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We have not even a single person directly involved in these supposed programs who is willing to testify. We have not even a single video that isn't uselessly l

We have not even a single person directly involved in these supposed programs who is willing to testify. We have not even a single video that isn't uselessly low-quality, clearly fake, or of something ordinary. We have not even a single shred of physical evidence. We just have the same thing we've always had: a bunch of people telling stories which cannot be verified, imply the existence of evidence they cannot produce, and which—purely coincidentally, I'm sure—make them famous. None of these stories has ever led to hard evidence. Wake me up when you have something to show me. I will take any evidence beyond tall tales.

david-gpu 3y ago
> We have not even a single person directly involved in these supposed programs who is willing to testify. Multiple first-hand witnesses have testified to several congressional committees, in classified sessions. At the same time, nobody from these legacy programs testified in the single open session we've had so far. > We have not even a single video that isn't uselessly low-quality, clearly fake, or of something ordinary The four videos of UAPs released in the past few years by the DoD are ambiguous blurry messes, indeed. Anything from an anonymous source is automatically suspect, regardless of how clear it might look. Academia in general appears wary of surveying our atmosphere in search for UAPs, so no such projects have been funded so far, with the very recent exception of Avi Loeb's Galileo project. Loeb's project so far only has a single surveying station around Harvard since the beginning of this year, to my knowledge. Nothing has come out of it so far. > We have not even a single shred of physical evidence. Completely agreed. Grusch has provided the ICIG and some congressional committees information regarding the location, people, project names, funding mechanism, etc. of legacy UAP reverse-engineering programs, but that information is classified and has not been made public. I hope it will be investigated, but so far nothing has come out of it. > We just have the same thing we've always had: a bunch of people telling stories which cannot be verified, imply the existence of evidence they cannot produce, and which—purely coincidentally, I'm sure—make them famous. None of these stories has ever led to hard evidence I completely understand your skepticism. At the same time, I think there are some indications that there may be something to it. In particular, the people with the best access to classified information, such as the Gang of Eight, appear to be the most in favor of transparency and investigating the subject. See for example the "UAP Disclosure Act" that is included in the 2024 NDAA. > Wake me up when you have something to show me. I will take any evidence beyond tall tales Evidence will not be forthcoming if we don't pressure our elected representatives to release the information they have already gathered, and/or start funding academia to survey our atmosphere for UAPs. Galileo didn't find the rings of Saturn without first building a telescope.
- tptacek 3y ago
  Hitler : message board arguments :: Galileo : scientific debates.
  - david-gpu 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - pvg 3y ago
      tptacek is right that invocations of Galileo of that sort are usually a trope but a great thing about the trope (and about Galileo!) is that it almost always falls apart and argues against the point the trope-invoker is making. In your case - Galileo did not 'find the rings of Saturn'. He made some rather anomalous observations of Saturn which he could not explain. He published a 'claim hash' (in the parlance of our times) of his observation. Galileo was one of the earliest practitioners of what we now call scientific method and even with that disadvantage, he was way better at simply making claims than the UFOlogists we're talking about here.
      - david-gpu 3y ago
        Let me simplify the idea so that we don't get caught up in historical debates: we won't move beyond anecdotal evidence of UAPs unless our academic institutions start looking for them systematically and/or we reach out to our elected representatives to declassify/release whatever data the DoD has already collected.
        tptacek 3y ago
        That's true of UAPs, but it's also true in the exact same way of Stargates; we'll never dig one up if we don't look for them systematically. I know that's neither here nor there; it's a critique of a particular argument, but obviously doesn't settle the underlying question.
        3y ago

david-gpu 3y ago

> We have not even a single person directly involved in these supposed programs who is willing to testify. Multiple first-hand witnesses have testified to several congressional committees, in classified sessions. At the same time, nobody from these legacy programs testified in the single open session we've had so far. > We have not even a single video that isn't uselessly low-quality, clearly fake, or of something ordinary The four videos of UAPs released in the past few years by the DoD are ambiguous blurry messes, indeed. Anything from an anonymous source is automatically suspect, regardless of how clear it might look. Academia in general appears wary of surveying our atmosphere in search for UAPs, so no such projects have been funded so far, with the very recent exception of Avi Loeb's Galileo project. Loeb's project so far only has a single surveying station around Harvard since the beginning of this year, to my knowledge. Nothing has come out of it so far. > We have not even a single shred of physical evidence. Completely agreed. Grusch has provided the ICIG and some congressional committees information regarding the location, people, project names, funding mechanism, etc. of legacy UAP reverse-engineering programs, but that information is classified and has not been made public. I hope it will be investigated, but so far nothing has come out of it. > We just have the same thing we've always had: a bunch of people telling stories which cannot be verified, imply the existence of evidence they cannot produce, and which—purely coincidentally, I'm sure—make them famous. None of these stories has ever led to hard evidence I completely understand your skepticism. At the same time, I think there are some indications that there may be something to it. In particular, the people with the best access to classified information, such as the Gang of Eight, appear to be the most in favor of transparency and investigating the subject. See for example the "UAP Disclosure Act" that is included in the 2024 NDAA. > Wake me up when you have something to show me. I will take any evidence beyond tall tales Evidence will not be forthcoming if we don't pressure our elected representatives to release the information they have already gathered, and/or start funding academia to survey our atmosphere for UAPs. Galileo didn't find the rings of Saturn without first building a telescope.

tptacek 3y ago
Hitler : message board arguments :: Galileo : scientific debates.
- david-gpu 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - pvg 3y ago
    tptacek is right that invocations of Galileo of that sort are usually a trope but a great thing about the trope (and about Galileo!) is that it almost always falls apart and argues against the point the trope-invoker is making. In your case - Galileo did not 'find the rings of Saturn'. He made some rather anomalous observations of Saturn which he could not explain. He published a 'claim hash' (in the parlance of our times) of his observation. Galileo was one of the earliest practitioners of what we now call scientific method and even with that disadvantage, he was way better at simply making claims than the UFOlogists we're talking about here.
    - david-gpu 3y ago
      Let me simplify the idea so that we don't get caught up in historical debates: we won't move beyond anecdotal evidence of UAPs unless our academic institutions start looking for them systematically and/or we reach out to our elected representatives to declassify/release whatever data the DoD has already collected.
      - tptacek 3y ago
        That's true of UAPs, but it's also true in the exact same way of Stargates; we'll never dig one up if we don't look for them systematically. I know that's neither here nor there; it's a critique of a particular argument, but obviously doesn't settle the underlying question.
        3y ago