Aliens

[Touring Mars]

There's also a very 'Earth-centric' view to the whole 'alien threat' thing too... it's like a person who has just discovered Twitter thinking 'Should I create an account and announce my triumphant arrival to the world?!', only to find that they are unbelievably boring and no-one gives a crap about their pathetic jokes music tweets, as has happened to someone I know...

Humanity is just one species, on one planet, in one epoch, in one Solar System, in one Galaxy, in one Galactic cluster... and yet, we are conditioned in so many ways to believe that we are 'unique', special, interesting, 'chosen', 'divine'... when, in all likelihood, we are @JSmith564729 whose only public broadcasts are the utter ***** that passes for mainstream media and entertainment.

If anything, I hope an advanced alien civilisation does discover us and realises that they are better off focusing on one of the myriad other civilisations out there right now. Perhaps they already have, hence the Fermi Paradox may well be explained by the cosmic equivalent of everyone clicking the 'Block @JSmith564729' button.

edit: Of course, those who think that we should be careful about broadcasting our existence/whereabouts might also explain the Fermi Paradox - we may not be able to detect any advanced civilisations out there because they also figured out that it was not a good idea... but even this is too 'Earth-centric' IMO.

If other civilisations have advanced well beyond our capabilities, they may have developed ways to defeat existential threats and have become 'timeless' - AI-based technologies that can withstand the vagaries of biological existence (though the IT manager in my department may well beg to differ but anyhoo) in which case they may be able to detect any and all cosmic 'twits' but may not be able to ever interact with a living civilisation that only has a detection window of a few hundred years...

Humanity is still in its infancy of being able to detect what is happening beyond our own cosmic shoreline, and yet, paradoxically, we are also already capable of destroying ourselves and thus bursting our own 'bubble of detectability', which again might explain the Fermi Paradox.

 

[Danoff]

Just thinking through the whole malevolent alien concept for a second. I still think that any alien civilization which achieved FTL technology would be necessarily so advanced that we simply aren't particularly worth "conquering" or killing. But supposing for a second that we are. And they decide we must die... what might be the way they would go about doing that?

PBS Spacetime just talked about micro black holes or mini black holes (or actually perhaps more accurately, MACHOs) which could explode our sun if one of them passed through. If you knew about one of these and could alter its course, or could create one, such that it would pass through our sun, it would destroy our solar system. So if I were an alien civilization that wanted to rid the cosmos of humanity, I might create or slightly bend a mini black hole such that it would intersect with sol... say... 1000 years from now. Or perhaps they did this 10,000 years ago, knowing that we would probably not have escaped our solar system by now.

Our deaths might have been cemented millennia ago. We'd never know who did it, or why, and probably not even how. Suddenly our sun explodes and that's all she wrote.

 

[Michael88]

I think if Alien wanted to destroy us completely they could redirect or create a gamma ray burst. Such burst, as it happens with the collapse of some stars, if it hits directly we won't see it coming since it travels with the speed of light, it would cook the surface of the earth, evaporate all water and wash away the atmosphere in the blink of an eye. There would be absolute no way to prepare or counter that, so immense is the energy released.

Of course, an antimatter bomb would also be totally plausible, it wouldn't even have to be that big since the energy release is so powerful. I think I read somewhere that an antimatter bomb the size of a 2 story house would be enough to rip the entire planet to shreds. Put that in a FTL drone, send it here and we're done.

 

[Dotini]

Suddenly our sun explodes and that's all she wrote.

That could certainly happen without alien influence, as it commonly occurs throughout the galaxy as novae, supernovae, and lately as micronovae. Apparently there is evidence that some stars undergo micronovae - or explosion of its outer layer - on a cyclic basis, as short as just a few years in some cases. Some have said that a micronova of our own sun may be responsible for some of the layers of black mat, fuzed rock, nanoparticles, etc found in locations over the Earth. However, it only takes out one hemisphere and not the whole planet.

A former scientist and current speculative author says there is unquestionable evidence of nuclear explosions in the ancient past place all over the surface of Mars. It may be the aliens have already wiped out one planet in our solar system, and are gearing up for #2. All they have to do is make our own nuclear weapons explode.

"Small Change got rained on with his own .38"

-Tom Waits​

 

[Danoff]

That could certainly happen without alien influence, as it commonly occurs throughout the galaxy as novae, supernovae, and lately as micronovae. Apparently there is evidence that some stars undergo micronovae - or explosion of its outer layer - on a cyclic basis, as short as just a few years in some cases. Some have said that a micronova of our own sun may be responsible for some of the layers of black mat, fuzed rock, nanoparticles, etc found in locations over the Earth. However, it only takes out one hemisphere and not the whole planet.

A former scientist and current speculative author says there is unquestionable evidence of nuclear explosions in the ancient past place all over the surface of Mars. It may be the aliens have already wiped out one planet in our solar system, and are gearing up for #2. All they have to do is make our own nuclear weapons explode.

"Small Change got rained on with his own .38"

-Tom Waits​

Some skepticism seems to be warranted for micronovae, as at least one writer says "there's no such thing". So citation needed on micronovae. I'm also pretty skeptical of the "evidence" in support of nukes on mars by "former scientist".

Regardless, nuclear explosions don't exactly seem like the trademark of an FTL species. The asteroid belt, if it weren't for the explanation of Jupiter, might have made a better example of what an FTL species might render a planet into.

 

[Famine]

It's quite bizarre that we paint our own forays into space as benevolent explorations of the cosmos, as we seek out new life and new civilisations...


... but all the aliens who've been through the stages we're at now and are not only out in the universe but capable of the speeds required to come see us are all murderous killbeasts.

 

[PeterJB]

I don't think any aliens are blowing up the sun any time soon unless they discover a thermal exhaust port only two metres wide.

Contact paints a much more realistic picture whereby they simply want to say, "Hello, we exist, nice to meet you" because as they say in the film, aliens arriving at Earth with hostile intentions would be the equivalent of a group of Americans going out of their way in order to destroy a few microbes on an ant hill in Africa.

 

[Michael88]

I don't think any aliens are blowing up the sun any time soon unless they discover a thermal exhaust port only two metres wide.

Contact paints a much more realistic picture whereby they simply want to say, "Hello, we exist, nice to meet you" because as they say in the film, aliens arriving at Earth with hostile intentions would be the equivalent of a group of Americans going out of their way in order to destroy a few microbes on an ant hill in Africa.

Some microbes can be extremely dangerous if left to thrive. I can certainly imagine intelligent forms of life extinguishing other intelligent species simply to prevent competition in the future.
Eliminating every possible dangers to your existence might be priority #1 for a purely logical thinking intelligence.

If we could press a button and eliminate all potentially harmful viruses forever, wouldn't we do it?

 

[Famine]

aliens arriving at Earth with hostile intentions would be the equivalent of a group of Americans going out of their way in order to destroy a few microbes on an ant hill in Africa.

If they'd done that with a bat roost near Wuhan, we'd all be better off for it.

 

[PeterJB]

Humans themselves may pose no threat to an alien army, even if they perceive as no more advanced than microbial life, but as was the case in War of the Worlds, bacteria and viruses certainly could, yes. We've always been here and we can barely get on top of them. It would be smallpox in the New World on an astronomical scale.

 

[Michael88]

Humans themselves may pose no threat to an alien army, even if they perceive as no more advanced than microbial life, but as was the case in War of the Worlds, bacteria and viruses certainly could, yes. We've always been here and we can barely get on top of them. It would be smallpox in the New World on an astronomical scale.

I'm pretty sure that within the next 70 years tops bacterial and viral threats will be utterly extinguished with nanotechnology and new antibiotics in form of bacteriophages. By then feeling crappy from the flu and pandemics will be but a distant memory.

 

[Touring Mars]

I'm pretty sure that within the next 70 years tops bacterial and viral threats will be utterly extinguished with nanotechnology and new antibiotics in form of bacteriophages.

Not. A. Chance.

 

[PeterJB]

It took almost 200 years to eradicate smallpox, and it still remains the only human virus to have suffered that fate.

 

[Danoff]

Some microbes can be extremely dangerous if left to thrive. I can certainly imagine intelligent forms of life extinguishing other intelligent species simply to prevent competition in the future.
Eliminating every possible dangers to your existence might be priority #1 for a purely logical thinking intelligence.

If we could press a button and eliminate all potentially harmful viruses forever, wouldn't we do it?

Yea, I think we would. But I also think that we pose no actual threat to an advanced intelligence. And I also think that they would not be #1 out to preserve their species. Our desire to keep our species preserved is genetic, that desire is why our genes are still here. I'm not entirely sure an advanced species even has genetics. For all I know, they download their consciousness into whatever skin suit they need when they enter the corporeal world, and then when they're done they upload back to the virtual world - where all the real partying is.

Humans themselves may pose no threat to an alien army, even if they perceive as no more advanced than microbial life, but as was the case in War of the Worlds, bacteria and viruses certainly could, yes. We've always been here and we can barely get on top of them. It would be smallpox in the New World on an astronomical scale.

I don't think something as simple bacteria and viruses can continue to plague humanity for much longer.

This idea that humans are competition I think is a conceit and a misunderstanding of the world we're headed into. Competition for what? Space? No. Resources? Surely not. Supremacy? What does that even mean? All of this is viewed through the lens of an ape battling for a patch of mud stuck on a single planet. We're talking about a species that can cross the vastness of spacetime and find us. Which means the universe is their oyster. They likely would not labor, would not need any additional resources, and would have tailored their own biology, or even consciousness, to be compatible with existence.

 

[PeterJB]

I don't think something as simple bacteria and viruses can continue to plague humanity for much longer.

This idea that humans are competition I think is a conceit and a misunderstanding of the world we're headed into. Competition for what? Space? No. Resources? Surely not. Supremacy? What does that even mean? All of this is viewed through the lens of an ape battling for a patch of mud stuck on a single planet. We're talking about a species that can cross the vastness of spacetime and find us. Which means the universe is their oyster. They likely would not labor, would not need any additional resources, and would have tailored their own biology, or even consciousness, to be compatible with existence.

It could go one of two ways: they could either arrive here with good intentions simply curious to meet and attempt to connect with other civilizations, or they could be hostile, either because that was their plan all along as part of an imperialist expansionist campaign or they come here out of curiousity and decide we're beneath them and eliminate us and colonise the planet not because they see us as threat, but just because they can. As I mentioned earlier it's analogous to the age of discovery which was a mixture of trade and cross-communication between different peoples and extermination and subjugation of perceived "savages".

Either way we're at their mercy, even if the game is being played on our turf.

 

[Touring Mars]

Either way we're at their mercy, even if the game is being played on our turf.

Do you support Arsenal by any chance?

 

[PeterJB]

Do you support Arsenal by any chance?

Spurs, so the analogy is just as apt.

 

[Danoff]

either because that was their plan all along as part of an imperialist expansionist campaign

Motivated by? None of the things that have motivated human imperialist expansionist campaigns in the past. Presupposing an imperialist expansionist campaign on them is like presupposing that they're intensely underdeveloped in very specific ways - ways that are similar to our own recent history.

or they come here out of curiousity and decide we're beneath them and eliminate us and colonise the planet not because they see us as threat, but just because they can.

You assume they'd want to colonize... and so the above response fits here as well.

Edit:

To take this a little farther... why would they want to colonize? Because you assume they're water-based? Water is incredibly abundant in the universe. Because you assume they breathe oxygen? This is not hard to get - but also they can almost certainly adjust their biology to presumably breathe something else. Honestly humans should be working on going with nitrogen processing. Because they eat meat? What kind of meat? Something they don't synthesize? Because they need physical space to live because of their population? You assume first of all that they even populate outside of a virtual universe, which doesn't seem like a given. But also... space is one thing we really have. Consider this... humans would potentially have an easier time creating population bubbles in naked space than on the surface of mars. Aliens would likely have an easier time synthesizing small worlds than trying to make ours work for them (whether we were present or not).

There are real reasons why we might, for example, prefer to be in a highly inclined solar orbit rather than mixed in with the rest of the accretion disk... and given how potent sunlight is, getting closer without an atmosphere (to generate electricity, heat, etc.) seems like an advantage. A highly inclined close orbit could be very beneficial. If you were worried about getting hit by a big rock, or being spotted by an adversary (for some human projection reason) being in a weird orbit with dark solar panels (or fusion... because of course) surrounding a low-mass bubble world would be quite advantageous. It's also very helpful for observation and exploration of the cosmos... and even manufacturing.

Step 1, find a suitable asteroid. Step 2, nudge it in the right orbital direction. Step 3, harvest its materials to make a suitable biodome. Step 4, import necessary materials from elsewhere to finish out your new home. Step 5, profit.

As I mentioned earlier it's analogous to the age of discovery which was a mixture of trade and cross-communication between different peoples and extermination and subjugation of perceived "savages".

It's like backward humans because that's our recent history? This is pure projection, not forward into technical wizardry, but backward into technical inferiority.

It's quite bizarre that we paint our own forays into space as benevolent explorations of the cosmos, as we seek out new life and new civilisations...


... but all the aliens who've been through the stages we're at now and are not only out in the universe but capable of the speeds required to come see us are all murderous killbeasts.

Were you talking about space aliens or were you talking about US immigration policy?

 

[PeterJB]

Motivated by? None of the things that have motivated human imperialist expansionist campaigns in the past. Presupposing an imperialist expansionist campaign on them is like presupposing that they're intensely underdeveloped in very specific ways - ways that are similar to our own recent history.



You assume they'd want to colonize... and so the above response fits here as well.

Edit:

To take this a little farther... why would they want to colonize? Because you assume they're water-based? Water is incredibly abundant in the universe. Because you assume they breathe oxygen? This is not hard to get - but also they can almost certainly adjust their biology to presumably breathe something else. Honestly humans should be working on going with nitrogen processing. Because they eat meat? What kind of meat? Something they don't synthesize? Because they need physical space to live because of their population? You assume first of all that they even populate outside of a virtual universe, which doesn't seem like a given. But also... space is one thing we really have. Consider this... humans would potentially have an easier time creating population bubbles in naked space than on the surface of mars. Aliens would likely have an easier time synthesizing small worlds than trying to make ours work for them (whether we were present or not).

There are real reasons why we might, for example, prefer to be in a highly inclined solar orbit rather than mixed in with the rest of the accretion disk... and given how potent sunlight is, getting closer without an atmosphere (to generate electricity, heat, etc.) seems like an advantage. A highly inclined close orbit could be very beneficial. If you were worried about getting hit by a big rock, or being spotted by an adversary (for some human projection reason) being in a weird orbit with dark solar panels (or fusion... because of course) surrounding a low-mass bubble world would be quite advantageous. It's also very helpful for observation and exploration of the cosmos... and even manufacturing.

Step 1, find a suitable asteroid. Step 2, nudge it in the right orbital direction. Step 3, harvest its materials to make a suitable biodome. Step 4, import necessary materials from elsewhere to finish out your new home. Step 5, profit.



It's like backward humans because that's our recent history? This is pure projection, not forward into technical wizardry, but backward into technical inferiority.

This is getting more into anthropology, but on a cosmic scale.

There are so many variables at play because we have almost no data to work with, besides how life on Earth has evolved. You seem to be focussing on the most abstract ideas of what extra-terrestrial life is, and I'm sure there is every chance of life existing in a way we didn't think possible, and at glance seems to defy the laws of both physics and biology, but there is every reason to believe that there are other life forms out there that are carbon-based, breathe oxygen and are water-dependant. This understandibly is what's seen most in popular culture because trying to conceptualise something we can't even conceive of is not easy. It would be like trying to describe the internet to Neanderthals. Films like Arrival have tried to touch on this by creating an entirely new form of written language, though it's one that still follows the basic idea of different symbols representing different sounds and meaning, but without the use of an alphabet, kind of like a more complex form of Mandarin.

In terms of behaviour, it's hard to think of any reasons that aliens would visit the Earth other than out of friendly curiousity, or because they want to take it for themselves by force. If a life form finds itself in our solar system that does not life off oxygen or water (or hell even breathe at all) there probably gonna be more interested in somewhere like Mars or Europa and leave us alone either because they're not interested or because the atmosphere would kill them. An alien race having the technical capabilities to travel across galaxies does not necessarily make them genetically or anatomically superior to humans, they may have in fact developed those technologies as a necessity because of their biological hinderences. In which case imperialism becomes more plausible because they could be looking for resources or a suitable home. Simply claiming Earth in all of its bountiful glory for yourselves because the natives have little to no means to stop you would be much easier than spending eons terraforming Mars, particularly if you aren't able to manufacture your own magnetosphere.

 

[Danoff]

This is getting more into anthropology, but on a cosmic scale.

There are so many variables at play because we have almost no data to work with, besides how life on Earth has evolved. You seem to be focussing on the most abstract ideas of what extra-terrestrial life is, and I'm sure there is every chance of life existing in a way we didn't think possible, and at glance seems to defy the laws of both physics and biology, but there is every reason to believe that there are other life forms out there that are carbon-based, breathe oxygen and are water-dependant.

Even if that were true, it's a big leap for them to actually want Earth.

In terms of behaviour, it's hard to think of any reasons that aliens would visit the Earth other than out of friendly curiousity, or because they want to take it for themselves by force. If a life form finds itself in our solar system that does not life off oxygen or water (or hell even breathe at all) there probably gonna be more interested in somewhere like Mars or Europa and leave us alone either because they're not interested or because the atmosphere would kill them. An alien race having the technical capabilities to travel across galaxies does not necessarily make them genetically or anatomically superior to humans, they may have in fact developed those technologies as a necessity because of their biological hinderences. In which case imperialism becomes more plausible because they could be looking for resources or a suitable home. Simply claiming Earth in all of its bountiful glory for yourselves because the natives have little to no means to stop you would be much easier than spending eons terraforming Mars, particularly if you aren't able to manufacture your own magnetosphere.

We're headed toward a lot of technological breakthroughs way before FTL travel. Not just because that happens to be the way it's working out, but because the understanding of reality required to break the speed of light barrier (if that's even possible) is immense. So immense, that the ability to alter biology, or manufacture a utopian space dome, seems like it would have to occur far before then. Look at what humans are already doing in these areas... I think FTL travel does actually necessarily make them at least capable of being biologically (if they are biological at that point) superior to humans. And not just superior, but adaptable. Our ability to alter our own biology is proceeding much faster than our efforts to visit other stars, and I don't see that as an accident.

 

[UKMikey]

Alienimperialism just doesn't make sense to me. If you have the resources to travel unimaginable distances just to displace other sentient beings then you have the resources to make nearby planets inhabitable for your species.

I can't help thinking the whole Mars Attacks! mindset took root and flourished in cold war yellow peril/red scare sensationalism.

 

[kikie]

 

[Dotini]

He says it would be a bigger problem if the UAPs were from Russia or China than if they were completely unknown or "out of this world". Anybody agree or disagree with that?

He also says UAPs intrude into restricted areas and "manipulate our nuclear weapons". If true, is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Spoiler: UAPs and Nukes, news and background

“(UAPs) have in the past interfered with some of our nuclear capabilities. That’s fact."

- Luis Elizondo, verbatim from interview with Washington Post and NBC News.​

So says Luis Elizondo and former Senator Harry Reid. They're not saying its aliens, but they do say its unidentified, and would pose a major concern if it's Chinese or Russian in origin.

MYSTERY WIRE — U.S. nuclear missile facilities have been compromised, even disabled, during incidents where UFOs appeared over highly secure military installations according to a former U.S. senator and an intelligence officer who previously acted as the director of a once-secret Pentagon investigation of UFO incidents.

Lue Elizondo, a career intelligence officer who abruptly resigned from his Department of Defense assignments in 2017, shared this information days ago during a news conference arranged at the request of several major news organizations.

“The most concerning, are those incidents that involve our nuclear equities. There seems to be a very distinct congruency between UAP, associated UAP activity and and our nuclear technology,” Elizondo told members of the media last week. “Whether it be propulsion or weapon systems or whatnot. And that’s concerning to the point where we’ve actually had some of our nuclear capabilities disabled by these things. So, you know, again, let’s put this into context of foreign adversarial technology if Russia or China had the ability to disable our nuclear strike capability or defense capability.”

Former Pentagon UFO investigator answers tough questions about flying pyramids and other UAP sightings

When asked to clarify his statement on the interaction of UAPs and nuclear energy, Elizondo said, “UAPs have an active interest in our nuclear technology,” Elizondo said when an NBC News reporter asked him to clarify his statement on the interaction of UAPs and nuclear energy. “(UAPs) have in the past interfered with some of our nuclear capabilities. That’s fact.”

Lue Elizondo
I’ve been privy to witness to many extraordinary things. Unfortunately, ones that are classified I I’m not going to elaborate or share. But I’ve said for the record before, we’ve had video, you know, some of these videos are 20, 25 minutes long. In other cases, these things are 50 feet away from the cockpit, very compelling. But with that said, I’m not at liberty to go into details in those but what I can say are the ones that have come to light. I think, for me, the most concerning not most compelling but the most concerning, are those incidents that involve our nuclear equities. There seems to be a very distinct congruency between UAP, associated UAP activity and and our nuclear technology, whether it be propulsion or weapon systems or whatnot. And that’s concerning to the point where we’ve actually had some of our nuclear capabilities disabled by these things. So, you know, again, let’s put this into context of foreign adversarial technology if Russia or China had the ability to disable our nuclear strike capability or defense capability. That’s pretty significant. That’s a concern. For us. It should be.
Gadi Schwartz – NBC News
Just to clarify, you’re saying that our, our nuclear capabilities, whether they their weapons, or whether it’s a, you know, some sort of nuclear power plant, you’re saying that these things have been disabled by something we can’t explain.
Lue Elizondo
There is absolutely evidence that comports to the notion that they have, that UAPs have an active interest in our nuclear technology, and have in the past interfered with some of our nuclear capabilities. That’s fact. Yes.

UFOs and nukes – One man’s investigation into incidents the government never wanted public

Alex Horton – Washington Post
I have a two part follow up and then I’ll turn it over to another reporter. So I just want to go back to something you said earlier about the nuclear capability. And I was curious if there was evidence that, you know, you’ve seen or understood that specifically suggested or concluded that it had an effect of forcing something offline? Or could it be something like it was an unknown thing or a potential hazard and someone, you know, a human being made the choice to take something offline as a precautionary measure?
Lue Elizondo
Great, great question. Well, there’s actually a third option too, and I’ll get to that. So the first option is, is there a direct interference? Yes, there appears to be some sort of direct interference at times, is this next question, could this be a human doing something to disable it as a preventive measure? No, that does not seem to be the case. We have no information substantiating that. Now the third option is it could be a result of some sort of technological interference. Very much like the old car radios and an alternator. A lot of times, you’d get that feedback in an old radio as the alternator spun up because the electromagnetic, if you will, emanations coming from that alternator would interfere with radio. And so you get this weird buzzing noise on the radio. It’s not necessarily the intent of the alternator to interfere with radio. It’s just a byproduct of what it does. So that is also an option. It could very well be that this technology, because of its application could be interfering with our nuclear technology. That is certainly possible as well, we don’t we don’t have enough data yet to say conclusively one way or the other.


Elizondo is not the first person with inside knowledge to mention this.

Former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid from Nevada has talked about this troubling interaction. “The occurrences of people saying identified flying objects is not a dozen people here a dozen people there, 20 here. Thousands of people, thousands of people have seen these. And on occasion many hundreds of people saw the same thing at the same time, ” Sen. Reid told George Knapp during a 2019 interview. “We have occurrences that are not disputed at some of our missile bases where the whole base was shut down. Apparently if they had been asked to fire a missile they couldn’t. No one knows how they did that. We have ships that the communications went dead with these things in the water. So, this is not something that just a few crackpots are trying to make a big deal out of, this is something that we as a country should be involved in because I guarantee Russia’s involved, I guarantee China’s involved in it, and European countries, especially France has been involved in it.”

In 2007, Sen. Reid and two of his most trusted Senate colleagues conferred in a highly secure room about the perplexing mystery of UFOs. The three senators agreed to authorize black budget funds for a study by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) into UFO incidents and related phenomena.

Sen. Reid said one reason he wanted a formal study was a series of dramatic incidents where UFOs appeared over American nuclear weapons facilities. These are cases that have been reported on by Mystery Wire in the past.

https://www.mysterywire.com/ufo/uaps-nuclear/

From the archive:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ex-air-force-personnel-ufos-deactivated-nukes/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/arch...s-craft/1b9d1f3d-dddb-4a92-87b3-0143aa5d7a3e/

 

[Dotini]

According to the New York Times, an upcoming report from US intel and military services on UFOs will not rule out aliens as the source of the phenomena. But no worries, I will rule it out.

U.S. Finds No Evidence of Alien Technology in Flying Objects, but Can’t Rule It Out, Either

A new report concedes that much about the observed phenomena remains difficult to explain, including their acceleration, as well as ability to change direction and submerge.


The U.S. Navy has officially published previously released videos showing unexplained objects.CreditCredit...Department of Defense, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By Julian E. Barnes and Helene Cooper

Published June 3, 2021Updated June 4, 2021, 11:44 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON — American intelligence officials have found no evidence that aerial phenomena witnessed by Navy pilots in recent years are alien spacecraft, but they still cannot explain the unusual movements that have mystified scientists and the military, according to senior administration officials briefed on the findings of a highly anticipated government report.

The report determines that a vast majority of more than 120 incidents over the past two decades did not originate from any American military or other advanced U.S. government technology, the officials said. That determination would appear to eliminate the possibility that Navy pilots who reported seeing unexplained aircraft might have encountered programs the government meant to keep secret.

But that is about the only conclusive finding in the classified intelligence report, the officials said. And while a forthcoming unclassified version, expected to be released to Congress by June 25, will present few other firm conclusions, senior officials briefed on the intelligence conceded that the very ambiguity of the findings meant the government could not definitively rule out theories that the phenomena observed by military pilots might be alien spacecraft.

Americans’ long-running fascination with U.F.O.s has intensified in recent weeks in anticipation of the release of the government report. Former President Barack Obama further stoked the interest when he was asked last month about the incidents on “The Late Late Show with James Corden” on CBS.

“What is true, and I’m actually being serious here,” Mr. Obama said, “is that there is footage and records of objects in the skies that we don’t know exactly what they are.’’

The report concedes that much about the observed phenomena remains difficult to explain, including their acceleration, as well as ability to change direction and submerge. One possible explanation — that the phenomena could be weather balloons or other research balloons — does not hold up in all cases, the officials said, because of changes in wind speed at the times of some of the interactions.
.
The final report will also include a classified annex, the officials said. While the annex will not contain any evidence concluding that the phenomena are alien spacecraft, the officials acknowledged that the fact that it would remain off limits to the public was likely to continue to fuel speculation that the government had secret data about alien visitations to Earth.

Many of the more than 120 incidents examined in the report are from Navy personnel, officials said. The report also examined incidents involving foreign militaries over the last two decades. Intelligence officials believe at least some of the aerial phenomena could have been experimental technology from a rival power, most likely Russia or China.

One senior official briefed on the intelligence said without hesitation that U.S. officials knew it was not American technology. He said there was worry among intelligence and military officials that China or Russia could be experimenting with hypersonic technology.

He and other officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the classified findings in the report.

Russia has been investing heavily in hypersonics, believing the technology offers it the ability to evade American missile-defense technology. China has also developed hypersonic weaponry, and included it in military parades. If the phenomena were Chinese or Russian aircraft, officials said, that would suggest the two powers’ hypersonic research had far outpaced American military development.

Navy pilots were often unsettled by the sightings. In one encounter, strange objects — one of them like a spinning top moving against the wind — appeared almost daily from the summer of 2014 to March 2015, high in the skies over the East Coast. Navy pilots reported to their superiors that the objects had no visible engine or infrared exhaust plumes, but that they could reach 30,000 feet and hypersonic speeds.

Lt. Ryan Graves, an F/A-18 Super Hornet pilot who was with the Navy for 10 years, told The New York Times in an interview, “These things would be out there all day.” With the speeds he and other pilots observed, he said, “12 hours in the air is 11 hours longer than we’d expect.”

In late 2014, a Super Hornet pilot had a near collision with one of the objects, and an official mishap report was filed. Some of the incidents were recorded on video, including one taken by a plane’s camera in early 2015 that shows an object zooming over the ocean waves as pilots question what they are watching.

The Defense Department has been collecting such reports for more than 13 years as part of a shadowy, little-known Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program within the Pentagon. The program analyzed radar data, video footage and accounts provided by the Navy pilots and senior officers.

The program began in 2007 and was largely funded at the request of Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat who was the Senate majority leader at the time. It was officially shut down in 2012, when the money dried up, according to the Pentagon. But Luis Elizondo, who ran the program at the time, said that he continued it until 2017. After the publication of a New York Times article later that year about the program and criticism from program officials that the government was not forthcoming about reports on aerial phenomena, the Pentagon restarted the program last summer as the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force.


The task force’s mission was to “detect, analyze and catalog” sightings of strange objects in the sky that could pose a threat to national security. But government officials said they also wanted to remove the stigma for service members who report U.F.O. sightings in the hope that more would be encouraged to speak up if they saw something. The goal, officials said, was to give authorities a better idea of what might be out there.

shows a whitish oval object described as a giant Tic Tac, about the size of a commercial plane, encountered by two Navy fighter jets off the coast of San Diego in 2004.

In that incident, the pilots reported an interaction with the craft, which lasted for several minutes. At one point, the object peeled away, one of the pilots, Cmdr. David Fravor, later said in an interview with The Times. “It accelerated like nothing I’ve ever seen,” he said.

The report studies that incident, including the video that accompanied the interaction. The provenance of the object, the officials said, is still unknown.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/03/us/politics/ufos-sighting-alien-spacecraft-pentagon.html?query

Why Are We All Talking About U.F.O.s Right Now?
June 3, 2021

Julian E. Barnes is a national security reporter based in Washington, covering the intelligence agencies. Before joining The Times in 2018, he wrote about security matters for The Wall Street Journal. @julianbarnes • Facebook

Helene Cooper is a Pentagon correspondent. She was previously an editor, diplomatic correspondent and White House correspondent, and was part of the team awarded the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, for its coverage of the Ebola epidemic. @helenecooper

 

[kikie]

 

[Dotini]

What does the word "alien" really mean to you? Maybe extraterrestrial, maybe foreign, or maybe just different in a significant way?

"In recent weeks, the author and podcaster Sam Harris, in no fewer than three separate podcasts, has stated repeatedly and unambiguously that someone in or with connections to the U.S. government has personally reached out to him so that he can begin to wrap his brain around the fact that UFOs represent a non-human intelligence and think about how he might help prepare the public for that disclosure."

https://medium.com/on-the-trail-of-...is-who-called-you-details-please-3cebb3d7baa1

 

[kikie]

 

[Dotini]

"...even though these things behave like a conscious, spiritual, psychic energy, they do have advanced technology, they have hardware..."
- Dr Eric W Davis, more or less in accordance with Dr Jacques F Vallée and Lue Elizondo.

Maybe consciousness is the ultimate higher dimension?

 

[Dotini]

TMZ is getting heavily involved.

 

[kikie]

This is at least interesting.