Air Force Pushed Out UFO Investigator (yahoo.com)
- Reference: 0181696394
- News link: https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/26/04/14/013232/air-force-pushed-out-ufo-investigator
- Source link: https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/air-force-asked-man-investigate-170347646.html
> Do you think the U.S. government is hiding, and possibly reverse-engineering, extraterrestrial technology? Think again. Or better yet, don't think about it at all. Nothing to see here. That's the underlying message of a report released in 2024 by the Department of Defense. The 63-page " [4]Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) " concludes that the DoD's All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) "found no evidence that any [U.S. Government] investigation, academic-sponsored research, or official review panel has confirmed that any sighting of a UAP represented extraterrestrial technology."
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> The AARO, as [5] The Guardian summarizes, is "a government office established in 2022 to detect and, as necessary, mitigate threats including 'anomalous, unidentified space, airborne, submerged and transmedium objects.'" This report came on the heels of, and in contradiction to, what was arguably the most [6]high-profile hearing on UAPs -- formerly known as unidentified flying objects, or UFOs -- in decades: the August 2023 testimony of "whistleblower" Dave Grusch.
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> [...] The 2024 AARO report stated that during the time Hynek was working with Project Blue Book [the U.S. Air Force's best-known UFO investigation program], "about 75 percent of Americans trusted the [US government] 'to do the right thing almost always or most of the time.'" But, the report noted, since 2007, that number has never risen above 30 percent. "This lack of trust probably has contributed to the belief held by some subset of the U.S. population that the USG has not been truthful regarding knowledge of extraterrestrial craft."
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> Ultimately, the Air Force's efforts to stifle Hynek -- pressuring him to offer the public standard responses to questions he wasn't even allowed to ask -- appears to have backfired. Ironically, the Air Force's attempts to quiet suspicions only fueled them, leading to more conspiracy theories and distrust. People came to believe that the government was hiding the truth, contrary to Hynek's actual revelation: that, in reality, the people at the top may not care much about finding the answers after all.
[1] https://www.biography.com/scientists/j-allen-hynek
[2] https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/air-force-asked-man-investigate-170347646.html
[3] https://slashdot.org/~schwit1
[4] https://media.defense.gov/2024/Mar/08/2003409233/-1/-1/0/DOPSR-CLEARED-508-COMPLIANT-HRRV1-08-MAR-2024-FINAL.PDF
[5] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/08/pentagon-ufo-report-hiding-aliens
[6] https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/23/06/06/0256235/military-whistleblower-claims-us-has-retrieved-craft-of-non-human-origin
Failure to understand != proof of pet theories (Score:5, Insightful)
JAH thinks that the % of people who don't trust the USG is because "The USG refused to take my theories seriously when I edged my way into the deep end of the pool". That says more than enough about how seriously anyone not wearing a tin foil hat should be taking anything he says. Note to JAH: It's not always about you.
Re: (Score:2)
Although I absolutely agree with you, attempting to control the narrative on - well - just about everything is precisely what the USG has gotten into trouble over, pretty much every year since it was founded.
Although there is absolutely no evidence for aliens, it was important that this conclusion was reached organically by researchers. Paranoia and delusions of "secret knowledge" are the natural result of being told what to think, which means that you ideally want to avoid telling people what to think.
Re: (Score:2)
> ... attempting to control the narrative on - well - just about everything is precisely what the USG has gotten into trouble over ...
But aren't there things it should attempt to control the narrative over, for example undisclosed military weapons programs?
Back in the day, how many triangular UFO sightings were the F-117 Stealth Fighter under development? Shouldn't the USG have lied regarding those?
Re: (Score:2)
It does seem to be a very conspiracist explanation, one man's "evil gummint trying to control the narrative" is another man's "government doesn't understand why it should be employing a crackpot who spends his time creating a lot of work for everyone around them".
Trust no one (Score:4, Funny)
The smoking man always seems to be just one step ahead....
There's Only One Possible Explanation (Score:1)
Aliens
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
What! Illegal aliens!! Does ICE know about this!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
They've bought Trump gold cards. But the joke's on him - it's financed by anal probing his base.
It appears we have run out of real problems.. (Score:1)
I was abducted and probed by aliens. I tried telling this to govt. people. They did not take my claims seriously and think that I am some kind of kook.
Do you need further proof that our govt. is in on the grand conspiracy and is full of corrupt bureaucrats?
Well what would you do (Score:3)
Imagine you are a manager or a CO and you have an employee who keeps spending an enormous amount of time working one something you know is pointless.
You'd tell them to find a more productive use of their time, and if they can't you might tell them to find other employment.
No UFOs. It's American Paranoia. (Score:4, Funny)
Ireland and America have things in common. For one, we don't lock our insane people up. But it seems that every Spaceship visiting earth makes a beeline for North America, and hangs around there looking for notice, or to get chased for fun.
Wake up guys. Maybe if you locked your nutcases up.......
Re:No UFOs. It's American Paranoia. (Score:5, Interesting)
Ireland and Italy and Spain have its share of people who see angels. Oddly the number of UFO sightings and angel sightings are highly concentrated around areas with geological pressure Peltier related electrical oddities. Oddly New England has ghost issues around the similar geology.
Re: (Score:3)
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] [Kids in the Hall]
It is still funny all these years later.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tZar4wRP40
Re: (Score:3)
OK, but that's just the opposite of true. How did you form that conclusion?
The strongest cases are from Zimbabwe, Australia, and Brazil.
The strongest US cases are from Arizona and New Hampshire with very few witnesses and almost no physical evidence.
Re: (Score:2)
I remember seeing a study about schizophrenics. For some reason Americans tend to hear voices that are destructive and violent. In other countries these voices are mischievous. [1]https://news.stanford.edu/stor... [stanford.edu]
[1] https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2014/07/voices-culture-luhrmann-071614
Re:No UFOs. It's American Paranoia. (Score:4, Insightful)
> Wake up guys. Maybe if you locked your nutcases up.......
That's one take, but I don't think it's the most helpful one.
People want to believe (reassuring) fantasies. Religion, for instance. The fantasy that aliens are walking among us is an appealing one. It comes with a side-order of "and some day they may help us with our woes." It comes with a side-order of "we are interesting and valued." It comes with a side-order of "I have figured out things the government is hiding from me."
It's not - in most cases - anything to do with mental illness. It's about the human condition, feeling things like inadequacy and being uncomfortable with responsibility and helplessness. Emotions are not insane, in most cases.
Lock up jihadists (of all sects, not just the ones whose primary languages that word comes from) way before worrying about UFO believers.
Where is the evidence? (Score:3)
In an age when everyone has a high-quality camera in his pocket, how come the only evidence we have of these extra-terrestrial craft are fuzzy blobs?
Re: (Score:2)
Because otherwise you could easily tell it is just a photo of a pie plate.
Re:Where is the evidence? (Score:5, Interesting)
Everybody who says this has never tried filming an aircraft at night with a cell phone. Try it!
NASA has some beautiful 40-inch lenses for filming rocket launches and aerospace tests.
And even those don't resolve much at night too far out. IIRC they weigh about 200 lbs (10 stone for the Europeans). So why doesn't NASA just use an iPhone?
And chemical rockets aren't even accused of using a plasma-envelope gravity drive like some experimental military craft. Even the B2 uses an electric field to minimize turbulent flow (Biefield-Brown -> BB -> B2) and that's 40 years old and public.
If any of these are correct a cell phone is the wrong tool for the job.
Re: (Score:2)
> they weigh about 200 lbs (10 stone for the Europeans).
For the Brits perhaps, most Europeans have no clue about stones. SI has kilos. Rounded it's probably 100 kg.
It's distrust all the way down (Score:2)
> Ironically, the Air Force's attempts to quiet suspicions only fueled them, leading to more conspiracy theories and distrust.
There is some necessary secrecy around military operations, and where there is doubt, it's generally beneficial to err on the side of caution. And this is a reasonable thing to accept unless the whole nation is subservient to the military. And look at where the money goes... it is. But it's not really the military, is it? It's really the corporations which profit from supplying it.
But if your goal is national defense, shouldn't you cap those profits? Not doing so decreases military readiness through overspe
Popular Mechanics and The Guardian? (Score:3)
People take this drivel seriously? Two tabloids of the "Bat Boy has love child with Hillary Clinton's horse" school?
Re: (Score:2)
Can you suggest some sources of alternative facts?
ONI (Score:2)
These projects are all run out of the Office of Naval Intelligence. Remember, they run the F-14 and F-18 program currently and just had a $250M stealth drone shot down over the Eastern Med.
Blue Book was the Air Force poking their node where it didn't belong.
Forming Space Force was an attempt to reconcile this spat.
But a lot of the research happens e.g. off the coast of Puerto Rico. That's where the biggest acknowledged Naval research station is located.
It's why they won't let Puerto Ricans become independe
Obama (Score:2)
Obama said the U.S. does not have any alien technology and had no knowledge of any contact with any alien life forms by the U.S. government ever. No other president has indicated any evidence of alien contact or technology at all. They have no reason to lie.
So unless it is such a big conspiracy that even the president doesn't know...which I doubt...it's nothing more than entertainment and fantasy.
Re: (Score:3)
A former president has every reason to lie. He is not free to share classified information, nor in a position to declassify it.
I think the idea that aliens have (other than perhaps those composed of smallish numbers of cells that perhaps hitched a ride on some meteor) having come to earth is pure fantasy.
However I would consider any former office holder or ranking military officer about the least reliable source on something like that. Even if they had been in a position to know, they'd be the most closely
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
This administration would've leaked it on accident on Signal and then later on purpose on Truth Social by now.
The election of Trump should have ended this (Score:2)
There are loyalists installed at every level of the US government and Trump cannot keep his mouth shut. Case closed.
Air Force Pushed Out UFO Investigator (Score:2)
...out the door at 20,000 feet, I presume?
AARO (Score:2)
There's already far too much evidence showing the real purpose of AARO is to further obfuscate the issue rather than conduct any legit investigations.
I hear there's a position open (Score:2)
The FBI has a position open. You'll get your own office, in the basement, kinda out of the way of everything else. You may be paired with a Special Agent who is supportive but skeptical, who is often surprised to find that there is indeed some surprising element of the supernatural or extraterrestrial at play.
Because they’re demons, duh (Score:2)
Posting a Fox link so the smooth brains will believe it. JD Vance thinks they are demons, not aliens. [1]https://www.foxnews.com/politi... [foxnews.com]
[1] https://www.foxnews.com/politics/jd-vance-says-he-was-obsessed-ufos-believes-aliens-actually-demons.amp
The classic problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
Governments and officials like to control power, information, and behaviour.
In practice, you can tightly control at most one of those. Try to dominate all three, and the other two usually decay into something dysfunctional and ultimately malignant. That is the price of over-centralising everything at once.
If the government had confined itself to power, and the Air Force to discipline and airspace, while allowing researchers to access and assess the evidence properly, we would likely have far fewer delusions and far less paranoia today. Yes, that would have required the Air Force to maintain secrecy through actual competence rather than narrative management, but that discipline would probably have done them a great deal of good. They might even be better able to distinguish fact from fiction now.
Disinfo (Score:4, Interesting)
I think it has less to do with that, and more to do with using UFOs as a disinformation campaign.
Want a cheap way to flush out spies? Leak that we have alien technology, say it's in a warehouse in the desert, and wait to see who starts poking around.
Want a cheap way to test air defense radar? Make a weirdly shaped mylar balloon that has been profiled using your own radar. Fill it up with helium and launch it downstream from a sensitive military site. Wait to see how long it takes for them to scramble fighters to check it out. All you need is a balloon, a tank of helium, and a radio you can buy online for $50.
Re: (Score:2)
You mean upstream.
Re: (Score:2)
Nope, it's very difficult for saloons to go upstream
(yes, I actually got what you mean, but hopefully that helps you understand why the grandparent said it the way they did. You go upstream so you can "launch it downstream")
Re: (Score:2)
saloons? balloons. I guess it works for both, if your saloon is on a raft.
Re: (Score:2)
You mean upwind. :-)
It's simpler than that. (Score:2)
In the military, the mission - and only the mission - matters.
Most of the officers in the position to observe a UFO are not in the position to order an investigation. Even if they were, they'd have to justify the use of taxpayer dollars to support what could easily be characterized as a "curiosity" rather than the fundamental mission of air power. The best most of them can do is record their experience in the debrief, and rely on civilian scientists to investigate it further.
A bodyguard of lies (Score:2)
> ... [if the] Air Force [confined itself] to discipline and airspace, while allowing researchers to access and assess the evidence properly ...
Those two things might inherently be in conflict. What if the evidence is of an undisclosed weapons program?. As others have pointed out, "UFOs" can be an excellent cover story to distract, useful disinformation.
""In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies" -- Winston Churchill
""All warfare is based on deception" -- Sun Tzu
Maybe peacetime too, or at least cold war times?