4 ms·

I feel sorry for every child who didn't have SETI@home and X-Files at the same time during their childhood. The truth is still out there.

losthobbies 9mo ago
When conspiracies were a bit more fun. Anyone else collect The X-Factor partworks magazine? I used to love reading it.
- x187463 9mo ago
  Of all the current US conspiracy theories, the UFO/UAP conspiracy is still the most interesting and fully developed/ongoing conspiracy space. Just check out the recent 'Age of Disclosure' documentary from this year. I'm not arguing a position on the theory, just saying it's very active and has the old-school qualities that were present in the 90's.
  - lagniappe 9mo ago
    It's not a conspiracy anymore
    - thatguy0900 9mo ago
      I'd really like to see it disclosed by a government that isn't panicking about epstein files/being impeached and trying to cover up other stories before I'm fully convinced
      - pixl97 9mo ago
        I mean this is a meta-conspiracy in itself. I don't think you're incorrect/wrong, but using one conspiracy theory to hide a conspiracy with lots of evidence is interesting.
      - nephihaha 9mo ago
        I would be more interested in the former USSR or China, maybe Iran and Latin America. The Eastern Bloc must have covered up a lot of stuff but would have wild stories.
  - RajT88 9mo ago
    There's some genuinely weird shit unexplained, I'll give you that. Unlike Bigfoot, where you can look at a map of the historical range of bears and see it exactly matches where all the Bigfoot sightings are.
    - nephihaha 9mo ago
      People claim to see Bigfoot creatures in the Mississippi Delta and Florida... Even Scotland. None of these are much noted for their bears.
      - Jtsummers 9mo ago
        > the Mississippi Delta and Florida... Even Scotland. None of these are much noted for their bears. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_black_bear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_black_bear The US South has bears.
      - RajT88 9mo ago
        There are some outliers (like Hawaii, or the 2 sightings in my local forest preserve) which cannot be bears, but what you will find is there is way more bear populations wandering around than you realize. The trend is pretty clear.
        nephihaha 9mo ago
        People claim to see these things in Australia and New Zealand. Not many bears round there. I don't count koalas in Oz as bears.
        ninninninnin 9mo ago
        You forget about drop bears
    - Bratmon 9mo ago
      I dunno. I think the fact that these sightings are always from sleep deprived individuals describing things at the far end of their range of detection (whether that's 5 miles away with the Mk 1 eyeball or 500 miles away with classified superradar) suggests a pretty clear pattern.
  - steve1977 9mo ago
    IMHO, the whole social/psychological aspect of the "conspiracy" or phenomenom or whatever you want to call it is at least as interesting as the phenomenon itself.
  - nephihaha 9mo ago
    Pilots from the Eastern Bloc and NATO countries have had sightings. It's not just a US thing. People have been claiming to see them for longer than the USA has existed.
    - scottLobster 9mo ago
      Not to be that guy, but if the majority of sightings coming from nations capable of producing advanced military aircraft... well perhaps the aliens thought the F-15 was badass and wanted a closer look?
      - ErroneousBosh 9mo ago
        You know when you pass a nice classic car reeeeally slowly so you can get a good look? Aw yeah, don't see many of those, do you?
      - nephihaha 9mo ago
        US sightings get publicised best due to the nature of international media (wide distribution of US films, TV and books)... But there certainly are other places claiming to see them. There are a lot of supposed sightings in Chile for example, which doesn't have a huge air force.
ckozlowski 9mo ago
Oh, I feel this. As a pre-teen, I loved it. SETI@Home running on our family's Pentium 100, X-Files, and hanging out on the "Parascope" forum and chatroom on AOL for all things UFO related. An "I Want To Believe" poster on my wall. I've (thankfully) moved on past that, but I look back at that with nostalgia.
- scottLobster 9mo ago
  Same here, you either move past it or go crazy, if the UFO subreddits are any indication. Given the population was already obsessed with blurry clumps of pixels in short video clips, AI is going to send a lot of those people into trailers in the desert with a lifetime supply of aluminum foil. And now that we have mass-produced hyper-maneuverable quad-copter drones, the whole "it moved backward in a way that no aircraft ever could!" doesn't really hit as hard.
  - _DeadFred_ 9mo ago
    My current UFO conspiracy brain is that the UAP makers want Greenland as their home, and the US wants to get the benefits of that. Because that would be less crazy to me than what it's really about.
    - nooflare 9mo ago
      This is probably the reason | except the UAP makers are now us

losthobbies 9mo ago

When conspiracies were a bit more fun. Anyone else collect The X-Factor partworks magazine? I used to love reading it.

x187463 9mo ago
Of all the current US conspiracy theories, the UFO/UAP conspiracy is still the most interesting and fully developed/ongoing conspiracy space. Just check out the recent 'Age of Disclosure' documentary from this year. I'm not arguing a position on the theory, just saying it's very active and has the old-school qualities that were present in the 90's.
- lagniappe 9mo ago
  It's not a conspiracy anymore
  - thatguy0900 9mo ago
    I'd really like to see it disclosed by a government that isn't panicking about epstein files/being impeached and trying to cover up other stories before I'm fully convinced
    - pixl97 9mo ago
      I mean this is a meta-conspiracy in itself. I don't think you're incorrect/wrong, but using one conspiracy theory to hide a conspiracy with lots of evidence is interesting.
    - nephihaha 9mo ago
      I would be more interested in the former USSR or China, maybe Iran and Latin America. The Eastern Bloc must have covered up a lot of stuff but would have wild stories.
- RajT88 9mo ago
  There's some genuinely weird shit unexplained, I'll give you that. Unlike Bigfoot, where you can look at a map of the historical range of bears and see it exactly matches where all the Bigfoot sightings are.
  - nephihaha 9mo ago
    People claim to see Bigfoot creatures in the Mississippi Delta and Florida... Even Scotland. None of these are much noted for their bears.
    - Jtsummers 9mo ago
      > the Mississippi Delta and Florida... Even Scotland. None of these are much noted for their bears. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_black_bear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_black_bear The US South has bears.
    - RajT88 9mo ago
      There are some outliers (like Hawaii, or the 2 sightings in my local forest preserve) which cannot be bears, but what you will find is there is way more bear populations wandering around than you realize. The trend is pretty clear.
      - nephihaha 9mo ago
        People claim to see these things in Australia and New Zealand. Not many bears round there. I don't count koalas in Oz as bears.
        ninninninnin 9mo ago
        You forget about drop bears
  - Bratmon 9mo ago
    I dunno. I think the fact that these sightings are always from sleep deprived individuals describing things at the far end of their range of detection (whether that's 5 miles away with the Mk 1 eyeball or 500 miles away with classified superradar) suggests a pretty clear pattern.
- steve1977 9mo ago
  IMHO, the whole social/psychological aspect of the "conspiracy" or phenomenom or whatever you want to call it is at least as interesting as the phenomenon itself.
- nephihaha 9mo ago
  Pilots from the Eastern Bloc and NATO countries have had sightings. It's not just a US thing. People have been claiming to see them for longer than the USA has existed.
  - scottLobster 9mo ago
    Not to be that guy, but if the majority of sightings coming from nations capable of producing advanced military aircraft... well perhaps the aliens thought the F-15 was badass and wanted a closer look?
    - ErroneousBosh 9mo ago
      You know when you pass a nice classic car reeeeally slowly so you can get a good look? Aw yeah, don't see many of those, do you?
    - nephihaha 9mo ago
      US sightings get publicised best due to the nature of international media (wide distribution of US films, TV and books)... But there certainly are other places claiming to see them. There are a lot of supposed sightings in Chile for example, which doesn't have a huge air force.

ckozlowski 9mo ago

Oh, I feel this. As a pre-teen, I loved it. SETI@Home running on our family's Pentium 100, X-Files, and hanging out on the "Parascope" forum and chatroom on AOL for all things UFO related. An "I Want To Believe" poster on my wall. I've (thankfully) moved on past that, but I look back at that with nostalgia.

scottLobster 9mo ago
Same here, you either move past it or go crazy, if the UFO subreddits are any indication. Given the population was already obsessed with blurry clumps of pixels in short video clips, AI is going to send a lot of those people into trailers in the desert with a lifetime supply of aluminum foil. And now that we have mass-produced hyper-maneuverable quad-copter drones, the whole "it moved backward in a way that no aircraft ever could!" doesn't really hit as hard.
- _DeadFred_ 9mo ago
  My current UFO conspiracy brain is that the UAP makers want Greenland as their home, and the US wants to get the benefits of that. Because that would be less crazy to me than what it's really about.
  - nooflare 9mo ago
    This is probably the reason | except the UAP makers are now us