Was the Pentagon's UFO Study Led by a Crackpot? (science.org) 121
Black Parrot (Slashdot reader #19,622) shared this report from ScienceInsider:
When the U.S. government released a much-anticipated report on UFOs a year ago, many were perplexed that it couldn't explain 143 of the 144 sightings it examined. (In the single closed case, the report concluded the mystery object was a large, deflating balloon.) "Where are the aliens?" cracked one headline.
The truth was still out there. So was any sense of who had conducted the analysis, because the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which released the study, provided no details about who had investigated the cases. Last week, however, a former Department of Defense astrophysicist and reality TV personality named Travis Taylor asserted that he was the 'chief scientist' for the congressionally mandated study. The revelation shocked UFO skeptics in the science community. They note that Taylor has made extraordinary claims during TV appearances, including to have "seen more UFOs than I can count," and that he's been tracked by supernatural entities that caused his car and appliances to malfunction....
In fact, Taylor did serve in a lead role with the government's Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) Task Force, which produced 2021's fuzzy UFO report, Pentagon spokesperson Susan Gough confirmed to ScienceInsider. But Taylor was "informally referred to ... as the chief scientist as efforts to assemble a larger team were underway," and it was not a full-time position. (Taylor did not respond to requests for comment....)
Taylor's critics are simply astonished by what they call his antiscientific embrace of the supernatural — and the Pentagon's willingness to work with him. "I'm starting to see why [the government's] task force was so unsuccessful in identifying its Unidentified Aerial Phenomena!" wrote Robert Sheaffer, a UFO skeptic and author, on his blog.
The truth was still out there. So was any sense of who had conducted the analysis, because the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which released the study, provided no details about who had investigated the cases. Last week, however, a former Department of Defense astrophysicist and reality TV personality named Travis Taylor asserted that he was the 'chief scientist' for the congressionally mandated study. The revelation shocked UFO skeptics in the science community. They note that Taylor has made extraordinary claims during TV appearances, including to have "seen more UFOs than I can count," and that he's been tracked by supernatural entities that caused his car and appliances to malfunction....
In fact, Taylor did serve in a lead role with the government's Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) Task Force, which produced 2021's fuzzy UFO report, Pentagon spokesperson Susan Gough confirmed to ScienceInsider. But Taylor was "informally referred to ... as the chief scientist as efforts to assemble a larger team were underway," and it was not a full-time position. (Taylor did not respond to requests for comment....)
Taylor's critics are simply astonished by what they call his antiscientific embrace of the supernatural — and the Pentagon's willingness to work with him. "I'm starting to see why [the government's] task force was so unsuccessful in identifying its Unidentified Aerial Phenomena!" wrote Robert Sheaffer, a UFO skeptic and author, on his blog.
Yes. (Score:2)
Yes it was. Fucking obviously, you morons.
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Well. It wasn't. A crackpot said he did, but the Pentagon said he didn't. So who knows.
But it isn't that obvious :)
Technology (Score:3)
Re:Technology (Score:5, Insightful)
Weird. Needs more investigation.
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I think it would be safe to assume that anyone with the technology to travel interstellar and possibly faster than light would also have sufficient biotechnology to appear human at a relevant visual or even more invasive check and/or is capable of hiding from any sensor we could use.
In other words, if you really "want to believe", the only thing left is that the alien sightings we have are the cases where their technology failed for some reason.
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Depends on their motivation and legal system. Could be that they want to study us in our "natural habitat". Could also be that interstellar law dictates that you must not interfere with privimitives because they're not ready for the idea that they ain't the badass mofo they think they are.
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You may be onto something, but I think it's worse than that [youtube.com].
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I believe reports of both are falling because the aliens have integrated themselves into our society. As gastroenterologists.
That reminds me, it's been five years, I need to schedule my next anal probing...
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No, you cannot detect something passively collecting light.
If you know specific characteristics of a light collection apparatus, you can look for that, but light collection apparatuses come in infinite varieties, so a sensor in the general sense is quite impossible.
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So they are only being seen when they want to be seen or when they're fucking up, and most these UAP video clips show clear evidence of at least one of those two things being true.
That is supposed to be a secret! You're going to get us all in trouble! You know that if the Galactic Grand Inquisitor finds out you guys know that stuff he'll destroy us all!
I think we're safe though. He doesn't browse Slashdot anymore.
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It's also possible that being detected or not detected isn't a consideration to the aliens, but we're only able to detect them in areas where we coincidentally have tons of sophisticated monitoring equipment, eyeballs continually scanning the skies, very high vantage points, and areas where we don't expect any other craft to be located. All of these conditions are met on naval ships and in military aircraft over water.
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Any alien species advanced enough to visit earth, would also be advanced enough to avoid detection.
That's quite the assumption.
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would also be advanced enough to avoid detection.
And how would that work? Sorry, get a book about physics. Start with the basics.
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I'm not advanced enough to know how to do it. :)
But frankly, compared to faster-than-light travel, the technology of bending light around myself so I become invisible seems to be considerably easier to accomplish. And considering that both may have their root in the control of artificial gravity, they may even be related.
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the technology of bending light around myself so I become invisible seems to be considerably easier to accomplish
For that to work you would need to be an incredible small and dense black hole.
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True, in theory. But who am I to dictate what an advanced civilization may or may not have, technology-wise?
I frankly don't know if that's possible. 200 years ago, people would have told you you're nuts if you said that you think man can build a flying contraption, or that it's possible to go to the moon. In 200 years, it's likely we have technology that we consider impossible today. As long as there isn't a natural law contradicting it, I could hardly find a reason why it shouldn't be possible.
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As long as there isn't a natural law contradicting it, I could hardly find a reason why it shouldn't be possible.
All natural laws we know: are contradicting it.
man can build a flying contraption, or that it's possible to go to the moon. In 200 years, it's likely we have technology that we consider impossible today.
At that time, people did not know about natural laws, or only a niche Clique did (like Newton or Leibnitz).
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Maybe not. Given what we know of physics, they would probably have to get here the slow way (no warp drive) which likely means fusion reactors, or at least some kind of reaction based drive. It's pretty difficult to hide those, especially when they are pointed towards the destination in a braking manoeuver.
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Ah yes, the Ancient Aliens ruse. Are that guy with the electric hair on one of Disney's pathetic "science" channels? A typical argument from him: See that part human depicted on this 6000 weathered rock with the bulbous head...definitely an alien, no doubt about it.
So you believe the crackpot... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why are we taking this nut at his word? Do you believe him when he says he was stalked by UFOs or whatever the hell his claim was? If not, why believe him when he says the pentagon appointed him the lead "scientist" in this investigation?
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Also, consider this: our government is known to be prone to misinformation and distraction psyops, and these have been repeatedly proven to be highly effective in drawing the attention of the media and the wack-jobs who'd otherwise be making shit up about geopolitics.
Seems to cut both ways if you bother to think about it, which is usually the case with completely ignorant speculation.
Oh, oh, I know this one! (Score:2)
Answer (Score:2)
is definitely yes.
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The answer is definitely aliens.
Yeah, I know, I'll get a haircut...
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Ok there is a vocal portion of the the public wants us to study UFO's. So who amongst you would want to lead this study?
The sane and rational folks, realize that would be a career ending job for them, all decline.
The nutjob who thinks he can be the one to show the world there are UFO out there, which will give us advanced technology, cure all our problems, and find all the INCELs out there and get them laid by hot alien women. Would jump on this, as he would be a Hero to the world!
Rubbish! (Score:3)
I'm sure it's very easy to count the number of UFOs he's seen. 143 that we know of.
I get that he's a crackpot who believes aliens fly around our atmosphere, but since UFO literally just means Unidentified Flying Object, one that's impossible to identify remains a UFO, and the one they did, is no longer a UFO.
Re:Rubbish! (Score:4, Informative)
"I get that he's a crackpot who believes aliens fly around our atmosphere"
That does not make him a crackpot. There are no shortage of scientists who believe there is other life out there with various level of qualification on the statement. If having beliefs without conclusive evidence alone makes a crackpot all scientists with any sort of religion, including atheists are crackpots. Further, there are entire fields of science, even physical science, where we don't have the ability to experiment conclusively due to practical limitations including geology. So everyone who credits the conclusions of those fields, also crackpots.
No, if you want to brand him as a crackpot he needs to actually reach scientific conclusions without evidence. I've never heard of Dr. Travis Taylor doing that. He has appeared on some history channel/discovery programs like the "Secret of the Skinwalker Ranch" but I never saw him claim anything to be the result of the supernatural or aliens let alone heard of him publishing anything of the sort. He will toss them a bone and say 'If you want a totally crazy possibility, it could be...'
Dr. Taylor has worked on various programs for the Department of Defense and NASA for the past two decades. He is currently working on several advanced propulsion concepts, very large space telescopes, space-based beamed energy systems, next generation space launch concepts, He is a licensed Professional Engineer in Alabama.
Bachelor's Electronics Engineering (Auburn University)
Master's Physics (UoA Huntsville)
Master's Aerospace Engineering (UoA Huntsville)
PhD Optical Science and Engineering (UoA Huntsville)
PhD Aerospace Systems Engineering (UoA Huntsville)
Master's Astronomy (University of West Sydney)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
This is actually a terrific appointment. A Government (at least contractor) through-and-through guy on a half-dozen projects/programs for NASA/DoD, double PhD, who moonlights as a scifi author and has been on the Ancient Aliens TV program. If he says "I dunno. Beats me." on 143/144 of the UFOs - its like "You got some other guy who has a more qualified opinion?". If someone was gonna say "Aliens, and you guys gotta believe me", it was him. And he didn't.
I don't get the
Sensible maskirovka (Score:5, Interesting)
The Pentagon has black programs no one outside those programs has a "need to know" about until (like F-117) they go public.
Instead of fielding constant questions from irate crackpots it makes more sense to embrace them, entertain them then keep working on stuff that matters. It being impossible to pry loons off any variety of religion the smart play is humor them as they choose to deserve.
When F-117 maintainers were allowed to openly PCS to public programs like F-16 they had droll stories to tell about "UFO" sightings of their aircraft. Far more advanced gear than those fossils would of course have been built and concealing them by obfuscation is a harmless way to amuse wackjobs.
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Pretty much this.
UFO stories of the 1950s to 70s with the "men in black" and all that shit usually revolved around radioactive stuff in the "UFOs", which would make sense in terms of secret technology projects of the time but very little in terms of advanced propulsion technology. Hell, that kind of propulsion technology wouldn't even be considered advanced today, let alone by a civilization that mastered FTL drives.
In the 80s, UFO sightings and pictures became much more triangular and generally F-117 shape
what about really good pictures? (Score:2)
Carl Sagan .... (Score:3)
wrote a book where he talks about the scientific method and goes into great detail trying to explain it in layman's terms. He expresses concern with all of the incorrect things people believe in that have no basis in science like the power of crystals, or witchcraft. Interestingly, he also mentions UFOs in all of this. (As the guy who hosted the Cosmos series for all those seasons, it seems a little odd that he was so confident about dismissing the idea that people on Earth might have ever seen alien visitors from other planets.)
But as time goes on, I'm increasingly convinced he might have been right on that one? I was in the "I want to believe" camp for most of my life. The universe just seems too vast to assume we're the ONLY life-forms out there. But I feel like one by one, the people with the most convincing or elaborate UFO stories are proving to be frauds. (I wasted too much of my time reading Timothy Good's "Above Top Secret" book, for example. Then, I started reading all the investigating people did into the man and his claimed credentials. None of it added up in any way, shape or form.) Some of the last credible shreds of UFO stories come from these military sightings and investigations, simply because people trust them to report such things with the background of classified knowledge of what should be in our airspace at a given time. They've presumably got the best possible surveillance tools at their disposal to watch and track this type of activity too. And, the military is flying a lot of planes so they'd be more likely to encounter a UFO than most of us on the ground. But here again, we're seeing their reports can't be trusted either.
I don't think it's possible to PROVE alien life DOESN'T exist... but it's starting to look like believing in it is like believing in any given religion. There's little to go on but one's own faith that it's indeed so.
Re:Carl Sagan .... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not talking about levitating shit. I'm not talking about impractical shit.
I'm talking about claims of things that are denying basic conservation of momentum. This tells me that it's more likely that those who claim to see them are unaware of that law, and the consequences of it being broken.
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I don't think believing that aliens exist (which I'm near-certain they must) means you must believe the astronomically unlikely event of them crossing interstellar distances to break the most basic laws of physics within our atmosphere.
Exactly. One could rationally believe the former is likely while they latter is not.
I'm not talking about levitating shit. I'm not talking about impractical shit.
That's just it. The kooks argue because we can't do impractical shit it must be an aliens. And if someone comes forward and says, "Hey, I faked that..." or "That was out then super secret F-1000X..." they're either liars that need to be debunked or part of the coverup.
I'm talking about claims of things that are denying basic conservation of momentum. This tells me that it's more likely that those who claim to see them are unaware of that law, and the consequences of it being broken.
This is /. We always talk about breaking laws as a normal way of doing things. Why should conservation of momentum be any different?
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Why should conservation of momentum be any different?
Because Noether's theorum. It's alright to be skeptical of things, but the conservation laws are mathematical derivations of simple factual invariances. If they're breakable, this universe doesn't hold together without some magic God glue or some such. Taking aim at conservation laws should be the very, very, very last place you go to try to explain something unexplainable. And even then, if you got there, it's because you didn't look hard enough for other explanations.
Maybe it's an educational shortcomin
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Why should conservation of momentum be any different?
Because Noether's theorum. It's alright to be skeptical of things, but the conservation laws are mathematical derivations of simple factual invariances. If they're breakable, this universe doesn't hold together without some magic God glue or some such. Taking aim at conservation laws should be the very, very, very last place you go to try to explain something unexplainable. And even then, if you got there, it's because you didn't look hard enough for other explanations. Maybe it's an educational shortcoming that leads us to shit like this. I don't know. Too many people are "open-minded" to the kookery.
I think you missed the sarcasm in my last sentence.
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I know you were kidding. That was for the benefit of any dingbats reading.
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No- I didn't, lol. I know you were kidding. That was for the benefit of any dingbats reading.
All good. Too bad the dingbats will miss your point...
Re:Carl Sagan .... (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't think merely being open to the possibility Aliens could exist or could have found something we've missed makes Dr. Travis Taylor a crackpot either. The man isn't going around trying to publish something to that effect or reaching any such conclusion scientifically. When he appears for Discovery or History to look at more sketchy subjects he makes good TV by entertaining out there possibilities but he doesn't claim they are true.
For example, in the latest season of Skinwalker ranch he found the three main 'hotspot' locations to have high magnetic readings in an aerial survey, pushed for drilling and found a layer or rare earth and semiconductive materials as well as evidence of an underground river. Follow-up testing showed extremely high ground conductivity with the ability to run a fair amount of current from a car battery to power a light. After disconnecting the battery the light continued to stay on. He determined that was likely to be the result of layers of conductive and insulating material acting 'sort of like a battery' or capacitor as the case may be. His best guess for the unusual layer of elements after investing was a meteor strike he was able to identify hit that location approximately 11 millions years ago.
Combined with the quartz content on the mountain at that location I think he is homing in on a perfectly mundane explanation for the anomalies at the ranch. He told the owner 'If you want some completely out there, crazy possibility, I suppose alien's could be interested in the location to use it in some way to charge spacecraft.' I don't see that as a crackpot saying 'this is an alien charging station.' I just see a somewhat shady willingness to let them think they heard that so he can continue investigating.
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You've found yourself staying up at night pondering the plausibility of the Pyramids being an extraterrestrial communication device.
Come on, dude.
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ME: "Combined with the quartz content on the mountain at that location I think he is homing in on a perfectly mundane explanation for the anomalies at the ranch."
YOU: "You know how to do a squatch call, don't you?"
Not exactly an objective tone to this line of inquiry.
Given your reference to them I suspect you know how to do one as well. It goes something like this, step 1: hear someone yelling in the woods OR get bored and yell into a valley in the woods. Step 2: if you've heard a yell in response pretend i
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Not exactly an objective tone to this line of inquiry.
Nor was it intended to be.
The "anomalies" at the Ranch are fucking bullshit. Some quartz content in the mountain isn't causing them.
What you are doing, is taking some perfectly normal things- high conductivity soil, waving your hands, and saying "well that explains the UFOs!"
It's misuse of science and the unknown to explain the stupid.
Again I say:
Come on, dude.
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'What you are doing, is taking some perfectly normal things- high conductivity soil, waving your hands, and saying "well that explains the UFOs!"'
Yup, you take perfectly normal things and when you have enough data and test a few hypothesis you almost certainly end with a perfectly normal explanation which identifies the UFOs... leaving behind mundane and explained FOs.
Something he apparently was tasked with doing as the temporary acting chief scientist on a government program for doing exactly that.
It sound
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Yup, you take perfectly normal things and when you have enough data and test a few hypothesis you almost certainly end with a perfectly normal explanation which identifies the UFOs... leaving behind mundane and explained FOs.
That's an outright falsehood.
Every location on this earth has peculiarities. The goal for this show is to take the peculiarities here and equate them to UFOs with precisely zero scientific linkage.
The logic leap is: Well, the ground has high conductivity, therefor... ancient alien civilization.
I watched the fucking video. Quit trying to lend credibility to that intelligence destroying filth.
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Look, all of what you say is correct, IF space-time is fundamental to our Universe. Which it seems that it is not. And that's not coming from crackpots, but actual physicist and mathematicians, many of them renowned. It is early days in this research, less than 20 years old. If they are on the right path, it might take several decades until the rest of science catches up. Quite an interesting consequence of space-time not being fundamental is that even our theory if mind and consciousness should be re-evalu
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May as well be researching the aether.
Any physical theory that allows, and I quote, "Everything, everywhere, all at once" is doomed to fail, because the Universe could not exist under such a regime.
The reason for this is simple: The universe contains energy regimes both lower than man will ever be able to achieve, and greater.
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Think about it: Of course there is life out there somewhere. Of course, there is likely "intelligent" life out there somewhere. If I were a betting man, I would bet that, in this galaxy, there have been more than 3 other major intelligent life forms that started millions (maybe billions, unlikely) of "years" earlier than humans.
My understanding of spacetime tells me it is unlikely "they" have ever been to the planet Earth. My understanding of entropy suggests that they no longer exist. My understanding of "
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What are you smoking?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Not knowing specifically what cancer killed Sagan, I found out while googling what this person has.
It's rare, but not that rare.
According to Entrope (Score:2)
Oblig. Mick West (Score:3)
Not a crackpot, an alien (Score:2)
It was an alien, trying to cause doubt in people's minds. By making it appear unbelievable, the alien is covering his tracks and obeying the Prime Directive.
The "U" means something. (Score:2)
So many people and groups forget that the "U" is "Unidentified". Either "Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon" or "Unidentified Flying Object".
Once someone identifies it, it stops being unidentified.
Unidentified doesn't mean little green men. It doesn't mean the creatures in a blockbuster film. It doesn't mean flying saucers, visitors from another planet, time travelers, or abductions. It doesn't mean conspiracy and coverup, Men in Black, or military secrets. It means unidentified.
There are many explanations t
"seen more UFOs than I can count" (Score:4, Funny)
Two? Three?
I hope so! (Score:2)
Two? Three?
Two jokes, and this was the less feeble?
Anyway, the new Subject was the joke I was searching for (wtuAtO-WK), but there was no "hope" here.
In Other Words (Score:2)
Government didn't want it investigated and they wanted it discredited when it was released because it wasn't done by anyone with any credibility.
Also anyone with any credibility doesn't want to touch it because they will be called crackpots and it will end their career. So much for an "Independent Presidential Investigation" to uncover the "truth". Truth is there are more lies.
Should of known the whole thing would be bogus and we'll never get any real answers. It will remain unknowable - at least in th
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What do you think the investigations would uncover?
Historically, most UFO's have been identified. Back in the 1950's when pilots, military observers, and scientific observers were getting decent video, about 70% were identifiable, 10% were insufficient information, about 20% still unknown. [wikipedia.org]
As covered in the congressional hearings and tons of TV shows and documentaries, today when we have better image processing data, and multiple overlapping recording systems people are able to identify over 99% of them. B
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What do you think the investigations would uncover?
I don't know, however it would be good to begin *any* investigation with sincerity. What I do know is a lie when I see one.
Call them as "truth" and "lies" seems like you've already reached conclusions about what you think they are.
I used to think it was the military covering up espionage missions with a UFO story. Now with spy satelites and drone aircraft it's unreasonable to believe that military image processing technology isn't significantly more advanced than what civilians use today with a much greater opportunity to capture images. Yet none of that is ever included.
I said It will remain unknowable that
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Satellite imagery has inherent physical limits. There's a reason that drone surveillance and even Google just use airplanes for detailed map imagery for the most part.
To get drone footage of something, you'd have to have a drone in the air nearby as it's happening, and that's no different to having a military plane in the air nearby as it's happening.
In fact, those are the most common source of UFO footage, and it's ALWAYS zoomed in so far or of such poor quality as to be entirely unidentifiable. Because
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So what?
Unidentified Arial Phenomenon are operating in our skies, no one denies they exist anymore, the question has become "What are they?". Government don't know what they are so clearly they are not in control of the airspace above us otherwise their report would able to tell us what they are.
These are simple facts.
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Unidentified Arial Phenomenon "are operating in our skies"
That's not a fact. It's an hyperbolic mis-interpretation of what a "phenomenon" might mean, and couple with the word "unidentified" is nothing but conjecture.
"no one denies they exist anymore,"
Deny WHAT exactly exist? Unconfirmed sightings of "unidentified aerial phenomena"? Nobody denies THOSE exist. What are they suddenly not denying exists any more?
" the question has become "What are they?"
"become"? The question's "become" that? Since when?
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Unidentified Arial Phenomenon "are operating in our skies"
That's not a fact. It's an hyperbolic mis-interpretation of hyperbole, conjecture, and just outright bullshit.
It's all hyperbole... not simple facts.
It's valid to ask if you know what "Hyperbole" means.
nothing but conjecture.
So the Air Force is releasing "conjecture"?
You know what at least some percentage of those reports are? Tricks of the light. Confused pilots. Reflections from windows and sensors. Misinterpretation of the scene. Even hallucinations.
Pilots flying passenger jets with hundreds of people on board? These people with thousands of hours training and experience, millions of dollars worth of equipment? Pilots, their co-pilots as well and people in control of nuclear weapons all suffer from these symptoms if they see something unidentified whilst on duty. All of them?
That's what you're asking me to believe?
And precisely ZERO percent of them fall into alien-shit, by the way.
Sounds like hyperbolic conjecture. I
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ledow was, I believe, characterizing *your* statements as hyperbole; and I agree with him, although I'll put it a little differently. You wrote:
"Unidentified Arial Phenomenon are operating in our skies"
What is true in your sentence: There are Unidentified Aerial [not 'arial'] Phenomena [not 'phenomenon', which is singular].
What is IMO false in your sentence: That these UAP are *operating*. "Operating" means that they're some kind of machine. It is not at all clear that any of them are machines, whether m
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What is IMO false in your sentence: That these UAP are *operating*. "Operating" means that they're some kind of machine.
"Operating" means they have been observed changing speed, direction and altitude which implies they are being "operated". I don't know *what* is being operated any more than I know *what* it is operated by.
The report to find out *what*, mandated by a US President, is bogus and was set up to fail from the beginning as is evident from the credibility of who wrote it.
And he's quite right.
Again - So what? You don't need to read the serial number on these things to see them perform maneuvers way beyond the capability of an
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God's hair color. How many testicles sasquatch has.
You'll get over it.
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You'll get over it.
Yeah - if they stop going on about it I can go back to not caring anymore.
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I'm sorry but what - if anything - did you think that even a 100% totally honest investigation would reveal about these things?
I'm honestly interested to know what you think you'd find if we put, say, you in charge of it.
Beyond blurry photos of things you can't identify and tall-tales that nobody has any supporting data of (e.g. "it was faster than any jet!!!!" etc.).
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I'm sorry but what - if anything - did you think that even a 100% totally honest investigation would reveal about these things?
I don't know.
I'm honestly interested to know what you think you'd find if we put, say, you in charge of it.
I don't know.
Beyond blurry photos of things you can't identify and tall-tales that nobody has any supporting data of (e.g. "it was faster than any jet!!!!" etc.).
I don't know, however I would communicate the things that prevented me from finding out.
Is that a trick question? (Score:2)
Was there ever a UFO "study" that was not led by a crackpot?
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Not when your definition is circular.
What better way to discredit a study (Score:2)
then by putting a discredited person in charge?
Well... (Score:2)
I wouldn't call Mulder a "crackpot", but he really was obsessed with UFOs.
Data Point (Score:2)
In Fiction, Fox Mulder was also derided as a crackpot. That didn't make him qualified or unqualified, in fiction, to perform investigations. It did color the believability of the results.
Life imitates art.
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He was about as good at solving mysteries as Inspector Gadget. The bumbling guy just stumbles into the right place at the right time and Penny/Scully do the actual hard work.
(1) not a lot of cases, (2) not a lot of crazies (Score:2)
(1) Why would you expect that an investigation of things on the "unidentified" list would suddenly find some way to identify them? Leaving a bunch of them unidentified doesn't strike me as some smoking gun of insanity, it's more or less what I'd excect.
The number of cases here is not exactly large: 144 in, 143 out.
(2) Recruiting people to work on this can't possibly easy, so of course one of the first takers was one of the crazies And the entire point of doing the investigation is to try to shut up s
Second Verse Same As The First (Score:2)
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> Project Bluebook famously dismissed most sightings as "Swamp Gas."
It did nothing of the sort. The Condon Committee's reports on the Bluebook records are available online:
https://files.ncas.org/condon/
Go ahead and read them. They even have a search function. No form of "swamp gas" appears anywhere that I can find.
The only case I'm aware of where "swamp gas" was *ever* proposed was by J. Allen Hynek in 1966. He was not part of the Condon Committee.
The actual Report basically concludes that if the event o
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There are no Aliens until there are Aliens (Score:2)
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Elvis? Only you can't talk to him any more, Agent K says he went home.
Surprised? (Score:2)
"and the Pentagon's willingness to work with him"
Really? The government is filled with people who just LOVE crackpots. From SRI's spoon-bending to Project Stargate to the First Earth Battalion. They've been paying out for decades.
UFO Study is really a Coverup of Skunkworks proj (Score:2)
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Probably 50/50. Both classified US work, and also just hiding espionage craft by other countries to cover up our inability to prevent it.
Re: Lil' Green Men from Mars... (Score:3)
I mean, Iâ(TM)m not saying heâ(TM)s not a kook, but your argument doesnâ(TM)t stack up. We know for a certainty that we have a *significantly* incomplete knowledge of the laws of physics, especially on a cosmic scale. Youâ(TM)re doing little other than using proof by lack of imagination.
Another source (Score:3)
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We do have an incomplete knowledge, and yes I suspect some of those are most definately not ball lightning, hot air balloons or swamp gas (whatever the fuck thats supposed to be).
HOWEVER, that doesnt mean "We dont know stuff, therefore aliens".
Further what we dont know, we tend to know the outline of that lack of knowledge, or at least we know what we are looking for. Ie we dont know what dark matter is, however we have a pretty solid list of parameters to narrow down the search for it (Ie its not radiation
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or swamp gas (whatever the fuck thats supposed to be).
You don't know what swamp gas is? Methane et al. released from decaying biological material? Have you never been in a swamp? I agree that it is a pretty lame explanation for most supposed UFO sightings, and the origins of reports of swamp lights (ignis fatuus) haven't satisfactorily been tied to it, but swamp gas is hardly something mysterious or unknown.
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Venus was at its peak brilliance last night. You probably thought you saw something up in the sky other than Venus, but I assure you, it was Venus.
Your scientists have yet to discover how neural networks create self-consciousness, let alone how the human brain processes two-dimensional retinal images into the three-dimensional phenomenon known as perception. Yet you somehow brazenly declare seeing is believing? Your scientific illiteracy makes me shudder, and I wouldn't flaunt your ignorance by telling anyo
Re: Lil' Green Men from Mars... (Score:2)
Best episode ever.
Re:Lil' Green Men from Mars... (Score:4, Funny)
just a word of explanation; I moderated this "-1 offtopic" only because "-1 incoherent" wasn't available.
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Ignoring inconvenient facts [hulu.com] (The UFO Phenomenon) doesn't make them go away.
But to address your original point, I agree. In the meantime just add anything EditorDavid shitposts on /. to your killfile.
Re:Lil' Green Men from Mars... (Score:4, Informative)
You have a lot more faith in the government then if you think this got assigned, budgeted and completed in 6 months.
In June of 2020, Senator Marco Rubio added text into the 2021 Intelligence Authorization Act requesting—though not requiring—that the director of National Intelligence, along with the Secretary of Defense, produce “a detailed analysis of unidentified aerial phenomena data and intelligence reporting.” This language, which allowed them a hundred and eighty days to produce the report, drew heavily from proposals by Mellon, and it was clear that this concerted effort, at least in theory, was a more productive and more cost-effective iteration of the original vision for aatip. Mellon told me, “This creates an opening and an opportunity, and now the name of the game is to make sure we don’t miss that open window.”
Still, the former Pentagon official told me, “it wasn’t until August of 2020 that the effort was really real.” That month, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, David Norquist, publicly announced the existence of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, whose report is anticipated in June.
How the Pentagon Started Taking U.F.O.s Seriously [newyorker.com]
Also this is a very good and detailed writeup on the situation.
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As a skeptic, this article was probably written by a nutter, so I'll ignore it