence vs. gut feeling, this guy sounds all of my bells, intuition screaming "off, off, multiple things in his behavior are off."
- troyvit 3y ago
  “Either what [the whistleblower] is saying is partially true or entirely true,” he said, “or we have some really smart, educated people with high clearances and very important positions in our government who are crazy and are leading us on a goose chase.” -- Marco Rubio [1] Not a fan of Rubio but this quote sums up the dissonance, and I think it's worth talking about. If these are people looking to be famous, they're going about it in a really painful way. If they're delusional, how did they advance so far in our government? If they're even half right, then what's the science behind it? [1] https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/4083904-true-or-crazy-ufo-whistleblowers-come-out-of-the-woodwork-congress-cant-ignore-them/ https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/4083904-true-or-crazy...
  - mcjiggerlog 3y ago
    I hate to be crass, but if the last few years have taught us anything, it's that you don't have to look too far to find crazy people in important jobs in US government.
Am4TIfIsER0ppos 3y ago
Answers? What is the question? "What is this a distraction for?" I hope.
ChrisArchitect 3y ago
[Dupe] Tons of conversation yesterday over here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36880471 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36880471
southernplaces7 3y ago
I wonder who here has ever read the work of Jacques Vallee? I recommend it very much. There are two implicit and rather rigid views that I think need to be carefully scrutinized in many of the comments on this site for UFO-related posts: The first of these is that whatever is happening on earth must either be a whole lot of nothing truly abnormal, or a case of aliens from other star systems having visited our planet, under the partial disqualifier that this seems unlikely as hell unless they have FTL travel capabilities. What if it's neither of those things? What if something else, not normal as we know normal things of nature to be, but also not classically extraterrestrial or for that matter an outright case of hoaxes and mistaken identity is happening? That last question leads into the second very common rigid point that should be scrutinized: the assumption that aliens have to be extrasolar visitors to be present on Earth. Since we known nothing about alien life, or any super-intelligent life anywhere at all, we can only guess at anything about its nature. Because of this I think it's a bad idea to not consider the possibility of something entirely different from classical interpretations of extraterrestrials interacting with us already, and possibly in ways so strange (because of its own truly alien strangeness in a general sense) that they seem absurd and instead get written off as myths or hoaxes across decades and centuries of human history and reported events.

25 points by air7 3y ago

Are there any very important things that congress/US government is doing right now? In other words, is this UFO thing trying to distract the public from something very important?

davidhyde 3y ago
Yes, shutting down end-to-end encryption. Not just the US though. It’s happening all over the west. No coverage (or heavily biased coverage) of it in popular news.
- INGSOCIALITE 3y ago
  It’s just misdirection, the old magicians trick they always do. News about ufo or aliens is going to grab everyone’s attention. Make it seem credible with congressional involvement. Take all eyes off the real news and onto the charade.
NeoPotent 3y ago
[flagged]
- justinclift 3y ago
  We've been around long enough to see some things maybe?
- boffinAudio 3y ago
  The important question is, why aren't you? Conspiracies happen. Rejecting them outright is a terrible disservice to those fellow members of your society who are actively seeking justice for the world. If it weren't for conspiracy theorists, where would we be today? More good has been done for the world than harm, by a wide margin, because someone decided to question the official collectively-derived narrative and look, instead, under the covers to reveal the truth.
  - NeoPotent 3y ago
    When something like this happens in the news, why would I automatically assume it's a misdirection with no evidence? How is that any better than believing the 'official collectively-derived narrative'?
    - boffinAudio 3y ago
      On the basis of a long history of government misdirection? But I guess you'd have to have been paying attention in the first place ..
      - NeoPotent 3y ago
        So do you assume every news story is a government misdirection? How does you selection process work? Let's assume you're correct and say there has been government misdirection in the past. Has this completely poisoned the well for you?
        boffinAudio 3y ago
        When the media reporting the news is factually owned and operated by the manufacturers of bombs, who are also well in bed with government and military agencies, then yes - pretty much every news story is misdirection away from the things that will effect that bomb-makers'/news-makers'/politician-pocketers' bottom line .. the time for paying attention to this was when the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was passed, allowing massive wholesale capture of America's propaganda industry by its military complex. See also: the Smith-Mundt Act.
alphakilo 3y ago
There's some crypto legislation. love crypto or hate it, it is defining the industry
King-Aaron 3y ago
I would say this might be the case if the media and government weren't actively trying to distract people away from this particular topic - There are far more televised things the government are doing to cause distraction than this.

hker999 3y ago

Proof or gtfo

credit_guy 3y ago
No need for profanities when one xkdc can do it: https://xkcd.com/1235/ https://xkcd.com/1235/
- arcastroe 3y ago
  The problem is that as soon as everyone got cameras, everyone also got the ability to realistically edit photos. Same with video.. even with proof, when the proof can be doctored, it's not proof.

thesaintlives 3y ago

3 different people giving testimony. Taken as one you could just dismiss it. Collectively I found the statements very convincing. Something is most certainly going on that is pretty weird to put it mildly...

ben_w 3y ago
"""Pang Cong asked the King of Wei whether he would hypothetically believe in one civilian's report that a tiger was roaming the markets in the capital city, to which the King replied no. Pang Cong asked what the King thought if two people reported the same thing, and the King said he would begin to wonder. Pang Cong then asked, "what if three people all claimed to have seen a tiger?" The King replied that he would believe in it. Pang Cong reminded the King that the notion of a live tiger in a crowded market was absurd, yet when repeated by numerous people, it seemed real.""" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_men_make_a_tiger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_men_make_a_tiger
- probably_wrong 3y ago
  Cool proverb, I was not aware of it. Having said that, I disagree with the conclusion. There are few areas where one can confidently dismiss something as absurd (perpetual motion comes to mind). Perhaps an enemy of the King has indeed released a tiger in the market, and then what? How many reports are needed before the King actually looks into the matter? I agree with the deeper explanation that a person as powerful as Pang Cong would easily have three enemies willing to discredit him in front of the King, but I feel that dismissing something as "that cannot happen" is how (say) my local bureaucracy gets angry at me for registering late because my explanation (that the system is overloaded) is absurd and therefore a lie.
mcjiggerlog 3y ago
There are 1.3 million active military personnel in the United States.

GnarfGnarf 3y ago

A dog turd is "non-human" biologics.

CodeLikeHell 3y ago
This would meet the criteria too https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon

jonhysilvers 3y ago

For me at least, the reason not to care is the timeline. us_agency: ufo's are not real, there's no proof ny_times: us_agency spends at least 22 million in ufo program w/ no results and no oversight. us_agency: ufo's are real. NYT article: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-prog... (most likely common knowledge by now, but just in case)

kromem 3y ago
Yeah, but go even further back in that timeline. Like 1952 when multiple newspapers have front page news about UFO sightings over Washington DC. And then in 1952 Gene Pope, a graduate of MIT in only three years, leaves his position in CIA psyops to buy up a failing periodical that two years later he rebrands as the National Enquirer which frequently covers UFO stories alongside claims Elvis isn't really dead, etc. (And then later has Weekly World News with batboy.) Suddenly no more newspapers will touch UFO stories with a 10' pole and everyone that thinks Elvis is still alive also thinks there's aliens. Probably one of the most successful propaganda campaigns in history, so effective that even today multiple career military witnesses being interviewed in front of Congress taking their claims seriously and looking to get private follow-up details - much of which alleges defense contractors funneling tax dollars to unaccountable projects - is largely brushed off by both the news media and commentators as "nothing to see." So yes, sure, look at the timeline - but maybe cast a wider net.
- euroderf 3y ago
  > Like 1952 when multiple newspapers have front page news about UFO sightings over Washington DC. I spent an afternoon reading these stories in university (G.U.) microfilm archives of the Washington Post. Fascinating stuff. Many, many occurrences over the course of a month or two.
- Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
  > Suddenly no more newspapers will touch UFO stories with a 10' pole and everyone that thinks Elvis is still alive also thinks there's aliens. Pedantic nitpick: I believe 100% that aliens exist. The universe is way too vast for us to be the only intelligent life. But I also 100% believe that they have not visited our planet. Unless faster-than-light travel is actually possible, the universe is simply too vast for intergalactic travel.

mcjiggerlog 3y ago

As the adage goes - extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence - and we still haven't seen any. Until there is some actual data to back any of this up, there's not really anything to talk about.

postalrat 3y ago
Are you against government transparency in regard to UFO sightings?
- bigger_inside 3y ago
  not the OP, but "government publicizing something" != "transparency". Usually, historically, it's quite often the opposite.
gala8y 3y ago
> extraordinary evidence That's for starters. And on the other side of evidence vs. gut feeling, this guy sounds all of my bells, intuition screaming "off, off, multiple things in his behavior are off."
troyvit 3y ago
“Either what [the whistleblower] is saying is partially true or entirely true,” he said, “or we have some really smart, educated people with high clearances and very important positions in our government who are crazy and are leading us on a goose chase.” -- Marco Rubio [1] Not a fan of Rubio but this quote sums up the dissonance, and I think it's worth talking about. If these are people looking to be famous, they're going about it in a really painful way. If they're delusional, how did they advance so far in our government? If they're even half right, then what's the science behind it? [1] https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/4083904-true-or-crazy-ufo-whistleblowers-come-out-of-the-woodwork-congress-cant-ignore-them/ https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/4083904-true-or-crazy...
- mcjiggerlog 3y ago
  I hate to be crass, but if the last few years have taught us anything, it's that you don't have to look too far to find crazy people in important jobs in US government.

Am4TIfIsER0ppos 3y ago

Answers? What is the question? "What is this a distraction for?" I hope.

ChrisArchitect 3y ago

[Dupe] Tons of conversation yesterday over here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36880471 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36880471

southernplaces7 3y ago

I wonder who here has ever read the work of Jacques Vallee? I recommend it very much. There are two implicit and rather rigid views that I think need to be carefully scrutinized in many of the comments on this site for UFO-related posts: The first of these is that whatever is happening on earth must either be a whole lot of nothing truly abnormal, or a case of aliens from other star systems having visited our planet, under the partial disqualifier that this seems unlikely as hell unless they have FTL travel capabilities. What if it's neither of those things? What if something else, not normal as we know normal things of nature to be, but also not classically extraterrestrial or for that matter an outright case of hoaxes and mistaken identity is happening? That last question leads into the second very common rigid point that should be scrutinized: the assumption that aliens have to be extrasolar visitors to be present on Earth. Since we known nothing about alien life, or any super-intelligent life anywhere at all, we can only guess at anything about its nature. Because of this I think it's a bad idea to not consider the possibility of something entirely different from classical interpretations of extraterrestrials interacting with us already, and possibly in ways so strange (because of its own truly alien strangeness in a general sense) that they seem absurd and instead get written off as myths or hoaxes across decades and centuries of human history and reported events.