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Experts testify at UFO hearing in Congress
- alganet 2y ago> "Let me be clear: UAP are real," he writes. "Advanced technologies not made by our Government — or any other government — are monitoring sensitive military installations around the globe That's very specific: not made by any government. We know it's not aliens. It's never aliens. So, it's some sort of private party, probably a company.
- belter 2y agoSure...totally real: https://xkcd.com/2572/ https://xkcd.com/2572/
- Atotalnoob 2y agoI don’t believe in aliens (fermi paradox) but I doubt it’s a company. If a private company could make these kinds of things, what benefit would they get by not selling it to a government? They could set their price and immediately become world renowned. Unless you are saying that there is a shadowy secret organization that controls the world with space lasers and UAPs….
- widowlark 2y ago>Unless you are saying that there is a shadowy secret organization that controls the world with space lasers and UAPs Would that not be a government by definition?
- Gud 2y agoDepends on how you would define "controls the world". Technically, I control the world (but only a tiny small speck of it).
- nobody9999 2y ago>Unless you are saying that there is a shadowy secret organization that controls the world with space lasers and UAPs…. As you return home, henchman grab you, blindfold you and take you to my secret lair, then bind you to a table with a laser mounted on the ceiling pointed at the table. I walk up to the table and power on the laser and its beam slowly moves toward you between your legs. Me: "You figured it out. SPECTRE rules the world with UAPs and space lasers!! And that's unfortunate for you." I start to walk away... You struggle with the bonds confining you to the table, to no avail. And with just a hint of panic in your voice: You: "Do you expect me to talk?" I laugh and say: Me: "No Atotalnoob. I expect you to die." With apologies to Ian Fleming[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldfinger_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldfinger_(film) Edit: Fixed typo and formatting.
- Atotalnoob 2y agoI haven’t seen goldfinger, so thank you for the link, otherwise I would be very confused
- nobody9999 2y ago>I haven’t seen goldfinger, so thank you for the link, otherwise I would be very confused You should. It's fun. And Sean Connery (IMNSHO) was the best Bond.
- Atotalnoob 2y agoI don’t watch Sean Connery movies. He hits women.
- nobody9999 2y ago>He hits women. That'd be a neat trick, given that he's been dead for four years. Does he jump out of his grave to do that?
- LargoLasskhyfv 2y agoHe's just been brainwashed by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zardoz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zardoz to do that, though... Ze Peniz iz Bäd! Ze Gun iz Good!
- alganet 2y agoYou're assuming the tech is some kind of ex-machina, something incredible (btw I'm not). In your scenario, I could ask the same: Why does the company need the government for then? Would you sell your time machine to the US or use it? I think it's something trivial, probably boring, yet locked in some sort of confidential arrangement. I think we're on a scenario that the public should know something, but we can't know what UAPs are, and these two conditions are deadlocked.
- throwup238 2y ago> If a private company could make these kinds of things, what benefit would they get by not selling it to a government? They could play countries off each other to gain soft power over policy that affects other investments, ones easier to leverage that selling weapons. “That’s a nice military you got there, it’d be a shame if China/Taiwan/Israel/Iran/NK/Russia/USA had this one weird trick to obsolete it.” It’d be even more impactful if it changed the nuclear MAD game, because the company could hide behind the risk of escalation. Don’t sell to any one nuclear power so that the others don’t immediately start nuclear war to preempt the new technology. This is all ridiculously speculative but if humans managed to make a flying craft as fast and maneuverable as UFO witnesses say they are, missile defense and the end of MAD is my first thought.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago> If a private company could make these kinds of things, what benefit would they get by not selling it to a government? Hedge fund stock market bullshit. You know, the kind that has people track movements of various CEOs, or buy aerial/satellite images of parking lots, and stuff. That would be my main guess. As for "monitoring sensitive military installations around the globe" specifically, I'd look at PMCs and data brokers, but there's probably many more scenarios I'm failing to imagine right now. EDIT: Also, to channel my inner Matt Levine: securities fraud?
- bitcharmer 2y ago[dead]
- mrguyorama 2y agoOr.... Someone is lying People have lied to congress a good bit in the past. It's safe to do if it's even a little difficult to prove. That doesn't even count the times people lied to whoever is doing the testifying, such that they aren't knowingly lying to congress.
- alganet 2y agoThe weird phrasing "not made by any government" makes me think exactly the opposite. Whoever said it is probably being vague enough to tell the truth, we just don't know exactly what that truth means.
- saaaaaam 2y agoAs I said further up, governments don’t make things: they get other people to make things for them. “Not made by any government” is not a lie when you’re a lawyer.
- ericb 2y ago> It's never aliens. Why? Shouldn't probes be here by now? There are 200 sextillion stars in the observable universe. We know of one civilization--ours, and it immediately began sending probes once capable. If Von Neumann self-replicating probes are possible, doesn't that solve both distance/speed of light/time scale objection and imply probes should be here by now? The sending civilization may not even still exist, but their probes would.
- knowitnone 2y agoWhy not? Yes, we did send out probes...and where are we with them? "If Von Neumann self-replicating probes are possible" That's a big if. Where is proof of these probes that you speak of?
- nadermx 2y agoThats also assuming Von Neumann probes don't replicate wrong like DNA as it clones, etc. Too many variables for it too be feasible
- alganet 2y agoWhy do you assume DNA replication is "wrong"? Maybe it's just part of the exploring. It needs to adapt to new environments to explore them after all.
- ericb 2y agoIf I could attach a software program to every replicating chunk of DNA, I'm pretty sure I could write a checksum and diagnostic and instructions to shut down if they failed. That's not a variable that does anything to feasibility.
- krapp 2y agoWhat would this "software program" be made of? Millions of years of evolution have already granted DNA the capacity for diagnostics, error correction and self-repair. Despite that, genetic replication is still error prone, and everything still fails, sometimes catastrophically. DNA is made of molecular bonds, and that "software" is necessarily also made of molecular bonds, there is no distinction between "software" and "hardware" at that level of physical granularity. You're not going to get perfect replication of anything over millions of generations. That violates the laws of thermodynamics. The system has to change, randomly and unexpectedly, and it has to fail over time. Entropy must accumulate. And that's not even taking into account the radioactive hellscape of interstellar space. This is the difference between mathematics and physics. Mathematicians can handwave away or ignore inconvenient or uninteresting complexities, and thus something like the infinite exponential progress of self-replicating probes across the galaxy seems obvious because the math is obvious, but reality doesn't allow that.
- saaaaaam 2y agoGovernments don’t make things. They sign the contracts and pay the money for other people - non-governmental people - to make things.
- distracted_boy 2y agoThen this company must have existed in early 1900s as well as several hundreds of years ago.
- krapp 2y agoOr maybe Lue Elizondo doesn't actually know the top secret state of the art of technology made by every government in the world, and he's just talking out of his ass because he's a con man and a fraud, and currently trying to sell a book. The man tried to pass off a picture of a chandelier as a UFO. He claims he fought terrorists using astral projection. He's connected to the bullshit circus that is Skinwalker Ranch. He's not credible. This is always the game with these people. Everyone's talking about Corbell's "jellyfish UAP" video - which is obviously just bird shit on the lens - and how there's a second video showing it leaping in and out of the water that definitely exists but of course that the public can never see. It's always allegations, claims, speculations, and rare circumstantial evidence that nine times out of ten turns out to be bunk. What has David Grusch actually revealed, other than a rehash of existing UFO folklore, and things he's been told by other people? It's all smoke and mirrors and people keep falling for it because of media hype, their inherent mistrust in government, and because they want to believe. If there is something at the center of this - I promise you, I guarantee you the people talking about aliens and "NHIs" and interdimensional beings don't know anything about it.
- alganet 2y agoIt is obviously smoke and mirrors for the real thing, demons. (Whenever you tell something is smoke and mirrors, it is very likely people will imagine something even more fantastical).
- krapp 2y agoThere are people who do believe UFOs a really demons in disguise. Supposedly a lot of them are Evangelical Christians in high places in the US intelligence and military hierarchy, and one of the reasons for secrecy about UAPs/UFOs is that they don't want to risk calling up or empowering some existential demonic force by calling attention to it. I don't know how true the latter part of that is (the former is definitely true) but people like that aren't going to be disabused from their beliefs regardless of the criticism, it's religion at that point. All I'm saying is if people want this to be taken seriously, and approached credibly, they need to stop taking the word of people like Lue Elizondo uncritically. We don't know that any of these people actually know anything about anything. We do know they can't or won't prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt. We also know the proof they do provide, when they choose to provide it, is often unreliable, circumstantial or outright fraud. That should be more of a red flag for people than it seems to be.
- Aloisius 2y agoThis is so embarrassing. What's next, a hearing on whether ghosts are real?
- sgt101 2y agowell - all these people believe in a big spirit in the sky, so it's not a huge stretch
- 50208 2y agobingo ... and distraction from Trump appointing so many wildly unqualified and corrupt folks to government positions of power. Matt Gaetz to DoJ (etc) ... wait, look ... a UFO!
- krapp 2y agoSomeone always says UFO stories are a distraction from whatever current thing is happening, but UFO stories are never actually that much of a distraction. No one is unaware of what Trump is doing because the UFO narrative exists.
- johnea 2y agoI'm so glad someone else besides me says this. This really is at the root of so many of modern societies problems. And really the biggest disappointment of the 21st century. How can we possibly still be this primitive 8-/
- lostmsu 2y agoI dunno, I still find the Russia-Ukraine war to be the biggest disappointment. Not just because it is a war, but also because it is a war between essentially identical cultures, both highly educated too.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- adamredwoods 2y ago"Immaculate Constellation" Is a hoax. There are no "other world" aliens or spacecrafts. Everything is earth-based. https://oversight.house.gov/hearing/unidentified-anomalous-phenomena-exposing-the-truth/written-testimony-shellenberger/ https://oversight.house.gov/hearing/unidentified-anomalous-p... When Ms. Boebert open her mouth, she immediately claims the earth was flat. Additionally, this wasn't just "UAP" but really a way to drum up various conspiracy theories. She keeps goes on about non-human genetic materials and creating of hybrids, and alien hideouts in the oceans. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT2iWKZr0qA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT2iWKZr0qA This is a waste of my tax payer money. Republicans voted down Biden's Cancer Moonshot, but find this trash to be completely legit?
- llamaimperative 2y agoCautionary tale of letting a cult take over a political party, I guess
- ultimafan 2y agoBoebert came off clownish but if you heard that somewhere taken out of context she wasn't seriously claiming the earth was flat. It was a joke she was trying to make a point with albeit a poor one that it was neither the time or place for.
- 1970-01-01 2y agoThe hoax shoe fits perfectly: Immaculate Constellation becomes A luminous nation's celestial tic
- nobody9999 2y ago>She keeps goes on about non-human genetic materials and creating of hybrids, and alien hideouts in the oceans. I guess she's been binging The X Files[0]? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_X-Files https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_X-Files
- ilaksh 2y agoIt's always been mainly a cover story for experimental aircraft. That's why there are so many "UFO sightings" near the military base where they test the most experimental aircraft. Obviously. In some cases it's just dirt on a lens or similar. Extremely occasionally there are aircraft they can't identify but in no cases is it ever clear that these are extraterrestrial.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- andrewstuart 2y agoNo matter how sophisticated the vast numbers of cameras are in our world nothing can ever get a clear picture ….. ever. Military bases and equipment with presumably the most sophisticated camera systems. Says it all.
- 1970-01-01 2y agoWe're starting to get 8K phones. A minute long 8K video (in focus) would prove or disprove everything and could be shared globally almost instantly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mobile_phones_with_8K_video_recording https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mobile_phones_with_8K...
- thinkingtoilet 2y agoI still yet to hear anything close to a plausible explanation of the situation. We have super advanced alien species who can travel across the galaxy, or even the universe, and they have found us. They watch over us and even though their technology is beyond our comprehension, they're lazy enough to get caught a few times here and there. Why would they just watch? Are they really that lazy that they get caught? Surely they know and understand our capabilities. It just doesn't make sense. People are seeing things that they can't explain. That warrants investigation. Definitive statements about how these are not human seem motivated by ideology instead of evidence. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If that evidence is presented I'm happy to change my mind here, but none of this ever adds up.
- Ancalagon 2y ago> Are they really that lazy that they get caught? One word: teenagers.
- griomnib 2y ago[dead]
- thinkingtoilet 2y agoI'm not even joking, this is literally the most plausible explanation I've ever heard.
- maxglute 2y agoIf we're ants/microbes to them, why wouldn't they just watch? Maybe UFOs are some interstellar view-master for alien kids. Maybe Earth/humanity is just boring, deepintoyoutube tier civilization without a lot of views, so objects pop in once in a while for a peek. All the cool alien kids are busy creeping on more viral civilizations.
- ultimafan 2y agoMaybe it's a Sentinel Island sort of situation. The technology gap is vast, we've had ships wreck there or unauthorized visitors approach the island but though they attacked them both we've left them alone and haven't attempted to recover any of the "modern technology" that's abandoned there.
- empath75 2y agoStill nobody offering even a scintilla of proof?
- 50208 2y agoThis is the epitome of dumb distraction. Americans absolutely love that.
- johnea 2y agoThis is the 2nd stupidest shit ever. Only after blasting off to live on Mars 8-/ No wonder the US political situation is such a disaster (and I don't just mean the election of the cheato). With this much of the population, and this much of the representative legislature so far off the rails of reality, it's almost a miracle that anything gets done at all.
- snakeyjake 2y agoFake news: someone built a new thing and was testing it in a Navy training range or was using it to spy on the test range and some Navy aircraft entering or exiting the range managed to take video footage of it. The truth: an advanced intelligence capable of interstellar flight traveled dozens if not millions of light years to visit Earth and chose to fly perpendicular to a bunch of F/A-18s in a Navy training range and then disappear, never to be seen again by man or machine. They ignored all of the locations of industrial activity, all of the people, the land, the animals, the unique geologic features, the vast expanses of earth covered by multiple overlapping forms of radar and cameras pointed at the sky, and flew over an empty-ass stretch of ocean COINCIDENTALLY when some F/A-18s were there.
- rapjr9 2y agoUsurping the powers of Congress is the real issue here. If the military did things and hid them from Congress and the President, then they are in big trouble. Air safety is a secondary issue. National security is a concern, but given how long no one has been able to figure out definitive answers maybe it doesn't matter. On the other hand, drones are real and have also been buzzing military installations; that seems like a real national security threat that has been largely ignored.