British To Release UFO Files

Sean Stidman writes "Looks like the Brits are planning to release their secret files on many UFO sightings, including the famous Rendlesham Forest incident. These files should be ready for download by the end of this week, which I guess means by tomorrow. Are their servers going to be able to handle the load?"

Comments

Slashdotting

[Anonymous Coward]

"Are their servers going to be able to handle the load?"

If the /. editors can refrain from duplicating this story tomorrow then nobody will remember the link.

Re:Slashdotting

[Anonymous Coward]

Good thing they never repeat submissions!

Re:Slashdotting

[Anonymous Coward]

Good thing they never repeat submissions!!

Re:Slashdotting

[Jugalator]

If the /. editors can refrain from duplicating this story tomorrow then nobody will remember the link. .. including the editors, so when they stumble upon the news tomorrow or so they'll think "wow, we haven't linked to *that* before; I'll just post the news myself". If they won't stumble upon it, a Slashdot reader that forgot about the yesterday news will.

So my theory is that regardless what will happen, there *will* be a dupe. ;-)

Re:Slashdotting

[Teknogeek]

Wow. It's like that movie starring Bill Murray where everything kept happening over and over.

What was it called again? Ghostbusters II?

Release UFO info?

[Quasar1999]

What they will finally admit that the royal family is actually from some distant star system? I knew it!

Re:Release UFO info?

[Toraz Chryx]

Yeah, sure they are.. if you consider Alpha Centauri distant....

for gods sake mankind, it's only four lightyears!

Re:Release UFO info?

[Captain Large Face]

Nope, just Prince Phillip

Re:Release UFO info?

[tuxedo-steve]

I would have thought the blue blood was a dead giveaway.

Re:Release UFO info?

[Ponty]

Indeed, IIRC, the whole current line of 'em is German. They adopted the surname Windsor (named after the castle) when they decided that it was decidedly un-PC with WWI in full swing to have the name "Saxe-Coburg & Gothe" or "Hanover" of George II-Victoria. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I have it down.)

Incidents

[VON-MAN]

That "famous Rendlesham Forest incident" wasn't that the one with the UFO with the mysterious blue/red flashing lights. And with the red(!) flashing lighthouse a couple of clics away?
Supposed the be the British "area 51", says a lot 'bout UFO loons :-)

Re:Incidents

[mikerich]

Yes they were American troops in the woods at night in a relatively unfamiliar country - which only makes it more likely that they got confused by local geography.

They didn't record 'exceptionally high radiation' they claim to have found levels slightly elevated above background radiation - right next to a base storing nuclear weapons.

If this is the best that the UFO conspirators can come up with, then their 'evidence' is even less credible than we thought.

Perhaps the best archive on this fiasco is http://www.rendlesham.com/.

Don't have nightmares.

Mike.

Re:Incidents

[mikerich]

There were a number of lights visible in the area. The two brightest were white and probably belonged to the Orford Ness lighthouse and a lightship. The coloured lights appear to be the warning beacons found on transmitter masts.

Best wishes,
Mike.

This will never go through

[I Am The Owl]

Even though the British government has been collecting information on its citizens for quite some time and violating their Constitutional rights to online privacy with their big government databases, they have nothing on the US.

Do you think for a second that the NSA and the Alien Studies Administration (a secret, classified offshoot of the CIA) will ever let this come to light and compromise the Roswell coverup and numerous other incidents throughout the decades that have helped the government implant thought-tracking devices in the heads of key international figures in exchange for allowing the aliens to abduct a fixed quota of non-desirable citizens each year? Fat fucking chance! They are still out there, in their black helicopters and UFO-saucers, aiming their laser rifles at all the fuckers who think they have them beat. I can block their radiation brain wave modifiers with a special metal I concocted in my basement.

I can't prolong this transmission because they are getting a fix on my location. Please, please, listen to me and believe me when I say that you need to steal this for the short time it is up before THEY realize it is there. Fight the power!

Re:This will never go through

[hkhanna]

Even though the British government has been collecting information on its citizens for quite some time and violating their Constitutional rights to online privacy with their big government databases, they have nothing on the US.

Britain doesn't have a constitution, so their citizens don't have constitutional rights. Eh, big boy?

Re:This will never go through

[Malc]

Britain does have a constitution, but it's not a single written document - it's an uncodified constitution. It comes from several sources including statues such as the Magna Carta, Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement, political conventions (laws and customs of parliament) and case law (common law). There are two basic principles: rule of law, and the supremacy of parliament

Re:This will never go through

[JamesCronus]

sorry to break this to you, but as a british citizen, until the recent human rights act, i didnt have ANY rights, at all. and not only that, i have no constitution either.

in britain, the queen owns my ass. though in practice because of our civil war (yes we had one, and guess what its was before yours too!) she cant actually do very much with it.

brain wave modifiers? hello?

Re:This will never go through

[whereiswaldo]

The Constitution is a piece of paper that basically says US citizens have certain rights. It had to be fought for.

What about God given rights? Your rights as a human being? I don't need a bunch of old geezers to tell me what I should be free to do.

I guess the Beastie Boys were right. You gotta fight... for your right... to paaaaaaaarrtttayy! :)

Re:This will never go through

[shogun]

in britain, the queen owns my ass. though in practice because of our civil war (yes we had one, and guess what its was before yours too!) she cant actually do very much with it.

Oh? I woulda thought it was just because she's well over 70 now and wouldn't take all that much interest in it.

Re:This will never go through

[AndrewRUK]

...until the recent human rights act, i didnt have ANY rights...

Wrong. You did, and still do, have the right to do anything not prohibited by law. Our laws do not say "you are allowed to do U, V, and W," they say "you are not allowed to do X, Y and Z." (U, V, W, X, y and Z being things that you can or cannot do.) I don't need a law to say I can post on slashdot (for example) - the fact that no law says I can't means I can. (And, for the pedants in the audience, I mean in general, I know there are some things the law says I can't say - incitement to racial harted is an offence, as is saying I could get you illegal drugs [counts as intent to supply, iirc] - to give two examples.)

Re:This will never go through

[elvum]

Politicians carrying out policy is hardly a breach of your human rights.

Re:This will never go through

[corbettw]

"Oh? I woulda thought it was just because she's well over 70 now and wouldn't take all that much interest in it."

Unless it's to use it as a reward for one of her son's secretaries.

Re:This will never go through

[Malc]

I don't see that this is different. In the US they have one document to refer to. In the UK they have many many documents, etc to refer to. So? That doesn't make it any less a constitution, although it differs considerably in implementation and philosophy to the American one. That doesn't mean either is better or worse.

I believe the final say in these matters are actually made by the Law Lords. Of course, knowing the British constitution is a much harder task than knowing the American one. The constitution is considerably more flexible than the American one, meaning it is able to evolve more easily with time and be more representative of the day. Of course, with this flexibility comes the increased risk of abuse.

Re:This will never go through

[Malc]

How about we refer to an American dictionary? Constitution. Nowhere does it say it has to be a single document. You are judging a foreign concept based on your own nation's practices. This just doesn't work. You're also using a very narrow definition of the word "constitution", also based on your country's practices.

You obviously don't understand how the British constitution works. Have no doubt, it too defines many of the same things as the American constitution. In some way I prefer the British approach as it allows for more freedom: it defines what you can't do, which makes everything else permissive, and thus it is more able to cope with a changing world - there are parts of the American constitution that I think are outdated or unnecessary (e.g. 2nd amendment) that are now retarding society's development as people try to define themselves from this aging document. Don't get me wrong, the writers of that constitution did an amazing job and showed great foresight, yet it is still too rigid for me as it is a document from a different time when people had a increasingly different values.

The parliamentary system goes against much of the grain of the American system by allowing the partial merging of the executive and legislative branches of goverment. However, this doesn't mean that the constitution is any less weak at preventing abuse of power. In fact, I see far more abuse going on right now with GWB and his cronies than in the parliamentary democracies. He surely cares little for individual's rights, whether defined by the constitution or it's intents, or not.

Re:This will never go through

[meringuoid]

But, that isn't stopping Blair from going after it hell bent.

Hague said he'd definitely keep the pound. Blair said in principle he would join the euro, and in practice would put it to a referendum when the time was judged to be right.

William Hague was subsequently defeated in the election, doing as badly as Major had in the previous one. And since then the Conservatives have barely appeared on the radar. If people cared so much about saving the pound, surely that line would have saved Hague's hide at the last election? Surely it would have won him at least _SOME_ votes...

Re:This will never go through

[Planesdragon]

Nowhere does it say it has to be a single document.

That's because the word has changed meaning. Language does that.

You obviously don't understand how the British constitution works.

Of course I do. You obviously can't seperate someone not agreeing with your chosen title for your core governmental system from someone who simply doesn't understand it.

Don't get me wrong, the writers of that constitution did an amazing job and showed great foresight, yet it is still too rigid for me as it is a document from a different time when people had a increasingly different values.

For the most part, the values of the late 18th century are identical to the values of the early 21st century. There have been some notable changes, and once those changes have gained sufficient momentum, the Constitution was amended.

The parliamentary system goes against much of the grain of the American system by allowing the partial merging of the executive and legislative branches of goverment.

You obviously don't understand how the american government is set up, do you? There is merging and oversight and balances of all three branches of government, all the time. (The President had to have congress pass a law to have a new Exectuive division, the President can veto just about anything congress passes, etc, etc.)

However, this doesn't mean that the constitution is any less weak at preventing abuse of power. In fact, I see far more abuse going on right now with GWB and his cronies than in the parliamentary democracies. He surely cares little for individual's rights, whether defined by the constitution or it's intents, or not.

Hardly. After the first major attack on American soil from a foreign body since Perl Harbor, we shifted our priority a bit from pure unfettered liberty to actually surviving. The Republican wins in Bush's midterm elections--a historical first--are a clear enough message that he's got some sort of mandate from the American people and that he's done something right in the past two years.

Trampling individual rights of everyone in the name of everyone's security might be too much--but it's not abuse of power. Heck, I think that privacy and even a five-minute warning before the police come in is a priviledge and not a right.

Besides which, I don't hear of G.W. Bush forcing the USA to join the European Union against the whole country's wishes...

Re:Does anyone think...

[caluml]

I'm British and I have absolutely no idea what you mean by "redacted out".

In other news, London is covered in fog all the time, it never gets hot in the UK, and Sherlock Holmes is close to catching Jack the Ripper.

only if

[malana-cream]

Are their servers going to be able to handle the load?

only if it's an x-fileserver.

Nice touch from the Brits

[product byproduct]

Letting the Americans have one last turkey feast before announcing the alien invasion.

Re:Nice touch from the Brits

[iomud]

Turns out it was an alien-turkey race who have come to exact their revenge.

Re:Nope, they won't handle it

[frankthechicken]

Shortly followed by the next UFO sighting of their server flying out of the server rooms window in pain and anguish. Actually what am I saying, when the hell was the last time you heard of a server room with a window, let alone enough people paying any attention to it at all to notify of a new UFO sighting.

Finally...

[davidstrauss]

We can learn the secret to phoning home.

Re:Finally...

[nurightshu]

Mostly the dentistry (or lack thereof).

Fascinating, other countries have UFO's too!

[dagg]

I've read about Project Blue Book, Roswell, and big-eyed aliens all my life. I don't know why... but it didn't occur to me that other countries had UFO-coverup stories. What else is out there?

--
What aliens already know about you.

Re:Fascinating, other countries have UFO's too!

[Mac Degger]

You should have realised by now that no single nation has a monopoly on idiots.

Re:Does anyone think...

[RussGarrett]

To redact is just another word for edit, it comes from a latin derivation so it's not an Americanism or anything :).

It's used in this sort of context to mean blanked out or removed - something they don't want to release (this is the irony in most freedom of information legislation - the government are allowed to redact whatever they want).

Alien Haiku

[Angry White Guy]

The aliens land,
taking all the hot women.
Slashdotters are greived.

Re:Alien Haiku

[tomhudson]

The aliens land, taking all the hot women. Slashdotters are greived.

More likely, most don't even notice the difference (at least not the editors w. the repeating stories)

Re:Alien Haiku

[ToadSprocket]

It never does fail,
The rule is 'I' before 'E',
Except after 'C'.

Re:Alien Haiku

[sean23007]

Don't you mean:

"Slashdotters barely notice, as the jpegs of said women remain in place." ?

After all, most of you wouldn't ever notice if all the hot women in the world actually didn't exist. As a matter of fact, to them, you don't...


Joking.

Re:Alien Haiku

[Darby]

Well, it does blow the haiku, but for completeness:
Except when sounded like "A" as in neighbor and reign.

Re:Alien Haiku

[RichardX]

It never does fail,
The rule is 'I' before 'E',
Except after 'C'.
Except when sounded like "A" as in neighbor and reign.

Actually, it does fail when you throw "weird" at it. E before I, and no C, or A. So.. uh.. nerr-nerr-ner-nerr-nerr

Unless of course I missed another part of it which covers that case. In which event, this post is a forgery. By aliens. Big green ones, with bug-eyes, 'n everything.

Re:Alien Haiku

[Darby]

Actually, it does fail when you throw "weird" at it.

I think this is a case of the lesser of two evils.
Either you break the rule, or "weird" is spelled in a way which isn't.

Re:Alien Haiku

[joss]

I suspect that for many slashdotters, being abducted by aliens and forced to procreate is about their best chance of getting hot women.

Other sites for Rendlesham UFO Info

[MoThugz]

http://www.rendlesham.com
http://www.io.com/~nelson/rendlesham.htm
http://www.debunker.com/texts/RidpathRendlesham1.h tml
Tape Transcript: http://www.skiesare.demon.co.uk/bentwatr.htm

Actually, the truth is...

[Cap'n Canuck]

I believe it's not just other countries that have UFO-coverup stories; other planets have them, too.

- This side of the river is intentionally left bank.

Yaaaay!!!

[Pig Hogger]

Does this means we'll be able to download all those UFO episodes????

Re:Does anyone think...

[Dave2 Wickham]

In other news, London is covered in fog all the time, it never gets hot in the UK, and Sherlock Holmes is close to catching Jack the Ripper.

Hey, two out of three isn't bad ;)

*ducks*

Interested but skeptical

[aaronhurd]

This will definitely be interesting to see, but as always with governments releasing "secret files," I am skeptical. Certainly these files, if they are legitimate, are not the complete collection, but rather very carefully selected tidbits from the massive archives of British intelligence.

Re:Interested but skeptical

[Saeger]

Seems to focus way too much time on conspiracy stuff and unlikely energy source ideas...

Zero Point Energy may be unlikely, but it's not impossible either. Real science is actually flirting in this area... (but the conspiracy theorists have more fun with it :).

--

UFO != Alien Life

[peterprior]

I wish people would stop thinking "UFO! OMG! Aliens!"..

A UFO is exactly that... an Unidentified Flying Object. It doesn't mean it's from another planet, it just means there was an object in the air, and some bystander with a fuzzy camcorder at best couldn't work out what it was.

Re:UFO != Alien Life

[Angry White Guy]

But why do these bystanders always live in trailer parks?

Re:UFO != Alien Life

[TeknoHog]

In addition, it doesn't mean "supernatural" either. This is another confusion that people sometimes make. Just because UFOs, aliens and the supernatural are somehow strange, doesn't mean they are related to each other.

Re:UFO != Alien Life

[Mac Degger]

Never seen the BangBus?

Yeah, that thought grossed me out too.

Re:UFO != Alien Life

[Wraithlyn]

What "conspiracy" are you talking about?

Extraterrestrial life could visit the Earth without there being some big conspiracy, you know. In fact any reasonable, open-minded mathematical analysis actually predicts it. The fact that we should, but haven't seen any aliens yet is known as Fermi's Paradox.

The people who refuse to acknowledge facts and evidence are actually on YOUR side. Please read this. It covers all the reasons why scientists have stubbornly refused to admit there is an enormous body of verified (ie, visual reports which match radar evidence) observational evidence to suggest that we have been visited by craft that are 1) physically solid, 2) under intelligent control, and 3) in possession of propulsion technology far beyond human understanding.

I particularly like this piece:

"This type of logic can be successfully applied to any claim. For instance, let's declare that dinosaurs are an extraordinary claim. This declaration requires no logical substantiation, just the way skeptics use their nearly zero a priori probability of extraterrestrial visitation to declare the claim extraordinary with no logical defense whatsoever, given the insufficient information to determine this probability. So, we have declared dinosaurs to be an extraordinary claim. The next step is to reject all fossil evidence for dinosaurs, since fossils are only acceptable for ordinary claims such as woolly mammoths; for extraordinary dinosaur claims, fossils are worthless. What we need, as dinosaur skeptics, is physical proof of an intact dinosaur. And, to make it even more similar to the skeptic approach, we don't need to defend the rationale of the demand for physical proof of dinosaurs; the fact that it is an extraordinary claim allows us to demand the very upper boundary of conceptually feasible modes of proof -- but conceptual feasibility does not translate into practical feasibility. Sure, I can demand physical proof, but will I get it? Is it worth ignoring fossil evidence in my wait for physical proof?

We could extend the analogy further by applying more skeptic logical tricks. For instance, dinosaur articles are published in journals which already believe in dinosaurs; therefore, it is biased and one-sided, and hardly representative of truly critical peer review. We could assert that all fossils are best explained as hoaxes, misidentifications of known and unknown geological processes, and hallucinations and/or misinterpretations by overzealous paleontologists imposing their belief system on an anomalous rock. This, I can contend, is the "simplest explanation", and I don't have to worry about using overstrenuous logic because, in an absence of physical proof of dinosaurs, any explanation is simpler, no matter how contrived and convoluted! This is the essence of the scientific rejection of the UFO evidence: an overwhelming need to disbelieve coupled with a shameful lack of research into the actual evidence."

No offense, but I think you "aliens are impossible" types are as close minded as the "flat earthers" and "fake moon landing" types.. no matter what volume of evidence you are shown, it's never good enough. The only difference between you and "conspiracy nuts" is that you have the backing of a bunch of scientists who don't want to admit how stubborn and blind they've been.

Re:obligatory X-files reference

[Anonymous Coward]

"Don't you mean: The truth is out there, ol' chap!"

Drop the stereotype and walk away slowly, with your hands behind your head!

Andyboy_H

Just in time for Spielberg's "Taken"

[trentfoley]

I'd like to see just how much money Universal / USA Network / SciFi Channel have put in to promoting Mr. Spielberg's upcoming 20 hour mini-series. So far I've seen:
1. Bombardment of ads for the show.
2. Ads for freedomofinfo.org (checkout the whois)
3. The Abduction Diaries ???
4. A Geraldo style show about Roswell
5. And now, paying off the Brits to unleash their hype^H^H^H^Hinfo.

It all seems pretty expensive to me.

Re:Just in time for Spielberg's "Taken"

[DarkZero]

Yeah, well, at least they're getting exactly what they deserve. Hopefully they'll get some more of it when the damn thing premieres on the Sci-Fi Channel.

according to unnamed sources

[Anonymous Coward]

the release will consist of ...
- footage of brightly coloured aliens with CRT screens embedded in abdominal area
- chemical analysis of 'moon' wenslydale
- a police box

Humorous anecdote...

[httpamphibio.us]

When I was a kid I overheard my dad talking about how my mom was applying for citizenship because she was an alien. Of course when I heard "alien" I assumed the outer space kind (or as I said back then, "out of space") because I had no knowledge of the foreign kind. The next day at school I told everyone I knew that she was an alien, it went over quite well. :)

Aliens *did* land in Britain...

[mtec]

but were successfully repelled by the local cuisine.

Re:Aliens *did* land in Britain...

[Big Mark]

Hmm... I'm a Scot, and let me see what we have:

Deep fried Mars Bars; haggis (which really IS a sheep stomach filled with horrible bits of sheep and not, as I delight in telling tourists, a small fluffy animal); porridge with salt and Tunnock's Teacakes.

Beam me up, Scotty. And if you insist on bringing the haggis, make sure it's already out of the sheep this time!

-Mark

Re:Aliens *did* land in Britain...

[perky]

So they went to the states and after three weeks were unable to leave as the saucer couldn't carry the extra weight. You've got to love the American approach to cookery: "We can't make it better, so let's just make it bigger!". Same with the cars I suppose :-).

Analysis of the /. effect

[jki]

Are their servers going to be able to handle the load?

Finally this is NOT not off-topic :) Here's an analysis of the slashdot effect. In the UFO files case, I believe the effect will be tens of times powerful in terms of distinct visitors than the case I analyzed and hundreds of times stronger in sense of data transferred, as they are probably going to serve fat media. I believe they will go down.

Most of the files won't be released yet.

[Anonymous Coward]

From, http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199899/ ldhansrd/vo981217/text/81217w03.htm:

The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Gilbert): Thirty-eight files are held at the Public Record Office for release under the terms of the Public Records Acts 1958 and 1967, the 30-year rule applying:

AIR 2/18564 & 18565 UFO Reports--due for release 2002.

AIR 20/12067, 12297 to 12306 Unidentified flying objects-due for release 2001.

AIR 20/12399 to 12411 UFO reports--due for release 2003.

AIR 20/12544 to 12555 UFO reports--due for release 2004.

BJ 5/311 UFO: Met aspects--due for release 2001

Four files are held by the MoD records management branch pending acceptance and transfer to the PRO, PRO references and transfer arrangements awaiting confirmation:

AF/7463/72 UFO reports--provisionally assigned to PRO reference AIR 2/18831 for release in 2003.

AF/7464/72 UFO reports--provisionally assigned to PRO reference AIR 2/18872 for release in 2004.

AF/7464/72 Pt. II UFO reports--provisionally assigned to PRO reference AIR 2/18873 for release in 2005.

AF/7464/72 Pt. III UFO reports--provisionally assigned to PRO reference AIR 2/18874 for release in 2006.

In the absence of a thematic index of files stored in MoD's archives the identification of files has, of necessity, been limited to those created by the Air Staff Secretariat and predecessor branches. The following files have been identified and are earmarked for review by MoD at future dates, at which point they will be assessed for their suitability for preservation at the PRO. It is possible that some files created by other Headquarters divisions or establishments may contain papers on this topic. These could only be identified at disproportionate cost:

AF/S4f(A)/422--one file--UFOs, BBC Radio Oxford Programme.

AF/S4f(Air) U/506--one file--Statistical Analyses of UFOs.

AF/3459/75--one file--UFOs: Policy and Policy statements--1970.

AF/584 to 595--12 files--UFO reports.

AF/596 to 602--seven files--UFO reports.

AF/447--one file--UFO reports.

AF/607 & 608--two files--UFO reports.

AF/610 to 613--four files--UFO reports.

AF/616 to 619--four files--UFO reports.

AF/419--one file--BBC 2, Man Alive Programme: UFOs.

17 Dec 1998 : Column WA178

D/DS8/75/2/1--six parts--UFO reports, correspondence.

D/DS9/75/2/2--12 parts--UFO correspondence.

D/DS8/75/2/3--six parts--UFO reports, edited copies.

D/DS8/75/2/4--three parts--UFO reports.

D/DS8/75/2/5--two parts--UFO reports.

D/DS8/75/3--one part--UFO, Parliamentary Correspondence.

D/DS8/75/6--one part--UFO, TV discussion.

D/DS8/75/7--one part--UFO, satellite debris.

D/DS8/10/209--seven parts--UFO briefs, reports and correspondence.

D/DS8/10/209/1--three parts--general briefs, reports, UFO correspondence

Re:Slashdot goes full bore on Thanksgiving!

[nackrm]

umm, where's the new content?

This is *so* pathetic

[perfessor multigeek]

Okay, so I read the Colonel Halt (love the name) transcript, looked at the photos, looked at the interviews and . . .
What a pile of self-deluding baloney!
Read the transcript. None of those guys knew how to use their gear, they couldn't even find enough flashlights, they didn't know the territory. I wouldn't trust those guys to tell me how many buttons were on their shirtfronts.
Stuff hovering over Mexico City? Maybe.
Weird sh*t at Roswell (even beyond it's being a military test site)? Yes, something seriously hinky was going on.
Pilots saying that there's a lot in the sky that looks UFO-ish to them? I'm not in a position to judge.
But this thing? Yeah, right. I'll trade ya my secret decoder ring for your deed to the Brooklyn Bridge and then we'll go investigate.

Posting while I eat, like a true obsessive /.er,
Rustin

Re:This is *so* pathetic

[perfessor multigeek]

I did. Good stuff.
I have fantasies of someday living in a land where all children are raised to understand things like parallax, and shifting perceived color, and basic forest skills. Clearly that land will not be most of America anytime soon.

Re:This is *so* pathetic

[Twirlip of the Mists]

I have fantasies of someday living in a land where all children are raised to understand things like parallax, and shifting perceived color, and basic forest skills. Clearly that land will not be most of America anytime soon.

Well, no. Most Americans have to get in their cars and drive for more than an hour to get to anything remotely resembling a forest. Unfortunately, this is also true of a lot of the world. It's no surprise that the average 21st century person has no idea how to behave or what to expect in a forest. Most people only read about them at best.

Re:This is *so* pathetic

[perfessor multigeek]

Well, maybe it's just me and my Puritan-esque family, but that just doesn't cut it for me. What, the Sierra Club's hikes are too expensive?
Urk! Very frustrating. I've lived in cities all my life but my parents didn't have much trouble insuring that I spent some real time outside of them. As far as my father was concerned, his job wan't done until he left me at a camp site, told me to wait until (a half hour? an hour? don't remember) had passed and that he would meet me at the trail head. Did I have a few terrifying minutes here and there? Yeah, sure. None of them as bad as some time I've spent in Harlem.
I just don't see what excuse people have for raising kids who can't tell a woodsman's blaze from "the cryptic and terrible signs of a UFO".
Admittedly, I'm in an unusually snippy mood tonight, but some days I just want to drop all these folks one by one deep into Idaho with a few MREs, a knife, a shirt-jacket, and a compass (do we give 'em Polaris-Silvas or make 'em sweat?) and tell them that we'll see them back in town.

Gol-dang-candy-assed, no good, stream-polluting, SUV-driving, garbage-leaving, backwoods-paving, flush toilet-dependent, water-wasting, mutter, mutter, grumble, bitch . . .
Rustin

Re:This is *so* pathetic

[perfessor multigeek]

Point taken. I misspoke. What I meant to say is that there seem to be a lot of pilots out there with solid experience who speak of seeing what appeared to them to be intelligently driven vehicles of a sort not possible with current known technology. I *really* don't want to say "flying saucers" and, yes, UFO is a meaningless term since, as you pointed out, these are, by definition unidentified, look to be flying, and look to be objects, even though those same criteria would apply to wads of bubble gum shot up with boomerangs from the local school.
BTW, what was the deal with all that talk recently about some hujungeous delta-shaped airship thingy that people were calling an alien craft but was actually some sort of U.S. military supply ship? I remember reading about it but don't remember where. Probably /. but I'm too lazy to do the search.
Rustin

Re:Rendlesham Forest Disclosure

[buswolley]

Rendlesham Forest Disclosure:

release from British Freedom of Information Act excerpt: "According to witnesses ---- ------ ----- there ------- ---- --- are --- ---- ---- -- no ---- such ---- ---- -- thing ---- as ----- ----- -- UFOs.

Re:Does anyone think...

[Zemran]

The word is not in common usage so therefore is not what would be said in England. Just because it is of latin derivation (as are many English words) does not mean it cannot be an Americanism. Many words that are used in the US are not used in the UK but were once used in the UK and therefore have their normal derivation.

The word means 'to put into literary or publishable form', re-edit, new edition.

From all reports

[Goonie]

The British don't eat British cuisine(s) any more...or at least the infamous parts of it. They're too busy munching curry ... :)

We dont actually need these docs

[Beautyon]

Because we already have everything we need out in the open:

NUFORC has many reports of high strangeness and high quality.

UFOSkeptic a must read for all "science types", written by Dr. Bernard Haisch.

Science Logic and the UFO debate. Once you read this, you will have no doubts left.

And finally, all the arguments of the skeptics were completely demolised single handedly by a man called Brian Zeiler on USENET circa 1996. Essential reading, if you have the patience.

Essentially, the arguments about this subject are over. The interesting discussion is centered around what is to be done about this problem... if anything.

Re:We dont actually need these docs

[Christopher Thomas]

UFOSkeptic [ufoskeptic.org] a must read for all "science types", written by Dr. Bernard Haisch.

I'm afraid I'm not terribly impressed with this site. After reading through these documents, it became clear that Dr. Haisch has a habit of jumping to the most favourable possible conclusion given incomplete evidence (as opposed to saying "the evidence is incomplete; here are the options and we don't know which is true").

The most thought-provoking case of this was his discussion of Fermi's Paradox. The paradox is that observations to date suggest that there are a very large number of worlds in the galaxy hospitable to intelligent water-based life, and yet we see no evidence of it and none of it has provably come to visit. Dr. Haisch notes that this either means that colonizing civilizations don't last long, or that aliens _do_ come to visit, and immediately concludes the latter. If anything, the lack of strong evidence of visitation or beacons or the like suggests that the former case is the more probable.

As a side note, the implications of this chain of reasoning are fascinating to consider. Either civilizations almost inevitably eradicate themselves, or they almost inevitably become permanently introverted, or they almost inevitably move somewhere else (either a virtual world, a la "Calculating God", or another universe (a la the Sublimed Elders from the "Culture" novels). Another option is that even under favourable conditions, sapient life, or perhaps complex life of any form, is extremely rare. Yet another option is that there is some other factor affecting habitability of worlds that we haven't found yet that eliminates most from consideration.

Whatever the case, there is by no means convincing evidence for the conclusion that aliens must be visiting us. Yet, the whole site is filled with jumps of logic like that.

Re:We dont actually need these docs

[Beautyon]

If anything, the lack of strong evidence of visitation or beacons or the like suggests that the former case is the more probable.

This is simply wrong. There is plenty of evidence, of high quality, that would convince any scientist that is not predisposed to automaticaly reject it.

there is by no means convincing evidence for the conclusion that aliens must be visiting us.

This is nonsense. Anyone who is reasonable, and who has read the abundance of high quality cases can only come to the conclusion that Dr. Haisch has come to. If anyone has a better explanation that accounts for all of the evidence, then they need to provide this explanation, and not reject out of hand the the one provided by scientists who have done the actual required work.

Re:We dont actually need these docs

[spakka]

There is plenty of evidence, of high quality, that would convince any scientist that is not predisposed to automaticaly reject it.

'No True Scotsman' fallacy

If anyone has a better explanation that accounts for all of the evidence, then they need to provide this explanation

Begging the question. Providing a common explanation for a large set of different events presupposes accepting your belief that the events share a common cause.

Re:We dont actually need these docs

[Beautyon]

'No True Scotsman' fallacy

That statement is not of the "No true Scotsman" type. From Wikipedia:

The "No true Scotsman" argument is an argument of the form:

Argument: "No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge."
Reply: "But my friend Angus likes sugar with his porridge."
Rebuttal: "Ah yes, but no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge."

This form of argument is a fallacy if the predicate ("putting sugar on porridge") does not follow from the accepted definition of the subject ("Scotsman"), or if the definition of the subject is silently adjusted after the fact to make the rebuttal work.

Some behaviors are actually contradictory to the label; "no true vegetarian would prefer a beefsteak to a salad" is not fallacious because it follows from the definition of "vegetarian."

A similar situation occurs in arguments about controversial topics such as Evolution. Evolution is defined as true and good by some people and as false and evil by others. When facts are presented to support one side of the argument or the other, Evolution is redefined to as needed. As such, the a debate about Evolution is unwinnable.

A similar situation exists with Terrorism. Terrorism is bad and evil. Therefore any action done which is justified is automatically relabeled Freedom fighting.

You have a similar problem in religion. Words have values independent of their meanings and people who believe essentially the same thing will disagree violently because the term used has a different connotation and meaning to the disagreeing parties.

Re:We dont actually need these docs

[spakka]

That statement is not of the "No true Scotsman" type

Argument: "No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge."
Reply: "But my friend Angus likes sugar with his porridge."
Rebuttal: "Ah yes, but no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge."

You said:

There is plenty of evidence, of high quality, that would convince any scientist that is not predisposed to automaticaly reject it.

Admittedly, it isn't formatted over three lines, and doesn't involve Scotsmen and porridge, but if you substitute as follows, you'll see the similarity:

Scotsman = scientist
Puts sugar on porridge = is unconvinced by the evidence
true = not predisposed to automatically reject it

Re:We dont actually need these docs

[Beautyon]

Scotsman = scientist
Puts sugar on porridge = is unconvinced by the evidence
true = not predisposed to automatically reject it

Using that substitution logic, you can argue that Christians are suffering from the "No true Scotsman" fallacy, because they reject polytheism in advance of hearing the arguments for polytheism. This is not the case; they are merely religious, and not propagating a fallacious argument.

The practice of Science is fundamentally differrent from the practice of religion. The only thing that matters to scientists are the facts. If the facts invalidate a premise, then it is the premise that is flawed and which needs to be adjusted, not the facts.

Anyone that rejects, changes or ignores the facts to protect a premise is not a true scientist, and is practicing a sort of religion, not science.

This is more precisely what I meant to convey.

Re:We dont actually need these docs

[nagora]

This is nonsense. Anyone who is reasonable, and who has read the abundance of high quality cases can only come to the conclusion that Dr. Haisch has come to. If anyone has a better explanation that accounts for all of the evidence, then they need to provide this explanation,

Okay: it's all made up or mistaken. I used to be a real UFO nut and read every report I could find; my girlfriend likewise. Then one day I realised that not a single UFO report was free of odd little logic and coherence gaps. After a while I realised that this is because the reports (other than simple mistakes) are made up by people that are not very good at making things like this up.

It's all tedious thrid rate fantasy when it comes down to it.

TWW

Re:We dont actually need these docs

[Beautyon]

After a while I realised that this is because the reports (other than simple mistakes) are made up by people that are not very good at making things like this up.

So your "explanation" is that its all lies and delusion.

You have to do *much* better than that my friend, on every level.

Re:We dont actually need these docs

[nagora]

So your "explanation" is that its all lies and delusion

Yep. That was my great breakthrough - one day I sat up and thought "The assumption I've always made is that there is some truth to these claims and that the reason I've not found it is that I'm doing something wrong.". Once that assuption is discarded it all makes a lot more sense. It wasn't me that was going wrong when I couldn't find a convincing case, it was the liars and genuinely confused people.

That's why all the photographs are crap and why all the pictures of "aliens" look like people in badly-fitting suits. That's why the aliens act like idiots in all the stories. Because they aren't real! So much simpler than trying to fit all the ridiculous stories with their contradictions and unlikely behaviour into some coherent theory of retarded but advanced aliens spanning the gulf between the stars to wage war on wheat and harass some cows.

You have to do *much* better than that my friend, on every level.

No, I don't. There's no point in going beyond this as the UFO-nuts will never admit defeat. I have personally spent hours debunking everything thrown at me by these people and in the end it's exactly the same as trying to explain evolution to a creationist: faith is always stronger than argument, especially amongst the stupid.

TWW

Re:We dont actually need these docs

[Beautyon]

Yep. That was my great breakthrough...

..I have personally spent hours debunking everything thrown at me...

Thats excellent; now you can permanently rest, having personally solved this problem for the entire world. Publish your results on a website. The world is waiting with baited breath. You will be famous for sure. And after its all finished, you need never speak of it again.

What a relief!

Re:We dont actually need these docs

[nagora]

Thats excellent; now you can permanently rest, having personally solved this problem for the entire world. Publish your results on a website. The world is waiting with baited breath. You will be famous for sure. And after its all finished, you need never speak of it again.

Like you'd care! UFO-nuts are not interested in logic, evidence or reason.

Alien visitors are no more real than all the witches that were burned at the stake in the 16 to 17 hundreds. But there were plenty of "eye-witness" accounts from people that said they flew on broomsticks, curdled milk, or summoned demons. All of it, just like alien spaceships, utter crap.

TWW

Re:We dont actually need these docs

[Beautyon]

Like you'd care!
Why do you care if anyone cares? Skeptics are the true psycotic personalities in their never ending and utterly pointless circular debates.

...utter crap.
Whatever you say and think, I'm cool with it.

I knew it

[WildBeast]

That's why they want to invade Iraq. Saddam Hussein is an alien.

Bored? Alien invasion in your own home town!

[TrevorB]

Bored on a sunny day? Get a huge tank of helium, and about a thousand oblong silver balloons.

Then drive around following them, pointing "What's THAT?!!".

Great fun.

Hessdalen

[Openadvocate]

You should check out http://www.hessdalen.org/ where they have an automatic measurement station. There have been many sightings of lights. So they have a Sun box controlling some cameras, taking pictures etc,,,, well look for yourself.
Even if you are not info spooky lights, it is still an interesting project from a technical perspective.

Rendlesham ain't your father's UFO

[Wraithlyn]

Have you read this transcript and report? This is a military report, drawn from multiple eye witnesses, and includes scientific measurements of depressions, abrasions, and radiation levels.. this is not some hick in a trailer park trying for 15 minutes of fame.

Furthermore, I think it's a bit dismissive in this case to call it "just some object in the air", like it could be a weather balloon or swamp gas or something. This is an object that moves and behaves like no known terrestrial phenomenon.

What do you think it could be? Ball lightning? Its movements seem too deliberate. Secret American or Russian aircraft with magnetic/gravitic propulsion and stealth tech? About as hard to swallow as aliens.

I'm not saying OMG! Aliens! ... But, I think this is pretty damn interesting.

Re:Rendlesham ain't your father's UFO

[henben]

How exactly is this transcript supposed to have been obtained? I'm sceptical about it because the language doesn't strike me as 1970s British English. In particular:
Halt: We just crossed the creek.
"Creek" isn't a term applied to British geography.

Plus, the talk of deflection needles doesn't quite ring true.

Re:Rendlesham ain't your father's UFO

[Wraithlyn]

Thank you for responding. Yes, I've read the lighthouse theory. It's good, and raises some questions, but it simply can't explain all the observations, and it dismisses any observations that cannot be explained by its hypothesis as being "a marvellous product of human imagination."

Here is a very logical and well written essay on UFO skepticism. In particular, I would like to direct your attention to the section entitled, "Occam's Razor and the Skeptics", roughly two thirds of the way down. I shall quote it here:

"Occam's Razor and the Skeptics

The UFO skeptics don't understand Occam's Razor, and they abuse it regularly. They think they understand it, but they don't. What it means is that when several hypotheses of varying complexity can explain a set of observations with equal ability, the first one to be tested should be the one that invokes the fewest number of uncorroborated assumptions. If this simplest hypothesis is proven incorrect, the next simplest is chosen, and so forth.

But the skeptics forget two parts: the part regarding the test of the simpler hypotheses, and the part regarding explaining all of the observations. What a debunker will do is mutilate and butcher the observations until it can be "explained" by one of the simpler hypotheses, which is the inverse of the proper approach. The proper approach is to alter the hypothesis to accommodate the observations. One should never alter the observations to conform with a hypothesis by saying "if we assume the object was not physical, despite the level of evidence that would imply the solidity of a conventional aircraft with near-certainty, then we can also assume the object was not moving, was not exhibiting the color orange, was not 50 feet in diameter as described, and then declare that it was really Venus."

Do you see what I'm getting at? The lighthouse hypothesis could explain a light appearing to move in the forest, but it doesn't explain how they observed what they described "as being metallic in appearance and triangular in shape, approximately two to three meters across the base and approximately two meters high." It doesn't explain how it could have "bank(s) of blue lights underneath". It doesn't attempt to explain why "the animals on a nearby farm went into a frenzy." It doesn't explain how the object vanished and was spotted again "an hour later near the back gate."

It can account for the presence of radiation, the depressions on the ground, and the tree markings, but it can't explain the relationship... ie WHY they recorded a "peak reading in the three depressions and near the center of the triangle formed by the depressions. A nearby tree had moderate (.05-.07) readings on the side of the tree toward the depressions." Is it just a coincidence that the radiation levels from cosmic rays and whatnot are measurably strongest in the depressions and centre of the 'landing zone', and the side of the tree facing it? Perhaps. Unlikely though.

It doesn't explain how "At one point it appeared to throw off glowing particles and then broke into five separate white objects and then disappeared." It doesn't explain how "three star-like objects were noticed in the sky. Two objects to the north and one to the south [which] moved rapidly in sharp angular movements and displayed red, green and blue lights.", or "The objects to the north appeared to be elliptical through an 8-12 power lens. They then turned to full circles.", or "The object to the south was visible for two or three hours and beamed down a stream of light from time to time." (Yes I know it mentions these last observations. Saying the above is "probably" just stars is NOT an adequate scientific explanation for these very specific and detailed observations corroborated by multiple eye witnesses)

So, in conclusion, the lighthouse hypothesis attempts to 'mutilate and butcher the observations until it can be "explained" by one of the simpler hypotheses'. This is NOT the Scientific Method.

Re:Rendlesham ain't your father's UFO

[Wraithlyn]

They're not British, they're United States Air Force. The summary report starts out with "1. Early in the morning of 27 Dec 80 (approximately 0300L),two USAF security police patrolmen saw unusual lights outside the back gate at RAF Woodbridge.", and the "Halt" in question is "CHARLES I. HALT, Lt Col, USAF" as noted at the bottom of the transcript.

Re:Rendlesham ain't your father's UFO

[Christopher Thomas]

Here is a very logical and well written essay on UFO skepticism. [dabsol.co.uk] In particular, I would like to direct your attention to the section entitled, "Occam's Razor and the Skeptics", roughly two thirds of the way down.
[...]
What a debunker will do is mutilate and butcher the observations until it can be "explained" by one of the simpler hypotheses, which is the inverse of the proper approach. The proper approach is to alter the hypothesis to accommodate the observations. One should never alter the observations to conform with a hypothesis

This is true when observations are taken under carefully controlled conditions (that is, after all, part of the scientific method). However, chance eyewitness accounts of *anything* under non-ideal conditions are about as closely related to reality as a typical "inspired by true events" TV-movie. This is the bane of police officers taking witness statements from accident scenes; it also makes it reasonable to claim that any given interpretation in the memo was not a correct one, especially given that known phenomena almost certainly accounted for at least some of the items described.

This feeds back into the "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" rule of thumb. If observations appear to contradict all expectations, and the observations are open to question, then it is fair to assert that the observations are likely to be at least partly mistaken. Note that this does not assert ironclad proof; only likelihood.

If you want guesses as to the other points you raise, sure, I'll give them; but without having been there that night, they're so much hot air.

Blind conjectures as follows:

The lighthouse hypothesis could explain a light appearing to move in the forest, but it doesn't explain how they observed what they described "as being metallic in appearance and triangular in shape, approximately two to three meters across the base and approximately two meters high." It doesn't explain how it could have "bank(s) of blue lights underneath".

Silouette of trees obstructing the light would do this quite nicely. Most of the light showing at the top, some glow at the bottom, and enough of a glow at the sides to give the impression of shininess. I can believe that the blue colour was an illusion; colour sense is royally screwed up in low-light conditions (light dim enough to be perceived as monochrome often looks pale blue or green). Without actually taking a look at this lighthouse, I have no explanation offered for why the pulsing light was described as red.

It doesn't attempt to explain why "the animals on a nearby farm went into a frenzy."

A meteor as bright as the full moon had passed overhead a few minutes ago. This is described in the link I cited. Or it could just as easily have been some other trigger; animal noise needn't be constant.

It doesn't explain how the object vanished and was spotted again "an hour later near the back gate."

Obstructed by trees as the observers moved would be my first guess. Other explanations doubtless exist.

it can't explain the relationship... ie WHY they recorded a "peak reading in the three depressions and near the center of the triangle formed by the depressions. A nearby tree had moderate (.05-.07) readings on the side of the tree toward the depressions."

That one's easy. Trees aren't radioactive. Any excess background was probably from rocks (my father had a few thorite samples at one point; drove a radiation counter nuts). Point the counter at a tree, and the tree blocks half of the background. Move so that you no longer have line of site to wherever the rocks in question are, or even move farther from the deposit, and you get a reduced count. Dirt will also do a decent job of blocking beta rays, as long as it's not itself radioactive.

It doesn't explain how "At one point it appeared to throw off glowing particles and then broke into five separate white objects and then disappeared." It doesn't explain how "three star-like objects were noticed in the sky. Two objects to the north and one to the south [which] moved rapidly in sharp angular movements and displayed red, green and blue lights.", or "The objects to the north appeared to be elliptical through an 8-12 power lens. They then turned to full circles.", or "The object to the south was visible for two or three hours and beamed down a stream of light from time to time." (Yes I know it mentions these last observations. Saying the above is "probably" just stars is NOT an adequate scientific explanation for these very specific and detailed observations corroborated by multiple eye witnesses)

You left out the part about the "red sun-like light" that pulsed and gave off the glowing particles observation being through trees, which means it could have been just about anything. Best guess: one or more people with flashlights checking out the site. A red pulsing light sounds more like a campfire, but wouldn't move.

I have no explanation for the distant lights observed on the horizon, but am confident that one of the many usual glowing-moving-light explanations applies.

So, in conclusion, the lighthouse hypothesis attempts to 'mutilate and butcher the observations until it can be "explained" by one of the simpler hypotheses'.

Per my comments above, I think that taking all of the observations at face value would be even less accurate, especially given the evidence offered that _some_ of them (the disturbance caused by the meteor and the lighthouse's pulsing light) are very likely to not be the result of spacecraft activity (as they were classified in the report). The scientific method includes acknowledging noisy data as such.

Re:Rendlesham ain't your father's UFO

[Wraithlyn]

First of all, seriously, thanks for taking the time to reply. It's nice to have a thought provoking, rational discussion about UFOs in a UFO thread instead of, say, making predictable, worn-out jokes about the Royal Family and such. :)

"This is true when observations are taken under carefully controlled conditions"

So, we can conveniently disregard ALL UFO sightings until one occurs in a laboratory? This is the essence of that "logical trickery" article I posted. Nothing is good enough for the UFO disbelievers, they always raise the bar for what is acceptable and believable when any new evidence rolls in.

"However, chance eyewitness accounts of *anything*..."

This isn't a chance eyewitness account, like a single bystander witnessing a car crash, and asked to recall his memory later. This is several people investigating something, and RECORDING their impressions AS they see them.

"Silouette of trees obstructing the light would do this [create a metallic appearance] quite nicely. [...] I can believe that the blue colour was an illusion"

Pure speculation deliberately concocted to make the observational evidence match better with the proposed hypothesis. Sorry.

"I have no explanation offered for why the pulsing light was described as red."

Oh.. I thought the lighthouse light WAS red, but you're quite right, it doesn't say that anywhere. Thanks for strengthening my argument ;)

"A meteor as bright as the full moon had passed overhead a few minutes ago."

The meteor timing doesn't make any sense to me. Your article mentions the meteor passed around 3am. Halt mentions in the transcript it is 1:48am when he notes the animal noises. Wasn't the meteor supposed to be verified as what they saw in the first place? How can this be if it happened later? Either way, there is nothing to support that the meteor passed WHEN the animals started acting up, and I don't believe the animals would collectively just wait a while before reacting.

It doesn't explain how the object vanished and was spotted again "an hour later near the back gate."

Obstructed by trees as the observers moved would be my first guess. Other explanations doubtless exist.

They were LOOKING for it. I'm sorry but I can't see them losing such a bright light behind some trees for an hour, and it suddenly reappearing. They said it lit the whole forest. Passing in front of a tree isn't going to suddenly make it impossible to find again.

I wouldn't presume to argue the finer points of radioactivity with you, I'll take your word on the tree thing... however, I notice you ONLY mentioned the tree. What about the readings which peaked in the ground depressions?

You left out the part about the "red sun-like light" that pulsed and gave off the glowing particles observation being through trees, which means it could have been just about anything. Best guess: one or more people with flashlights checking out the site. A red pulsing light sounds more like a campfire, but wouldn't move.

I left out the part about the red light cuz I thought that was easily explained by the lighthouse, sorry. People waving flashlights about in the woods do not appear to be red, blue, green lights in the sky moving rapidly with angular movements, or elliptical objects in the sky (under a 8-12x zoom, too), or an object in the sky that shines down a beam of light once in a while. And campfires do not pulse, they flicker. Pulse is a word used to describe something with a regular beat. You could argue they might've used poor word choice, but again, that would be twisting the observational evidence to fit better with the hypothesis.

Re:Rendlesham ain't your father's UFO

[Beautyon]

"extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" rule of thumb.

The rules of evidence do not change because the subject is disliked; they must be applied evenly, across all events and evidence.

Using that imaginary "rule of thumb", a heinous mass murder with one hundred bodies would require more evidence than a murder without a body to secure a conviction, simply because emotions are involved in assessing the severity of the crime.

Science cannot (and normally does not) work like this. The only people who trot out this line are skeptics, who are emotionally guarding a position, and who are not actually interested in the facts.

Re:Rendlesham ain't your father's UFO

[TheAncientHacker]

Exactly. The professional "UFO Skeptics" are the worst example I've ever seen of "If the observations don't agree with the theory, the observations must be eliminated" reasoning. The consistently come up with explanations that only explain part of a report and then claim that anything that didn't fit their theory was either a lie or at best mass delusion. By the same level of "logic" you could equally prove that almost every UFO sighting was really Santa Claus and Rudolph's nose. But amazingly they get people to believe their twaddle.

Re:Rendlesham ain't your father's UFO

[Wraithlyn]

Thanks, that was well put. Extraordinary claims do not require extraordinary proof, this is a classic skeptic trick... exactly the same as the "fake moon landers"... landing on the moon is an "extraordinary claim", thus we need extraordinary evidence... the testimony of people who were there is no longer good enough, neither are the video records, telemetry data, physical moon samples, and so on. There will NEVER be enough evidence to convice these people... ditto the UFO skeptics.. the big difference is they're the majority (for now).

Furthermore, who is to say that extraterrestrial visitations are an extraordinary claim in the first place? That's a completely arbitrary assertion. Quite simply, nobody is in possession of any facts that indicate such a claim is extraordinary. Could be quite common for all we know. (Perhaps we are a weekly feature on an alien version of "Animal Planet"... "Crikey! We're gonna get our saucer RIGHT up close to these buggers. Uh oh.. they don't look too happy. You have to be careful with Earthlings, they can react quite irrationally when scared! Me mate who was studying Roswell a few years back vanished without a trace!")

Humour aside, the point is that all evidence should be examined with the same respect and standards (and healthy skepticism.. there are plenty of hoaxes out there), not ignored or twisted because the conclusion it might point to is "hard to believe".

What they described at Rendlesham CANNOT BE ADEQUATELY EXPLAINED. It's as simple as that. Therefore the only argument is to claim they're not credible sources, and their descriptions are innaccurate. This is an argument that assumes the conclusion before the argument.

Re:Rendlesham ain't your father's UFO

[antirename]

Military hardware is actually a pretty good explanation. I've seen a couple that were tested with odd/very bright lights on them to break up the outline of the plane/helicopter. Example: I was catfishing after midnight on a military base a few years back. A very brightly lit, unidentifiable, and very quiet object dropped in over the treeline, hovered over the lake, and hit our boat with a spotlight from about a hundred yards out. It surprised the shit out of me, and I didn't know what it was. The guy I was fishing with did, but he let me wonder for about five minutes :) Turns out it was an Apache being tested with some kind of "silent rotor" technology. It didn't sound like a chopper, so you don't think of that when you see it. And all you see are the lights, which are also arranged so that it doesn't look like an Apache. Those army pilots could have caused any number of UFO sightings in area trailer parks, and maybe they did. Bottom line? UFO means "what the fuck was that?" At least in that case somebody told me.

I wonder what happens

[Sarin]

if the ufo aliens post their story about earth on the intergalactic equivalent of slashdot, will earth be slashdotted by hundreds of millions of ufo's?

Only half the story...

[Ed Avis]

Okay, so the government is going to release its files. But I don't see any announcement that the aliens are going to release _their_ files about the incident. What are they trying to hide from us?

cool

[zogger]

--glad to see the brits *maybe* releasing some info. will remain to be seen how hokey or how real it is. Spain and some other nations have released a little as well.

Link url to blackvault, the largest UFO site on the web, among other things contains thousands of US freedom of information act documents, and yes, there's a boatload of redacted out content, as in "nothing to see here, we just blacked this out because... uhhh... ya see.. I mean..., well because we can!" This site is BIG, well done, and thorough, I recommend it to serious researchers and enthusiasts AND skeptics.

http://www.bvalphaserver.com/

the Black Vault

The web master started this site I *think* when he was 16, I've been visiting off and on for years.

Here's my disclaimer. Some of ya'all might have noted my frequent reference to "government" as more or less a pack of liars. One of the two primary reasons (initially that is) I have held this position most of my life is because of "ufos". when I was a teenager some friends and I saw one very close up, very close. Nope, no drugs or booze involved to dispel any trolling. It was not swamp gas, nmoon on a ducks back, some helicopter, or any other explanation other than -no explanation. Some seriously advanced flying "something'. To describe it , it was a large glowing oval shaped whatever, it flew down the block just above the houses, stopped over a house closeby, hung out, then slowly went down the block, toward the end it started to climb then WHAM took off like mach bignumber and was gone. Tell ya whut you just do NOT forget things like this. So, I start reading about UFOs,and I notice the government more or less says they don't exist except as various lame reasons. Well, too bad, 'cuz I know this is a whopper. Score one for destroying a yong man's trust in government, already shaken by the kennedy whack, then oswalds rubout which was obvious to anyone with an iq above 50 as "eliminating some embarassing evidence".

government=liars when it comes to certain things. This is IMO of course, but in the decades since I have seen no evidence to persuade me otherwise, in fact,I'd say the evidence FOR ufo's as being something "other" is better than for "honesty in government".

Exactly what they are, no idea, demons to secret nazi craft, time travellers to interstellar visitors, angels to secret gov blackops-no idea, none. I tend to more think the correct answer is "all of the above".

Re:cool

[geek]

" Exactly what they are, no idea, demons to secret nazi craft, time travellers to interstellar visitors, angels to secret gov blackops-no idea, none. I tend to more think the correct answer is "all of the above"."

Or it's none of the above and YOU'RE the liar. I trust elected officials with college educations and clean background checks with top level security clearance a lot more than 16 year old kids running websites.

No offense, maybe you are right, maybe they are right, maybe I am wrong. I know it doesn't matter since you can't prove any of it. When you can I'll eat my words.

Re:cool

[zogger]

check out his link, those freedom of information act documents come from government. Read them yourself.

It's really just dismally hard to even describe with text what seeing a UFO does to you, I've tried several times and failed. It is in the classical sense "awe"some, it's just overwhelming. I distinctly remember all the hairs on my neck going up, it was that shocking and that much a sense of amazement and wonder. Imagine a split second where you experience every possible emotion, it's something like that.

It is OK for you to be skeptical, this is your right. If you ever see one, you'll change your mind. That's about it. In a way-this is funny but true-here's an analogy. It's not perfect but it's good enough. Seing a UFO then trying to describe it,is like trying to explain sex to a virgin, no amount of words are the same as the experience.

Re:cool

[Saeger]

"...it's just overwhelming. I distinctly remember all the hairs on my neck going up..."

Yeah, just like how people feel when they think they've seen a ghost. Except most people don't believe in old-fashioned ghosts and goblins anymore, so the mass delusion has modernized. :-)

(I'm not saying it's definitely a delusion, since there's no hard evidence either way - which is why I'm also religiously agnostic (and consistent.))

--

Technology

[Citizen of Earth]

Are their servers going to be able to handle the load?

Of course. They all run on advanced alien technology.

Brits Seize Humour Glands!

[BiOFH]

I was gonna say that maybe 'you' had been visited by aliens and had your funny bone removed... but then I realised you're a pommie so that's an anatomical impossibility. ;)

Re:Britain == land of the free.

[shepd]

Why is it in this 'free' land I'm assumed guilty until proved innocent if I forget the key to my encrypted documents? Not to mention the ever growing panopticon which is the streets of England.

Me-thinks you need to read up a lot more on the state of freedom in these countries...

Re:Does anyone think...

[Idarubicin]

I would assume any actual ET sightings would be "redacted out", as the Brits would say.

First, it would be "redacted", not "redacted out".

Second, "to redact" is a verb that is used regularly in certain specialized areas--often in law, for example. Literally, it means to "edit". In practice, it usually refers to the censorship of private documents for release to the public. It is not a Britishism.

an addition to their files

[enos]

The second they release their files, people are going to be reporting sightings of strange lights from where the server room used to be...

Of course...

[Have Blue]

...none of the target audience of these documents will ever believe them for a second.

NORAD investigating contrails?!?

[Mipmap]

Anyone else hear more about this? CNN has a story about an unidentified contrail being investigated by NORAD. Didn't know they tracked these things -and how does one tell one is special? Was it glowing green or something?

Re:Does anyone think...

[Ponty]

Well, my mother who is from England (and isn't one of those god-awful Union Jack on every article of clothing people) uses words like 'redact' all the time. Indeed, I've often heard her offer to make my dad a 'cuppa.' So some Brits do it. She just doesn't do it ostentatiously.

Now does anyone have any gumbands to bind my biros?

Ta!

What about the one listed in...

[fuzza]

... the documentary book entitled The Philadelphia Experiment?

No, I'm not talking about the movie (well I guess I am sort of), but this was a documentary on possible US Navy research into invisibility, just as in the movie.

Most of the book is about that (I think; I haven't read it all yet), but in line with the "government conspiracy" angle there was a very interesting UFO sighting and subsequent follow-on (or is that redundant?) .

I might post it here tonight when I get back home if anyone's interested; it's about 2 pages, which from a typical novel is probably little enough for fair use.

(Then again, maybe it's online somewhere...)

Re:What about the one listed in...

[fuzza]

Well, I guess "Score 4, Interesting" means that someone's interested... just save some mod points for this post, OK? ;)

This is taken from "The Philadelphia Experiment", Charles Berlitz and William Moore, pp173-7. The story is told in the book as being one- and two-levels removed, so there are a lot of extra names in here which I'm snipping. The gist of the actual UFO story is as follows...

(It looks like this is reported elsewhere online, but not in this level of detail.)

Late in the evening on Tuesday October 7, 1975, Robert Suffern, a twenty-seven-year-old carpenter from rural Bracebridge, Ontario, received a call from his sister, who lives down the road, asking him to investigate a strange glow that seemed to be coming from a nearby barn. Suffern drove to the barn, took a quick look around, and not seeing anything out of the ordinary, was proceeding to his sister's house when he was startled to see a darkened saucer-shaped object about 12 to 14 feet in diameter squatting on the gravelled road directly ahead of him.

`I was scared,' he later recounted to a Toronto Sun reporter. `It was right there in front of me with no lights and no signs of life.' His car hadn't quite come to a full stop, he said, when the object `went straight up in the air and out of sight.'

According to Suffern's story, he had no sooner managed to turn his car around and head for home when a strange, 4-foot-tall humanlike creature with `very wide shoulders which were out of proportion to his body' and wearing a silver-grey suit and a globe-type helmet walked out into the road right in front of his car. Suffern slammed on the brakes, skidding on the loose gravel, and came within inches of colliding with the creature, who promptly dodged out of the way, ran to the side of the road, jumped a fence, and disappeared into a field. According to the account Suffern gave to the Sun reporter, when the figure `got to the fence, he put his hands on a post and went over it with no effort at all. It was like he was weightless.'

Badly shaken by this encounter, Suffern finally succeeded in driving home, only to discover when he looked out the window of his house that the UFO had returned, this time flying slowly close over the road. At that moment, it flew around an electric pole and again disappeared, seemingly going straight up into the night sky.

Neither relatives, close friends, nor the reporters, investigators, and plain curious who descended on his farmhouse over the next several weeks could dislodge him from his story.

`I know what I saw,' he said. `But I don't care if I ever see that creature again.'

Of course, if the story ended at this point, it would be nothing more than another addition to an every growing list of mysterious and difficult-to-verify close-encounter cases in recent years. But there was more...

On December 12, 1975, after the Sufferns were beginning to feel some semblance of order again (their farm was literally swamped for weeks by roving bands of curiosity seekers) three men were delivered to their home in an Ontario Provincial Police cruiser. The appointment had been pre-arranged in November. These officials arrived in full uniform, bearing impressive credentials and representing themselves as the TOP BRASS from the Canadian Forces in Ottawa, the United States Air Force, Pentagon, and from the Office of Naval Intelligence. Suffern, previously perturbed about the nature of his UFO encounter, claimed that ALL his questions were answered POINT BLANK and with NO HESITATIONS by these three helpful gentlemen. They `opened the books' to him and gave him the answers to the WHERE FROM, the What and the Why. They implied that the U.S. and Canadian governments have known all about UFOs since 1943 and have in fact been cooperating with the ALIENS in some unknown capacity since then!

As if this wasn't enough to swallow in one gulp, the military `know-it-alls' threw us yet another curve when they made a formal APOLOGY [to Suffern] for the unfortunate incident of Oct. 7. They claimed it was a MISTAKE!! To which Suffern immediately thought out loud that it must have been a supersecret military craft. No, they claimed. It was a malfunction in the saucer that brought the craft down, complete with aliens, on his property. Mrs Suffern found all this quite impossible to accept, but when she quizzed them, the officers actually came up with the exact time of the landing - to the minute - a small detail that only the Sufferns knew and had not conveyed to anyone. They have had three different UFO sightings over their property, only the last of which they reported, and again the times and dates were duly related to them by the knowledgeable trio. The enlightened agents, carrying a battery of books and data (complete with gun camera photos of UFO), again emphasized that the landing was an ACCIDENT and should not have occurred...

... Further along we learned that the military still refer to UFO occupants as `humanoids'. Contact was apparently made in 1943 (reputedly through an accident which occurred during a U.S. Naval experiment regarding radar invisibility) and now our forces are aware of the aliens' movements on this planet...

... Suffern adamantly insisted that all his questions about the craft and the occupant were answered `to his satisfaction' despite the fact that (many) civilian investigators have visited him and offered alternate hypotheses to clear up the mystery for him. Many came close but none answered him with the same `degree of accuracy'...

The critical key to Suffern's encounter is the fact that he had a `near miss' car situation with a physical entity, dressed in a one-piece silver suit and short in stature. If contact indeed had taken place then there could have been serious repercussions, had he actually run the being down. This could account for the military's intervention and unusual frankness...

The Sufferns remained firm in their statement that all three military personnel answered all their questions with uncanny precision and immediately. Suffern himself claims that he knows the identities of these three men and can prove that they were not imposters. He also denies he is bound by the Canadian Secrets Act and claims that his only motive for keeping the details secret is for the `moral reason' of simply wanting to keep his part of the bargain by complying with the `government's wishes' in this matter.

So, folks, what do you make of that?

ho hum

[Anonymous Coward]

[b]2008[/b]: Aliens land on Earth. People of all races give up their petty bickering and fighting among and with each other and unite together in harmony to fight off the hostile Aliens.

[b]2010[/b]: The Aliens from outer space have been beaten. The few remaining aliens jump in their spaceships and take off, vowing never to return. All of humanity rejoices over their united victory.

[b]2011[/b]: Most of humanity returns to their petty nature, choosing to bicker and find problems with those who look different, act different, etc. Humans fight humans again and the whole ball of dung starts rolling again.

MOD: +1 Correct.

[Bishop]

The British do have a Constitution. It is oral not written.

Re:Cool!

[perfessor multigeek]

Yep. With the genyooine full color guaronteeed authentic picture of Buck Rogers in the Twenty-fourth Century and everything.

[HAIKU] Get real.

[jfisherwa]

Grievance for women?
Only on one condition:
Natalie Portman.

Black Helicopters, Crop Circles and Orbs

[Anonymous Coward]

The best footage ever, which you never see anymore, was on a show years ago which showed this glowing orb actually carving out crop circles. This was happening in broad daylight with the camera guy going nuts in the background and trying to follow it but it was all VERY clear. Then as if this wasn't weird enough suddenly one or two black military helicopters start buzzing the orb and the cameraman. The orb goes off from the field and hovers a few feet above the field at which point the helicopter gets real close and hovers too as if they can't believe what they are seeing and want to get a really good look.
I'm not sure of the program now but the footage was absolutely real. I've never seen anything like it before or since that is so amazing, save maybe the face on Mars. The fact that you don't see this footage at all anymore makes me think it may have been squelched by someone.

Re:Britain == land of the free.

[metlin]

Atleast you have a properly implemented legal system, however bad it maybe.

In most Asian countries, the laws are what the politicians and the police define. If you have money, power and status, there's nothing that you cannot do. Your complaints fall on deaf ears, even the simplest of ones.

Just as an example, there is an anti-smoking law in India which prohibits smoking in public places, when a friend of mine questioned a cop for smoking in a public place, the cop said that my friend was the one smoking and dragged him off.

I've lodged complaints against people who've mugged me, with details of their appearance and vehicle reg. numbers. So far, I've not even had a single response.

Cops and government officials ask for bribes at every stage, even if you are law abiding. The politicians set the rules. My father had to quit his job because he wanted to name some corrupt people in his organization.

Almost every politician is either from the Entertainment industry or has a criminal record, or both. What does the judiciary do? Absolutely nothing. Cases are lodged, and dropped with no charges and an apology.

We fail to understand how govt. employees with meagre salaries buy cars and properties that even the richest cannot afford.

I do not know abt UK, but I've been in the US, and have heard abt UK. Yes, to the dot perhaps it's a little bad, but not until you've lived the way we have. This is HELL.

More flexible than US constitution?

[TheLink]

Actually the lack of flexibility is nothing to do with the US constitution.

Haven't you noticed that most US people quote their constitution mainly by its _amendments_?

1st amendment, 2nd, 5th blahblahblah. (most people seem more familiar with the amendments than the document which was amended ;) ).

While their constitution is definitely flexible and has changed with time, ironically most US-folk seem to quote the amendments as if they are eternal and cast in stone.

Link.

Re:Does anyone think...

[darien]

Peut-etre que les francais se rendent souvent en bataille, mais jamais en ce qui concerne la langue francais. Alors je crois bien plus probable qu'ils se seviraient du mot "rendons," apres le mot "nous" (deux fois).

Re:Does anyone think...

[darien]

Please don't watch Eastenders/Monty Python/Fawlty Towers and think that the country hasn't changed.

Or indeed that it was ever like that, except in rarefied pockets of society, isolated and exaggerated for the purposes of a TV comedy.

Publish the documents on P2P networks!

[Jeppe Salvesen]

People - if you are early, and manage to get the documents from the site before it falls apart, please share those documents using gnutella, fasttrack, freenet etc. P2P networks scale to much higher bandtwidths than even a massive server park.

Very Well Said

[Beautyon]

A brilliant post.

As I said in another thread, the arguments about UFOs are over. The preponderance of evidence makes the nature of UFOs abundantly clear.

The interesting discussions are now centered around what is to be done about this problem, how it is developing, and what use we can make of it for our own benefit.

Re:Does anyone think...

[stephanruby]

I'm French. The word redaction is a pretty common French Word.

The British should know this word, they got all their latin from us.
Before the queen, we used to own their asses for 300 years.