4 ms·

What are people's top guesses that this turns out to be? My guesses are: (1) Chinese surveillance balloons (as was in the news a lot earlier this year) (2) C

What are people's top guesses that this turns out to be? My guesses are: (1) Chinese surveillance balloons (as was in the news a lot earlier this year) (2) Chinese military/surveillance UAVs

asu_thomas 3y ago
[flagged]
- bhouston 3y ago
  > It's a propaganda strategy to prime the American public to support inevitable offensives against China. You are giving the US government way too much credit about playing the long-game at an expert level while hiding its motives and being united of purpose. I've seen how the US motivates itself to war (e.g. the invasion of Iraq) and it is clumsy, obvious and with lots of infighting.
  - verall 3y ago
    I think this looks clumsy, obvious, and doesn't seem to be well coordinated with other government agencies
  - feoren 3y ago
    > I've seen how the US motivates itself to war (e.g. the invasion of Iraq) and it is clumsy, obvious and with lots of infighting. It somehow still works though.
  - adventured 3y ago
    That's clearly a false claim. The US had a long history of combatting the USSR successfully to give one example, spanning the entire post WW2 Cold War era. That included preparing the US population and military for a possible war with the Soviets (which also successfully included building far superior military hardware vs what the Soviets were producing). It wasn't clumsy for the most part, it was exceptional. That included battling them economically, industrially, with espionage, with long-term allies, in locations outside of Europe, and so on. It was a united political front overwhelmingly. Yes, there were exceptions, and they don't refute the overall. Iraq was trivial compared to half a century of standing off with the Soviet Empire. The USSR is long gone. Russia is a joke. The US superpower remains. The US won in part thanks to the US political machine playing the long game, and very often doing it in a united fashion. There is very wide political unity when it comes to certain enemies, one of those now is the CCP. Major threats to the US superpower positioning almost always draw out unity among the political class, over whatever term is required.
    - bhouston 3y ago
      I give you that the US government efforts to contain Soviet Russia was much different than the Iraq war - eg. unified populace for the most part, long-term, strategic but also relatively open and explicit. I would also argue it wasn't a war, so it is a different thing all together. I guess I was referring to the specific idea that this was a plan to establish a cause belli.
  - hotnfresh 3y ago
    Yeah, they were telling obvious lies about Afghanistan, and that was a war that would have had plenty of support anyway. They’re not exactly subtle about this kind of thing—though it works regardless, so I guess they don’t need to be.
0xDEF 3y ago
The US has 46 million people living in rural areas with little light pollution. Europe is more densely populated than the US and urban light pollution is probably the only type of pollution that is significantly worse here than in the US. There are of course also hundreds of millions of people in the developing world living in rural areas but they likely have other life priorities than noticing lights in the sky. My point is that whatever it is it is probably a global phenomenon but only Americans are both geographically and culturally inclined (Hollywood) to notice and report it.
- seiferteric 3y ago
  The "why only America" thing seems to come up in every discussion, yet if you pay attention to this stuff at all, you see videos and reports from all over the world, so I really don't understand where it is coming from.
  - ericb 3y ago
    On top of which, if you were an alien culture you might be interested in: 1-Where the nukes are. 2-The state of development in the richest, most developed areas? 3-Where the biggest military is.
    - jncfhnb 3y ago
      Galactic travelers don’t give a shit about your 21st century military.
startrekmegafan 3y ago
It’s 99% legitimate counterintelligence programs propelled by con-men and neo-religions. The US Government has known since at least 1976 that foreign spies (then Soviets) viewed UFO believers as mentally weak and thus targeted them to exfiltrate classified information. There are classified operations to test potential targets. And open intelligence networks to organize and connect disparate groups. Different parts of the government benefit in various ways. It will never be explained because the government can’t stop its employees from believing in supernatural ideas. If there is an illegal disinformation program or psyop, it is unconnected to the government and conducted over multi-decades. It will be extremely hard to prove until it becomes operational (ie in a hot war with China). In the meantime, the og UFO promoters are aging and they have created a new religion to explain the mysteries of life and death. These are the same people behind Lue Elizondo and David Grusch.
- integricho 3y ago
  I think skepticism can go to the same kinds of extremes as believing. While a significant percentage of reports is surely a mixture of crackpots / people with unknown agendas, I find it hard to discard just about everything on one of these basis.
  - rout39574 3y ago
    No, skepticism should be your default stance w.r.t. extraordinary claims. That many people are heedless, shallow of thought, and frightened of ignorance in similar patterns should not be taken as evidence that _some_ of their flights of fancy are fact.
    - integricho 3y ago
      There is a difference between healthy skepticism and blind, fanatic skepticism. The latter is not far from the dark ages when the church was burning people for claiming the earth is not flat or not the center of the universe, only in a more civilized environment, but still anything outside the currently accepted norm is disregarded as impossible and the people with such claims are ridiculed, just as it is happening with me now, and not even because of claiming something, just giving it the benefit of the doubt. This is not how scientific progress is made. Given the amount of evidence and witnesses, it at least deserves to be studied, not just coldly dismissed.
ilaksh 3y ago
It's a long running and well-known cover story for secret aircraft development. Which is why it is so popular near the base where they do so much experimental aircraft testing.
- EMCymatics 3y ago
  As a nation we should be vigilant that we have the best and the next best tech. Acting on the implicit faith that our nation monopolizes this niche in all federally funded defense companies is maybe misplaced particularly when we begin to lose global trade power and comparative wealth.
oldstrangers 3y ago
The easiest way to know it's not a foreign adversary is the fact that the US isn't claiming it to be. If it were actually foreign tech, the US would be beating the war drums 24/7 and using this opportunity to double their defense budget.
- ethbr1 3y ago
  I imagine we'd all be surprised by how much grey skullduggery we don't hear about, from any government. E.g. surveillance high-altitude balloons and HALE UAVs over the past decades
jazzyjackson 3y ago
hallucinations bourne by sensor fusion psyops to study online group dynamics
wfvr 3y ago
Only one of the four objects shot down earlier this year was a Chinese surveillance balloon, and that was also the only one we got pictures of. The other three were described as "objects". One of them was reported to have been "cigar-shaped", and other to have messed with one of the jet's electronics. Regarding the object shot down over Canada: > Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau first announced Saturday's shootdown over the northern Yukon territory, saying Canadian forces would recover and analyze the wreckage. (...) Canadian Defence Minister Anita Anand declined to speculate about the origin of the object, which she said was cylindrical in shape. (...) "The leaders discussed the importance of recovering the object in order to determine more details on its purpose or origin," it said in a statement. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-still-gives-no-details-about-alaska-ufo-new-object-seen-over-canada-2023-02-11/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-still-gives-no-details-a... Officially, they gave up the search after a few days. And as for the object shot down over Alaska: > But the pilots later gave differing reports of what they observed, the source briefed on the intelligence said. (...) Some pilots said the object “interfered with their sensors” on the planes, but not all pilots reported experiencing that. (...) Some pilots also claimed to have seen no identifiable propulsion on the object, and could not explain how it was staying in the air, despite the object cruising at an altitude of 40,000 feet. (...) It’s unclear what the object looks like, or where it came from. On Friday, Ryder said it was traveling north east across Alaska. He declined to provide a physical characterization, only saying that it was “about the size of a small car” and “not similar in size or shape” to the Chinese surveillance balloon that was downed off the coast of South Carolina on February 4. (...) recovery teams are now collecting the debris that is sitting on top of ice in US territorial waters. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/11/politics/unidentified-object-alaska-military-latest/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/11/politics/unidentified-obj... This one was also, officially, not recovered, for some reason. If these are not bona fide UFO's, I don't know what to call them. What I know is that no government official called them "balloons", nor were they associated with China, nor did we get to see a single photo of them.
- bhouston 3y ago
  Interesting, I didn't realize there isn't photos or mention of recovery results. Damn, it. Now I am super curious.

What are people's top guesses that this turns out to be? My guesses are: (1) Chinese surveillance balloons (as was in the news a lot earlier this year) (2) Chinese military/surveillance UAVs

asu_thomas 3y ago

[flagged]

bhouston 3y ago
> It's a propaganda strategy to prime the American public to support inevitable offensives against China. You are giving the US government way too much credit about playing the long-game at an expert level while hiding its motives and being united of purpose. I've seen how the US motivates itself to war (e.g. the invasion of Iraq) and it is clumsy, obvious and with lots of infighting.
- verall 3y ago
  I think this looks clumsy, obvious, and doesn't seem to be well coordinated with other government agencies
- feoren 3y ago
  > I've seen how the US motivates itself to war (e.g. the invasion of Iraq) and it is clumsy, obvious and with lots of infighting. It somehow still works though.
- adventured 3y ago
  That's clearly a false claim. The US had a long history of combatting the USSR successfully to give one example, spanning the entire post WW2 Cold War era. That included preparing the US population and military for a possible war with the Soviets (which also successfully included building far superior military hardware vs what the Soviets were producing). It wasn't clumsy for the most part, it was exceptional. That included battling them economically, industrially, with espionage, with long-term allies, in locations outside of Europe, and so on. It was a united political front overwhelmingly. Yes, there were exceptions, and they don't refute the overall. Iraq was trivial compared to half a century of standing off with the Soviet Empire. The USSR is long gone. Russia is a joke. The US superpower remains. The US won in part thanks to the US political machine playing the long game, and very often doing it in a united fashion. There is very wide political unity when it comes to certain enemies, one of those now is the CCP. Major threats to the US superpower positioning almost always draw out unity among the political class, over whatever term is required.
  - bhouston 3y ago
    I give you that the US government efforts to contain Soviet Russia was much different than the Iraq war - eg. unified populace for the most part, long-term, strategic but also relatively open and explicit. I would also argue it wasn't a war, so it is a different thing all together. I guess I was referring to the specific idea that this was a plan to establish a cause belli.
- hotnfresh 3y ago
  Yeah, they were telling obvious lies about Afghanistan, and that was a war that would have had plenty of support anyway. They’re not exactly subtle about this kind of thing—though it works regardless, so I guess they don’t need to be.

0xDEF 3y ago

The US has 46 million people living in rural areas with little light pollution. Europe is more densely populated than the US and urban light pollution is probably the only type of pollution that is significantly worse here than in the US. There are of course also hundreds of millions of people in the developing world living in rural areas but they likely have other life priorities than noticing lights in the sky. My point is that whatever it is it is probably a global phenomenon but only Americans are both geographically and culturally inclined (Hollywood) to notice and report it.

seiferteric 3y ago
The "why only America" thing seems to come up in every discussion, yet if you pay attention to this stuff at all, you see videos and reports from all over the world, so I really don't understand where it is coming from.
- ericb 3y ago
  On top of which, if you were an alien culture you might be interested in: 1-Where the nukes are. 2-The state of development in the richest, most developed areas? 3-Where the biggest military is.
  - jncfhnb 3y ago
    Galactic travelers don’t give a shit about your 21st century military.

startrekmegafan 3y ago

It’s 99% legitimate counterintelligence programs propelled by con-men and neo-religions. The US Government has known since at least 1976 that foreign spies (then Soviets) viewed UFO believers as mentally weak and thus targeted them to exfiltrate classified information. There are classified operations to test potential targets. And open intelligence networks to organize and connect disparate groups. Different parts of the government benefit in various ways. It will never be explained because the government can’t stop its employees from believing in supernatural ideas. If there is an illegal disinformation program or psyop, it is unconnected to the government and conducted over multi-decades. It will be extremely hard to prove until it becomes operational (ie in a hot war with China). In the meantime, the og UFO promoters are aging and they have created a new religion to explain the mysteries of life and death. These are the same people behind Lue Elizondo and David Grusch.

integricho 3y ago
I think skepticism can go to the same kinds of extremes as believing. While a significant percentage of reports is surely a mixture of crackpots / people with unknown agendas, I find it hard to discard just about everything on one of these basis.
- rout39574 3y ago
  No, skepticism should be your default stance w.r.t. extraordinary claims. That many people are heedless, shallow of thought, and frightened of ignorance in similar patterns should not be taken as evidence that _some_ of their flights of fancy are fact.
  - integricho 3y ago
    There is a difference between healthy skepticism and blind, fanatic skepticism. The latter is not far from the dark ages when the church was burning people for claiming the earth is not flat or not the center of the universe, only in a more civilized environment, but still anything outside the currently accepted norm is disregarded as impossible and the people with such claims are ridiculed, just as it is happening with me now, and not even because of claiming something, just giving it the benefit of the doubt. This is not how scientific progress is made. Given the amount of evidence and witnesses, it at least deserves to be studied, not just coldly dismissed.

ilaksh 3y ago

It's a long running and well-known cover story for secret aircraft development. Which is why it is so popular near the base where they do so much experimental aircraft testing.

EMCymatics 3y ago
As a nation we should be vigilant that we have the best and the next best tech. Acting on the implicit faith that our nation monopolizes this niche in all federally funded defense companies is maybe misplaced particularly when we begin to lose global trade power and comparative wealth.

oldstrangers 3y ago

The easiest way to know it's not a foreign adversary is the fact that the US isn't claiming it to be. If it were actually foreign tech, the US would be beating the war drums 24/7 and using this opportunity to double their defense budget.

ethbr1 3y ago
I imagine we'd all be surprised by how much grey skullduggery we don't hear about, from any government. E.g. surveillance high-altitude balloons and HALE UAVs over the past decades

jazzyjackson 3y ago

hallucinations bourne by sensor fusion psyops to study online group dynamics

wfvr 3y ago

Only one of the four objects shot down earlier this year was a Chinese surveillance balloon, and that was also the only one we got pictures of. The other three were described as "objects". One of them was reported to have been "cigar-shaped", and other to have messed with one of the jet's electronics. Regarding the object shot down over Canada: > Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau first announced Saturday's shootdown over the northern Yukon territory, saying Canadian forces would recover and analyze the wreckage. (...) Canadian Defence Minister Anita Anand declined to speculate about the origin of the object, which she said was cylindrical in shape. (...) "The leaders discussed the importance of recovering the object in order to determine more details on its purpose or origin," it said in a statement. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-still-gives-no-details-about-alaska-ufo-new-object-seen-over-canada-2023-02-11/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-still-gives-no-details-a... Officially, they gave up the search after a few days. And as for the object shot down over Alaska: > But the pilots later gave differing reports of what they observed, the source briefed on the intelligence said. (...) Some pilots said the object “interfered with their sensors” on the planes, but not all pilots reported experiencing that. (...) Some pilots also claimed to have seen no identifiable propulsion on the object, and could not explain how it was staying in the air, despite the object cruising at an altitude of 40,000 feet. (...) It’s unclear what the object looks like, or where it came from. On Friday, Ryder said it was traveling north east across Alaska. He declined to provide a physical characterization, only saying that it was “about the size of a small car” and “not similar in size or shape” to the Chinese surveillance balloon that was downed off the coast of South Carolina on February 4. (...) recovery teams are now collecting the debris that is sitting on top of ice in US territorial waters. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/11/politics/unidentified-object-alaska-military-latest/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/11/politics/unidentified-obj... This one was also, officially, not recovered, for some reason. If these are not bona fide UFO's, I don't know what to call them. What I know is that no government official called them "balloons", nor were they associated with China, nor did we get to see a single photo of them.

bhouston 3y ago
Interesting, I didn't realize there isn't photos or mention of recovery results. Damn, it. Now I am super curious.