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US House Panel Hearing on UFO/UAP sightings/reports

I'm not sure if any of you are taking this nonsense seriously, but since I have articles left to gift and since Dana Millbank does great satirical opinion pieces, I gotta share the one he wrote about this BS.

https://wapo.st/3OxWix8

The panel’s national security subcommittee brought in, as its star witness, one David Grusch, a former Defense Department intelligence official who now claims:

  • That there are “quite a number” of “nonhuman” space vehicles in the possession of the U.S. government.
  • That one “partially intact vehicle” was retrieved from Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in 1933 by the United States, acting on a tip from Pope Pius XII.
  • That the aliens have engaged in “malevolent activity” and “malevolent events” on Earth that have harmed or killed humans.
  • That the U.S. government is also in possession of “dead pilots” from the spaceships.
  • That a private defense contractor is storing one of the alien ships, which have been as large as a football field.
  • That the vehicles might be coming “from a higher dimensional physical space that might be co-located right here.”
  • That the Roswell, N.M., alien landing was real, and the Air Force’s debunking of it was a “total hack job.”
  • And that the United States has engaged in a nearly century-long “sophisticated disinformation campaign” (apparently including murders to silence people) to hide the truth.
I’d tell you more, but then they would have to kill me.

Just read the entire linked piece. He does a great job of mocking this craziness. And, why isn't anyone asking why the Republicans aren't actually doing anything....you know....like passing legislation that would benefit the country. No! We gotta talk about the aliens that exist without any evidence. Well wait. They do exist in the minds of some people....
 
Yeah, the motivations of Gaetz, Luna, et al. are clear. That much is clear.
 
I know many of you aren't from the US, but the issue doesn't just pertain to one country
I mean, we're the only country that thinks we see frigging aliens, so...
To be fair, sightings of unexplained flying objects and non-human experience goes back to 1450 BC, and there have been reports from all over the world. Just in the last 50 years, reports from the United Kingdom, Iran, Finland, Lithuania, Denmark, Poland, Australia, Italy, Spain, Peru, France, Brazil, Zimbabwe, Albania, Mexico, Bailiwick of Guernsey and Canada have all attracted attention. That's not to say that any of the reports have credibility. It's a much more popular issue in the US of course, probably because of social media permeation in society and the whole "free" speech thing, but it's not by far a localized issue.

Also want to note that I'm not a UFO nut or even a relative believer of extraterrestrial beings. Like many of you, I would have to see MUCH more evidence before I'd draw any conclusions, but I do believe that there's much more going on than what is common knowledge in regards to these events. We already have evidence for the coverups and gov't/corporate collusion to facilitate them. There also may be a perfectly logical explanation for many of the reports we've seen over the past several decades that has nothing to do with "aliens" or other-worldly beings, but there are too many similar reports and too many from at least reasonably credible sources for there to be no explanation at all. I'm just hoping that in my lifetime I'll get to hear some of it ;)
 
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This is an extraordinary claim - and I have seen far from extraordinary evidence.

The existing clips of blurry dots captured by air force, are not convincing of anything. Many have already been explained.

Analysis
Regarding the Nimitz 2004 sighting.
If you watch the 60 Minutes episode, you'll know that three aircraft were reporting this sighting. Two pilots and then the (then XO) of the squadron went up. I think they refer to him as the CO. As I recall, his promotion was announced but was not official at the time.

For every half-baked speculation on what someone thinks they saw, there are equal numbers ready to speculate it away. It's comforting.

The fighter pilots who recorded and and immediately reported the Nimitz UAP are not some poorly educated, emotionally unglued individuals looking to make a name for themselves. They're navy fighter pilots and XO/COs at that. That is the name they've made for themselves. Not the type to start screaming, "I done saw a UFO". Poorly educated, emotionally unglued individuals do not get to become navy fighter pilots. And "I done saw a UFO" is not exactly a career enhancer.
This was shown to be not spacemen
Yes - even the fine men and women in uniform can be human.
 
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This is an extraordinary claim - and I have seen far from extraordinary evidence.

The existing clips of blurry dots captured by air force, are not convincing of anything. Many have already been explained.

Analysis
Regarding the Nimitz 2004 sighting.
If you watch the 60 Minutes episode, you'll know that three aircraft were reporting this sighting. Two pilots and then the (then XO) of the squadron went up. I think they refer to him as the CO. As I recall, his promotion was announced but was not official at the time.

For every half-baked speculation on what someone thinks they saw, there are equal numbers ready to speculate it away. It's comforting.

The fighter pilots who recorded and and immediately reported the Nimitz UAP are not some poorly educated, emotionally unglued individuals looking to make a name for themselves. They're navy fighter pilots and XO/COs at that. That is the name they've made for themselves. Not the type to start screaming, "I done saw a UFO". Poorly educated, emotionally unglued individuals do not get to become navy fighter pilots. And "I done saw a UFO" is not exactly a career enhancer.
This was shown to be not spacemen
Yes - even the fine men and women in uniform can be human.
I read the article...didn't see where it was "shown to be not spacemen." I think it's a huge stretch to claim that it is, but really they just talked about how FLIR and radar systems using tracking can give misleading representations of the focus. Many military pilots don't buy his explanations of radar images, probably because he has no experience with them. (When I say "his" I mean Mick West, the former video game programmer the article quotes) Nevertheless, it's not evidence for aliens. It's not even evidence for non-human spacecraft. It's just an unidentified object that lots of people are working hard not to explain.
 
A thousand years ago, people got abducted by angels and devils, or saw them, or witches. Not aliens. Only since movies about aliens have come out that people now see them.
 
A thousand years ago, people got abducted by angels and devils, or saw them, or witches. Not aliens. Only since movies about aliens have come out that people now see them.
I believe Carl Sagan wrote about this in his book The Demon Haunted World.
 
A thousand years ago, people got abducted by angels and devils, or saw them, or witches. Not aliens. Only since movies about aliens have come out that people now see them.
I believe Carl Sagan wrote about this in his book The Demon Haunted World.
I may or may not have a dragon in my garage...
 
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Couple thoughts,

They are claiming validity of the claims on the expertise of the military people reporting these. In 2003 3 star general Boykin claimed a black smudge in the sky in a photo of an Iraqi city was a demonic presence. So I don't put much stock in the validity just because the claim came from someone in the military.

"Non-human biologicals"?? And what exactly are these? A dead rat is a non-human biological, as are weeds, insects, and every living thing that isn't a human. So can they be a lot more specific?

I'm torn as to which has less 'evidence' to back up their claims, the UFO claimants ("I didn't see it, but I know who you should talk to") or the Trump rigged election claims (millions of fake ballots!!)
 
I'm torn as to which has less 'evidence' to back up their claims, the UFO claimants ("I didn't see it, but I know who you should talk to") or the Trump rigged election claims (millions of fake ballots!!)
Lets not forget the USS Eldridge and the Philadelphia Experiment - I mean Hoax - perpetrated by Carl Allen. Gotta keep that one in the running for most dubious.
 
A thousand years ago, people got abducted by angels and devils, or saw them, or witches. Not aliens. Only since movies about aliens have come out that people now see them.
I believe Carl Sagan wrote about this in his book The Demon Haunted World.
Among the finest books ever written on the nature and motivations of pseudoscience.
 
Side note.

I just remembered that the conversation I had over email with my alien abductee college roommate that was sure the "truth" would soon be revealed about UFOs?

That was 30 years ago.
 
Side note.

I just remembered that the conversation I had over email with my alien abductee college roommate that was sure the "truth" would soon be revealed about UFOs?

That was 30 years ago.
I think the proof is on that Pillow guy’s cell phone.
 
I doubt that there are aliens visiting Earth. I really don't know why they'd want to come here unless they're a curious species. Even if they could come here I have my doubts that they'd be crashing, unless they're being driven by whatever they call teenaged boys.
 
A craft with those characteristics would not only need to use some form of faster than light propulsion but also need to control the gravity from ALL directions at once instantaneously to avoid the occupants becoming grease stains on the hull from the instantaneous acceleration.
All directions? No, it just needs a very high power drive that doesn't cause the passengers to feel acceleration. Just point it in the desired direction.
That doesn't match the description of the acceleration described in the OP. And gravity is probablyn the wrong word to describe the effect.
Gravity and acceleration are synonyms in this context; Gravity is just what we call the special case of acceleration due to a nearby mass (such as a planet or star).

"Artificial gravity" is a science fiction concept, that amounts to an ability to arbitrarily accelerate the occupants of a spacecraft, such that the accelerations due to its own acceleration aren't detectable to those occupants.

The simplest solution is to rotate a spacecraft that is in free-fall, or under constant acceleration at less than that to which you wish to expose the occupants; This provides a constant acceleration inside the vessel, without requiring constant acceleration of the vessel itself.

All other solutions are not only non-existent, but not compatible with current theories about how accelerations are caused by massive objects. We don't know exactly how gravitational forces are transmitted between masses, or even whether they are, but there's only two serious contenders:

Quantum theory suggests that these very weak forces are mediated by particles (called 'gravitons'), which are analogous to other bosons such as the photons that mediate the electromagnetic force. If so, it might perhaps be possible to block out these 'gravitons', or to generate them locally to counteract local accelerations. But quantum theory also requires that these gravitons interact very weakly with matter, and have very low or zero rest mass, and very long wavelengths (making them very difficult indeed to block), and we don't have any way to generate them in significant quantities without providing a very large mass*, which is contraindicated for an object we wish to accelerate rapidly, as this would increase our energy requirements dramatically.

Relativity, in contrast, describes gravitational acceleration as the curvature of spacetime. Artificial gravity (or antigravity, or "inertial damping") would then entail the manipulation of the curvature of spacetime, which again is something we have no theoretical way to achieve, other than by the collection of a very large amount of mass in one place.

Given the current state of our understanding of physics, we can conclude that artificial gravity, if it is possible at all, would require stupendous amounts of energy (mass and energy being interchangeable, as we know) - amounts that are simply unavailable to a small spacecraft, and which, if they could be made available, would require 100% efficiency in their use, as even a minuscule fraction of that energy, if lost as heat, would atomise any matter (including the spacecraft and its occupants) in the vicinity.







*How large? Well, to get (or counteract) an acceleration of just 1g, requires a mass of about 6x1024kg, at a distance of 6,400km. Of course, you can get the same acceleration from a smaller, but closer, mass; But then you need to start compressing your matter, and regular atomic matter requires significant effort to compress much smaller than that - if you just collect together a bunch of matter with that mass, it's own gravitational and electromagnetic forces will make it into a sphere of roughly the radius of the Earth.

The smallest size for a mass of that order (before it becomes a black hole) is a sphere of radius just under 1mm; But making it small enough to fit into your flying saucer doesn't make it any easier to accelerate. And to counteract a higher acceleration (say 10g) would require ten times the mass. And that mass would need to be itself accelerated rapidly and repeatedly, to place it in the right position relative to the occupants of the vehicle to counteract the vehicle's acceleration.

And assuming that your technology allows you to achieve all of this, tidal effects would be catastrophic, both for the spacecraft and the planet it was visiting.
 
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