Cont: UFOs: The Research, the Evidence

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Or They Live .

Hmm. I just finished watching This is Spinal Tap and now I am prepared for anything!

 

[arthwollipot]

I seem to recall that Richard Hoagland of Face on Mars infamy claimed that Star Trek and/or Star Wars were government sponsored to acclimate Americans to the idea that aliens are real and will be here Real Soon Now.

People were saying that about The X Files too.

 

[Axxman300]

This topic came up frequently in my old UFO Discussion Group back in the day. There was always a few people who "knew" the government was prepping the population for disclosure by using Hollywood to craft carefully constructed narratives. And being this was in Carmel, California one or two of our members were Hollywood types. They would point out just how had getting a movie and TV show made truly is, and the final product rarely resembles the original concept. But nobody wanted to hear that. Me, I'd point out that 95% of alien contact movies involve the destruction of the human race, and ask how that jibed with their touchy-feely versions of alien visitation.

That said, Close Encounters of the Third Kind is the best researched UFO movie ever made. Spielberg co-wrote the script, and he really did his homework, not just on the lore, but on the nuts and bolts behind what it would take to cover up alien visitation, and all the government agencies, and civilian defense contractors who would be involved in such a project. You see Lockheed and TRW logos everywhere. At one point at Devil's Tower we see special forces searching for Richard Dreyfus, and over the radio you hear them identified as "Blue Light" teams. At the time this movie was made, Blue Light was the precursor to Delta Force, and very classified, and yet Spielberg not only names them, but they are wearing the 5th Special Forces Group flash on their berets, which was Blue Light's parent unit. I still want to know how he knew about them.

 

[Puppycow]

I haven't watched that movie since I was a kid. I should go back and watch it again.

 

[Foster Zygote]

I haven't watched that movie since I was a kid. I should go back and watch it again.

Watched it earlier this year with my son, and it holds up extremely well. One of my favorite scenes is the one early in the film that takes place entirely in an air traffic control tower. All the drama comes from the intensity of the dialogue. The actor playing the main featured ATC had actually been one for several years before becoming an actor, and the realism of that scene is gripping.

 

[Hecubas]

Long time forum lurker here, thought I'd share an unusual take on the UFO topic from the psychology angle. Found this article in my news feed: Why Is No One Talking About the Aliens?

Spoiler: we're just embarrassed to admit they're here.

Gaslighting aside, I'm curious what the author thinks is credible.

 

[Carrot Flower King]

Really, that piece is a load of old nonsense and not even very good psychology, as it makes unfounded assumptions before descending into some pseudoscience-y sounding babble.

Doesn't do much for claims that psychology has a scientific base.

Real reason most folk are not talking about "aliens" and the rest: there is no credible evidence thus far, Fox!

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Makes me wonder what the government was trying to prepare us for with My Mother the Car.

My wife's driving?

 

[Puppycow]

Long time forum lurker here, thought I'd share an unusual take on the UFO topic from the psychology angle. Found this article in my news feed: Why Is No One Talking About the Aliens?

Spoiler: we're just embarrassed to admit they're here.

Gaslighting aside, I'm curious what the author thinks is credible.

She makes it sound like the claims (and the evidence to support them) are more substantial than they actually are. And also that people just dismiss or reject the claims without even scrutinizing them.

History suggests that paradigm-shifting ideas are rarely absorbed in real time. They are resisted, minimized, and slowly normalized only after the psyche has had time to adapt.
Whether current disclosures ultimately withstand scrutiny or not, the public’s muted response reveals something about human nature:
We often resist new ideas, not because we don’t understand them, but because change can be emotionally difficult.

Well, I'm here to tell you that the current disclosures have been scrutinized. There's no there there. It's not because it's "emotionally difficult" to accept. It's because there's always more mundane explanations that not only can't be ruled out, but actually fit the existing body of evidence better than extraterrestrials.
Also:

All of this points to the same unsettling idea: Mankind is not alone in the universe.

The issue is not whether we are "alone in the universe". I don't expect that we are. The issue is that the universe is a very big place and the aliens are probably extremely far away, and we don't know where they are and they don't know where we are. The question is whether there are extraterrestrials here on earth, not whether "Mankind is alone in the universe." And there's just no good evidence to suggest that they are.

 

[JayUtah]

Well, I'm here to tell you that the current disclosures have been scrutinized. There's no there there. It's not because it's "emotionally difficult" to accept.

I’m always skeptical of this when stated nakedly as a premise. The notion that people are emotionally unprepared to receive alien life runs squarely up against the fact that we tell each other stories about it incessantly. It’s one of our most popular things to imagine. That fact that there exist a substantial number of people who want alien visitation to happen and some who believe it already has means there’s no inherent problem with it.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

The issue is not whether we are "alone in the universe". I don't expect that we are. The issue is that the universe is a very big place and the aliens are probably extremely far away, and we don't know where they are and they don't know where we are. The question is whether there are extraterrestrials here on earth, not whether "Mankind is alone in the universe." And there's just no good evidence to suggest that they are.

Yeah, but once you admit the possibility...

 

[jadebox]

I’m always skeptical of this when stated nakedly as a premise. The notion that people are emotionally unprepared to receive alien life runs squarely up against the fact that we tell each other stories about it incessantly. It’s one of our most popular things to imagine. That fact that there exist a substantial number of people who want alien visitation to happen and some who believe it already has means there’s no inherent problem with it.

I don't want to downplay the effects, but in just the past few decades we have seen a coordinated attack on the US, a pandemic, and drastic changes in the way people communicate and access information. But, life pretty much goes on.

I imagine that if proof of intelligent alien life was released tomorrow, by next week people would be back to complaining about the price of a meal at McDonald's and all the other things they normally do.

 

[Puppycow]

I imagine that if proof of intelligent alien life was released tomorrow, by next week people would be back to complaining about the price of a meal at McDonald's and all the other things they normally do.

Yeah. I mean that may be overstating it slightly, but I agree that after the initial period of it being the amazing new thing that everyone is talking about, it would eventually become normalized. For kids that were born with it or grew up with it would take it for granted. Even people like me, who grew up before there were any sort of mobile phones, now find it hard to imagine living without them. The point being, we get used to the "new normal" pretty quickly when things change.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The Ophiuchi Hotline - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Axxman300]

Well, I'm here to tell you that the current disclosures have been scrutinized. There's no there there. It's not because it's "emotionally difficult" to accept. It's because there's always more mundane explanations that not only can't be ruled out, but actually fit the existing body of evidence better than extraterrestrials.

The underlying issue with this current crop of "disclosures" is they disclose nothing. The public has been shown MFOs (Misidentified Flying Objects) recorded on military FLIR cameras from a variety of platforms where the pilots and or observers can't identify what they're seeing, and the videos are sent up the chain to be reviewed by others who can't identify them either, but since they're not hostile they didn't push an investigation. During this same time our military has seen frequent incursions of drones and spy balloons. No attempts to intercept these intruders was taken until we shot down those balloons. But in that lag time a new mythology was created by these incursions.

The next problem is the public has been led to believe government and defense insiders have knowledge of a secret government project involving recovered alien craft. Yet NONE of these insiders has presented evidence. When pressed they claim they cannot reveal classified information, but make these claims in a Congressional forum. This bovine scatology. No one involved in any clandestine activity will discuss ANYTHING in public with people who are not read into the project/operation, nor will they casually mention things. Unlike elected officials, this ends with a lengthy prison sentence. Then there is the very real fact that this is the 21st century, and we have seen Manning-WikiLeaks, Snowden, and Winner steal and then release mountains of secret documents to the public, and we've had two privates upload operating manuals of defense hardware onto a Discord gaming message board. If there was someone who felt the need to come forward they would have done so in spectacular fashion by now. Yet we get nothing of substance, just ghost stories.

Finally, there is the reality of US government/military black projects. Most are self-contained, and stove-piped. These projects are set up carefully, and managed tightly. Nobody casually wanders around Groom Lake, personnel have limited access to only areas where they work. No one walks around outside (not that anyone wants to in that heat), and I imagine there is not much conversation on those JANET flights. Seriously, when was the last time we've seen anything from Groom Lake? No pictures from a hangar, no group photos from the bowling alley. Nothing. What photos we do have are from the OXCART and HAVE BLUE projects, and those are over a half-century old. This speaks not only to the level of security surround black projects, but the commitment of those working in those projects.
Back in the 1980s we heard rumors of secret aircraft flying in the Nevada desert. FIOAs were filed asking for information about the F-19 to which the USAF was quick to respond that there was no F-19. And the lesson here is black project code names are like Rumpelstiltskin, you have to know the name to get information. On the other hand, if someone had filed a FOIA for the F-117 the response was more likely to be a visit from the FBI and DIA wanting to know how you knew to ask about the F-117. So even if there is some black project involving UFO research, nobody who has come forward has yet to name it, nor do they have any direct or indirect knowledge of this program.

My personal opinion is if there is a real black project on UFOs, they're still very much in the dark. They may have some quality imagery and telemetry, but they can't do anything with it. And no, I doubt they have a recovered craft.

 

[theprestige]

The Ophiuchi Hotline - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

That was such a worthless story. The second most important thing in human history (after the conquest of the solar system by inscrutable aliens), and nobody does even the most basic due diligence on the signal and its apparent origin.

Meanwhile, the characters bumble their way through a narrative composed entirely of "and then..." moments worthy of a five year old.

All culminating in "give up, join the interstellar no hope losers' club."

 

[Solitaire]

Garry Nolan Outline Bizarre Conditions For An Interview

Nolan frequently emphasized his belief that UFO skeptics are somehow funded by a bottomless well of money from a shadowy but unnamed group. Ford added that $2 million was “a drop in the bucket” compared to the overall budget of the organizations funding skeptics and debunkers.

Nolan further complained that skeptics and scholars expect him and other ufologists to always be right about the claims they make and lamented that being “wrong” about facts “discredits everything.”

He said that he believes there is no longer any reason to cooperate with mainstream media, which he sees as a tool of anti-UFO propaganda, nor to be interviewed by the mainstream media because they are insufficiently deferential to his credentials and his position as a serious researcher.

He said that he dislikes having his perspective compared to a “garage experimenter” as though they were of equal authority.

Well...

Did he really admit being wrong about the facts discredits his position?

Nah, can't be. The media loves UFO stuff like crazy.