France Opens Secret UFO Files 379
Radon360 notes that France has become the first country to open its files on UFOs. A new website lists over 1600 sightings dating back to the 1950s.
"The online archives, which will be updated as new cases are reported, catalogues in minute detail cases ranging from the easily dismissed to a handful that continue to perplex even hard-nosed scientists.
Known as OVNIs in French, UFOs have always generated intense interest along with countless conspiracy theories about secretive government cover-ups of findings deemed too sensitive or alarming for public consumption."
Link seems broken (Score:2, Informative)
Does anyone know the correct link?
"France has become the first country..." (Score:5, Informative)
Because Radon360 is a twat.
May 2006:
http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/FreedomOfInform
Dup (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Link seems broken (Score:2, Informative)
"The website itself -- which crashed host servers hours after it was unveiled due to heavy traffic -- is extremely well organized and complete, even including scanned copies of police reports."
Re:Moi (Score:4, Informative)
Donnez une bonne note au parent (there's no literal translation for mod up)
or
Votez pour le parent (implied that it is up)
*Waiting for the freedom fries lovers to mod me down*
Re:Moi (Score:5, Informative)
<Offtopic>Ok, I won't go into how bad that French is...</Offtopic>
It's OVNI for Objets Volants Non-Identifié. But the reason I'm posting is that I wanted to point out that this has been released by CNES, which is kind of like NASA in France. Not quite, as it's more of an educational institution, but it's very similar nonetheless...
A better translation and masters (Score:5, Informative)
Additionally, it's not "secoupe volante" pour rather "soucoupe volante" (flying saucer) (see other comment on parent). And if they wanted to be our masters and already made contact, since they would have the technology to reach us, I guess they'd already be our masters. (well, looking at our politicians' behavior, maybe they already are!
Re:Quit with French bashing already !!! (Score:1, Informative)
By Gary Brecher
The new big thing on the web is all these sites with names like "I Hate
France," with supposed datelines of French military history, supposedly
proving how the French are total cowards. Well, I'm going to tell you guys
something you probably don't want to hear: these sites are total bullshit,
the notion that the French are cowards is total bullshit, and anybody who
knows anything about European military history knows damn well that over the
past thousand years, the French have the most glorious military history in
Europe, maybe the world.
Before you send me more of those death threats, let me finish. I hate Chirac
too, and his disco foreign minister with the blow-dry 'do and the snotty
smile. But there are two things I hate more than I hate the French: ignorant
fake war buffs, and people who are ungrateful. And when an American mouths
off about French military history, he's not just being ignorant, he's being
ungrateful. I was raised to think ungrateful people were trash.
When I say ungrateful, I'm talking about the American Revolution. If you're
a true American patriot, then this is the war that matters. Hell, most of
you probably couldn't name three major battles from it, but try going back
to when you read Johnny Tremaine in fourth grade and you might recall a
little place called Yorktown, Virginia, where we bottled up Cornwallis's
army, forced the Brits' surrender and pretty much won the war.
Well, news flash: "we" didn't win that battle, any more than the Northern
Alliance conquered the Taliban. The French army and navy won Yorktown for
us. Americans didn't have the materiel or the training to mount a combined
operation like that, with naval blockade and land siege. It was the French
artillery forces and military engineers who ran the siege, and at sea it was
a French admiral, de Grasse, who kicked the shit out of the British navy
when they tried to break the siege.
Long before that, in fact as soon as we showed the Brits at Saratoga that we
could win once in a while, they started pouring in huge shipments of
everything from cannon to uniforms. We'd never have got near Yorktown if it
wasn't for massive French aid.
So how come you bastards don't mention Yorktown in your cheap webpages? I'll
tell you why: because you're too ignorant to know about it and too dishonest
to mention it if you did.
The thing that gets to me is why Americans hate the French so much when they
only did us good and never did us any harm. Like, why not hate the Brits?
They're the ones who killed thousands of Americans in the Revolution, and
thirty years later they came back and attacked us again. That time around
they managed to burn Washington DC to the ground while they were at it. How
come you web jerks never mention that?
Sure, the easy answer is because the Brits are with us now, and the French
aren't. But being a war buff means knowing your history and respecting it.
Well, so much for ungrateful. Now let's talk about ignorant. And that's what
you are if you think the French can't fight: just plain ignorant.
Appreciation of the French martial spirit is just about the most basic way
you can distinguish real war nerds from fake little teachers'pets.
Let's take the toughest case first: the German invasion, 1940, when the
French Army supposedly disgraced itself against the Wehrmacht. This is the
only real evidence you'll find to call the French cowards, and the more you
know about it, the less it proves. Yeah, the French were scared of Hitler.
Who wasn't? Chamberlain, the British prime minister, all but licked the
Fuhrer's goosesteppers, basically let him have all of Central Europe,
because Britain was terrified of war with Germany. Hell, Stalin signed a
sweetheart deal with Hitler out of sheer terror, and Stalin wasn't a man who
scared easy.
The French were scared, all right. But they had reason to be
Re:its a matter of point of view (Score:4, Informative)
Equation: N = R* fp ne fl fi fc L
This is followed by an explanation of the 'variables' and the sentence "Most of these have not altered to any significant degree since that conference in 1961."
Wow! Talk about disingenuous. fp is changing as we get new pictures. Planetary systems are thought common instead of fairly rare as in '61. The rest are a joke.
ne (planets suitable for life) - unknown, we can't examine the small planets yet.
fl (planets with life) - unknown, we can't examine the small planets yet.
fi (those with intelligence) - unknowable.
fc (those with radio) - unknowable.
L (lifetime of advanced races)- unknowable.
Lessee, that's five of seven that are unknown and three of those cannot in any reasonable stretch of the imagination even be known. Great equation.
Well, they follow that with a lame caveat:
"Values for some of these parameters are, of course, open to considerable disagreement..."
Following that are the explanations for the current set of values. This is filled with such gems as (for fi and fc) "however many researchers of the topic agree 0.01". First, there are no researchers on this topic. Research cannot be done on this topic. What the author means is "however, many geeks during parlor talk fervently believe that 0.01". Not the same thing as science. Not a value to be used in anything but a parlor game.
L is another good example. They're just using the length of our civilization with nukes. That's right. They consider us to be the average for the lifetime of advanced civilizations. Our one known example is used to average a galaxies worth of possible civilizations. Utter drek.
This is what happens when dried scientists try to get sexy with parlor talk.
Re:French Response (Score:3, Informative)
Re:French Response (Score:2, Informative)
Bullshit! Do you think that the Russians would have stopped at Germany if allied troops hadn't already liberated their empire in the West? It was only when the Nazis started losing on the Eastern Front that the US realised they had to act before communism overran the whole of mainland Europe. You were acting purely from self interest - not that there's anything wrong with that, but don't think there was anything different between US actions in WW2 and French actions in the 18th century.
Re:Moi (Score:3, Informative)
French fries are long and thin, chips (in England) are thicker and shorter.
Here in the US the thick ones are often called "steak fries."
Here in Australia you get a strange crossover between British and American English, and so chips can mean either crisps or fries depending on context.
Actually depending on where you go in the US chips can mean anything, within a restaurant context. Often, ordering "chips" in an Anglophile/English-style pub/restaurant will result in something like what other restaurants call "steak fries." Some restaurants will give you freshly fried "potato chips" which are basically what you call "crisps." Nevertheless, what you get when you order "french fries" varies widely as well. "French Fries" are supposed to be fried julienne potatoes which is where the name comes from ("frenched" being slang at one time for julienne), but most fast food places serve what used to be called "shoestring potatoes" instead (incidentally, shoestring potatoes also are, or at least were, available dried and canned).
It gets even more confusing when you throw in "home fries" and "hash browns." To some people the two are the same, and in any case ordering either could result in a heap of grated, fried, salted potatos, a heap of diced fried potatoes, a fried potato patty with the consistency of a "tater tot" (often oblong shaped), or some variation on the theme. I am sure someone else will point to a variety of "tater tot" interpretations. At least we're consistent enough to almost always use potato in these dishes, unlike with some other foods (like Caesar Salad, which is a whole other contentious discussion which may or may not involved anchovies).
Food in the US is weird, partially because of the many influences, immigrants, and rampant individualism coupled with inventiveness. As an aside, when hosting dinner for mobsters from New York and Boston simultaneously, don't serve clam chowder unless you want to clean up blood. Then again, I guess serving the Manhattan style would do nicely for that problem.