UAP & ET - Do you believe?

[whereinthehellami]

Answers coming? Apparently US intelligence agencies must share what they know about UFOs. It was a stipulation tucked away in a recent bill signed into law.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/10/us/uf...rnd/index.html

I just don't see the people in the know being forced into spilling the beans. These would be the same people who have told presidents and other powerful leaders that they don't need to know. How would one force compliance or even verify the intel?

It does make me wonder if this would allow certain back channels to leak intel like they have been doing (Tic-tac, Gimbal, Go-fast videos). I will be curious to see what John Podesta, Luis Elizondo, Christopher Mellon, and the like have to say over this time period.

The timing of all of this is interesting and something to keep an eye on.

---

On another note, I have been watching an interesting Lex Fridman podcast in which he interviews Diana Walsh Pasulka on Aliens, Technology, Religion & the Nature of Belief.

Diana Pasulka talks about her most recent book, American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology and how she was a skeptic on the existence of UFO & aliens but interested in the growing legitimacy of the UFO community and its effects on traditional religions but after the book is an agnostic on UFO & aliens. Agnostic in that she believes there is something unexplainable going on in our reality as we currently define it.

One of the interesting things she talks about is how believing in UFOs is a type of religion. I don't necessarily agree with that considering all of the evidence of UFOs and aliens but it is an interesting perspective.

Here is the jacket on her book, American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology:

More than half of American adults and more than seventy-five percent of young Americans believe in intelligent extraterrestrial life. This level of belief rivals that of belief in God. American Cosmic examines the mechanisms at work behind the thriving belief system in extraterrestrial life, a system that is changing and even supplanting traditional religions. Over the course of a six-year ethnographic study, D.W. Pasulka interviewed successful and influential scientists, professionals, and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who believe in extraterrestrial intelligence, thereby disproving the common misconception that only fringe members of society believe in UFOs. She argues that widespread belief in aliens is due to a number of factors including their ubiquity in modern media like The X-Files, which can influence memory, and the believability lent to that media by the search for planets that might support life. American Cosmic explores the intriguing question of how people interpret unexplainable experiences, and argues that the media is replacing religion as a cultural authority that offers believers answers about non-human intelligent life.

[DevilHorse]

I saw that in my snoozefeed this morning and found it interesting. They have to share with whom? They will provide the info to the press? It wasnt clear to me exactly what was meant by having to reveal or share the information.

"The submitted report should be unclassified, the committee said, though it can contain a classified annex."

So depending on how seriously they take this, it could be a one page unclassified cover letter and a 3000 page classified annex, with a beta-max tape library.

Larry
DevilHorse

[OldPhiKap]

"The submitted report should be unclassified, the committee said, though it can contain a classified annex."

So depending on how seriously they take this, it could be a one page unclassified cover letter and a 3000 page classified annex, with a beta-max tape library.

Larry
DevilHorse

CIA releases all of their info on-line. Or so they say.

https://nypost.com/2021/01/12/cia-re...e-them-online/

[DevilHorse]

CIA releases all of their info on-line. Or so they say.

https://nypost.com/2021/01/12/cia-re...e-them-online/

It was reported that Boris Karloff died in 1969. My brother and I are still not 100% convinced.

Larry
DevilHorse

[whereinthehellami]

I recently listened to Lex Fridman interview Avi Loeb, the Harvard astrophysicist who postulated that the first known interstellar object, Oumuamua, to have been observed passing through the solar system, might have been extraterrestrial in nature. Loeb talks about how Oumuamua has enough unique characteristics that a possible explanation for it should be that it is extraterrestrial in nature. He is not saying that he believes it to be extraterrestrial in origin but that it should be an option. Loeb says that many of his colleagues won’t entertain the idea and are trying too hard to explain it as a natural phenomenon, which when its unique characteristics are viewed together as a whole do not hold up.

Loeb related how big of a deal Oumuamua is in astrophysics and how he heard an older Harvard professor say that he wished Oumuamua hadn’t existed because it has upset the academic apple cart. Loeb was saying he sees that with a lot of tenured scientists, that they do not want to challenge their established knowledge and have lost their curiosity, which should be the cornerstone of being a good scientist.

---

Here is an excerpt from a Futurism article about an essay Avi Loeb recently wrote on searching space for alien “messages in a bottle”:
Harvard astrophysics faculty member Avi Loeb is calling on the scientific community to search not just for mysterious radio signals emanating from the vast reaches of the observable universe — but for alien probes sent to us as “messages in a bottle” as well.

In a new essay for Scientific American, Loeb argues that the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI, should not only focus on developing radio and laser communications to scan the night sky for alien signals, but also launch physical space probes to “search for technological civilizations across interstellar distances” — and even actively search for ones that might come drifting through our own system.

The famed astrophysicist has never shied away from theorizing about alien life. In one recent study, Loeb proffered the theory that life could be hiding “deep underneath the surface of rocky objects like the Moon or Mars.” In February, he told Futurism that there’s a chance that “fast radio bursts” could be of “artificial origin.”

In today’s essay, Loeb builds from the fact that we’ve found that at least half of all Sun-like stars host exoplanets in their habitable zone, the region around a star in which it’s possible to support liquid water and therefore harbor life.

“The famous Drake equation quantifies (with large uncertainties) the likelihood of receiving a radio signal from another civilization in our Milky Way galaxy,” he wrote. “But it does not apply to physical probes that might arrive at our doorstep. The distinction resembles the difference between a cell phone conversation at the speed of light and the exchange of letters through surface mail.”

The essay was published days after The Guardian reported that Breakthrough Listen, a project dedicated to hunt for signals from extraterrestrial life, had discovered a mysterious radio beam that emanated from the vicinity of Proxima Centauri, the Sun’s closest stellar neighbor.

Beyond radio signals, extraterrestrial alien races could be attempting to get in touch with us via physical probes as well, shot into the solar system at high speeds. Loeb argues that ‘Oumuamua, the first known interstellar object to have been observed passing through the solar system, may have been accelerated by the pressure of sunlight; “that is, if it is an artificially-made lightsail — a thin relic of the promising technology for space exploration that was proposed as early as 1924 by Friedrich Zander and is currently being developed by our civilization.” To Loeb, this means that the interstellar object could be a “message in a bottle.”

… Loeb argues that ‘Oumuamua is just the beginning. “To learn more, we must continue to monitor the sky for similar objects.” “Are there extraterrestrials smarter than us in the Milky Way?” Loeb concludes. “The only way to find out is by surveying the sky for the multitude of messengers that they might be using.”

[Phredd3]

Loeb related how big of a deal Oumuamua is in astrophysics and how he heard an older Harvard professor say that he wished Oumuamua hadn’t existed because it has upset the academic apple cart. Loeb was saying he sees that with a lot of tenured scientists, that they do not want to challenge their established knowledge and have lost their curiosity, which should be the cornerstone of being a good scientist.

OK, I can't let that pass. I know a ton of "tenured scientists" (and a fair number of non-tenured ones) and I have yet to meet a single one who has lost their curiosity. That's just somebody making something up because it fits their pre-conceived notion and draws clicks. Tenured scientists in my experience are true experts in their respective fields and, yes, they can be very skeptical about anything that would fundamentally shift a basic paradigm (as they should be, since by definition, a scientific paradigm has a ton of actual evidence to support it). This would not do anything of the sort, and I don't think I've met even one single scientist that wouldn't at least entertain the notion that an interstellar object had an intelligent origin.

By the same token, they also wouldn't accept that proposition as true without substantial supporting evidence. There is none cited in the quoted piece.

[DevilHorse]

So we think Oumuamua still might be created by intelligent life, or is a UFO of some type?
Toward what end?

Looking for other interesting or intelligent worlds?
We have a really interesting planet. We are blue, have water, send out interesting radio and TV broadcasts of Lucy, music, and Hitler. Surround our planet with metal projectiles. Constantly change our atmosphere with CFCs (on then off again). Constant Climate Change. We have life!!! Noise at all frequencies.

We're getting no detectable EM senses/probes in our expected spectrum to find out if we're here from that flying cigar. If it is just a probe, you'd think they'd be smart enough to use low energy probes that we could detect. The universe is made of electromagnetic particles, so what else could they be using? Heretofore unknown particles oooh dark matter probes so we can't tell we are being watched, maybe. Obviously we haven't seen any of these in 70 years of detecting particles because our detectors only see what they are built to detect.

Perhaps we just have bruised egos that these space travelers couldn't be bothered to stop and visit, or that they have such bad sensors, or space brakes, that they can't stop and visit, or just say "hello (foreign) World" as they fly by. Our solar system isn't good enough for them!

Or maybe it is some advanced race's idea of a space barge, filled with garbage, that broke loose and is entertaining us as it passes through.

Larry
DevilHorse

[-jk]

So we think Oumuamua still might be created by intelligent life, or is a UFO of some type?
Toward what end?

Looking for other interesting or intelligent worlds?
We have a really interesting planet. We are blue, have water, send out interesting radio and TV broadcasts of Lucy, music, and Hitler. Surround our planet with metal projectiles. Constantly change our atmosphere with CFCs (on then off again). Constant Climate Change. We have life!!! Noise at all frequencies.

We're getting no detectable EM senses/probes in our expected spectrum to find out if we're here from that flying cigar. If it is just a probe, you'd think they'd be smart enough to use low energy probes that we could detect. The universe is made of electromagnetic particles, so what else could they be using? Heretofore unknown particles oooh dark matter probes so we can't tell we are being watched, maybe. Obviously we haven't seen any of these in 70 years of detecting particles because our detectors only see what they are built to detect.

Perhaps we just have bruised egos that these space travelers couldn't be bothered to stop and visit, or that they have such bad sensors, or space brakes, that they can't stop and visit, or just say "hello (foreign) World" as they fly by. Our solar system isn't good enough for them!

Or maybe it is some advanced race's idea of a space barge, filled with garbage, that broke loose and is entertaining us as it passes through.

Larry
DevilHorse

What's Voyager going to do in some alien solar system? It'll be long since dead, and just zipping through.

A little more obviously manufactured, perhaps. Unless, of course, it gets the full V'Ger powerups.

-jk

[DevilHorse]

What's Voyager going to do in some alien solar system? It'll be long since dead, and just zipping through.

A little more obviously manufactured, perhaps. Unless, of course, it gets the full V'Ger powerups.

-jk

It will obey the laws of physics in its trajectory as it passes through gravitational fields; Voyager will have an obvious point of origin that can be identified (from a Red Giant star in an arm of a spiral galaxy), based on its trajectory, unlike Oumuamua. Voyager will obviously be a manufactured object, unlike anything that can naturaly occur by coalescing matter (or 1000 monkeys). It will look like the overt first ambassador, made of sculpted material through intended behaviors (from our perspective) unlike Oumuamua. Although not the astonishingly oblique huge rotating pancake that is Oumuamua, Voyager's very different reflectivity than any meteor or comet that passes through its neck of the woods will first attract aliens to it, then the fine detail will astonish any inspector who looks closely and figures out how to play the wonderful record of earth sounds.

Larry
DevilHorse

[-jk]

It will obey the laws of physics in its trajectory as it passes through gravitational fields; Voyager will have an obvious point of origin that can be identified (from a Red Giant star in an arm of a spiral galaxy), based on its trajectory, unlike Oumuamua. Voyager will obviously be a manufactured object, unlike anything that can naturaly occur by coalescing matter (or 1000 monkeys). It will look like the overt first ambassador, made of sculpted material through intended behaviors (from our perspective) unlike Oumuamua. Although not the astonishingly oblique huge rotating pancake that is Oumuamua, Voyager's very different reflectivity than any meteor or comet that passes through its neck of the woods will first attract aliens to it, then the fine detail will astonish any inspector who looks closely and figures out how to play the wonderful record of earth sounds.

Larry
DevilHorse

That wonderful record! I miss Carl Sagan.

-jk

[CameronBornAndBred]

What's Voyager going to do in some alien solar system? It'll be long since dead, and just zipping through.

A little more obviously manufactured, perhaps. Unless, of course, it gets the full V'Ger powerups.

-jk

It's gonna come back and kill us all unless we have a Vulcan or two to save us. Duh.

I prefer to compare Voyager to the probe that Picard crossed paths with, though. The one that taught him to play the flute. Same principle in that Voyager is carrying our history along with it. (With a convenient map to find us and wipe us all out. Nice job, NASA!)

[DevilHorse]

It's gonna come back and kill us all unless we have a Vulcan or two to save us. Duh.

I prefer to compare Voyager to the probe that Picard crossed paths with, though. The one that taught him to play the flute. Same principle in that Voyager is carrying our history along with it. (With a convenient map to find us and wipe us all out. Nice job, NASA!)

Speaking of NOMAD:
https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Nomad

Why do these probes always want to come home?
I'll ask VeeGer.

U-turns are expensive in space.

Larry
DevilHorse

[whereinthehellami]

Travis Walton was on Joe Rogan’s Spotify podcast recently (1/19/2021) talking about his abduction in 1975. For those not familiar with the Travis Walton story, here is some background from SyFy.com and an article from Huff Post with some more details. I am skeptical of Travis Walton’s account but do find a few interesting things about it. One being that six other people saw the UFO and saw Walton get struck by a beam from the UFO. The second interesting thing is that all but one individual (inconclusive) passed multiple polygraph tests and interviews by law enforcement personnel. Keep in mind that at least one of them was originally investigated for murder. These six other individuals were not all friends, so to keep the same story for all these years is significant. What would be the motivation? And lastly, trees facing the abduction site have had an unusual growth rate when compared to the other trees at the abduction site. Walton relates that this same effect was seen in Chernobyl and has to do with high levels of radiation.

This podcast was not one of Walton’s better interviews, but Rogan does get him to open up about some other paranormal experiences he has had throughout his life. Walton says that he has seen other UFOs through the years. One involved seeing a triangular shaped UFO in a car with his family that was also reported by 15 other people in that area. Another interesting experience involved his belief that he was alerted to his son suffocating in his bedroom. He believes that there is a connection to his abduction and this event.

[DevilHorse]

It isn't obvious where to put this item:
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/ar...-space-affairs

Nicaragua has created a Ministry for Extraterrestrial Space Affairs.
Should it be put into a forum for Politics?
Should it be put into a medical forum for tone deafness as it is a total waste of time/money as Nicaragua has no Space program?
Perhaps a comedy forum, it will no doubt appear on SNL. But it in no way is a laughing matter to the Nicaraguan people who suffer from a banana republic government.

It probably best fits here because of the Extraterrestrial theme.

Larry
DevilHorse

[MChambers]

I just started reading Extraterrestrial by Avi Loeb. I saw some references to his thinking earlier in this thread, but I don't think anybody else has mentioned reading the book. It's a pretty easy and interesting read. He explains why he thinks there is a very good chance that 'Oumuamua was created by some other civilization. He also tries to address the concerns of all the people who have attacked his position on this. The book is a pretty easy read, although he spends way too much of his time talking about his personal history. He does attack the thinking of the mainstream science community, to some degree, by saying that the system rewards those who do not take undue risks. I don't want to try to summarize his views here beyond that, because I doubt I would do an adequate job. In short, I'd recommend giving the book a read. I was able to download it from one of my local libraries.

[DevilHorse]

Unidentified cylindrical object noted by American Airlines pilot.
Apparently not a cruise missile. Military says not one of theirs.
Heard about it on the ABC national news this evening:
https://nypost.com/2021/02/23/americ...drical-object/

Superman was unavailable for comment.

Larry
DevilHorse

[whereinthehellami]

Unidentified cylindrical object noted by American Airlines pilot.
Apparently not a cruise missile. Military says not one of theirs.
Heard about it on the ABC national news this evening:
https://nypost.com/2021/02/23/americ...drical-object/

Superman was unavailable for comment.

Larry
DevilHorse

“I hate to say this but it looked like a long cylindrical object that almost looked like a cruise missile type of thing moving really fast right over the top of us,” said the American Airlines pilot.

That is such an unfortunate sentiment by the pilot. It is not uncommon for pilots to not report UFOs because of the UFO stigma. A stigma that was created by the US Government to debunk UFO eye witness testimony and control the narrative of the phenomenon. If these UFOs are alien in origin, they should be reported and studied because they would of course be alien flying objects. And if these UFOs are man-made than they should be reported and studied because they are a danger to man and someone has some serious explaining to do.

This Forbes article talks about how these UFOs are more common than people know. Per the Forbes article:

A remarkably similar incident occurred over the Sonoran Desert three years ago. On February 24, 2018, within minutes of each other, two pilots flying different aircraft — a Phoenix Air Group Learjet and an American Airlines commercial flight — both reported passing a mysterious object, according to audio recordings released by the Federal Aviation Administration to the Phoenix New Times several weeks later.

“Was anybody above us that passed us like 30 seconds ago?” the Learjet pilot asked an air traffic controller. “Negative,” replied the tower.

In November 9, 2018, a British Airways pilot flying over Ireland reported seeing “a very bright light that disappeared at very high speed,” reported The Guardian. A Virgin Airlines pilot confirmed seeing it, too: “Multiple objects following the same sort of trajectory – very bright from where we were.”

In April 2019 the U.S. Navy announced it was modifying how pilots reported UFO sightings in favor of a more data-driven approach, telling Politico that there had been “a number of reports of unauthorized and/or unidentified aircraft entering various military-controlled ranges and designated air space in recent years.”

The next month, five Navy pilots told the New York Times that they had frequently seen unidentified flying objects that looked like white Tic Tacs or spinning tops off the Eastern seaboard from Virginia to Florida between 2014 and 2015. The objects, they said, reached hypersonic speeds and heights of 30,000 feet without any visible engine or exhaust trails.

One 10-year veteran, Lieutenant Ryan Graves, said he saw these objects on a daily basis. “These things would be out there all day,” Graves told the Times. “With the speeds we observed, 12 hours in the air is 11 hours longer than we’d expect.”

[budwom]

It's gonna come back and kill us all unless we have a Vulcan or two to save us. Duh.

I prefer to compare Voyager to the probe that Picard crossed paths with, though. The one that taught him to play the flute. Same principle in that Voyager is carrying our history along with it. (With a convenient map to find us and wipe us all out. Nice job, NASA!)

We've got a Vulcan just a couple miles from where I type this, a military firing range...it makes a most extraordinary noise...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M61_Vulcan

[bundabergdevil]

Baker Mayfield saw a UFO. So there’s that.
https://mobile.twitter.com/bakermayf...34211590488065

[budwom]

we had a nice Identified Flying Object over the house on Sunday afternoon, we thought it was the idiot neighbor firing off one of his larger guns, but in fact it was a meteor streaking overhead with a nice sonic boom.