Roswell Declassified

John3 writes "Scotland may be the most popular UFO destination on the planet, but Roswell, New Mexico is the old favorite for government conspiracy buffs who believe the US government has been hiding proof of an alien spacecraft crash in 1947. Popular Mechanics has recently gained access to de-classified documents from the Roswell military base, and they contain no entries of unusual events or activity. I wonder if the release of these documents will deter the conspiracy theorists?"

Comments

I don't know...

[Daath]

The Truth Is Out There... And besides... I Want To Believe ;-)

Re:I don't know...

[LBArrettAnderson]

yes, the truth is out there. the question is whether or not we'll get ahold of it.

if there really was an alien craft do you think they'd release THOSE documents? no. this doesn't deter anything

Re:I don't know...

[hpavc]

correct, its the 're-release remastered roswell' documents.

Re:I don't know...

[uncoveror]

They will keep saying that nothing happened in Roswell, and even producing forged documents, but the truth is we got UNIX from the Roswell UFO, and Microsoft has used that technology for mind control. The government, especially the Air Force and NASA know a lot more than they are letting on. In fact, an invasion may be imminent.

Re:I don't know...

[andrew_mike]

...but the truth is we got UNIX from the Roswell UFO...

It makes sense. Only aliens could have invented something like UNIX.

Re:I don't know...

[MADCOWbeserk]

but the truth is we got UNIX from the Roswell UFO

So this means SCO doesn't have a case?

Re:I don't know...

[ketamine-bp]

I just know that alien converts rpm to deb.. or vice versa.. well I can't believe that alian converts pimpy nerds to unix creators....

Re:I don't know...

[Sj0]

Why not? Why the hell would the government cover up the existance of extra terrestrial life forms? Did the ancient world cover up the existance of japan?(OK, the japanese did, but I don't think there were any conspiracies to keep the knowlege of "aliens from outer China" from being known. Furthermore, do you think that, considering the track record our government has with keeping big secrets, there could remain absolutely no conclusive evidence that aliens exist? Especially considering that there would be undoubtedly be more than one country with such knowlege, and therefore, more than one government whose mouth would need to be kept shut? How about the thousands of astronomers probing the night sky? If there was such a high occurance of UFO activity out there, wouldn't many of the huge number of completely independant astronomers have captured very high resolution photographs of the supposed spacecraft?

That phrase used earlier -- I want to believe...It is the most dangerous phrase in the world. It is the same idea that creates suicide cults and religious terrorists. It is the idea that allows the placebo effect to work so effectively. It can implant false memories in a person or cripple him physically. I don't want to believe. I want to know. You should too. One way or another.

Re:I don't know...

[LBArrettAnderson]

there's a lot of "not necessarily's" to your questions. like maybe the ET's only came to america for a reason... maybe they're smart enough to come in only to that one location...

anyway, it's all unlikely, so i wouldn't worry about it.

Re:I don't know...

[Sj0]

Extremely unlikely. Considering the odds of all those being wrong are so slim, and the conditions and situations so narrow for the theories to work, the burden of proof falls soley on the shoulders of the conspiracy theorists to provide something other than idle speculation based on a mishmash of distorted facts.

To put things in perspective, I could be a hot swedish girl named Helga(perhaps not a swedish name, I couldn't tell you) being held against my will in The Matrix while scientists experiment on my lifeless body, but the odds aren't in that conclusions favour. There are the same number of "not nessessarily"s there as in the improbable alien arguement, and just as wild a story based loosely on a set of unprovable facts which conveniently hide one another.

Re:I don't know...

[LBArrettAnderson]

the chances of ET life coming to earth are already very slim, so even another .0001% chance makes for good thought and discussion for people who are already comtemplating the possibilities.

Re:I don't know...

[Anonymous Coward]

01011001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100110 01100001 01100111 00101110

It won't :)

[zaqattack911]

Conspiracy theorists are only fed by government denials. Look what happened to NASA when they started to talk back at Moon landing doubters.

zuchini

Re:It won't :)

[chamenos]

exactly....conspiracy theorists tend to believe whatever they want to believe irregardless of the facts that may speak otherwise. the declassification of documents will just be interpreted as an attempt by the government to throw them off.

Re:It won't :)

[oogoliegoogolie]

That is frustrating, but not suprising. A significant percentage, into the double digits if I remember correctly, of people in industrialized countries still think the world is flat, so it I am not suprised that there are ppl out there that think the moon landings are fake,

Re:It won't :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Conspiracy theorists all work for the government. Don't listen to them.

Re:It won't :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Significant my ass.
You making up these "facts" to support your dubious theory but hey , if NYT can get away with that why not you ?

Re:It won't :)

[HanzoSan]

You dont have proof we landed on the moon just like you dont have proof that flying saucers exist, Pictures and Video are not proof. I also do not think its wise to blindly trust the government, this includes NASA.

Come to your own conclusions, if you think its a realistic possibility that flying saucers exist than they exist. I think its a realistitc possibility that they exist, whos making them is debateable, but I believe the pictures and video footage, I also dont believe millions of people would lie.

Now, as far as landing on the moon, I think it happened, not because I actually went on the moon but because I think the videos and pictures are authentic, and I think its realistic that we could have had the technology to do it at the time.

Flying saucers are real simply because our own government had prototype spy crafts which were flying saucers, its also realistic to believe the soviets could have had secret weapons designed to spy on us which just happened to be saucer shaped. The far out theory is that Aliens could be controlling them, this is possible too although much more difficult to prove, theres not as much evidence but its possible.

Ultimately the odds say flying saucers exist, theres evidence to prove it, the more far out the theory the less evidence you have and the more you have to trust the word of people. I do not like to draw my conclusions from the word of people, therefore I cannot say Aliens are controlling flying saucers, I can only say flying saucers exist.

Re:It won't :)

[nurightshu]

And those of us who know your posting history can only say that you're an idiot. Substantiate your claim in paragraph number four that "[f]lying saucers are real simply because our own government had prototype spy crafts which were flying saucers[...]" with valid .gov links.

Re:It won't :)

[HanzoSan]

Back up your claims. Show at least one quote that I've made that proves me an Idiot.

Posts you disagree with do not make me an Idiot, it just means you dont like what I have to say, too bad, freedom of speech is part of the constitution.

Re:It won't :)

[Anonymous Coward]

You believe that mp3 pirates are "power users".

Re:It won't :)

[HanzoSan]

Do your research before you post idiot.
CraftA Project Silverbug
CraftB

The Nazis had project Flugelrad and Wing Wheel, the British had Project Y, Canada had Y-2, and the USA had Silverbug.

Do your research on these projects to find out more information. We have had saucer shaped craft for a while, since the 1940s, around the same time the Roswell situation happeend.

If you want .gov links you'll search for them yourself, consider the fact that these projects were classified, finding detailed information about these projects from the government may not be easy as we cannot even find out how the stealth bomber works.

Re:It won't :)

[DigiNic]

You dont have proof we landed on the moon just like you dont have proof that flying saucers exist, Pictures and Video are not proof. I also do not think its wise to blindly trust the government, this includes NASA.
Come to your own conclusions, if you think its a realistic possibility that flying saucers exist than they exist. I think its a realistitc possibility that they exist, whos making them is debateable, but I believe the pictures and video footage, I also dont believe millions of people would lie.

You cannot have it both ways...

Just because it's the government -- it doesn't mean it's out to get you.

Just because millions believe, doesn't make it a fact. Take religion for example.

Re:It won't :)

[heli0]

I also dont believe millions of people would lie.

They don't have to be lying to be dead wrong. Ask someone what happens when you die. You will get answering ranging from pearly gates to 72 virgins to nothing. People have seen things in the skies for thousands of years. The only thing that changes is the explanations. We have gone from lights in the skies being gods(polytheistic societies) to angels(monotheistic) to aliens(atheistic).

Re:It won't :)

[rot26]

Just because it's the government -- it doesn't mean it's out to get you.

And just because you're paranoid, it DOESN'T mean they're not out to get you.

Most conspiracy theories are probably a load of crap. Unquestionably, however, not all are.

Re:It won't :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Your sig for a start.

Re:It won't :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Posts you disagree with do not make me an Idiot, it just means you dont like what I have to say, too bad, freedom of speech is part of the constitution.

Re:It won't :)

[LastManOnEarth]

Ok, Let's make a few points here... (1)Aliens can definitely exist. BUT... That doesnt mean they have to fly in saucers ,look humanoid, have interest in us, even develop sentience or technology. A microbe that is extraterrestrial is an "alien".You cant prove the ground under your feet isnt alive just because it hasnt proved itself to you that it is. And considering the bizaare circumstances that created life on earth was astrnomically rare (no pun intended :P)only created one sentient lifeform here that we know of the chance of meeting intelligent life in this universe is near null. (2) Id like to point out the trends of UFO sightings in past happen to coincide with alpha technology of the respective periods (ie. cigar shaped = jet/ boomerang = flying wing/ saucer previously mentioned)And due to angles and atmospheric conditions, man made sattellites that can be seen with the human eye from the ground tend to look distorted and move in odd directions. Notice that most modern footage is taken at dusk or dawn? Thats from sattellites being so far up they still are reflecting the sun and our atmosphere either squashes and/or stretches or even reflects it multiple times. This phenomenon is well documented and can be easily verified. Im not saying that all phenomena can be explained away so easily, but until we have proof (alien artifact/body/public first contact)I'll remain anchored to what logic seems to point too. That we are indeed alone as far as intelligent life and people are still desperately trying to find something to believe in.

Re:It won't :)

[LastManOnEarth]

Oh, and to you people that ask why they wouldn't declassify it to begin with? What better way to keep attention off the weapons of mass destruction or secret stealth fighter your developing than to draw attention to aliens being the cause. As has been proven time and again, sensationalism is the best way to cover up. *cough*CLINTON*cough* Just throw a few vague statements at the press and let the media whores take over. Instant misdirection as they start speculating.

Re:It won't :)

[skroz]

Thats from sattellites being so far up they still are reflecting the sun and our atmosphere either squashes and/or stretches or even reflects it multiple times.

I just can't get the image of Will Smith saying "Uh, some swamp gas reflected off of venus, and uh..." out of my mind.

Re:It won't :)

[I(rispee_I(reme]

I also dont believe millions of people would lie.
On the other hand, I have no trouble at all believing that millions of people could be wrong. Once the number of people who hold an erroneous belief hits a critical mass, that belief becomes self-perpetuating (much like peer-to-peer networks, oddly enough...), and that's why we have religions today.

Re:It won't :)

[John3]

Yeah, I don't think it will either. People believe what they believe even when evidence points to the contrary. Lack of evidence is proof enough for some.

I assume the truth is out there...it just hasn't been to earth yet. :-)

Re:It won't :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Feh! Everyone knows that the UFO bit is just a smokescreen. The military is using Roswell's cloak of secrecy to get around environmental regulations.

There are three superfund sites listed for the city in the including a former airforce base, groundwater contamination, and one site with no details "at State request". Active military facilities are exempted from EPA oversight. But, of course, fences and guards only work above ground to keep people out, not below ground to keep Tetrachloroethanen in.

Re:It won't :)

[dissy]

(snip) You dont have proof we landed on the moon (/snip)

Well, we do have proof that we have sent craft to the moon.
There is a flag on a pole that you can see with a powerful telescope, controlled by the same places that give us the wonders of technology we can see the outcome of on earth.

There are also mirrors on the moon which you can use to reflect lasers back (Granted the hardware to do this is pricy, but 'anyone' can do it)

Now, this just proves we have sent things up into space that ended up on the moon.
Doesnt prove it was a person.

But using your basic logic, if we have the technology to send a craft to the moon that can plant a flag and posistion mirrors, and return with samples from the moon, that exact same technology could very well hold a person inside as well.

Its sorta like saying people dont fly fighter jets because you cant see the people when the planes fly overhead.
While that is logically true, if you look at a jet, there IS room for a person in there, so its not at all improbable or impossible.

But there is just no convincing some people i guess :)

Re:It won't :)

[SpaceLifeForm]

(1)Aliens can definitely exist.

QED, since you are one.

From the perspective of another SpaceLifeForm.

Re:It won't :)

[PD]

Spoiler:

The Flat Earth Society is all a huge joke. They don't really believe the Earth is flat. Their goal is to make everyone believe that they think the Earth is flat.

Of course, they will deny this. It'd spoil all the fun.

Re:It won't :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Just how big is that flag? If it's shorter than the astronauts, then what, 5 feet tops? And if it's not as long as it is tall, maybe it's 3 feet across?

Even if the flag was the entire height (it's not - there's a pole below it), you're still only talking about something that's 15 square feet.

So, you're saying that we can resolve a panel that's no bigger than 15 square feet at a distance of about a quarter million miles? That's mighty impressive.

The mirrors do exist, and you can find web sites detailing the experiments which occasionally use them. All those mean is that we landed mirrors on the moon. Whether someone (as opposed to something like a probe) put them there is equally debatable.

Re:It won't :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, we have high powered telescopes capable of viewing Neil Armstrong's footprints on the moon. Still not enough evidence for you?

Re:It won't :)

[NortWind]

Actually, we have high powered telescopes capable of viewing Neil Armstrong's footprints on the moon.

If Neil Armstrong happen to have feet that are 400 ft across, that is.

Re:It won't :)

[ConsumedByTV]

That logic doesn't hold water.

When one has an opinion on an event that hasn't happened to them yet but has a culture to influence them, they are speculating. Their response will vary but ultimatly, they have no idea if they will have anything happen to them.

If you were to look at the sky and see a light. Culture would influence you as well. It might tell you that this is a god, a star, a craft, etc

One thing that sets the second example apart from the first is that the first is speculation based on events that we cannot relay back, as where the second is something that one can relate as an event that has/had/is occur/ing/ed.

So your dead wrong.

Re:It won't :)

[tftp]

Forget flatlanders. A much more significant percentage believes that this planet is directly ruled by an invisible, omnipotent old man that sits on a cloud in the sky...

Re:It won't :)

[podperson]

And considering the bizaare circumstances that created life on earth was astrnomically rare (no pun intended :P)only created one sentient lifeform here that we know of the chance of meeting intelligent life in this universe is near null.

I recall one scientist suggesting that if you have life on a planet then intelligence is almost inevitable. After all, he pointed out, it's arisen independently three times on this planet.

But then folks says lots of dumb things, especially when it's not exactly in their field of specialisation. I recall an interview quoting David Brin as saying "if there's life on other planets, we'll probably be able to eat it" -- a brave prediction given there's plenty of stuff on Earth we can't eat, either because it's poisonous or biologically alien to us (e.g. stuff outside the plant and animal kingdoms is frequently highly toxic).

Pondering the probability of imponderables is good work if you can get it. Carl Sagan quotes what he admits is a very crude formula -- 1/10 stars has a planet, 1/100 (?) stars with planets has a habitable planet, 1/10 habitable planets has life, life always develops intelligence, intelligence always builds radio telescopes but only has a 1/10 chance of surviving the invention of nuclear weapons, etc. always seemed to me to be far more sketchy as it got to the right side of the blackboard.

What are the odds that an alien intelligence will have a metabolism in our preferred timescale and thus be able to communicate with us in real time? What are the odds it will "see" and/or "hear" as we see and hear? Would an organism that sees with bat-like Sonar be able to convert a prime x prime grid of pixels into a recognisable image or set of symbols?

Bat-like sonar is a sense possessed by a creature quite closely related to us using parts of a brain very similar to ours. Imagine how alien an alien brain connected to alien sense organs might be.

Then there's the convergent evolution argument (exemplified by David Brin). DNA is obviously the best way to encode genes. Expect aliens made of cells, quite possibly with familiar proteins, carbohydrates, DNA etc. etc.

And who knows, maybe silicon-based life is actually by far the easiest one to come by and we're remarkable in that our solar system appears to be devoid of it. But silicon life all lives much slower-paced lives than we do so we simply couldn't relate to it...

By the way sentient i.e. "having a faculty, or faculties, of sensation and perception" is a rather low bar. There's a huge number of sentient creatures on Earth. If you're going for self aware, dolphins, gorillas, chimpanzees, elephants, dogs, and probably several other animals have demonstrated self-awareness.

Id like to point out the trends of UFO sightings in past happen to coincide with alpha technology of the respective periods

I think Weather balloons are well into beta by now...

That we are indeed alone as far as intelligent life and people are still desperately trying to find something to believe in.

To misquote Steve Martin: "With all the crazy superstitious people out there, I don't know what I'd do without my astrological mood-ring".

Re:It won't :)

[Malcontent]

"Im not saying that all phenomena can be explained away so easily, but until we have proof (alien artifact/body/public first contact)I'll remain anchored to what logic seems to point too."

The problem with people like you are that you have double standards. Is that the only proof you will accept for aliens? Some sort of a body or contact?

Think about it this way. Do you believe in pluto? If so why?

Have you ever seen it? Have you ever seen a picture of it? A movie of it? Have you ever touched it? Have you ever met anybody who has seen it?

You have almost no evidence for the existance of pluto and yet you believe it because you read it in a book. Flimsy evidence if you ask me. Especially considering it's a regularly occuring phenomena.

Take an irregularly occuring phenomena and things get even more complicated. Take a phenomena that might actually stay hidden from you and you are up shits creek.

Face it, you have more evidence for the existance of UFOs then for the existance of pluto or god or even truk (a small island in the pacific, you believe me?).

"That we are indeed alone as far as intelligent life and people are still desperately trying to find something to believe in."

Perhaps it's the opposite. Perhaps we are people hopelessly denying or ignoring evidence because it does not fit into out preconceived notions of reality.

Re:It won't :)

[Elladan]

And considering the bizaare circumstances that created life on earth was astrnomically rare (no pun intended :P)only created one sentient lifeform here that we know of the chance of meeting intelligent life in this universe is near null.

Do you have a statistical analysis of thousands or millions of planets in the galaxy encompassing whether life developed there and whether intelligent life evolved, including the average lifetime of the intelligent species etc.?

If not, you shouldn't talk about chance, since you don't have enough data to make a judgement. This is a classic error in things like the Drake Equation - it's all nice and good to come up with a couple "reasonable" guesses and make far-reaching claims about the probability of aliens, but the truth is we really don't know.

We've never met any aliens, but we've also never been to any other star systems. For all we know, Alpha Centauri could be teeming with aliens, who're just keeping a low profile so as not to startle us. Or, alternatively, the nearest alien intelligence could be a billion light-years away. We have no data.

We certainly haven't visited thousands of star systems to determine the likelihood of earth-like planets in our galaxy (though with a big enough interferometer, we may not need to). We haven't visited thousands of earth-like planets to see how likely life is to form. We haven't visited thousands of planets with life to determine how likely they are to contain intelligent species. Etc. We don't even know how common earth-like life is compared to other possible chemical bases, or robotic life, or whatever. We can theorize, but we don't have any actual measurements.

We have a few theoretical ideas based on astrophysics - for instance, there's a modern idea that maybe the galaxy is fairly inhospitable outside of a particular life zone we happen to be in (based on distance from the core) because of stellar age / asteroids / etc. And we know that if aliens are transmitting "Hello!" on big radio beacons, they're not being too obvious about it since our cursory SETI searches didn't just run across them immediately. But that's about it.

Re:It won't :)

[ipfwadm]

As others have said, the flag isn't visible from earth. Besides, why would you be looking for the flag, anyway? The base of the lunar lander is a hell of a lot bigger, as is the lunar rover that was used on the last missions.

Re:It won't :)

[spacecowboy420]

Amen brother.

Re:It won't :)

[sebi]

Would an organism that sees with bat-like Sonar be able to convert a prime x prime grid of pixels into a recognisable image or set of symbols?

Probably not, but at least we might be able to kill them with horrible music should they ever decide to attack...

Re:It won't :)

[spacecowboy420]

Your logic is flawed, it's called a red herring. Do you see a bunch of rednecks making up stories about non-existent planets? No. Why? Because alien stories are far more interesting. I guess you could make up the story about about Pluto, but does its existence really add anything spectacular to the solar system? No. Now the existence of intelligent life from another world - that has HUGE social effects on Earth. Our whole outlook on the universe would change, religion would be rattled to its core and or planet would have a unifying purpose.

Red herring

This fallacy is committed when someone introduces irrelevant material to the issue being discussed, so that everyone's attention is diverted away from the points made, towards a different conclusion.

Re:It won't :)

[Malcontent]

You completely missed the point. Go ahead and re-read my post.

In fact I actually think you are replying to another post altogether and have mistakenly clicked on reply to my story.

My post was about nature of evidence. It was about how little evidence you have for things you actually believe in compared to the evidence you have for UFO.

You can not use a sliding scale for evidence just because the thing you are trying to prove or disprove seems outragous.

Who cares what the social effects would be? It's either true or not. Either the evidence supports you or it does not. Nothing else comes into it.

Re:It won't :)

[rking]

Come to your own conclusions, if you think its a realistic possibility that flying saucers exist than they exist.

Ridiculous. If you think that it's a realistic possibility that flying saucers exist then you must consider that they MAY exist. To claim that anything that is realistically possible must therefore actually exist is absurd.

It is realistically possible that I have an identical twin brother from whom I was separated at birth but that doesn't make it true.

Re:It won't :)

[Anonymous Coward]

I recall one scientist suggesting that if you have life on a planet then intelligence is almost inevitable. After all, he pointed out, it's arisen independently three times on this planet.

Without an objective definition of "intelligence" that sentence seems to amount to gibberish.

"Independently" is suspect too, most likely the different species (?) he's talking about at least had common ancestors.

Re:It won't :)

[spacecowboy420]

no, I did not miss your point. My point is this:
People have a reason to lie about aliens, not new planets. In addition, planetary existence can be repeatedly, independently verified.There is observable evidence of the existence of pluto - no, I haven't been to pluto, yes they could have made it up - but I trust Dr. Clyde Tombaugh and his recorded, verifiable observations much more than rednecks. The difference is this:
Any astronomer with time on a large enough telescope can look up and see pluto. When some drunken redneck says he got anal probed, you have to take him at his word. Two completely different scenarios. Basically you are comparing verifiable evidence and the word of all astronomers against drunken rednecks - and having the balls to say they are the same. That's crazy talk.

Again, your example is flawed, and you should use it with less critically thinking people - perhaps some drunken rednecks.

Re:It won't :)

[blibbleblobble]

"There is a flag on a pole that you can see with a powerful telescope, controlled by the same places that give us the wonders of technology we can see the outcome of on earth."

There was also a flagpole on the top of Mount McKinley / Denali, to prove that it was climbed, but people still didn't believe that the mountain had been reached. The alaskans took a massive flag and a tree up to the top, in the hope that it would prove conclusively to anyone with a telescope that the mountain had been climbed.

Not that you could see a flag from so far away of course, even with a telescope. It took a long time before the claims became generally believed.

Re:It won't :)

[Rxke]

if you refer to the apollo 11 flag... it's not standing up anymore, Neil Amstrong himself saw it toppling over when they lifted off. I'm not kidding/trolling, you can go and look it up in the transcripts sections on the NASA website, so it must be true (if you believe they landed on the moon, you'll have to believe NASA on that account too ;) )

Re:It won't :)

[Chip Salzenberg]

Looking at that ref I can only say:

"Gullibility is its own reward."

Re:It won't :)

[Sj0]

In an article indirectly about alien conspiracies, I think this might get a little confusing for the pious among us. :P

Re:It won't :)

[Sj0]

Almost every real conspiracy theory has a paper trail and someone in the loop who was important and influential who talked. Take Microsoft "softmoney contributing" millions to both parties after years of political indifference in the same year they got their "slap on the wrist with a healing stick" punishment. Or the RIAAs plans to implant viruses into MP3 downloaders computers. Or Watergate. What we have here are two instances where anyone with the slightest knowlege of science, technology, physics, and statistsics could disprove the conspiracy theories with the tools at hand.

Aliens? Well, statistically speaking, considering the number of astronomers out there, if there were aliens out there, their ships would be detected by the thousands of astronomers, and likely photographed in high quality detail, and not a grainy photograph. Also, there is no paper trail whatsoever leading to the government -- ANY government, concerning aliens. There are quite a few of them, and rest assured, if aliens existed, they would have contacted more than just the state of New Mexico.

Moon Landing:The physics and little details completely support the idea that the footage was shot on the moon, from various aspects of airless physics(dust based moon in a vacuum + no dust being thrown up by footsteps = proof, because dust being thrown up like that is usually a result of the resultant turbulence caused by chaotic air movements as air tries to fill the newfound gap between the ground and your foot), to the way the light was shown (space physics in a vacuum describe the harsh looking shadows such as those seen in the moon footstep photograph, to the fact that for the greater part of a decade, a vast portion of the US GDP was allocated towards the goal of reaching the moon, to the relative technology level of the era. For the cost it would take to recreate such a mission in such detail, while keeping it a complete secret for ten years(add a couple decades to that if you include the illusion carried out to the present day), without some sort of paper trail or influential people on the inside leaking information to the media, as well as the cost in man-hours of recreating the moonscape, including the scientists whose time would be required to think up such a level of detail, would be enough to go to the moon anyway, which is a good indicator of which they did.

Re:It won't :)

[Anonymous Coward]

So your dead wrong.

His dead wrong?

Re:It won't :)

[Alsee]

The alaskans took a massive flag and a tree up to the top, in the hope that it would prove conclusively to anyone with a telescope that the mountain had been climbed.

Yeah, I see that tree through this telescope. But you really expect me to believe people climbed the mountain and PUT it there? HA! That's absurd. The tree obviously GREW there.

Yeah, yeah, you have all sorts of photos proving the tree wasn't there last week. So what? That doesn't prove people put it there. That just means it grew really fast.

-

Re:It won't :)

[Debillitatus]

Good post, but one thing confused me...

After all, he pointed out, it's arisen independently three times on this planet.

Eh?

Re:It won't :)

[ChuyMatt]

Tho i belive that there is a very good possibility that there are such things, the idea that thousands of people are "lying", or mass hallucinations occurring is entirely plausible. What did the new england snipper drive?! not a white van. a little car with a cunning way of obscuring the point of origin. Yet, a huge number of people were talking about white vans with guns protruding. people want to feel special, like they have actually seen something extraordinary. This is also being seen in the movement of the wicken (sp) "church," imo.
Tho, your claim that the ufos are not necessarily non-human piloted is far more plausible than that of anything else.

Re:It won't :)

[Malcontent]

"People have a reason to lie about aliens, not new planets."

People also have reasons to lie about where they were last night. Of course people have a reason to lie but that does not mean everybody is lying. You have to evaluate the eyewitness testimony just like you'd evaluate any other evidence. Was there collabrating evidence? pictures? movies? other eyewitnesses?. You can't simply throw out all eyewitness evidence because "people have a reason to lie".

" but I trust Dr. Clyde Tombaugh and his recorded, verifiable observations"

So you would 100% trust somebody who you never met talking about a phenomena you haver never observed right? Why? Just because he has a degree? There are lots of scientists who believe in UFOs why not trust them too?

"Any astronomer with time on a large enough telescope can look up and see pluto."

So they say. You don't know this for sure. Once again you trust other people to tell you truth. Anyway like I said pluto is a regularly occuring phenomena what about irregular phenomena. What we are talking about here is rarely occuring irregular phenomena.

"When some drunken redneck says he got anal probed, you have to take him at his word. "

Of course all people who report UFOs are drunk rednecks. All those cameras which took pictures are drunk redneck cameras and all those videotapes are shot by drunk redneck video recorders.

Also the radar traces were by drunk redneck radars. The police, pilots, military personell, scientists who have this phenomena were all drunk rednecks too.

It's a little known fact that all people and equipments that have observed or recorded UFO phenomena were drunk AND redneck. In fact the equipment were not only drunk and redneck but they were built by drunk rednecks and operated by drunk rednecks.

Re:It won't :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Think about it this way. Do you believe in pluto?

Yes.

If so why?

Because it's existance has been scientifically proven. Anyone with a strong enough telescope can see it themselves. We sent at least one probe past it, and have pictures of it. It's existance is borne up by the gravitational model of the Solar System.


Have you ever seen it?

Yes.

Have you ever seen a picture of it?

Yes.

A movie of it?

Yes.

Have you ever touched it?

No.
Have you ever met anybody who has seen it?


Yes.

Now, why don't you ask the same questions of people who beleive in aliens?'Cuz their answers will all be 'No, I haven't seen an alien', 'No, I have no pictures of an alien", "No...."

Re:It won't :)

[Nplugd]

By the way sentient i.e. "having a faculty, or faculties, of sensation and perception" is a rather low bar. There's a huge number of sentient creatures on Earth. If you're going for self aware, dolphins, gorillas, chimpanzees, elephants, dogs, and probably several other animals have demonstrated self-awareness.

Uh, I dunno for other species, but it has never been clearly established that dogs are actually self aware IIRC.

As for statistical consideration, no matter how small the chances are that there's another Earth somewhere, I believe the universe is definelty big enough to make those chances real.

And on a side note, this topic remember me of The Andromeda Strain, an early book of Crichton, definetly a page turner.

Re:It won't :)

[spacecowboy420]

Back to the topic at hand:
Pluto's proof of existence vs UFO's (Aliens) proof, the flawed example.

• Pluto is verifiable by very qualified people from all countries, with scientific rigor with no reason to lie.
  
  
• UFO sitings are not verifiable - by anyone, no matter how much they want to believe, no matter how qualified they are, and are generally reported by the same people who want to get on "Springer".
  

NOTHING is certain, all you can do is reduce the percentage that what you are being told is false.
I am 99% sure Pluto exists (barring us living in some sort of "matrix" or some world wide scientific conspiracy)

Can you find one example of a "recorded UFO phenomena" that you are equally sure of?

Understand that I know that it isn't just drunken rednecks that see Aliens, the point is that it is much easier to report something when there is not a burden of proof (UFO sighting), vs something that does (a new planet in our solar system).

Tell me that it is not painfully obvious how different the two examples are, and how flawed it is to compare the two. If this is not possible for you, then you are more intested in asserting your opinions than using any sort of logic or reason to arrive at them.

Re:It won't :)

[Sj0]

Keep in mind that the moon videos were too flawless to have been crafted by people. Things like the fact that none of that jumping around picked up any dust, because dust being thrown around is a product of an atmosphere(chaotic air patterns caused by the interaction between your foot, the ground, and the atmosphere). The sharply contrasting black and white shown in the photograph of the first footstep on the moon.

Furthermore, there were political and economic indicators that man went to the moon. Political being that the Americans are far too proud to fake something like that, especially if they were caught(whilst the Russians continued their race towards the moon? The US had to be there first. Period. It was the way they did things back then. These days, they'd issue a text press release and I'd bet most people would believe them, but I'm cynical after the Iraqi war), and economic being the huge amount of resources poured into the program. The massive amounts of paperwork and documentation, along with the massive facilities created(and that part is demonstratable without going to the mooon) for the project also factor in favour of a legitimate moon landing.

Attention to detail is what many conspiracy theorists lack, which is why they are relegated to the fringe. The truth is out there. They just don't really want to believe it.

Re:It won't :)

[Sj0]

That would generally go hand in hand with the characteristics of the moon -- aparantly it was very hard to get the flag to stand up in the first place, because moon dust, while easy to displace laterally, is extremely difficult to displace vertically. Some of the stuff they learned is quite interesting. I hope someone establishes a base up there someday in my lifetime.

Re:It won't :)

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with pretty much everything you said.

I wasn't saying that some "alien/ufo conspiracy theories" were undoubtedly real, I was talking about the ordinary kind (usually written out in longhand on 18 pages of a yellow legal pad.) And some government secrets are very well kept.

Re:It won't :)

[Malcontent]

"UFO sitings are not verifiable - by anyone, no matter how much they want to believe, no matter how qualified they are, and are generally reported by the same people who want to get on "Springer"."

This is an out and out lie. There have been tens of thousands of witnesses to UFOs by all kinds of people. From children to little old ladies to astranauts, pilots, cops, and yes even scientists.

"I am 99% sure Pluto exists "

You have no basis for being that sure. You have no first hand evidence. Your belief stems purely from the fact that somebody told you it exists and you believed them. You also proably read it in a book and believed what you read. That's it. That is entire basis for your 99% proof. Pretty damned flimsy if you ask me.

"Can you find one example of a "recorded UFO phenomena" that you are equally sure of?"

There are tens of thousands of pictures, hours of videotape, tens of thousands of eyewitnesses, even some material. There are govt documents, recordings from cockpits of planes and the space shuttle, there are radar traces from numerous radar sites.

There is an amazing amount of evidence for the existance of UFOs. It's obvious you are not aware of them but dig a little and you'll see. Sure some of it's fake, some of it's loonies but even if less then 1% of it was credible you would still have more evidence for the existance of UFOs then pluto.

Re:It won't :)

[spacecowboy420]

Man, you just don't get it do you? Verifiable means that someone tells me something, and I can go check it out myself. It's also known as the scientific method, you know the way a scientist makes a claim such as: "Pluto exists over there." and another, independent party can verify that "yes, what my esteemed colleage has reported is indeed a fact, it does it exist over there". This is done by reproducing the conditions and verifing the results (pointing the telescope at the sky where it is claimed to be, and seeing that, infact, it is there).

Alien abductions, UFOs, etc do not enable you to use the scientific method. This is because, as you stated in an earlier post: "pluto is a regularly occuring phenomena" and UFO sightings are not. This makes the two examples mutually exclusive - and their comparison ludicris.

"You have no basis for being that sure. You have no first hand evidence. Your belief stems purely from the fact that somebody told you it exists and you believed them. You also proably read it in a book and believed what you read. That's it. That is entire basis for your 99% proof. Pretty damned flimsy if you ask me."
WTF? It has been reported via several reputable sources. It was predicted before it was found, based on the indirect observation (the effects of a body not yet proven to exist, but evidenced through measurements of effects on bodies in the solar system.)Flimsey? Such as the speed of light is 186000 miles per second, the earth is round, the sun is 93 million miles away. How do you know any of this is true? Do you accept any of these accepted truths? If so, why? 'Cause someone told you, or you saw pictures, or Einstein seemed like a nice enough guy?

You keep forgetting that all I am saying is comparing the possibilty of the existence of Pluto to the existence of UFOs/Aliens is a bad example.

Man, I live in Phoenix, I saw the lights, 1000s of us did, we have received no explanation.But until it lands in my backyard or something similiar, I assume there is a reasonable explanation, such as a secret aircraft, miliary flairs etc. I still believe in the existence of Pluto - but as much as I want to believe in spacemen, until I have verifiable proof, the reports are baseless. Do not assume I am uneducated on the many reports of UFOs/aliens, I simply believe your example/logic is flawed.

Pluto Is A Bad Example and is not relevant when talking about UFO sightings.

I essentially agree with you, just not your example. The flawed example takes away from your argument. This and the fact you say crap like:
"but even if less then 1% of it was credible you would still have more evidence for the existance of UFOs then pluto."

wtf? Define credible. If there was tangible proof, then yes you are correct - but there is not tangible proof thus it is hearsay unless I can verify it's existence through other scientific methods. As it it stands, there are orders of magnitudes greater evidence for the existence of Pluto, versus UFOs/Aliens.

Re:It won't :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course there are UFO's. UFO literally means "Unidentified Flying Object", in other words, an unknown flying object. UFO's could be weather balloons, secret military craft, falling space debris, etc, etc, and possibly alien spaceships.

No, I do not believe reports of flying saucers very much. That does not mean that I do not believe in alien life, I certainly do. The universe is to vast for earth to be the only planet with life on.

Re:It won't :)

[spacecowboy420]

Wow, you missed the point *AGAIN*

[Looks around for a huge clue stick, shakes head and gives up]

Re:It won't :)

[podperson]

Eh?

I believe he was referring to apes (gorillas and chimpanzees at minimum), canines, and various aquatic mammals (dolphins and orcas at minimum).

Or to put it another way (to misquote Douglas Adams):

"Human beings thought they were smarter than dolphins because they invented civilisation and digital watches, while dolphins swam around having sex. Dolphins thought they were more intelligent than humans for exactly the same reason."

Re:It won't :)

[Malcontent]

" Man, you just don't get it do you? Verifiable means that someone tells me something, and I can go check it out myself."

No it's you who don't get it. Just for one second think about what you are saying. You (that's you, your body, your eyes, your brain) are not able to verify the existance of pluto. You have to trust somebody else's word that it exists.

"Pluto Is A Bad Example and is not relevant when talking about UFO sightings. "

I am using pluto because it is a regularly occuring phenomena.

Here let me try this.

Even though pluto is a regularly occuring phenomena AND even though UFOs are an irregularly occuring phenomena you (yourself) have more evidence for the existance of UFOs then you do for the esitance of pluto.

The entirety of your evidence for the existance of pluto is "they told me and I believed them". In the meanwhile you can see hundreds of pictures and videos of UFOs and listen to hundreds of testimonies.

Re:It won't :)

[spacecowboy420]

Why don't you address my entire post instead of pulling pieces out. Explain your reaction to:

"Flimsey? Such as the speed of light is 186000 miles per second, the earth is round, the sun is 93 million miles away. How do you know any of this is true? Do you accept any of these accepted truths? If so, why? 'Cause someone told you, or you saw pictures, or Einstein seemed like a nice enough guy?"

Or

"Define credible. If there was tangible proof, then yes you are correct - but there is not tangible proof thus it is hearsay unless I can verify it's existence through other scientific methods. As it it stands, there are orders of magnitudes greater evidence for the existence of Pluto, versus UFOs/Aliens."

I know, it's easier when you can ignore the bits of reason.

"meanwhile you can see hundreds of pictures and videos of UFOs and listen to hundreds of testimonies."
Is equal to "they told me" - dumb ass.
without the burded of scientific proof - dumb ass

Here let me try this.

Instead, why don't you try taking a critical thinking class.
You have missed every point, responded to parts of my sentences, and drug this on far too long. You continually rant the same nonsensical mantra, then turn right around and support your argument with what you are arguing against [wtf?] I am done with this. You, sir, are too logic challenged for me to justify wasting any more of my time on -

Get some therapy, maybe that will help you with your Oedipus complex.

Re:It won't :)

[nanojath]

And considering the bizaare circumstances that created life on earth... only created one sentient lifeform here"

So, where did you hear about me?

Re:It won't :)

[hesiod]

-2 Redundant? WTF, This is the first post I saw that pointed that out. For a group of people who think they are so smart (and most here really are), there are an awful lot of extremely stupid moderators.

Re:It won't :)

[hesiod]

> we might be able to kill them with horrible music should they ever decide to attack...

Only if they're martians...

Re:It won't :)

[Malcontent]

You are hopelessly lost by now aren't you.

Think about evidence. Think about why you believe or don't believe things. For you why you believe or don't believe something has nothing to do with firsthand or secondhand evidence. For you if a credible source says so then it must be true and until a credible source says so it can not be true.

Did I get that right?

For me when somebody tells me the sun is 93 million miles away I give them the benefit of the doubt. Probably because I have nothing to gain or lose if they are right or wrong. By the same token if somebody tells me that they saw a UFO or took a picture of one, or took some videotape of one I also give them the benefit of the doubt.

They are both the same kind of evidence.

Are you kidding me?

[Anonymous Coward]

This just adds to their conspiracy.

Of course not

[cperciva]

I wonder if the release of these documents will deter the conspiracy theorists?

Don't be rediculous. Compared to everything else conspiracy theorists come up with, "sanitized" documents is completely believable.

Re:Of course not

[osgeek]

When you're battling religious-type beliefs that don't have any hard evidence anyway, producing contrary evidence doesn't help clarify the matter in their minds.

UFO conspiracy theorists will go to their graves believing that the government is hiding alien spacecraft, and no amount of factual information will convince them otherwise.

deter or encourage

[Stinson]

either this will deter conspiracists, or just give them a new argument that the government removed the unusual entries before declassifying them. There really will never be a way to prove that declassified documents aren't modified

Re:deter or encourage

[DarrylM]

But... but... we already know what happened.

It was the Ferengi!

:-)

Re:deter or encourage

[evilviper]

There really will never be a way to prove that declassified documents aren't modified

That's just plain WRONG... You can usually just ASK the person that wrote the document if that matches with their memory close enough. You can also, almost always, verify the times/dates/places to check if everything is okay.

Additionally, checking documents to verify that they seem identical to what was written before and after is a good check. When a guy sounds like a red-neck one day, and a lawyer the next, that's pretty good proof of a forgery.

Similar to the above, you can check several records against the others, and make sure that not everybody came to the exact same conclusions. Yes, facts should all be the same, but conclusions tend to differ.

Anyhow, once you've gone through these methods, if you haven't found any problem, you have such a high probablity of corectness that it would be ridiculous to believe they were forged. Of course, you can't really disprove that one word was changed here-and-there, but that really isn't the kind of issue we are talking about here.

Re:deter or encourage

[sebi]

It was the Ferengi!

That is a lie!
It was Zoidberg.

Re:deter or encourage

[Lord Flipper]

The Congress ran a subcommittee hearing back in the 90s, and the gist of their report, which the military promised to 'follow-up on', was that there were tons, literally, of documents missing from the original Military-inventoried document base concerning the reports surrounding the Roswell 'event'.

Military position was that the debris was part of a new, secret, ultra-high altitude balloon.

Personally, I favor this theory: That the military and gov't would rather people think of 'Little green men' in their thoughts re: Nevada, and 'overlook' the actual fact of the huge numbers of cancers and environmental damage engendered by the above-, and below-, ground nuclear tests there.

~flipper

Right

[Matthaeus]

And the documents that were declassified were all the documents associated with Roswell, right? All unaltered? Hey, look over there!

Not that I'm a rabid conspiracy theorist, but anybody who is willing to believe in a government coverup of that magnitude won't be pacified by a bunch of relatively easily-faked "declassified" documents.

Re:Right

[nemaispuke]

The Government and the military don't have to fake it, all they have to do is reclassify it. When Frank Snepp III published "Decent Interval" and it had juicy secrets like we started negotiating with North Vietnam for POW's in 1971, and when we left in 1975 we left behind enough hardware to equip a 250,000 man army for 5 years! President Reagon signed legislation that allows the Government or military to reclassify previously unclassified materials on a whim (I can't remember off the top of my head what part of the U.S. Code was changed), but this is what they used to go after Frank Snepp. So all anyone would have to do is wait until just before the declassification date, and request the materials be reclassified. Not that I believe in UFO's either, but I do believe that something happened out there. And the Air Force is in no big hurry for anyone outside the Government to find out!

Re:Right

[StarTux]

Considering Clinton was unable to hide his affair and that the F117 was also known well enough about I doubt, very much doubt anything of this magnitude could be hidden. Heck, even the Chinese stole nuclear secrets.

Re:Right

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering Clinton was unable to hide his affair and that the F117 was also known well enough about I doubt, very much doubt anything of this magnitude could be hidden. Heck, even the Chinese stole nuclear secrets.

You mean just like everyone knows an alien craft crashed in Roswell?

Re:Right

[Overly Critical Guy]

Most "UFOlogists" are idiots, but I often wonder about Roswell. Something like that is of much huger magnitude than the F117 or Clinton's affair. There are measures that could have been taken to protect something so huge, whatever it was.

The only reason I say this is that when a military pilot sees debris and does not recognize it as a weather balloon, and then suddenly the story changes that it WAS a balloon but nobody is allowed to view any of it, you have to recognize that something did happen, UFO or not, and it really appeared to have been covered up.

Re:Right

[garver]

Agreed. Frankly, I'd be thoroughly impressed if the US gov't could show the level of competence required to pull off a conspiracy like this. Christ, if they could, do you think we'd still be looking for WMD in Iraq? There are 150k+ soldiers over there... think they couldn't find a couple to plant the necessary evidence?

I believe in the incompetence theory of gov't. If you don't understand wtf they are doing, it's because they don't either.

Re:Right

[drinkypoo]

The thing is, it was once easier to hide things. The internet in particular has made that much more difficult because now anyone has access to instanteous secure communications to anywhere on the internet from anywhere else on the internet. I mean hell you could get pgpfone and do voice years ago, and that even interoperated between PC and Mac. Now with stuff like waste being dropped on us for free (with some legal complications, heh heh, conspiracy theorists must love that - in the absence of any other explanation from AOL one may feel free to assume whatever) it's getting even sillier.

Anyway as a sibling to this comment says, we all know about it, don't we? What's missing is the evidence. Clinton left behind some biological evidence, who knew that monica was a pervert? We all do now. Someone ought to teach her how to do her laundry.

Anyway it would be a lot harder to hide a UFO landing or something today, because of the ubiquity of communications and the fact that there's so many private sector imaging satellites, not to mention that various forms of telescopy have become more advanced so the odds that a civilian would pick up an atmospheric entry are far greater now than they were then. All in all I'd say that it is pretty believable that if an alien crashed in or near roswell (AKA bumfuck, egypt, in the parlance of our times) at the alleged time that it could quite successfully be hidden, and more or less all evidence destroyed. Even if you found material evidence at this late date, who says you'd know what you were even looking at, anyway? If they DO have a UFO, A> they moved it away from roswell long ago and put it someplace innocuous, and B> any records they might have kept are kept someplace similarly innocuous, and would likely be protected from inspection with a self-destruct device. Any asshole could rig one up, after all.

Re:Right

[Gaijinator]

One theory (and one that makes sense, at least) is that the "weather balloon" was not a weather balloon at all, but in fact was a classified military prototype of some sort. Something like this would need to be kept secret, so that our various enemies don't learn what we're doing. This seems a lot more reasonable to me than a bunch of aliens buzzing some humans in the middle of nowhere.

Re:Right

[wmspringer]

Of course, the Republicans were willing to spend millions of dollars digging for something to embarrass Clinton...what makes you think they're interested in putting forth that kind of effort to search for Aliens? ;-)

Re:Right

[Malcontent]

Hey look we are discussing it on slashdot. It wasn't hidden well was it. You are right. Something this significant could not have been hidden and it wasn't.

What was your point again?

How did you get modded up to 5?

Re:Right

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only Chinese... Russians and Israelis as well.

I know this is going to be impossible to establish with proof but I was at a lecture by a professor once and he explained that Americans were sending observation balloons to try to get accurate intelligence on the Russians (obviously before satellite photography). In fact, in Russia, phonebooks all had distorted maps (useful for roads, not for bombing runs) in order to thwart American attempts at gathering intelligence. Thus, when reports came out that there was alien activity at Roswell, the government was not going to step in and say, "Hey, actually, no, those were top secret spy balloons being sent over to Russia." The professor was always going to Washington for consulting work, if that means anything.

Re:Right

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed - you can keep the goods secret - in the case of nuclear bombs, that's the full plans. They've been secret since day one, because even the few governments who have bought or stolen them have a vested interest in keeping them secret. Nobody is stupid enough to post the plans on the net.

With UFOs the goods would be physical evidence - stories can and do leak, but without the goods it is all for naught. And stories have most definitely been leaking on an ongoing basis for decades.

Re:Right

[StarTux]

And to take your thought along a little bit...It was convient to lay a smoke screen and have people think it was aliens. It stops people asking the real questions about where their tax dollars are going :)

Re:Right

[StarTux]

No need to post the plans.

The British made their own nuclear weapons shortly after WW2 without the US lending assistance. All you need is a nuclear reactor and some good scientists.

Re:Right

[hesiod]

> think they couldn't find a couple to plant the necessary evidence?

I thought this same thing. I support the U.S. forces being in Iraq, but I sorta' expected them to 'find' WMDs whether they were there or not.

Incompetence theory.... That's a pretty good observation :)

Re:Right

[hesiod]

> Any asshole could rig one up, after all.

Hey, that's not fair... I'm undoubtedly an asshole and I couldn't rig one up. Are you calling me stupid as well as an asshole? Haha, damn right you are!

Err. okay.

Hangar 18

[Anonymous Coward]

Hanger 18
Welcome to our fortress tall
Take some time to show you around
Impossible to break these walls
For you see the steel is much too strong
Computer banks to rule the world
Instruments to sight the stars

Possibly I've seen to much
Hangar 18 I know too much

Foreign life forms inventory
Suspended state of cryogenics
Selective amnesia's the story
Believed foretold but who'd suspect
The military intelligence
Two words combined that can't make sense

Possibly I've seen to much
Hangar 18 I know too much

Re:Hangar 18

[Anonymous Coward]

yes and then came the sequel, "Return to Hangar". Maybe to avoid playing the original with the lightning fast solos?:
Welcome to an empty fortress
A mighty wreck that once was proud
Ate alive by oxidation
Abandoned by a crew of cowards
Navigation systems failed
Computers crashed and they all fall down

Possibly I've seen too much
Hangar 18 I know too much

Solo - Pitrelli

All the guilty paid the price
Suspended by their broken necks
No one survived to tell the story
When foreign life forms resurrect
And military intelligence is
Still two words that can't make sense

Possibly I've seen too much
Hangar 18 I know too much

Solos - Pitrelli, Mustaine

Solos - Pitrelli, Mustaine, Pitrelli, Mustaine

No it won't

[Anonymous Coward]

These kind of people don't like reality to get in the way..

Heh

[Faust7]

de-classified documents from the Roswell military base ... contain no entries of unusual events or activity.

No, really?

Yeah right...

[Got-Tea-Rolls]

Nothing was declassified. Its all a big cover-up that the government is doing to hide the fact that George Bush is an infested Terran.

Re:Yeah right...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey - cool. Mebbe he'll run into Al Quaida's HQ and explode!

Re:Yeah right...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish he would just explode and be done with it already. Unless he's a NPC like infested kerrigan, then he probably can't :-(

No closure here

[nukey56]

This is the equivalent of the government saying "no, sorry, nothing happened". Just because they realeased their "offical documents" doesn't mean that: A) they're true B) they're complete and most importantly C) they aren't counter-intelligence. Our government still has much to gain from having some sort of advanced technology. I suspect that once the world is dominated by one country, one culture, one affinity, that we will actually know the truth. But then again, the only proof may or may not be locked in a hanger somewhere, it's hard to tell.

Re:No closure here

[evbergen]

I suspect that once the world is dominated by one country, one culture, one affinity, that we will actually know the truth.

Ah, so the aliens brought weapons and Hollywood?

Re:No closure here

[ibennetch]

But then again, the only proof may or may not be locked in a hanger somewhere, it's hard to tell.

True, but the thing that I question (assuming "something" happened there, which I neither have an opinion on nor care about, this is just a mind-game) is the first-hand reports of the military and government personel who were involved -- especially in any cover-up. Here's what happens:

- Something happens
- "they" cover it up, remove all evidence and delete any documents reporting anything about "it"
- Everyone invovled dies of old age (Roswell was what, fifty years ago -- another twenty or thirty years and no first-hand witnesses will be around)
- No one ever finds out the truth

Re:No closure here

[doorbot.com]

- Something happens
- "they" cover it up, remove all evidence and delete any documents reporting anything about "it"
- Everyone invovled dies of old age (Roswell was what, fifty years ago -- another twenty or thirty years and no first-hand witnesses will be around)
- No one ever finds out the truth

I agree with you in theory... this would make sense as a potential outcome of "some event."

Let's say, though, that this event is the discovering that "we are not alone" (or pick some other wild theory from UFOlogists (sidenote: worst profession title ever)). The government would have a huge interest in knowing whether or not "we are alone" in the universe. If "space aliens" really exist, and some chaps at Roswell found them, the army would have documented the findings. Someone would still know today, because that kind of information would be incredibly value (especially during the Cold War). To suggest that the information will be lost when all of the primary witnesses dies is rediculous -- if there are documents regarding "space aliens" at Roswell, they are surely retained by the US government, under the closest supervision.

Re:No closure here

[Goalie_Ca]

I really hope you don't mean the U.S. country/culture owning the world. They may try but they don't know that canada has a secret army stashed away in the rockies and a secret moonbase death star. You will all become Canadian. Muhahahaha!

Re:No closure here

[Anonymous Coward]

Deneuralized. Men in Black. Have a good life. Work in a post office.

Re:No closure here

[Malcontent]

"No one ever finds out the truth"

In this case many of the people involved have come forward and told their stories. Some were military and some were civillians.

Re:No closure here

[The J Kid]

Yeah, all you base will belong to us, eh?

Oh no!

[Tyrdium]

The CIA got Popular Mechanics in on the conspiracy too!

Of course it won't

[signe]

All this means to the conspiracy theorists is that the military cleaned up the documents before they declassified them.

-Todd

Will it deter conspiracy "theorists" ?

[Infonaut]

Uh.. no.

Conspiracy theories are not really theories, in that they can never be disproved. The theory that the earth is flat can be disproved; the theory that aliens have infiltrated the highest levels of government can't be disproved.

Conspiracy theory is a belief system, and as such is highly resistant to facts.

Re:Will it deter conspiracy "theorists" ?

[Anonymous Coward]

so what if a video came out of Jimmy Hoffa dancing around eating a banana and slipping on the peel to smash his head on a large block... then roll into a huge industrial garbage disposal... would that disprove a conspiracy theory?

Re:Will it deter conspiracy "theorists" ?

[TummyX]

The theory that the earth is flat can be disproved; the theory that aliens have infiltrated the highest levels of government can't be disproved.


I don't understand the difference between those two. How is it that you can prove the earth is flat but yet can't prove the goverment has been infiltrated by aliens?

For example, how do you know that all the aliens in the government aren't faking all the evidence for the round earth? For all we know, all the evidence is just an illusion that is sustained by drugs the goverment puts in the drinking water.

Re:Will it deter conspiracy "theorists" ?

[Anonymous Coward]

So...you're saying the Garbage Union did it?

Re:Will it deter conspiracy "theorists" ?

[Blondie-Wan]

the theory that aliens have infiltrated the highest levels of government can't be disproved. Conspiracy theory is a belief system, and as such is highly resistant to facts.

What a coincidence - so are the highest levels of government.

;)

Re:Will it deter conspiracy "theorists" ?

[Anonymous Coward]

i guess the new theory would be that the gargage union designed a special banana peel that would target Jimmy's feet, and the disposal was setup strategically.

Re:Will it deter conspiracy "theorists" ?

[frovingslosh]

the theory that aliens have infiltrated the highest levels of government can't be disproved.

Of course it can't be disproved. Mostly because they have.

Re:Will it deter conspiracy "theorists" ?

[Agthorr]

The theory that the earth is flat can be disproved

Oh yeah? Disprove it.

Re:Will it deter conspiracy "theorists" ?

[Xzzy]

> How is it that you can prove the earth is flat but
> yet can't prove the goverment has been infiltrated
> by aliens?

Because a conspiracy theorist, by their nature, will fabricate new situations that will support their belief. "Oh okay this base has no aliens, but I bet there's a secret military alien base somewhere else", or "well this guy isn't an alien, but I bet that guy down the hall is".

As regards the earth, this can be directly tested. In the extreme case, you can buzz up into orbit in a rocket and look back on the earth, or you can go on an ocean liner and see the curvature of the horizon out in the middle of the water, or you could test the theory mathematically.

The parent post gave one of the best descriptions of conspiracy buffs I've ever read, really. It's quite accurate.

Re:Will it deter conspiracy "theorists" ?

[namespan]

I don't understand the difference between those two. How is it that you can prove the earth is flat but yet can't prove the goverment has been infiltrated by aliens?

"Absence" proofs are pretty hard to furnish: prove there is no God. Prove there are no aliens. Prove there are no black swans. Prove there are no WMDs. It's impossible to produce a "lack" of each of those things that's expansive enough to be sufficiently encompassing. Generally prima faciea burdens fall on the person making a claim.

(Although curiously enough, in science, we usually don't prove anything true anymore. Usually you just come up with a negative version of your hypothesis, run an experiment, and the statistics involved leave you with some probability that it's false. If it's a very low probability, then you're likely to have your hypothesis granted theoretical establishment.)

For example, how do you know that all the aliens in the government aren't faking all the evidence for the round earth? For all we know, all the evidence is just an illusion that is sustained by drugs the goverment puts in the drinking water.

I know what's real because I took the red pill and the oracle told me. So there.

Re:Will it deter conspiracy "theorists" ?

[Matthaeus]

Go into the mountains. Put a unique item of some sort that you can test the uniqueness of (a large random number that you have memorized would work) in a safe and bury it. Note the GPS coordinates.

Now start walking west. When you get back to the coordinates, open the box. Verify the number.

It may not mathematically disprove the earth is flat theory, but if everyone who thought that the earth is flat did this, the rest of us could get some real work done. :)

(Alternately, you could take a few physics or engineering courses and try to figure out what sort of material could make an object the size and mass of a flat Earth and not collapse into a sphere under its own weight.)

Re:Will it deter conspiracy "theorists" ?

[macshit]

The key word is `disprove' (not `prove').

A good theory is one that can be tested, and if it's wrong, you can find out. This lets you gain confidence in its accuracy or lack thereof.

Conspiracy `theories,' though, simply define any negative evidence (or lack of positive evidence) as part of the conspiracy. IOW, they're sort of true-by-definition, regardless of any evidence; they sort of squirm around to avoid reality. That squirminess makes them fun (I think!), but not very useful for saying anything about the real world...

Re:Will it deter conspiracy "theorists" ?

[Imperator]

the theory that aliens have infiltrated the highest levels of government can't be disproved

No, but I can prove conclusively that if they are aliens, they're not advanced aliens.

Re:Will it deter conspiracy "theorists" ?

[TummyX]

Exactly. I have a problem with the example which asserted that you couldn't test that the goverment is run by aliens. Why can't you disprove the government is run by aliens? Any reasons that you can come up with I could apply in the same way to disproving the world is round.

Re:Will it deter conspiracy "theorists" ?

[zabieru]

Scrith.

Re:Will it deter conspiracy "theorists" ?

[Vaystrem]

Obviously you've not read Terry Pratchett close enough to discover the very obvious truth that in fact the world is supported by four Elephants on the back Al-Tun the great turtle as he migrates through space in search of a mate.

It has given the physicists of discworld great concern whether or not Al-tun is male or female...

(This is all paraphrased from memory from the first book in the Discworld series which is utterly hillarious and anyone who has ever appreciated Douglas Adams should feel right at home with this other absudly wonderful british author.)

Re:Will it deter conspiracy "theorists" ?

[kchoboter]

Conspiracy theory is a belief system, and as such is highly resistant to facts.

IMO, being conspiracy theory is identital to being stubborn. Conspiracy Theorists do not accept proven truths that disprove a belief they have. Instead the waltz around the truth while making up new radical conspiracy theories to rebut proof.

Of course its highly resistant to facts, the conspiracist just doesn't accept them.

Re:Will it deter conspiracy "theorists" ?

[17028]

Well, they can fake those things you know... Especially the mob, with all that money they have lying around. And I bet FBI was involved too. They faked the moon landing after all, and that was back in the sixties.

See, don't try to disprove my theory with your weak evidence!

I'm kidding you, but I'm serious.

Re:Will it deter conspiracy "theorists" ?

[macshit]

Perhaps it would be better to say that the key word is `testable.'

In order to be testable, something has to be at least somewhat well-defined, and since we've never encountered any aliens, it's very hard to say how one tests for `alienness' (10-point checklists in the National Enquirer notwithstanding!). Morever even the concept of `run by' used by most nutcases is pretty vague -- it includes `secretly holds the reins of power,' which again is one of those things that's very hard to nail down, and easy for the proponents to squirm away from any counter-evidence by claiming another level of conspiracy.

So the problem with disproving that the government is run by aliens is that it's too vague a statement; indeed it's so vague that I'd say it's simply meaningless. A fun thing to toss around while playing poker, but that's about it.

Re:Will it deter conspiracy "theorists" ?

[yourmom16]

Assume for a second that George Dubya Shrub is an alien. He's a complete moron, so one would assume the other aliens of his species are morons too. If they are that dumb however they couldn't have built spacecraft to reach earth. So thus he is not an alien.

Re:Will it deter conspiracy "theorists" ?

[tftp]

The scrith won't be strong enough; existence of The Fist Of God proves that.

Re:Will it deter conspiracy "theorists" ?

[schnits0r]

That's what they WANT you to think....

Re:Will it deter conspiracy "theorists" ?

[zabieru]

Not really. No one demanded that the flat earth be impervious to meteors, only that it not collapse under its own weight. Scrith is plenty strong enough for that...

Re:Will it deter conspiracy "theorists" ?

[Alsee]

I have a problem with the example which asserted that you couldn't test that the goverment is run by aliens. Why can't you disprove the government is run by aliens?

It's like trying to prove you're living in "the real world" as opposed to a virtual world like the movies The Matrix, The 13th Floor, and Vanilla Sky. Any test you propose can be faked.

If you did a blood test on everyone in the government the conspiracy theory would say "of course the aliens passed the blood test". They have technology that lets them look just like us, of course they can provide blood that looks just like ours.

A real theory makes specific predictions that could be proven false. Any ordinary and rational flat-earth theory would predict that you can't fly a plane around the planet and that you can't take photographs of the earth as a sphere from space.

-

Re:Will it deter conspiracy "theorists" ?

[RV.eq.VFG]

Remember to bring a boat. You will find it difficult to cross the pacific walking.

Re:Will it deter conspiracy "theorists" ?

[chrissam]

No, but I can prove conclusively that if they are aliens, they're not advanced aliens.

Yeah, I imagine advanced alience would remember to turn on the Segway before trying to ride it!

Re:Will it deter conspiracy "theorists" ?

[Wolfier]

you can go on an ocean liner and see the curvature of the horizon out in the middle of the water

Even if the earth were flat, you'll see the "curvature of the horizon". It has nothing to do with the earth being flat - just a limitation of the human visual system.

Re:Will it deter conspiracy "theorists" ?

[Anonymous Coward]

A-Tuin

and the first book was mediocre at best.

you don't understand conspiracy theorists

[Naikrovek]

they have conspiracies about everything. they NEED to have some conspiracy to fantasize about. they'll use this post that i'm writing right now as ammunition FOR conspiracies (why else would i attempt to debunk them)

these people don't even think that their apples are safe from tracking devices, not even the ones they grow themselves.

some people just NEED to believe that they're being lied to. On a grand scale. Just like some people need to drive cars with neon under them, some people need attention in other ways. they simply cannot stand it when the world makes sense.

Re:you don't understand conspiracy theorists

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course our apples aren't safe from tracking devices. The government employed (illegal) aliens, for less than minimum wage of course, to genetically engineer apple trees that grow a built in GPS-based tracking device, and then had government agents (Johnny Appleseed was undoubtedly the most famous one) replace all the apple seeds with modified ones.

But...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a Microsoft Conspiracy hatched by the slashdot people.

This has been a Microsoft Conspiracy Update.

Re:But...

[comet_11]

Microsoft Conspiracy Update? You mean it sucks up all my bandwidth downloading various patches for my conspiracies and then when it finally installs them my conspiracies don't work anymore because they were removed from the HCL?

What people forget...

[Anonymous Coward]

...is that at that time, in 1947, Roswell was the only location where atomic weapons were kept ready for active use, with the only squadran trained in their use (the 509th bomber wing was based there). As such, no doubt any activity of any nature in the area would likely have produced a profound overreaction of the military staff, and I suppose give the appearence of another kind of coverup...

Re:What people forget...

[Anonymous Coward]

ny activity of any nature in the area would likely have produced a profound overreaction
That's why the article is interesting. PM didn't find any mention of anything unusual happening at the time.

Re:What people forget...

[cathouse]

Don't bother to ask for results and such

Unless you're inclined to get in dutch

But take it from one who knows the score

The 509th is winning the war

anon 1944

Pure disinformation

[Anonymous Coward]

Only a fool would believe the government turned over the *real* documents from Roswell.

They should let the theorist think what they want

[Anonymous Coward]

The govt should let them think all they want about roswell. Then the govt can do whatever experiments, research or hide stuff anywhere else they want. The govt is probably happy for the roswell distraction.

I bet it's just a dead place with a few people there to make it look active.

Conspiracy theorists.

[Montreal Geek]

I think the poster misses the point about how conspiracy theorists think entirely.

If the files show no information about anything odd happening, then of course it means they were cleaned to hide the truth. The fact that there is no proof of their pet theory is proof that there was a cover up to hide it.

This is the reason why those kooks annoy me so much; it's not that they beleive in a complicated, contrived scenario so much as they use the lack of proof for their delusion as proof of correctness. Making them, by definition, immune to logic or facts.

This is probably going to hurt my karma to dare say so, but one cannot help but notice the parralel with most religious beleif systems.

I guess the bad-guy-of-faith has been transposed from satan to some illuminati for those who feel the need to explain life by intervention deus ex machina rather than accept its unpredictability.

-- MG

Re: Conspiracy theorists.

[Black Parrot]

> If the files show no information about anything odd happening, then of course it means they were cleaned to hide the truth.

Some will take the lack of mention of aliens as proof that the aliens are real.

I think I'm going to have to lurk on sci.skeptic for a few days. This should be good.

Re: Conspiracy theorists.

[shadowbearer]

"Some will take the lack of mention of aliens as proof that the aliens are real."

Yeah. Call it evolution in action (kudos to Niven)

Now THAT'S a scary thought...

SB

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[m00nun1t]

Well, I've also got Karma to burn, so...

It's also a lot like /.
Report on the things you believe on (pro-OSS, anti-MS), avoid linking to things that go against that belief system, and report unconfirmed rumours (ie. Michael Robertson saying Microsoft were selling WinXP for $50 to Lindows customers, later refuted) as fact.

It's really hard to see the difference between /., religious extremists and conspiracy theorists. All 3 will make sure the "facts" line up with their beliefs, regardless of what is really happening.

I expect to be modded to -500 for this, but such is life...

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[Anonymous Coward]

Making them, by definition, immune to logic or facts.

This is probably going to hurt my karma to dare say so, but one cannot help but notice the parralel with most religious beleif systems.

You must be new here, if you think that's going to do anything but help your karma.

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[Imperator]

I believe in God because the Bible tells me so.

The Bible is true because it is the word of God.

What? Why are you looking at me like that? It makes perfect sense!

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[bad_fx]

This is the reason why those kooks annoy me so much; it's not that they beleive in a complicated, contrived scenario so much as they use the lack of proof for their delusion as proof of correctness. Making them, by definition, immune to logic or facts.

Exactly! I found Feynman's thoughts on this sort of thing, psuedoscience, etc particularly interesting (read: agreeable to me, cause I agree with them 100 % :) ). In particular Cargo Cult Science is a good read for anybody who hasn't already.

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[evilviper]

Unfortunately, I guess I need to first say that I have not read the documents in question, do not believe aliens landed at roswell, and I am in fact a skeptic myself, but sometimes we need to play the devils advocate. Especially when people are being so anti-conspiracy that they are being totally naieve. On with the show.

If the files show no information about anything odd happening, then of course it means they were cleaned to hide the truth.

So, if you got all the declassified documents about the September 11th attacks, and they were the same as the day before, you wouldn't find it suspicious that they lack entries that they should have?

eg. At the end of the day, nobody feels it was important to mention anything different than the offical status-quo? Looking through a number of records, you will find there is always deviation... If I was to look through records and find perfectly written records, that all say exactly the same thing, that WOULD indeed be evidence.

You would be naieve to believe that any records released would say: "WOA! ALIENS LANDED! COOL!" when the gov. has taken the opposite position all these years. Did you think they would all be towing tha party line up until they release offical documents that spill the beans? Did anyone not already know that Clinton was going to make an admission before he did it?

Back on point... The lack of blatantly clear, direct evidence doesn't mean released records are lacking in useful information... Any stories that don't line up, etc., could be an indication of a (*GASP*) actual, true-to-life, cover-up.

Yes, even a skeptic like myself will admit that there have been, and no doubt still are cover-ups, even though they usually relate to government/military actions, NOT aliens...

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[dvdeug]

It's really hard to see the difference between /., religious extremists and conspiracy theorists. All 3 will make sure the "facts" line up with their beliefs, regardless of what is really happening.

Except for the minor fact that unlike most journalists, the corrections column runs on the front page, and slashdot is quite reliable about getting that corrections column up.

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[Goalie_Ca]

What if the bible had a disclaimer:
The following text was made up by a bunch of drunk pimps in the desert who one day decided to become rich and powerfull by starting a religion. This text is not true though it may be based on "some" historical fact. The content of this book does not reflect the views and/or beliefs of the publisher, merely those of the author/conartist.

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article:

As we worked through the Morning Reports line by line, we came to a simple realization: Absolutely nothing extraordinary had happened at Roswell that Fourth of July weekend. There was no indication of an emergency, no mention of a deployment of rescue and firefighting crews, as was the case with other crashes. That was one mystery solved.

Something crashed in the desert. The military did show up and take the remains of that crash. The reality that the morning reports contradict that fact is proof that the reports can't be trusted.

Furthermore, the government claimed that a weather balloon crashed. If that's true, then why did the government change its story and claim they were testing flight suits, and why did the records mention a weather balloon (the story of the day) but not flight suits? It is clear that these records do not tell the whole story. Either the Popular Mechanics reporters missed a significant section of documents (a distinct possibility) or something about Roswell is still classified.

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[Rick.C]

Yes, even a skeptic like myself will admit that there have been, and no doubt still are cover-ups, even though they usually relate to government/military actions, NOT aliens...

Government cover-ups are typically perpetrated to hide misfeasance. In other words, somebody screws up and hides the evidence.

The Lee Harvey Oswald story was such a cover-up. It's complicated by the fact that the cover-up occurred at two levels. Kennedy got shot. Those who should have been protecting him screwed up. That was the first issue. The second theory was that when they finally realized what had happened, the higher-ups thought that telling the American public that Castro had put out a hit contract on Kennedy would cause everyone to demand a war with Cuba. This would likely draw in the USSR and lead to WW-III. But I think their real fear was that the public would demand their regignations because they couldn't control "the Mob". So they went along with the Oswald lie. Now the top levels of government have lied to the people and they have to cover that up, as well.

It was all a basic cover-your-ass operation. They found one simplistic cover story with only a few holes in it and tried their best to make it stick. Anyone who questioned it was dismissed as unpatriotic, a tactic that still works today.

As the parent post states, Roswell was probably not about aliens any more than Oswald was really about WW-III. It was more likely about somebody mis-reporting a weather balloon downing as a UFO crash and his C.O. didn't want to look like a fool to his superiors.

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[canajin56]

"All characters portrayed within are fictional. Any resemblance to real people, living or dead, is purely coincidental"

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[rreyelts]

Strange. I would say that I "believe in the Bible", because archaeological and historical evidence bear it out - from fulfilled prophecies, to supernatural events, to plain old facts. Its remarkable insight into human nature could also be considered contributory evidence of its divine nature.

It's naive to believe that people simply decide to throw out all logic and reason when examining the Bible. I believe that you'll find that Christian apologists are usually much more adept in pointing out circular reasoning in their rivals' logic compared to the simple display you've made here.

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[Imperator]

If they wanted to become rich and powerful, they sure failed over the long term. I mean, when you say "Jews" my mental association isn't "people who've never been given any trouble".

Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity. Or ignorance. Or brain-washing. Or any of the other reasons religions have become popular.

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[Surak]

Strange. I would say that I "believe in the Bible", because archaeological and historical evidence bear it out - from fulfilled prophecies, to supernatural events, to plain old facts. Its remarkable insight into human nature could also be considered contributory evidence of its divine nature.

Really? So rabbits chew their cud? There is archaeological and historical evidence of an actual flood that occurred 3000-4000 years ago in which all the people and animals of the earth were populated from the ones on that took a ride on an ark? The earth is only 6,000 years old? The earth is flat and has four corners? Note also that there is NO RECORD of Jesus bin Miriam's birth, life, or death (other than the Bible) despite the fact that the Romans kept meticulous records. Also note that there is no Egyptian record of the Jewish people ever being enslaved by them, and then freed by Moses, despite the fact that Egyptians also kept meticulous records.

There holes in the Bible big enough to drive a Sherman tank through without hitting anything.

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[Anonymous Coward]

Atheists are sad pathetic people who will die alone without hope and simply be worm food. You might as well shoot yourself now and get it over with if you truly believe that that is no higher power and that this is all some sort of cosmic fluke.

I feel sorry for you.

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[bm_luethke]

This is probably going to hurt my karma to dare say so, but one cannot help but notice the parralel with most religious beleif systems.

Both yes and no. It depends on the conspiracy theory and religion you are comparing. Most religions do not consider lack of proof to mean anything. There are valid reasons to believe in a religion - but no proof.

Some conspiracy theories have the same thing, just because they are conspiracy theories doesn't make them untrue (look at the original Illuminati several hundred years ago). But they look at coincidences and draw conclusions - usually they are not totally correct but can come close. That is "lack of hard proof" has nothing to do with it - just a series of stuff that doesn't add up and no contrary evidence to the theory. One can easily belive some of that.

The strong form of the alien crowd not only says that no proof constitutes proof, but that evidence to the contrary is proof they exists as this is only a diversion. That is quite different from religion and a few of the conspiracu theories. It is completely blinding yourself to the evidence if it doesn't agree with you.

The weak form (of which I subscribe) just says there is life out there - just because the universe seems large enough that it is difficult to think that we are the only existence. Nothing about it size, it frequency, or it's ability to travel. Like religion, there is no contrary evidence. Lack of proof has no bearing on this beliefe. Should you require undeniable proof before you believe then that is OK also.

Re: Conspiracy theorists.

[Fesh]

"Yeah. Call it evolution in action (kudos to Niven)"

Add Pournelle and Barnes. Oath of Fealty was co-authored by all three.

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[Pinball Wizard]

There is plenty of archaeological evidence of a great flood taking place 3000-7000 years ago. Not only that, but the flood story is universal to nearly every culture. Where in the Bible does it say the Earth is flat or only 6,000 years old?(hint: it doesn't) Josephus and Tacitus both mentioned Jesus in their histories.

I can't comment about the Egyptians enslaving the Jews, but so far you've been wrong about everything else you wrote about, so it wouldn't surprise me to find that this is historical fact as well.

You are either supremely close-minded or only read biased history written by atheists. Either way, you're wrong.

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[yourmom16]

Also note that there is no Egyptian record of the Jewish people ever being enslaved by them, and then freed by Moses, despite the fact that Egyptians also kept meticulous records.Since we're on the topic of conspiracy theories(or at least supposed to be) I should point out that the egyptians covered it up, because the jew's escape embarrased them.

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[Anonymous Coward]

So rabbits chew their cud?

Are you familiar with the term "straw man"?

Also note that there is no Egyptian record of the Jewish people ever being enslaved by them, and then freed by Moses, despite the fact that Egyptians also kept meticulous records.

Ha! What did you expect them to write? "Yeah, we had all these great slaves but they got away. Um, we're really powerful tho... (Stop laughing! You shoulda seen what they did!)"

Civilizations tend not to write about their failures.

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[tftp]

I don't think any of them cared about the "long term". And if you check out their history in short term, they achieved a significant success for those times.

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, as crazy at is sounds, one nutjob with a gun really IS capable of killing the president.

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[Montreal Geek]

Oh, no. I also beleive (heh) in preponderance of evidence and/or just plain probabilities.

I'm quite certain there is life out there simply because is is so unimaginably unlikely that out of all this matter and tendency to self organisation we are the sole example of life.

But this opens up a huge, gaping can of worms about what exactly is life, let alone intelligent life (note that we aren't quite clear on what intelligence is, beyond saying something inane like "intelligence is like humans because humans are intelligent").

Again, we go back to probabilities and preponderance of evidence. Alien visitor affectionados claim there are very numerous such visits, yet the probability that something of that magnitude has been sucessfuly hidden by all levels of all governements accross the globe without a single shred of hard evidence slipping through this incredibly vast and complex conspiracy is... well... even less likely than us being alone after all.

-- MG

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just don't forget to hate those gays. Isn't the bible great?

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[Malcontent]

Just because there was a flood that does not mean jesus christ was the son of god.

Every culture in the world has a legend about a big flood which indicates there was some sort of a global event but that does not make jesus the son of god. Following your logic then all myths by all cultures are true because they all mention the same flood.

I have no doubt that the bible was documenting a lot the cultural legends and history of the jewish people but I don't for one second believe that it was the word of god.

The bible is a book of the jews. It makes the jews look good and everybody else look bad (which is understandable). It does not contain any information which would not be available to the jews living at that time.

There is no mention of the poles, no mention of pluto, jupiter, saturn or any other planets, not even a mention of the pyramids or the sphynx.

Surely if the jews were slaves of the egyptians they would have said something about the pyramids and as a previous poster said the egyptians would have written something about it. They seemed to have documented everything else that went on in their lives.

You can't say that because the bible mentions some event or another that all of it is true. Not even you believe that jonah lived in the belly of a whale do you?

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[Imperator]

The Egyptians only recorded good things in stone. Supposing the Biblical story to have been true, it would not have been carved into stone.

Now, that doesn't mean it's the least bit true, and I don't happen to think it is, but the lack of evidence in surviving Egyptian writing is hardly damning. The fact that the Hebrews didn't take credit for the pyramids they must surely have been building in a set of books that is otherwise filled with propaganda is a bit more damning. I mean if you had helped build the pyramids, even under duress, don't you think you'd at least brag about it?

(I hesitate to call those people Jews--if they even did exist in that period of time. Rabbinical Judaism as we know it did not even begin to form until the Roman diaspora (c 70 AD from memory). Back then they had a religion of priests and temples that modern Jews would not recognize in the least.)

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[Anonymous Coward]

Atheists are sad pathetic people who will die alone without hope and simply be worm food.

Thank you. You've hit the nail on the head as to why so many people insist on clinging to superstition in spite of facts which say otherwise: death, or rather fear of death. Fear of personal bodily dissolution; the end of one's life and the life of your loved ones. This is a very emotional issue for a great many people and that is why no matter what science says/discovers/etc., until it can come up with a cure for aging and death billions will choose to believe instead in an afterlife in which they are immortal.

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[Malcontent]

" The Egyptians only recorded good things in stone."

That's not true at all. All kinds of nasty things were recorded.

"The fact that the Hebrews didn't take credit for the pyramids they must surely have been building in a set of books that is otherwise filled with propaganda is a bit more damning."

They did not even mention them. Not a word. No mention of pyramids, the sphynx, the nile delta, nothing. You'd think there would be some factual description of egypt or at least one of it's many architectural marvels. Why would the jews write all kinds of history in the bible but leave out any description of egypt whatsoever. I have a theory. I don't think they ever were in egypt. Just like they never went to the south pole and wrote about it they never went to egypt and wrote about it.

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[Imperator]

The Egyptians did record all sorts of nasty things, but it was always propaganda for the rulers. That, or it wasn't in stone. (They did use papyrus, after all, and they had a large number of scribes. But most of that didn't last to us.)

I agree with you that they probably never were in Egypt. But there is a very small possibility that if they were, we've missed the evidence of it. And after all, would the Egyptians bother to record the enslavement of a few hundred people? It might have been numbers on that scale that we're talking about.

In any case, there's enough other evidence against the Bible's history and science that the Egypt question is moot. Until we do find evidence, there's no reason to think it was any more than a myth, just like about everything else.

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[SAN1701]

I have two very stupid questions about a global flooding happening few thousands yrs ago :

1- If it really happened, wouldn't all river fishes be dead, since they cannot live in sea ?

2- Wouldn't we expect to find amazing evidences like whales and sharks skeletons in the most unusual places, from the animals trapped in some valley when the water came back to the normal levels ?

I understand most people don't like to take that "red pill". It's human. Just don't take the blue pill to seriously.

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[Malcontent]

" The Egyptians did record all sorts of nasty things, but it was always propaganda for the rulers."

I would think that the kings would be proud to carve the fact that they conquered and enslaved a race of people in stone. The mayans did it and so did the egyptians (although slavery seems to be less common in egypt).

"Until we do find evidence, there's no reason to think it was any more than a myth, just like about everything else."

On this we agree.

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[Surak]

Yes, there is plenty of evidence for a *flood* that existed, but NOT that the flood was so great that it wiped all the people and animals on the earth and was repopulated by Noah and his wife and the set of animals that he brought with him on a ride. I never said there was no evidence of a flood -- I said it didn't go down like it says in the Bible.

Josephus and Tacitus mentioned Jesus yes, but I'm talking about *records*. The Romans took censuses. Our word 'census' is even a word ripped from Latin -- that's why. Jesus doesn't exist on ANY of the Roman censuses (censii?), yet there are people in Bethlehem and Jerusalem on the Roman censuses, so evidently the census takers DID make it there. There's no record of Joseph either, while I think Mary, in fact *does* show up on a census.

They had birth records. There is NO birth record for a Jesus bin Miriam. At all.

Also note that the historical record shows that the gospels and all the stories about Jesus were written *at least* 50 years after his death. If he was SO important, why did their authors wait so long?

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[Anonymous Coward]

Rebuttal, in no particular order:

So rabbits chew their cud?

The Scriptural reference to the hare as a cud chewer has frequently been doubted by some critics of the Bible. (Le 11:4, 6; De 14:7) It should not be overlooked, however, that the modern, scientific classification of what constitutes chewing of the cud provides no basis for judging what the Bible says, as such classification did not exist in the time of Moses. Even in the 18th century, English poet William Cowper, who had at length observed his domestic rabbits, commented that they âoechewed the cud all day till evening.â Linnaeus, famed naturalist of the same century, believed that rabbits chewed the cud. But it remained for others to supply more scientific data. Frenchman Morot discovered in 1882 that rabbits reingest up to 90 percent of their daily intake. Concerning the hare, Ivan T. Sanderson in a recent publication remarks: âoeOne of the most extraordinary [habits], to our way of thinking, is their method of digestion. This is not unique to Leporids [hares, rabbits] and is now known to occur in many Rodents. When fresh green food, as opposed to desiccated [dried] winter forage, is available, the animals gobble it up voraciously and then excrete it around their home lairs in a semi-digested form. After some time this is then re-eaten, and the process may be repeated more than once. In the Common Rabbit, it appears that only the fully grown adults indulge this practice.ââ"Living Mammals of the World, 1955, p. 114.

Certain British scientists of this century made close observations of the rabbitsâ(TM) habits under careful controls, and the results they obtained were published in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 1940, Vol. 110, pp. 159-163. Briefly this is the way the hare reingests its food: If a rabbit eats a breakfast of fresh food, it passes through the stomach into the small intestine, leaving behind in the cardiac end of the stomach some 40 or 50 grams of pellets that were already present when the fresh food was eaten. From the small intestine the morning meal enters the caecum or blind end of the large intestine and there remains for a period of time. During the day the pellets descend, and in the intestines the bacterial protein in them is digested. When they reach the large intestine they bypass the material in the caecum and go on into the colon where the excess moisture is absorbed to produce the familiar dry beans or droppings that are cast away. This phase of the cycle completed, the material stored in the dead end of the caecum next enters the colon, but instead of having all the moisture absorbed it reaches the anus in a rather soft condition. It is in pellet form with each coated with a tough layer of mucus to prevent them from sticking together. Now when these pellets reach the anus, instead of being cast away, the rabbit doubles up and takes them into the mouth and stores them away in the cardiac end of the stomach until another meal has been eaten. In this way the special rhythmic cycle is completed and most of the food has passed a second time through the digestive tract.

Dr. Waldo L. Schmitt, Head Curator, Department of Zoology of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., in commenting on these findings, wrote: âoeThere seems to be no reason to doubt the authenticity of the reports of various workers that rabbits customarily store semi-digested food in the caecum and that this is later reingested and passes a second time through the digestive tract.â He also observed that here is an explanation for âoethe phenomenally large caecum of rabbits as compared with most other mammals.â

Also note that there is no Egyptian record of the Jewish people ever being enslaved by them, and then freed by Moses, despite the fact that Egyptians also kept meticulous records.

Meticulous? An objection against the Exodus account has been that the Pharaohs of Egypt did not make any record of the Exodus. However, this is not unus

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should this all being a fluke deprive it of meaning? So what if we weren't created with a purpose - we can EXIST with a purpose. That works just fine, as long as we take responsibility to think about our actions and the world around us.

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[evilviper]

one nutjob with a gun really IS capable of killing the president.

I would LOVE to meet the "one nutjob with a gun" that can make his bullets change direction mid-flight...

Re: Conspiracy theorists.

[shadowbearer]

True, my bad :-)

As I recall, tho, Niven was the one who originally coined the phrase, I think in the flash crowd story.

SB

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[juhaz]

Great flood certainly occurred in the mediterranean, flood that led to creation of modern day black sea.

Newsflash: that might have been huge tragedy for people and animals living in there in that time, but its a vanishingly small fraction of Earth's total surface area, homo sapiens, or probably any other species was not in any danger of extinction in that cataclysm as claimed by the bible.

Not surprisingly, area where it occurred is roughly the same area where bible was thousands of years later written, ancestors of survivors still had legends of that great (but perfectly natural) disaster. Same area where jewry and later, its offspring, christianity arose. Religions inspired by real events no doubt, but not divine events. And religions that are in no way any better or any more true than dozens of others around the world.

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[Alsee]

Correction, that should read:
"All characters portrayed within are fictional. Any resemblance to real people, living, dead, or supernatural, is purely coincidental"

P.S.
Don't read any pro-god intent into that change, I just think it's funnier that way.

-

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[Grizzlysmit]

Really? So rabbits chew their cud?

Technically yes, though in less polite society we'd say they eat their shit, but aparently it's part of the same phenomena as cud chewing.

As for the rest of your rubbish, well I guess facts don't affect your belief system any more than the conspiracy theorists.

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[ndogg]

Look at your history again. Every culture that has its roots in the Middle East has a flood story. No other cultures beyond the Middle East have any such story.

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[Rick.C]

Actually, that hasn't worked for a long time - since Garfield (no, the other one - "James") or Chester A. Arthur, whoever was last.

"Squeeky" Fromme's gun went, "Click!" The guy who shot Brady (no, the other one - think "Brady Bill", not the "Brady Bunch") failed to kill the Prez.

Yeah, Sirhan-Sirhan killed Bobby Kennedy, but he wasn't officially the Prez at the time.

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[Anonymous Coward]

Josephus and Tacitus both mentioned Jesus in their histories.

You mean during his lifetime? Or did they report about a new, quickly emerging cult from greece/falestine (many years later)?
Seriously, could you point me to sources, I'd be interested in this. To my knowledge, none of the events in the bible regarding Jesus have been mentioned by any contemporary roman writings.

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[Anonymous Coward]

If it really happened, wouldn't all river fishes be dead, since they cannot live in sea ?

Laughed - brilliant logic! Asked my semi-believing catholic girlfriend. Answer:"Didn't Noah take those fishes, too?"

Of course! If he was able to built a ship for every animal, of course he was able to build some sweetwater bassins in there, too!

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[Anonymous Coward]

Civilizations tend not to write about their failures.

Oh, I don't know...

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[Pinball Wizard]

There is NO birth record for a Jesus bin Miriam. At all.

Ah, but you conveniently left out the story(I won't call it fact out of respect for your opinion) about the baby Jesus being hidden from Herod as he ordered the slaying of all first born infants in Judea.

Regardless if this is true or not, there were many reasons for Jews to hide themselves or people they were trying to protect from the Roman census takers.

Now come on, really, do you deny that Jesus Christ ever existed? Are all those History 101 college textbooks wrong? That's a pretty big denial on your part, if that's in fact what you believe.

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[Surak]

Obviously I can't tell you for a fact that he never existed. That would be stupid and arrogant on my part. None of us really know because none of us were around to prove or disprove that Jesus bin Miriam existed at all.

I think it's entirely possible that Jesus Christ existed. It's just not likely that this Jesus fellow was nearly as important as the gospel writers would have you believe.

You meet this guy. He can walk on water. He can heal the sick. He can turn water into wine. Wow, that's pretty frickin' amazing stuff. But you waited *50* years after he was NAILED TO A CROSS AND DIED to tell the world about him? Does this even sound reasonable? If this happened today, you'd say the guy who wrote that stuff lost his flippin' mind!

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at your history again. Every culture that has its roots in the Middle East has a flood story. No other cultures beyond the Middle East have any such story.

Hmmm. You're claiming then that several ancient South/Central American cultures have middle-eastern descent then. If so, maybe those mormons have something after all (that's one of their claims). If not, then there was a global event (using the common mythology argument). But the mormons believe the bible too, AFAIK, so doesn't that make "the christians" right either way?

(I figure so many other offtopic, flamebait posts on this thread can get modded to 2 I might as well try, too)

Re:Conspiracy theorists.

[CentrX]

What's one of their claims? That there was a flood, or that the floods in other religious sects are false?

well, if the (conspiracy) theories ARE correct...

[dimgian]

...then i suppose the documents would be "cleaned up" before getting a de-classified status...

Fake

[nEoN nOoDlE]

Those de-classified reports are obviously fake. The real UFO documents will never be de-classified due humanity's inability to deal with Extra-Terrestrial life on this planet.

Well, all personal conspiracy theories aside, why would this stop anyone from making up conspiracy theories? No one in their right mind would believe that the government would declassify documents that they feel could be damaging to themselves or the US public. Are they gonna declassify that they shot JFK (if they did) even 100 years from now? I think not.

Re:Fake

[evilviper]

Are they gonna declassify that they shot JFK (if they did) even 100 years from now? I think not.

There have been many instances where declasified government documents have looked especially bad.

Yes, many things have come to light through FOIA requests, but they just don't seem to cause any stir at all. Maybe few people find the surprises of 50 year-old history to be non-issues, or maybe the news media is run by the CIA, and they don't want to cover those stories.

Re:Fake

[dvdeug]

No one in their right mind would believe that the government would declassify documents that they feel could be damaging to themselves or the US public.

It's documented that the CIA tried to kill Castro with explosive cigars, that they tested LSD on unsuspecting subjects, that they withheld syphilis treatment for a group of black subjects for decades as part of a study. The government isn't monolithic, and has regular turnover on people, between politics and just plain old age. And between basic honesty, vengance on political opponents, and an active coverup being work (which is not why they took the job), stuff's going to come out. If the government shot JFK, no one would stand to benefit now from its coverup, and many people would actively try to unsupress it.

Re:Fake

[stwrtpj]

It's documented that the CIA tried to kill Castro with explosive cigars, that they tested LSD on unsuspecting subjects, that they withheld syphilis treatment for a group of black subjects for decades as part of a study. The government isn't monolithic, and has regular turnover on people, between politics and just plain old age. And between basic honesty, vengance on political opponents, and an active coverup being work (which is not why they took the job), stuff's going to come out. If the government shot JFK, no one would stand to benefit now from its coverup, and many people would actively try to unsupress it.

Mod this up, dammit.

Thank you for making my point that I mentioned in other posts to this topic. Lots of damning stuff against the government has come out, so why all this and not recovered alien tech? You implied this, but it bears repeating: Everyone in government has an agenda. If letting something leak out that was formerly classified would further that agenda, they would do it without a second thought. Letting an alien coverup leak out would be major kudos for politicians that claim to be on the side of limited government.

You also raised an interesting point about age that further boosts support for the idea that a conspiracy would have fallen apart long ago. As you get turnover from retirements and new hires, there is less of a chance to pass the "coverup baton". Combine this with the fact that the US government documents EVERYTHING and RARELY destroys even the most damning information, and that sets the stage for just about all classified data to be revealed at some point in time.

Re:Fake

[dheltzel]

Are they gonna declassify that they shot JFK (if they did) even 100 years from now? I think not.

Unless it happens to benefit someone's political campaign.

Of course, then it wouldn't matter in the least if it were true or not :)

Dennis
The facts, though interesting, are irrelevant!

Read between the lies.

[Anonymous Coward]

There may not be any unusual entries but you must read between the lines. Obeserve where, how often and how much data is blacked out.

that is odd in and of itself

[the_2nd_coming]

there is no report of the huge convoy of trucks that locals had reported shortly after the report was made? to me that seems a littel odd and not normal.

Glad that's cleared up!

[sam_handelman]

When I was an undergrad, all my CS profs (some people in math, too) at UCSC got hand-written letters from this fellow, who happened to be in prison, claiming that he was recieving encoded, telepathic transmissions from the spider-like aliens who had landed at Roswell. He couldn't understand them, and he wanted help "decoding" the transmissions.

Fortunately, we can reassure the fellow that no such aliens exist, now that we have a crate full of declassified documents. This must be a great relief to all of the countries paranoid schizophrenics. I bet hardly any of the text has been blacked out!

High technology

[Eevee]

Let's see. We have acquired the know-how to create intersteller spacecraft with almost unimaginable powers and...we're still throwing money into the space shuttle...

Yeah, right.

The documents are false.

[trotski]

The fact that the government is willing to release the documents proves that UFOs did land at Roswell. They would never release documents that talk about the UFO. This to me is just another in the chain of lies that have been purpetrated by our government for almost 60 years.

Re:The documents are false.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the documents proves nothing at all, which I think is one of the reason why they were released. You know, to get the wackos off their back...

In your dreams

[kgbkgb]

If you think anything could ever deter conspiracy theorists, you're dead wrong. Most don't do it because they are actually worried about these alleged conspiracies, they do it because they find it fun!

Not that there's anything wrong with that -- it just means they'd be prone to append any ad hoc theory to the conspiracy theory to explain away any possible contradictions.

So just don't argue with people about untestable theories (i.e. stop arguing whether or not god exists).

Oh ye of little faith!

[LucidityZero]

Destroy the conspiracy theories? I think not!

You guys just all wait untill the Bildeberg Group unleashes Space Gozilla to finally rid us of the Nazi UFO's! Then we will all know who killed JFK and you puny mortals will finally believe that the Moon Landings were all a hoax!

Give up on conspiracy theories? Yeah right!

Re:Oh ye of little faith!

[neema]

I agree with much that's being said about conspiracies, but why has the JFK assasination repeatedly been brought up? I think it's ridiculous to actually believe the cookie-cutter story given, when facts clearly show that there is at least something fishy going on. Check out the movie JFK.

Its all a conspiracy, I tell you

[dafoomie]

For years, UFO researchers had claimed that enlisted men and officers involved in the disc recovery operation were transferred to other bases to ensure their silence. Sure enough, the transfers took place. The paperwork explained why. Several months earlier, in a sweeping postwar military reorganization, Army fliers were systematically transferred to the newly created U.S. Air Force.

So the Air Force was all a big government conspiracy to hide the truth about the UFO's? And this "Air Force" must deal with all kinds of flying objects. Damn government cover-ups.

Hey, where are the other documents?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everybody knows they are hiding something. They wouldn't just put their secrets in classified documents that could some day be de-classified.

It's just another conspiracy to make us think there was nothing there. :-)

Damn Bureaucracy!

[Random Data]

So it took the US government 56 years to doctor up convincing documents to mask what really happened? I don't want to know how much they get charged for mil-spec tinfoil hats!

Re:Damn Bureaucracy!

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that the website hasn't been slashdot means it is hosted running from a super computer in some secret military base. It might even track you by those evil tagging device called cookies.

Not very likely...

[Gandalf_Greyhame]

The whole theory behind the conspiracies is that the government is hiding something. Therefore the conspiracy theorists will refuse to believe anything that says that aliens have not visited Earth.

I find it highly unlikely that aliens do not exist. For as Douglas Adams said, we live in an infinite universe where anything is possible. The shear immensity of the universe allows the possibility for extra-terrestrial life to exist, and it would be rather sad if all of those stars we see at night had empty planets orbiting them. Having said that, I do find it unlikely that alien life has contacted humans. We are a fairly warlike peoples (it is true, look throughout our history, and you won't have to look too far back either) and I would not be surprised that if a peaceful alien life form found Earth, they would refuse to make contact with us. A warlike alien life form would probably destroy us however, and since that has never happened...

Skeptic say what?

[Thyamine]

They'll never be able to prove it one way or another. People who believe in the conspiracy will forever assume that new information is just newer, fresher (less filling!) mis-information.

Meanwhile the non-believers will say 'See! We told you, nyah.'

It's like those damn math proofs from school. You can't prove it, you can only not prove it. Or not disprove it. On thursdays.

As you can see I often didn't prove anything, but somehow the prof said it didn't count. ;-)

I vote for encourage

[The Wooden Badger]

I can't see anything appeasing conspiracy theorists. I can see them saying, "See, they aren't going to tell you anything. They have too much to hide."

Re:I vote for encourage

[psydereal]

If things like this encourage the conspiracy theorists it can only be a good thing for the government--all the paranoids focus on red herring while ignoring the real conspiracies out there.

Chop chop!

[Faust7]

During the 1990s, the time limits on keeping Cold War-era records began to expire.

And thus the Ministry of Truth went into overdrive, scrambling to correct everything before its final release...

What do you think?

[Openadvocate]

I wonder if the release of these documents will deter the conspiracy theorists.
What do you think? Will people who write stuff like this or list Alien UFO Base Locations will think that is the truth?
I think not. :-D

But then

[Anonymous Coward]

If there were aliens and such, wouldn't Clinton, Bush Sr., Reagan and such now about that? It seems that with the top government CEO position changing quite frequently sooner or later someone will spill the beans.

Nothing will ever satisfy them

[jridley]

I honestly believe that you could take a conspiracy theorist to the moon and show them the footprints, they would say they were faked by a sophisticated robot.

Talking to them only makes them come up with even stupider theories. The only way to win against them is not to play their game.

Re:Nothing will ever satisfy them

[Xzzy]

> The only way to win against them is not to play
> their game.

The skeptics do have a bit of responsibility, however, to educate those in the middle ground with the truth.

A great example of this is the bad astronomy site. Does it stop the conspiracy theorists? Of course not, that's not what it's there for. It exists for the folks who don't have the background separate fact from fiction and give them a reasonable counterpoint to the conspiracy theories.

You can't ignore these people any more than you can reason with them. Best you can do is prevent more folks from falling into the conspiracy camp.

Sounds a bit like religion, doesn't it? :P

Re:Nothing will ever satisfy them

[jridley]

Yes, that's true. There should be a response, but only one. It is worthwhile to present the facts, but it's a waste of time to argue with them. It's not possible to prove that a conspiracy doesn't exist. If people are intent on believing, there's no point in arguing with them, you're just wasting their time.

GRAMMAR NAZI says:

[Anonymous Coward]

irÂreÂgardÂless ( P ) Pronunciation Key (r-gÃrdls)
adv. Nonstandard
Regardless.

[Probably blend of irrespective, and regardless.]
Usage Note: Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. Coined in the United States in the early 20th century, it has met with a blizzard of condemnation for being an improper yoking of irrespective and regardless and for the logical absurdity of combining the negative ir- prefix and -less suffix in a single term. Although one might reasonably argue that it is no different from words with redundant affixes like debone and unravel, it has been considered a blunder for decades and will probably continue to be so.

Re:GRAMMAR NAZI says:

[anthony_dipierro]

Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. An example of such causal writing would be Slashdot.

Re:GRAMMAR NAZI says:

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what the people who write the dictionaries want you to believe.

Re:GRAMMAR NAZI says:

[Thing 1]

Hmm, so "irregardless" really means "regardful"?

Re:GRAMMAR NAZI says:

[7dragon]

I Love you grammar NAZI...

Lazy asses should learn proper English....

Re:GRAMMAR NAZI says:

[kelnos]

i think a better subject for your post might have been "word choice nazi," perhaps... whether or not a word is "nonstandard" - or incorrect in formal style - has nothing to do with whether or not it is grammatical. in the grandparent's usage, 'irregardless' is perfectly grammatical.

irregardless of that fact, i'd still disagree, as /. is hardly a place where formal style is required ^_~.

/me punches himself for caring enough to post this

Re:GRAMMAR NAZI says:

[MadJo]

great a nazi... you also have those extremists views on the world? like racism etc?

why do you people use the word Nazi so many times?
You probably have no clue as to what this word means, either. read a book about the holocaust...

Re:GRAMMAR NAZI says:

[Sj0]

How many people do you see using the word 'aint' on slashdot? There is a certain level of formality required to sound intelligent, and for the most part, that is maintained on technology sites like this one. You'll also notice that few, if any of the people on this site use casual internet-style, such as "Wow! U R Soooooooo Kewl!!!!111" on slashdot. Thank god.

The protocol of a fairly formal writing style on this site also helps root out local slang, which would be inappropriate to use.

Therefore, 'irregardless' shall remain incorrect, or it will mean 'with regard', since it is a self-contained double negative.

Re:GRAMMAR NAZI says:

[Anonymous Coward]

+1, Insightful

Re:GRAMMAR NAZI says:

[arose]

`/34, 5+y0up1c| 6r4|n|/-\r |\|42!3z r|_|lN!|\|6 4L()7 0|= |{3|u|| Po5c|Z!!!11!!1!!!

Re:GRAMMAR NAZI says:

[Reality Master 101]

More definition fun!

My Mistake, n., A clever turn of phrase, which I employ during casual conversation. Only the most anal of people complain, and these people should be ridiculed mercilessly.

Your Mistake, n., an atrocious abuse of language, employed only by the most ignorant, uneducated, if not mentally handicapped individuals. Examples: Irregardless, alot, "a mute point", etc.

Consipracy nuts...

[Realistic_Dragon]

Lets face it, if the g'ovt produced an alien and said 'this one turned up last week' the conspiracy theorists would assume that it was only as a distraction to hide something of even bigger importance.

We will never be rid of them - just like we will never be rid of Open Source naysayers, BSD is dead trolls and other assorted kooks.

Re:Consipracy nuts...

[Anonymous Coward]

But Open Source will NEVER work.

BSD *is* dead.

And we NEVER LANDED ON THE MOON.

And you call me a kook? Haha!

John3: to answer your question....

[wowbagger]

John3 (the story submitter) wrote:

I wonder if the release of these documents will deter the conspiracy theorists?

Having read the first few posts on this story, do you consider your question answered?

NO answer from the government, nor indeed from anybody will quiet the conspiracy theorists:

• "Here's all the documents on the base - see, no unusual activity."
  "Yeah, like you'd release the REAL documents rather than these forgeries!"
• "Here's the documents - something landed, but we aren't sure what. Here's all the info we have."
  "SURE that's all the info you had - see, we told you there were hiding something, and they still are!"
• "Greetings people of Earth. I am the ambassador from the Galactic Federation. Now that you have achieved the required levels of societal and technological advancement, we are allowed to make contact. Yes, you in the back..."
  "Have any aliens landed on Earth before this?"
  "No, that is completely forbidden under our laws."
  "SURE nobody else landed here - YOU ARE COVERING IT UP!"
  "Perhaps we jumped the gun on your societal evolution...."

Re:John3: to answer your question....

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG!!!! LMAO!!! u r so funny++++ uh oh POS GTG L8R all!!!

Re:John3: to answer your question....

[wideBlueSkies]

>>Greetings people of Earth. I am the ambassador from the Galactic Federation. Now that you have achieved the required levels of societal and technological advancement, we are allowed to make contact.

And we have come here to serve man.

Re:John3: to answer your question....

[Anonymous Coward]

With a nic like that I'd expect something more like:

"Greetings people of Earth. I am the ambassador from the Galactic Federation. Now that you have achieved the required levels of societal and technological advancement, we are allowed to make contact. Yes, you in the back..."
"Have any aliens landed on Earth before this?"
"No, that is completely forbidden under our laws."
"SURE nobody else landed here - YOU ARE COVERING IT UP!"
Looks down at clipboard for a moment.
"Hang on, Mr. J. Q. Nutcase? You are a complete and utter twit."

(sorry!)

Re:John3: to answer your question....

[wowbagger]

That wouldn't happen. You see, I only insult intelligent lifeforms.

COVER UP!

[isa-kuruption]

These documents are from Area 57... they just whited out the horizontal part of the 7 so you THINK they are real!!!

I'm a captured alien, you insensitive clod!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Please help me.

Bleh.. REDUNDANT

[Anonymous Coward]

If I was to commit murder I would not write a report after doing so.

So why would I expect the government to keep records of such events and failing that.. a secret that didn't want to be revealed - who the hell would let POPULAR MECHANICS have anything but FAKE reports? What did they do? contract a crack team of commandoes to retrieve them?

I'm no conspiracy theorist, but fact of the matter is a particular governments this year managed to convince much of the world that iraq had WMD's. The truth? not a damn thing there. So no I don't underestimate a government's ability to deceive and I certainly don't believe anything written in that report.

I wonder if this has not happened before in history, perhaps a roswell buff would care to comment on this?

you skeptics amaze me...

[The Lynxpro]

Something crashed there. The government covered it up. How many times have they [the government] lied about it? First it was a weather balloon. Nobody bought it. Then, scientists on the government dole came out in the early 90s and said it was a secret program to use balloons to monitor potential atomic testing by the U.S.S.R. Nobody bought that excuse either. Then, the Air Force said the *alien bodies* were actually dummies used in testing human conditions at high altitudes (ie. ejecting at high altitudes), yet the tests didn't start for 5 plus years AFTER the *Roswell Incident.* Read frikkin' Chuck Yeager's autobiography for chriss sakes. He writes about how the military had plans for military installations on the Moon AND Mars and the military brass were so cheesed off when NASA was created. Since when does the military take no for an answer to anything? I think the quote from Senator Goldwater on Hanger 18 is indicative of the "conspiracy." He was asked what was inside the infamous hanger, and he said never to ask that question to him again. There maybe a lot of nuts in the conspiracy industry, but you skeptics are the *Planters Peanuts* of the bunch. You people may know how to code Linux, but you certainly don't know your history. Crack open a book and you'll see that our country was born from a conspiracy, not the quest for democracy. Sheesh...

Re:you skeptics amaze me...

[Anonymous Coward]

*poke*

You're funny.

*poke* *poke* *poke*

Is this annoying?

*poke* *poke*

Re:you skeptics amaze me...

[stwrtpj]

Then, the Air Force said the *alien bodies* were actually dummies used in testing human conditions at high altitudes (ie. ejecting at high altitudes), yet the tests didn't start for 5 plus years AFTER the *Roswell Incident.*

And the first tinfoil hat conspiracy theories did not come up until years after this

Read my rant titled "Put your tinfoil hats away, please", and educate yourself.

He was asked what was inside the infamous hanger, and he said never to ask that question to him again.

OMG, yes!! Wow!! Thanks for reminding me of that! Yes, wow, that one statement conveys sooooooooooooo much. I'm so, like, totally enlightened now! Of course, when someone answers a question like this, it certainly MUST be code for "There's an alien spacecraft in there, but you didn't hear that from me."

Dude, do you think that just MAYBE his response REALLY meant: "I've been ask that same assinine question before by every single UFO nut out there, and I'm goddamn fucking tired of it."

Re:you skeptics amaze me...

[bm_luethke]

Dude, I used my special tinfoil hat that allows me to read thoughts I scarfed from an alien crash, I know that he meant there was an alien spaceraft there.

I mean, come on, do you really believe that there is a logical explanaition out there better than space aliens that are capable of travelling the stars are trying to get in touch with us but are so inept that the US govt is able to thwart them except for a few crop circles?

Or maybe they are trying not to be seen and thier alien spacecraft, after flying a few billion miles through space enters our atmosphere and they can't take it so they break up and crash every few years.

I know one of those is true.....

Of course nothing crashed at Roswell in 1947

[Soft]

Everybody, I mean, nobody knows the real crash took place 100 miles north of Fairbanks, Alaska in 1978.

Yeah, well...

[Alpha_Nerd]

Why should anyone believe reports that the government declassifies?? If there really were an alien spacecraft there, what's stoping them from "declassifying" forged documents??

Disclaimer: I'm not saying I believe anything...

the REAL story

[Tablizer]

They govmt made up this saucer hoopla to hide the fact that they imported 50,000 H-1B's to work on their nuclear projects instead of hiring citizens. But, I am on to them....

Did you read the documents?

[HanzoSan]

How accurate are the documents? Are the documents 100% complete, or are parts of it blacked out?

Until we have these documents in complete form theres no way to know, I've seen documents straight from the government mentioning saucers, and I've seen documents from the government saying weather balloons, and then theres documents which talk about top secret military projects.

Ultimately the government will never tell the public if they saw a UFO, the people wouldnt be able to handle it. So if there are UFOs, the best thing the gov could do to protect us is not tell us anything about it until they completely understand what they are dealing with.

If they see lights or saucers and they dont know what the hell it is, dont expect them to ever admit to it until they know what it is.

Roswell Log Files!!!

[Chromodromic]

July 4, 1947

Cpt D Anderson, Dty Ofcr
Base Log Entry

HOLY FUCKING SHIT! UFO landed today!!! Aliens look like Gumby dolls with big heads!!! Jesus, they're ugly!

As if this shit isn't enough, there's some guy hanging around all day smoking cigarettes like they're going to be illegal tomorrow. He says he's "in charge". Whatever. I'm out in two months anyway.

Also found: Advanced weaponry, an anti-gravitational drive, a cure for cancer, and alien porn! It's revolting, but I'm strangely aroused.

NSA ADDENDUM: Please strike all this shit out. This is supposed to be a secret. Cpt. Anderson, please see me.

Well, slow day here today. Nothing happened, nope, no sirree, not a bit, quiet here, yup, quiiieeeeet.

Re:Roswell Log Files!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

That has got to be the funniest post I've read in a long while :)

Re:Roswell Log Files!!!

[romec]

Clearly another Consipracy, Gumby was created in 1956
Gumby Site
Its all a conspiracy from the Federal Government and Major League Baseball!!!! Get your tin foil hats NOW

Re:Roswell Log Files!!!

[Rick.C]

Cpt D Anderson, Dty Ofcr
Base Log Entry

Wow! So this guy Anderson invented the blog!

I'm no conspiracy theorist...

[Aaron England]

But one must consider if UFOs did really crash land at Roswell, do you the government would reveal it (or hint at it) now through declassified documents?

Anyone can come up with a 'conspiracy theory'

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone can come up with a conspiracy theory. Its the ideas that a political opposition tries to smear as "conspiracy theory" instead of addressing the facts, that are interesting.

Its as much an error in reason to dismiss an idea just because 90 rabble rousers come along and say "its just a conspiracy theory!" as it is because 90 rabble rousers come along and say "Its a conspiracy!".

Really, the level of IQ of the general population is almost non-existent to have to remind the general audience, after 15 posts, of basic non-biased thinking.

Saddly, I have to wade through this to get to the few intelligent posters. Am I being snobbish? Hardly, the society needs to be more respectively and thoughtful.

No Conspiracy, but do you believe?

[kju]

I don't believe in conspiracies. But i believe that the government would give out tampered files, if there would be something real to hilde in it.

So although i don't think that a UFO landed on Area 51, i still am not sure, if i should trust documentes released by a government. We are lied to everyday, by politics and government. So although no aliens landed on Rockwell, maybe some other interesting stuff happened there. Who knows.

Theres many UFO conspiracy theories.

[HanzoSan]

Not all of them say its Aliens, you choose to pick the most far out theory, I could do the same, theres people who actually believe the moon is made of cheese, thats a far out theory.

Theories which are actually possible, such as the moon landing never happening, this is actually debateable, also you cannot deny the fact that UFOs do exist, we do not know whos controlling them we just know they are there.

Theres theories which say people control them and theres theories which say aliens control them. With either of these theories the government would have kept information about them secret. When the government doesnt know what something is they dont tell anyone about it. The government loves to keep military secrets.

Area51 exists, its proven, you can walk there and see it. Theres been UFO style crafts flying around the area for years, perhaps the government makes these crafts to spy on us? They could be unmanned spy crafts.

The germans could have made crafts such as these back during roswell, perhaps it was a test, maybe they put ape like creatures in the craft to test it and it crashed, our government could have discovered new technology, kept it secret, and hid this technology for years, if its spy technology you cant expect them to ever release or declassify it.

Re:Theres many UFO conspiracy theories.

[operagost]

I don't think the German military was doing anything of the sort in 1946. That's because there wasn't one.

Re:Theres many UFO conspiracy theories.

[HanzoSan]

The British, The Soviets, and the Japanese all could have been testing a saucer. The Germans did have saucer technology.

Re:Theres many UFO conspiracy theories.

[SN74S181]

you cannot deny the fact that UFOs do exist, we do not know whos controlling them we just know they are there.

That's a tautology. Obviously any object that is flying but hasn't been identified is an Unidentified Flying Object. ergo: UFOs exist.

Re:Theres many UFO conspiracy theories.

[HanzoSan]

exactly. Theres a difference between Alien saucers and UFOs.

"all documents" again..

[nurb432]

They have gone thru this before, claming to have disclosed everything.. until the next 'full disclosure'. Bah cant trust em..

It was all just a government research experiment gone awry.. but we will never hear the complete truth of the projects out there..

THE GOVERNMENT IS STILL HIDING THE TRUTH!!

[tiny69]

/me puts his tinfoil hat on so that everyone will know I'm telling the truth...

The "Morning Reports" indicate that nothing happened. Of course no staff duty log or "Morning Report" would contain any classified information. If something was accidently added, that log would have been rewritten within a day. The governement change their story the next day. What would keep them from changing any daily logs?!?

/me goes to check the supplies in the fallout shelter

These documents only prove the the government is still trying to hide something!!

/me sees black helicopters flying around

Everyone else is nuts for believing EVERYTHING the government tells them!!

/me sees strange lights in the sky

Oh no!! They've come for me....

Re:THE GOVERNMENT IS STILL HIDING THE TRUTH!!

[dlb]

/me puts his tinfoil hat on so that everyone will know I'm telling the truth...
/me goes to check the supplies in the fallout shelter
/me sees black helicopters flying around
/me sees strange lights in the sky

/you need to lay off the IRC/Mud talk. It's sooo 1990s

Thats because of the government.

[HanzoSan]

When the government has specific information and we can prove they have it, but then they lie consistantly, saying its a saucer, then weather balloon, then its something else, this makes people think the government is lying.

Perhaps the government should have told the truth in the first place, if they discovered a saucer they should have just said "We have discovered a UFO"

Not lie about it for years. I think they did discover a saucer, mainly because their first report to the press was that they discovered a saucer, and internal documents leaked onto the internet have been studied which have proof that they found a saucer.

No mentioned of aliens, just a saucer shaped craft. This could be anything, it could be a spy craft, a test gone wrong, anything. If the government doesnt know what it is, they'd rather us believe its Aliens than admit they dont know what they found or where its from.

The Conspiracy That There Are No Conspiracies

[Sky Lemon]

I'm not particularly interested in Roswell or "ET" related conspiracy theories but I do find that the way "conspiracies" are discussed (atleast in U.S. mainstream media) is a bit silly. It seems there is a conspiracy that there are no such things as conspiracies. Let me give an example which has nothing to do with aliens, the occult, or what have you: The 'conspiracy theory' that 9-11 was actually an internal coup used to set the stage for an extremely controversial and anachronistic military doctrine of preemption. It's a 'conspiracy theory' that, if discussed and treated as a plausible scenario, could actually make much more sense of today's geopolitical scene than it does with the more mainline views. Unfortunatley this view of 9-11 is definitely not taken seriously and usually frowned upon in mainstream media. I've heard the idea (even on NPR) just brushed aside as 'just some conspiracy theory' which evidently shouldn't be taken seriously since its 'way out there'. But why? Why exactly? Why are certain ideas just brushed off as "conspiracy theory" without second thought? What makes it at all implausible that the world's strongest empire would engage in sociopolitical manipulation in order to get what it wants? I'm not arguing the theory here I'm just trying understand why people will (in all ranks of society) compeltely dismiss something that has happened all throughout the history of mankind as "way out there" and "just a conspiracy theory". Yes people LIE, CHEAT, and STEAL. "Power corrupts". There ARE such things as "conspiracies" and we've learned about them all throughout childhood in our history class and elsewhere. We hear of it in the news when Enron and Worldcom, et al. are busted for engaging in conspiracies. So all I'm saying is: some conpiracies should be taken seriously at least in discussion. From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913): Conspiracy \Con*spir"a*cy\, n.; pl. Conspiracies. [See Conspiration.] 1. A combination of men for an evil purpose; an agreement, between two or more persons, to commit a crime in concert, as treason; a plot.

Re:The Conspiracy That There Are No Conspiracies

[Aaron England]

[quote]Why are certain ideas just brushed off as "conspiracy theory" without second thought?[/quote] If I told you why, I'd have to kill you. No seriously, if one thinks about it, conspiracy theories have one thing in common, they fly in the face of Occam's Razor. It makes a lot more sense to believe that Osama Bin Laden and his cohorts are reponsible for 9/11 (especially with him confessing to the crime on videotape) than to believe in the theory you posited, which btw has no hard facts to back it up.

Re:The Conspiracy That There Are No Conspiracies

[Shazow]

There is a time and a place for everything. With Occam's Razor, most lies would be accepted as truth, merely because they are easier to believe.

Not all things are what they seem. The one thing more important than what you think is how you think. Perception is everything.

Is it really that easy to believe that there is some sort of omnipotent and omniscient being that refuses to show Himself? Is it really that easy to believe that we're alone in the universe? Or even that the government isn't lying to us?

Just because it's the shortest path, doesn't mean it's the best one.

- shazow

Re:The Conspiracy That There Are No Conspiracies

[Aaron England]

Occam's Razor does not ask us to believe in an explanation because its "easier". Easier is such a vauge word. It asks us to believe in an explanation because its simplier.

Occam's Razor: Simpliest explanation tends to be the right one.

Having said that, Occam's Razor is nessecary for determining truth, but it is not sufficent. Because to build a "simple" explanation, you must have a set of facts (which obviously must be consistent be consistent with the explanation). But if the fact set is not large enough, Occam's Razor wouldn't be very useful.

If I told you, a rock came through the window, what conclusions could you draw with Occam's Razor? More to the point, how many conclusions?

The response that one would make (if he were allowing Occam's Razor to guide him) to the question of the judeo-christian God's existence is, there are not enough facts to make a decision. Whether one is alone to the universe, one could respond with fermi's paradox. And if the government is lying to us, one could look at the number of times that the government has changed its mind as to what happened at roswell, to conclude: probably.

Re:The Conspiracy That There Are No Conspiracies

[kz45]

If I told you, a rock came through the window, what conclusions could you draw with Occam's Razor? More to the point, how many conclusions?

I would tell you that someone must have thrown it..because it didn't get there by itself!

The truth is simple

[Tablizer]

Osama's father missed because the wings and tail fell off.

My Conspiracy Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

I have concluded that the editors are indirectly trolling the Slashdot readership through the article submissions (you know, the stupid teaser blurbs that they post on the front page) they pick. How many times have you seen a submission where the author made an incredibly stupid generalization, shown a complete ignorance of the subject of the article they were submitting, or closed with a complete non-sequiter? (Maybe the conspiracy theory nuts will shut up now that the government has declassified documents that say nothing happened?!? Are you stupid?!?) Have you run out of fingers yet?

But, you see, the editors don't write these submissions (that's a conspiracy theory for another day), they just pick them. So they can claim they are not responsible, despite the fact that the posts are clearly ignorance trolls designed to goad everyone into correcting whatever idiotic statement was made by the submitter! And since we all know that people are more likely to respond when they are angry than when they are pleased, we have a frothing mass of people loading pages to flame the next moron who gets a submission posted. More hits == more advertising revenue == editors more likely to pick another submission designed to jolt the readership in the behind.

It's a simple scheme, really. All you have to do is select the submissions phrased in such a way as to cause the most contraversy. Since most anything interesting is submitted 6 zillion times anyway, you don't have to wait too long until the next ripe submission comes along.

So let this be a lesson to those of you wanting to get your articles accepted. You need to say provacative things, even if they are stupid.

Deter Conspiracy Theorists? No way!

[suwain_2]

I wonder if the release of these documents will deter the conspiracy theorists?

Not if the government secretly withheld the entries pertaining to the aliens. I think as more and more evidence is released against them, they'll scream "cover up" more and more.

the bottom line

[inkedmn]

the government is going to tell the public anything they don't want to. period.

we'll only know what they want us to and that's pretty much that, "declassified" documents or not...

What an odd idea

[kfg]

"I suspect that once the world is dominated by one country, one culture, one affinity, that we will actually know the truth."

This is like saying that if there were only one newspaper we'd know the truth. Or that China is the paragon of open information.

It is only through the maintenence of mulitiple sources of information, power and control that the truth can ever be known.

KFG

Re:What an odd idea

[Rosonowski]

I think that what he meant to say is that once the United States had taken over the entire world, they would have no need to keep their advanced tech a secret anymore, since they already controlled the world.

so why were they classified before then????

[Anonymous Coward]

what kinda bullocks is this?

so why was there a hiding of shit and classification before, if now useles shit gets declassified.

my ass.

think again

conspiracy theorists

[frovingslosh]

Interesting how Roswell and the entire UFO cover-up can be brushed off by some with the simple expident of calling those who want the facts conspiracy theorists. Even though the gouvernment openly spent many millions investigating UFO's, both before they officially canceled Project Blue Book and after, there must be nothing to it because the gouvernment denies it.

And the assination of Kennedy and the shooting of Martin Luthor King Jr., anyone who questions if the government was involved must be a nutcase. So what if Kennedy's brain was removed before the casket got to DC, even though it was well reported in the media; that must be the conspiracy nuts talking.

And Vince Foster, found covered in carpet fibers with the gun that he used to blow his brains out still in his hand neatly at his side and no blood around was well investigated by Park Rangers, you would have to be a conspracy nut to think his death, or that of Ron Brown (who was about to receive a sopena on the Clinton's activities when he dies in a plane crash, even though x-rays showed bullets in his skull) or anyone else on the Clinton body count was anything else than just a random event, right?

Any you would have to be a conspiracy nut to think that our own government did secret radiation experiments on many of it's own soldies and citizens without their knowledge, right? Oh wait, they finally admitted that, after lots of pressure from the conspiracy nuts.

How about being a conspiracy nut if you think they kept us in Vietnam when the political leaders had already decided we could (or would not) not win that war? Or that the supposed attack on the US ship that got us into it never really happened? Opps, they finally admitted both of those things too.

But conspiracy is just such a great word to throw around when you want to dismiss someone who has something to say that you don't want heard. At least we can remember how the supposedly smartest woman in the world called all those people who wrongly accused her husband of having sex with the fat broad "the vast right-wing conspiracy" while Bill told us he did not have sex with that woman. Anyone who said he did was a conspiracy nut in the vast right-wing conspiracy

Who says they had to officially document anything?

[Ayanami Rei]

The only things they have to declassify are things the government "is aware of". IE, if there are internal memos and reports, they never got out into the rest of the military proper, were never compartmentalized, and thus are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

Of course they filed normal, routine, daily-business of running a base type reports which were promptly given document control numbers and filed away. But I bet a lot of that is faked at ANY base to keep budget projections looking good. So of course you're not going to find anything interesting in that stuff. (I'm talking IN GENERAL... if the project wasn't explicitly being paid for by some task force, dollars to donuts the documentation is spotty, lazy, tooled-up, or non-existant)

If it was clandestine, it wouldn't have been widely known what was going on there, and they sure as hell wouldn't have published internal documents. No need for a paper trail if you want to keep things quiet.

If

[Flying Nosehair]

Well, if Roswell didn't have any aliens, then how come a military expert said that a flying saucer had crash landed before the military insisted that it was just a weather balloon even though an expert could have easily identified a weather balloon, and it took several trucks to haul away the debris even though weather balloons can easily fit into the back of a trunk?

Not everything is declassifed by definition

[Anonymous Coward]

from the NISPOM (National Industrial Security Program Operating Manual)...

http://www.dss.mil/isec/nispom_0195.htm

Duration Of Classification:

Declassification is the authorized changing of information from classified to unclassified. When information is originally classified, the classifier must now attempt to identify a date or event upon which the information will be declassified. The standard in this Order is that information should normally remain classified for no longer than 10 years. But the Order also recognizes that there are some circumstances in which information must stay classified longer than 10 years because disclosure would cause damage to national security even after 10 years. In such cases, under Section 1.6(d) of the Order, the original classi-fication authority may exempt information from the "10-year rule" only if, after 10 years, disclosure would be expected to:

a. Reveal an intelligence source, method or activity, or a cryptologic system or activity (X1),

b. Reveal information that would assist in the development or use of weapons of mass destruction (X2),

c. Reveal information that would impair the development or use of technology within a United States weapons system (X3),

d. Reveal United States military plans or national security emergency preparedness plans (X4),

e. Reveal foreign government information (X5),

f. Damage relations between the United States and a foreign government, reveal a confidential source, or seriously undermine diplomatic activities that are reasonably expected to be ongoing for a period longer than 10 years (X6),

g. Impair the ability of responsible United States Government officials to protect the President, the Vice-President, and other individuals for whom protection services, in the interest of national security, are authorized (X7),

h. Violate a statute, treaty, or international agreement (X8),

The designators in parentheses following each item show the exemption categories specified in Section 1.6(d) of the Executive Order. Either the designator or a brief description of the exemption will now be applied when marking documents containing exempted information.

The Order permits such extensions up to 25 years, when most classified information must be declassified. However, in a very small number of situations, some information may remain classified for longer periods.
emphasis mine

i have worked on programs which fall into the very last line.. they will be declassifed... maybe.. in 75 years... but probably not.

Nah!

[NetNinja]

It was a good diversion from other areas of interest. Since there was so much fervor over Roswell, probably most conspiracy theorist spent most of thier time looking for the red herring in the wrong area.

Why rebuke conspiracy theories?

[Fefe]

Every culture needs myths, fairy tails and mysteries. America needs it's own Loch Ness.

And it's good for the government, too! These kooks wasting their time on area 51 won't have any time left to poke around in current conspiracies. And the more really outlandish conspiracy theories are out there, the less likely the outlandish conspiracies that actually happen are, so nobody will believe them.

If we really had obtained alien technology, why would we still pollute our ecosystem to get from A to B? You'd think we wouldn't need to burn fossils any more for transportation.

Re:Why rebuke conspiracy theories?

[Bitsy Boffin]

If we really had obtained alien technology, why would we still pollute our ecosystem to get from A to B? You'd think we wouldn't need to burn fossils any more for transportation.

Do I REALLY have to explain this? Ok, I guess I do.

The answer is money....

let's say for sake of argument that through some means (alien or human) the government of the good ol' USA has discovered a way to provide free, portable energy, to everybody, in such a way as you can just, I dunno, point it at any machine and have it transfer the energy.

You can't REALLY believe that information would EVER be made public, it would positively CRUSH the US's enconomy. Nobody would want to buy fossil fuels any more, they just use one of this little devices.

And of course, if indeed the government happened across some alien technology, why should you think they can understand it even after 50 years? Any civilization with technology advanced enough to allow travel across interstellar distances is so far in advance of ourself that we could not begin to comprehend thier ideas let alone technology.

Re:Why rebuke conspiracy theories?

[anthony_dipierro]

You can't REALLY believe that information would EVER be made public, it would positively CRUSH the US's enconomy.

Yeah, free portable energy would crush the US economy. That's why we just invaded Iraq to lower the price of oil, causing the stock market to rise. We're in cahoots with Saddam Hussein, who isn't really dead (that's why no body was found).

Shit, I better stop there. I'm starting to believe this nonsense :).

Re:Why rebuke conspiracy theories?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a sidenote:

I don't think the stock market matters as much as GDP does. The stock market is just that, a market. The GDP is a better indicator about the health of the economy, since it measures the overall productivity of the country. The stock market doesn't produce anything, it just decides who owns shares of corporations (and if I remember correctly, stock market transactions are not included in the GDP).

Re:Why rebuke conspiracy theories?

[Bitsy Boffin]

A) Invading Iraq had nothing to do with lowering the price of Oil. If that's what they wanted, they'd just have let Iraq sell more oil, greater supply = lower price. If you _control_ the Oil however, you can keep the price high as long as you like.

B) Neither Saddam Hussein or Osama Bin Laden are dead, that's plain to see (powerful people don't get caught out in a little war). The US (and UK, and AUS) gubmint couldn't give a shit where they are now either, they've got what they went there for, who cares where the scapegoat is.

I can forgive you your naievitey if you are American, you seem to be blinded half the time by your media, only telling you what you want to hear, and certainly not telling you wnat "they" don't want you to hear. Outside of the states, we get a much more objective picture of the real state of affairs.

Re:Why rebuke conspiracy theories?

[Anonymous Coward]

it would positively CRUSH the US's enconomy

Uhhh...no. It would crush the energy sector, yes. But every sector that relies on energy (read: everything else) would have greater profits.

Oh, but let me guess; since big oil owns the Whitehouse, this cannot be allowed to happen, right?

Re:Why rebuke conspiracy theories?

[wirde]

Free, unlimited energy would completely change the economy (for the better, for everyone). Rest assured that the US would find ways to capitalize on that as well. There is no way such a thing is kept secret. (Not for the sake of selling more oil anyway.)

How terrible

[Anonymous Coward]

Now Max and Liz will never be safe! :(

Paradox

[Professor D]

The odd paradox is that the more truth the government reveals, the harder the conspiracy theorists work to argue that the facts somehow are more "proof" of a coverup!

It's well known (outside the crackpot^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H conspiracy camps) that much of the conflicting reports and general confusion surrounding the Roswell incident stems from the CIA botching the attempt to keep the whole thing quiet

At the time, (Keep in mind the cold war thinking) the CIA wasn't sure what new technology the Soviets had and the thinking was that any "UFO" incident that could not be explained officially might cause a public panic. So the CIA sent agents around dressed like Air Force officers to "interview" anyone who reported odd events in the sky and tell them it was all "swamp gas" or "Venus."

Of course it all backfired when the real Air Force would issue statements like "no such officer exists," or "we didn't send anyone" etc ... In the Roswell incident, the CIA went way overboard in trying to cover up nothing while the AF was simply trying to calm the public.

[More confusion came when many of the soldiers around the base at the time were tranferred/ing to the newly formed Air Force from the Navy.]

Even better, one of the key first-hand witnesses that "came forward" years later recanted "on his deathbed" (not literally) and revealed that at the time of Roswell, he was in fact _retired_ from the military and that his testimony was a hoax.

All of this is again, well known but completely ignored by the UFOligists. [If you care to dig into their dubious "research," you'll find that their "proofs" have been debunked by far more thorough researchers, their "evidence" often contradicts "evidence" by other consipircists and their references are endlessly circular. Or as in the "Philadelphia Experiment" complete fiction.]

YOU FAIL IT!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot is not vBulletin, nor PHPbb, nor UBB! FAILURE!

Why classify in the first place?

[Shazow]

If there is nothing secret, unusual or panicking to hide, then why hide it in the first place? If they hadn't classified it, there wouldn't be a need to declassify. And now that they 'declassified' and there isn't an apparent reason for them to have classified it in the first place, doesn't it show that either the government is incredibly stupid or lying to us right now?

Or of course, perhaps they're both.

- shazow

The gov controls the media.

[HanzoSan]

I'll tell you why. First people want to believe they can trust the government. Second people want to believe they can trust the media. Third people are ignorant.

The Media is controlled by the government, the government will have you fired if you go on TV and say the wrong thing, just ask Bill Mahr or any of these others who said the wrong thing on TV.

People want to protect their jobs, and because of their political status alot of them know they wont get any more secret information from the government, no more leaks, nothing, if they were to support any conspiricy which could harm the government.

This is why media people refuse to believe that Bush may have lied. They refuse to believe Bush may have lied to the American people to get us to go to war with Iraq, even when intelligence officials and others are saying he wasnt being truthful, even when the evidence says he could have been lying, people want to protect the government so they blame the CIA. Why the CIA? Because the CIA always takes the blame.

mod parent up

[Anonymous Coward]

Well said.

why do

[m1chael]

super advanced aliens get drunk behind the wheel and crash their spaceships?

What if the Government Admitted a Coverup?

[DaRat]

What if the government admitted that they had been covering up the fact that they have an intact alien spaceship?

Well, the conspiracy theorists would say, "Aha! I knew it!"

But, they'd also add, "And the government is covering up the fact that they have more than one spaceship. And that they have this... And that they did that... And that..."

It's a no win situation. Nothing will be enough for the diehard conspiracy theorists. Even if the report admitted *everything* including some damning items, the conspiracy theorists would claim that there was more being hidden.

Aliens schmailiens...

[qtp]

We all know that the alien coverup story is to distract us from what's really going on...

Of course it won't...

[WebCowboy]

Since when do the paranoid (or even cynical) believe government documents that state everything has been running smoothly and everything has been uneventful? It's been a long time since the government has been able to do anything of importance without involving some incredible, expensive or absurdly stupid event, descision or fact?

If these declassified documents are truly complete, there HAS to be a reason they were classified in the first place. SOMETHING interesting, out-of-the-ordinary or plain stupid was contained in them to warrant classification. If nothing of that nature is present, then these documents have been censored beyond recognition.

If the government REALLY wanted to diffuse the conspiracy theorists, at least release SOMETHING interesting and believablly COMPLETE. Where ate the pruchase orders for the $5000 hammers and $25000 toilets? Where are the debriefing documents of long-since-dead double agents back from the Soviet Union gathering info on the state of nuclear research behind the iron curtain? Plans for experimental warcraft? Covert relationships with rogue nations or rebel leaders?

Geez--there doesn't even have to be even a HINT of little green men in there, but man, SOMETHING CNN-worthy should be released to demonstrate that the govenrment is SOMEWHAT willing to disclose a meaningful amount of truth! I'll believe the government is on the up-and-up when thy declassify something that makes WORLD HEADLINES--and it doesn't have to have a damn thing to do with aliens and UFOs.

Re:Of course it won't...

[sebi]

If these declassified documents are truly complete, there HAS to be a reason they were classified in the first place.

Maybe the fact that Roswell, according to the article, was "home to the only atomic bomber unit (at Roswell Army Airfield) in the world" had something to do with it. We are talking 1947 here. The war has ended two years ago and the fight against commies is on. Could it be that all documents from that base were automatically kept secret? Were you able to look at the records from the 3rd of July 1947 before now? What about the 5th?

Re:Of course it won't...

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty funny how urban legends grow and grow. The legend started as a $500 hammer. It was never true, but proof otherwise doens't stop people from spreading it. The toilet one was also false, but find your own link.

The essence of conspiracy

[chia_monkey]

Of course this won't deter the conspiracy theorisits. The very nature of the conspiracy theory is the belief that the government (or whoever) is hiding facts or changing facts around before they are released to the public. Hence...the "release" of these "de-classified" documents to the public will probably only fuel the fire more. Shall we ponder all the different conspiracies that will probably come out of this release alone?

Put your tin foil hats away, please

[stwrtpj]

Rather than replying to a whole bunch of tin foil hat brigade posts, I'm going to combine what I know of the case into one post. In my younger and more foolish days, I was a UFO nut and soaked up every account of alien visitors. As I got older, I started looking at many of the facts of the case in a more objective light.

The conclusion I have come to is that the Roswell case is a conglomeration of multiple accounts of unrelated occurences occuring over the span of ten years that were later cobbled together into a single, misinformed account.

There is one very important fact that needs to be made clear about the entire Rosewell bru-ha-ha. A lot the publicity for it, namely the theory that an alien spacecraft crashed there, did not come about until well after the incident. In fact, it was not until as late as 1978 that alien bodies were ever associated with the incident.

So, bearing this in mind, here are some of the little factoids about the case that appear to have perfectly logical explanations:

• The little alien bodies - For some time durintg the late 1940s and early 1950s, the USAF conducted a series of tests which involved shoving anthropomorphic dummies out of planes from high altitude, usually to test parachute equipment. These dummies often wound up in people's farms. Not only did the USAF not cover this up, they encouraged people to report the location of these dummies, and even paid rewards for them. No coverup here. This is all documented.
• The alleged bits of alien spacecraft scattered over the landscape - The oft-repeated refrain from the tinfoil hat brigade is that the government claimed that this was a weather balloon. This term is a misnomer, and was never used by the USAF. This term was invented later. At the time of the alleged crash, the USAF had just started Project Mogul, which involved the launching of several high altitude balloons for various scientific experiments, including the effect of cosmic rays on living tissue samples. In fact, the very first such balloon crashed at about the time that the supposed alien ship crash happened. Once again, this is all well-documented, including the locations where these dummies we retrieved.
• The living alien at the hospital - Many accounts of the incident involve an actual living alien being escorted by USAF personnel. The figure is discribed as having the characteric large head of other supposed accounts of aliens. This is yet another case of an unrelated event being tied to Roswell. In 1959, a Captain Dan Fulgham received a nasty head injury that caused a massive hematoma. As a result, his face and head swelled to grotesque proportions. Even his own wife didn't recognize him at first. Documented. No coverup.

Ok, this post is long enough. There are lots of other little factoids from the case (the so-called "Missing Nurse", the alleged "red-headed captain" that threatened people if the said anything, etc) that I could go into, but all of these facts can be found with a little investigation.

But I can predict the responses now: "The government planted those other stories to throw us off the trail!" "They're feeding disinformation to us.!" Bull-fucking-shit. Check your history, people. The US government sucks at covering up anything of importance. Anything that remains classified now from that long ago, it's largely because no one considers the information important.

Finally, here's another one for you: You say we recovered advanced alien tech. You say we recovered alien bodies. Then tell me: Where the hell is this technology? 56 years is a hell of a long time. We've gone from vaccuum-tube ENIAC that fills a room to a 2.6 gigahertz PC that sits in your lap. If we can't in that space of time figure out what made any alleged UFO from Roswell tick in that space of time, then either it never happened, or the government scientists are all idiots. And don't claim that things like stealth tech resulted from alien technology. Give humanity credit for be

Re:Put your tin foil hats away, please

[Moldy-Rutabaga]

>The conclusion I have come to is that the Roswell case is a conglomeration of multiple accounts of unrelated occurences occuring over the span of ten years that were later cobbled together into a single, misinformed account.

This is excellent writing. Thank you for the voice of sanity. I often wonder how the same government which can't balance a budget, and can't hide from the public either bugged party offices or intern oral sex, is capable of covering up Kennedy's FBI assassination, a faked moon landing, and space aliens. This is not a criticism of the American government, rather the reality that they are human beings like us who make mistakes.

I agree with a previous poster who claimed that the desire to believe in conspiracies alleviates some from accepting that life can be unpredictable and tragic--one loony can, in fact, go out and kill the president. I do not think that condemning those who have religious belief for the same reason is a good comparison. Believing that God has a personal and historical relationship with man, and being in a community with extensive written records of this relationship going back thousands of years, is not the same as believing Elvis is alive because the Midnight Star says so. If one doesn't believe, fine, but I don't think the situation is equivalent.

Ken:>

Re:Put your tin foil hats away, please

[jpmkm]

Just watched a program about this on history channel last night(instead of sleeping like I should have been). Project mogul basically consisted of very high altitude balloons(I think they said the balloons were something like 500 feet tall and went up 100000 feet) with microphones to listen for soviet nuclear testing.
I used to kinda think it was a UFO that crashed, but now I just think all those people are full of shit.

Re:Put your tin foil hats away, please

[Goalie_Ca]

Thanks for the insight. If it was "alien" technology that allowed us to develop microprocessors at such an amazing rate then there's an awfull lot of "civilian" scientists and knowledge involved. I seriously doubt that if aliens could travel here they'd crash, but if they did we'd probably have quantum space distorters and mega death-rays instead.

Re:Put your tin foil hats away, please

[crashnbur]

I think that was the longest Slashdot user comment I have ever entirely read. Very good read. Interesting, insightful, informative... The only thing missing are links to the documentation! Got any of those?

Re:Put your tin foil hats away, please

[Fantastic Lad]

Very good read. Interesting, insightful, informative... The only thing missing are links to the documentation! Got any of those?

How do you know if buddy's words are insightful and informative if you haven't read his documentation?

That takes quite an act of faith. Are you a god worshipper as well?

-FL

Re:Put your tin foil hats away, please

[Fantastic Lad]

Just watched a program about this on history channel last night(instead of sleeping like I should have been). Project mogul basically consisted of very high altitude balloons(I think they said the balloons were something like 500 feet tall and went up 100000 feet) with microphones to listen for soviet nuclear testing.

I used to kinda think it was a UFO that crashed, but now I just think all those people are full of shit.

I can't express how encouraging it is to know just how easily your belief systems can be altered by a simple television. 'Cuz media has never been used to manipulate societal beliefs before. Heavens! The History Channel only tells the Truth, after all, with that nice, soothing narrator's voice which we have each been taught since birth to trust with all our hearts. --As we sat with our still-forming brains and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, (with the crusts cut off), before the wonderous, all-knowing CRT.

-FL

Re:Put your tin foil hats away, please

[Fantastic Lad]

This is excellent writing. Thank you for the voice of sanity. I often wonder how the same government which can't balance a budget, and can't hide from the public either bugged party offices or intern oral sex, is capable of covering up Kennedy's FBI assassination, a faked moon landing, and space aliens. This is not a criticism of the American government, rather the reality that they are human beings like us who make mistakes.

You're all over the place, there, my friend.

Kennedy's assassination was no more covered up than are the current lies believable about the war in Iraq. Both depend entirely on how willingly blind the public wants to be.

And sheesh! Man DID land on the moon; that whole televised 'conspiracy' (which interestingly, got its own prime time special presentation), was a perfectly executed set piece designed to make conspiracy theory look idiotic. You obviously fell for it. Nice job.

And oral sex is only a big deal when you sic the press on it. A selfish dork like Bush is going to have a thousand and one skeletons in his closet, but so long as he holds to the game plan, (that of plunging the world into flames), the powers behind the throne have no need to remove him through some foolish theatrical production.

I agree with a previous poster who claimed that the desire to believe in conspiracies alleviates some from accepting that life can be unpredictable and tragic

You are only partly correct, because again you're lumping. Just because some people are delusional and weak, does not mean that corruption in government does not exist. And interestingly, my life is, while not predictable, is neither randomly tragic. Knowledge protects. --But there are those who don't want you to realize this; who want you to think that you are powerless, and that those who seek and find power are fools when really they are the only ones who have any control over their lives at all.

-FL

Re:Put your tin foil hats away, please

[drinkypoo]

But I can predict the responses now: "The government planted those other stories to throw us off the trail!" "They're feeding disinformation to us.!" Bull-fucking-shit. Check your history, people. The US government sucks at covering up anything of importance. Anything that remains classified now from that long ago, it's largely because no one considers the information important.

There have definitely been events which the government covered up but failed to expunge from their paperwork which was discovered after documentation became public, sometimes immediately, and sometimes due to unrelated FOIA.

How can you be certain that the government has not successfully deleted mountains of paperwork relating to events similar to those which have been revealed through declassification? Or for that matter, far more insidious?

Now, I'm not saying there was any alien incident. I'm one of the types of people that believes we'd only find out either A> when the gov't is damned good and ready to tell us (probably never, unless the aliens showed up and threatened to tell us all anyway) or B> through some lucky accident, and not through any actual investigation. The problem with investigating the feds is that all investigations are internal by definition, though at least when a separate agency does it there's room for competition there. Then again, there's room for collaboration also, and competing agencies might very well swap some favors as well.

As for your explaining away the (so-called?) evidence: The little alien bodies, The alleged bits of alien spacecraft scattered over the landscape, The living alien at the hospital. Each of your examples depends on government evidence to explain away and thus is suspect automatically, especially if you are a conspiracy nut, but also if you have simply become accustomed to your government lying about you and treating you like a child. The poverty industry, including the "war on drugs" (with special appearance by the Cocaine Import Agency) is the biggest part of the reason that by default I don't believe anything whatsoever that my government tells me. None of your explanations satisfy me, and I really have no opinion one way or the other on whether there's aliens at roswell, or ever were. Besides the kind the INS is after, anyway.

Re:Put your tin foil hats away, please

[jpmkm]

No it wasn't the history channel thing that convinced me it wasn't a UFO. In fact there wasn't really much in that program I didn't already know. Slashdot didn't convince me it wasn't a UFO either. I've just grown up a little.

Re:Put your tin foil hats away, please

[stwrtpj]

And sheesh! Man DID land on the moon; that whole televised 'conspiracy' (which interestingly, got its own prime time special presentation), was a perfectly executed set piece designed to make conspiracy theory look idiotic. You obviously fell for it. Nice job.

I had to read this several times before I could believe you actually said this. You're actually claiming that someone purposely created a show espousing a conspiracy theory just to make conspiracy theories look bad. If this is not a perfect example of twisting around a fact to make it fit your argument, I don't know what is. Great piece of recursive reasoning there.

Re:Put your tin foil hats away, please

[TummyX]

We've gone from vaccuum-tube ENIAC that fills a room to a 2.6 gigahertz PC that sits in your lap. If we can't in that space of time figure out what made any alleged UFO from Roswell tick in that space of time, then either it never happened, or the government scientists are all idiots


Where do you think the computer technology came from?

Re:Put your tin foil hats away, please

[Malcontent]

"capable of covering up Kennedy's FBI assassination, a faked moon landing, and space aliens."

I don't know about the other two but the govt coverup of space aliens failed miserably thereby proving your point. We are talking about it here on slashdot and more people believe in UFOs then don't.

Just like the clinton blowjob this could not be effectively covered up.

Re:Put your tin foil hats away, please

[robinjo]

Computer technology is not any advanced science. If you study it, you'll notice how the fundamentals are very simple. It has just been developed rapidly during tens of years by taking lots of small steps.

Just look at particle physics. Computer science is like playing with Lego blocks compared to that.

Re:Put your tin foil hats away, please

[TummyX]

Particle physics is not any advanced science. If you study it, you'll notice how the fundamentals are very simple. It has just been developed rapidly during tens of years by taking lots of small steps.

Re:Put your tin foil hats away, please

[bj8rn]

Where the hell is this technology? 56 years is a hell of a long time. We've gone from vaccuum-tube ENIAC that fills a room to a 2.6 gigahertz PC that sits in your lap.

your 2.6 GHz CPU is full of tiny transistors. There are people who say that transistors are actually alien technology...

Re:Put your tin foil hats away, please

[LittleGuy]

We've gone from vaccuum-tube ENIAC that fills a room to a 2.6 gigahertz PC that sits in your lap. If we can't in that space of time figure out what made any alleged UFO from Roswell tick in that space of time, then either it never happened, or the government scientists are all idiots

==

Where do you think the computer technology came from?


The 29th Century, of course, via Henry Starling..

Re:Put your tin foil hats away, please

[juhaz]

Things that led to discovery of transistor are well known, nobody dropped any complete devices and their plans to us. Most of that work started tens of years before roswell and stupid ufo-mania in general.

That 2.6 gigahertz PC is still based on those very same transistors, they are very small and there is lot of them, but they are still transistors. It's certainly not first, and certainly not last, time something is figured out first as crude and later perfected and miniaturized, no need for aliens to explain that either.

If you are too stupid to understand basics on which semiconductors work (or too lazy to even try), please do not try to lower whole of humanity to your level by claiming only some mysterious aliens could do something like that. There are and were lot of brilliant people in the world, some of them actually do something useful, in contrary to posting conspiracy theories in slashdot.

Re:Put your tin foil hats away, please

[KjetilK]

Nice post.

I've never been a UFO nut, but I decided to read up on a couple of things after watching a big show claiming "Roswell is the greatest mystery in UFOlogy". There are too many obvious cases to spend a lot of time on the bad ones, that's why I look into Roswell. Specifically the online available testimonies of the people who were involved in the first events.

Here's my take on it (written a few years ago).

Spoiler: I think the whole story has evolved through a series of small exaggerations over time.

Re:Put your tin foil hats away, please

[Anonymous Coward]

Slightly off the topic but isn't it impossible to prove anything - (Godel's theorum) so the Roswell debate will continue by default (I can't prove that of course). What I am trying to say is that it is difficult to take a logical approach to the Roswell debate.

Re:Put your tin foil hats away, please

[crashnbur]

Having confidence (or faith) in someone's words is commonly known as "trust". You should try it.

Re:Put your tin foil hats away, please

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone that can't even spell theorem would be well advised to leave Godel out of this.

Godel has no bearing whatsoever on the existence or otherwise of little green men.

Re:Put your tin foil hats away, please

[Fantastic Lad]

Having confidence (or faith) in someone's words is commonly known as "trust". You should try it.

I endeavor to place faith with those who earn it. I simply find it interesting that so many people place trust and faith in such alarmingly shoddy arguments just so long as they see the right colored flag snapping crisply in the air.

-FL

Re:Put your tin foil hats away, please

[Fantastic Lad]

No it wasn't the history channel thing that convinced me it wasn't a UFO. In fact there wasn't really much in that program I didn't already know. Slashdot didn't convince me it wasn't a UFO either. I've just grown up a little.

Fair enough. We must all do the best we can in our searches. I wish you clarity and strength on your continued path, wheresover it may take you.

-FL

Re:Put your tin foil hats away, please

[Fantastic Lad]

I had to read this several times before I could believe you actually said this. You're actually claiming that someone purposely created a show espousing a conspiracy theory just to make conspiracy theories look bad. If this is not a perfect example of twisting around a fact to make it fit your argument, I don't know what is. Great piece of recursive reasoning there.

Yes, I'm 'actually' claiming this. It's standard, tried and true practice. You can even find counter-intelligence instruction manuals which describe step by step how to implement such meat and potatos operations. After all, they work like a charm. -The most recent notable example was actually a Roswell television special, where 'new, never-before seen documents' were to be revealed. --As it turned out, the producers were merely espousing an old and particularly flakey theory based around some papers which anybody who knows about the case recognized as being nothing new at all. Indeed, one might ask why, of all the many threads surrounding Roswell, they should pick a theory generally agreed to be one of the more cloudy and worthless among the bunch. --And further, why they should the producers loudly advertise it to be 'New' evidence, when really it was not?

The net effect? Despite the fact that the program purported to demonstrate factual data proving that there was a cover-up, all the normal people who watched that I asked opionions of afterwards said that while they had previously believed that the government was hiding something before, now believed that the whole issue was bunk because the 'evidence' presented by the show had seemed so flakey.

In other words, 'success'.

You have to remember that television is owned and operated by the enemy. So long as this remains the case, it will be used as a tool of control, not one of enlightenment.

You need to do a LOT more reading, I think. For instance, even with the lightest dip into the subject, you will quickly learn that the secret services have had a hand in nearly every popular New Age circle in existence. Look up the term, 'COINTEL,' one of the better documented programs. The game is called 'Disinformation', and it's as old as the hills and it works exactly as described; Muddy the waters with garbage so that the people with enough gumption to look for the truth appear to be idiots so that the rest of the sheep become further convinced to stay within the control boundaries.

Honestly, you should look into this. You'll learn a lot about it if you allow yourself.

-FL

Re:Put your tin foil hats away, please

[The Benefactor]

People on Slashdot also talk about, amongst other things, The Matrix and LotR as if they were real too. So the fact that lots of people talk about aliens does not mean they exist.

Re:Put your tin foil hats away, please

[TummyX]

If you are too stupid to understand basics on which semiconductors work (or too lazy to even try), please do not try to lower whole of humanity to your level by claiming only some mysterious aliens could do something like that. There are and were lot of brilliant people in the world, some of them actually do something useful, in contrary to posting conspiracy theories in slashdot.

Please don't bother posting insults. You're obviously too stupid to realise that I don't really believe computers are based on alien technology. I'm playing devil's advocate because there is almost as much misinformation about no-aliens as there is misinformation about aliens being thrown around.

Re:Put your tin foil hats away, please

[juhaz]

It doesn't matter if you are PLAYING stupid in your advocates role or you are stupid. The impression you are giving is you are stupid. If it's your own choice by some stupid "devil's advocate" game, good fsckin luck.

Now go do something creative, "defend" (you might use bit more constructive arguments as well, "computers come from aliens, we are too stupid to have invented them" will get you laughed out of the room and then your "client") someone with something to defend, instead of tinfoil freaks and their paranoid lunacies.

There is much misinformation about aliens and no-aliens? WOW, nice observation - information is bit hard to get when those aforementioned critters don't bother coming here for study.

You are not a captured alien.

[hackwrench]

Somebody please give him pictures of captured aliens and let him sort it out.

This is all wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

The government didn't release declassified information; the aliens did. The government isn't trying to hide anything, rather they want you to know that aliens are controlling them. The truth cannot be told directly or the aliens will kill everyone. Every once in a while, the aliens release propaganda like this to continue their silent control on the human race.

I really would prefer the conspiracy theorists would quit looking into this issue. If the truth comes out, the consequences would be devastating.

(Posted anonymously for obvious reasons.)

The problem is, what is "unclassified" mean?

[UncleVanya]

I have to agree with all of you thinking, or saying that when the government "realeases" data, it's not as if they don't control that data. What's to stop them from just SAYING that's what so-and-so document is? *sigh*

not that i'm saying all of the area51 stuff is real, all i'm saying is that you can't trust this to be the truth.

You Fools!

[istartedi]

I wonder if the release of these documents will deter the conspiracy theorists?

Can't you see? They only released these documents to deter us!!! :)

things that never happened

[zogger]

--it's just the past few days what with all their other credibility stories, the NYT is being pressured along with the Pulitzer committe to give their prize back that one of their jounalists got. The reason? They kept hid from the west the starvation death of millions of people, on purpose, Stalin's forced Ukrainian famine. Their reporter was there, saw it, instead they published much praise for stalin and the soviet model. Something that big,that huge, that real, kept completely hidden from the rest of the world for years and years.

Another, we just passed the anniversay, the attack by Israel on the USS Liberty, an attack that went on for hours and hours, well beyond positive identification, denied by the governments, both the US and Israel, and they almost got away with blaming it on egypt, but some of the people survived and the ship didn't sink. It took some time for the truth to come out, and still the government denied, even going so far as to physically threated their own military survivors, ordered them to not talk about it. That was a more modern proven historical cover up. Tonkin gulf, another. The "dead babies and incubators" story of gulf war 1, one of the major public perception propaganda initiatives to get the US public behind bush 1 first war against his business partner he wanted to double cross.

There's plenty more.

Government lies like a cheap rug when it suits them. I would *bet* it would be hard to find a civil or military government employee who doesn't know about some lie or another, some small, some large, that government pushes as *true facts*.

Anyone wants to review some pretty credible stuff,at least very interesting, google for the few large mexican city sightings, especially july 11, 1991, and there have been a few since. Hours of video and stills out there, I've seen a lot of it, including around 20 minutes or so shot with 16 mm.. Hard to fake a jet plane chasing a metallic orb, all the time being watched and photoed by tens of thousands of people. Pretty good stuff, can't tell ya what it is, can tell ya what it wasn't, balloons or sea gulls or venus through the clouds etc don't out-maneuver jets last I heard. It was shown near real time on mexico city news TV. You won't see much on US TV with it, but it's played a lot in central and south america and in europe from what I understand. Also look for "the battle of LA", 1942, and the Washington DC sightings of I believe 1952. Un-ignorable.

Something out there, probably a variety of reasons,and I just don't see this entire universe and we would be "it", alone, just ain't happening, IMO.

Anyway, the previous googles are good, and if anyone wants to look at freedom of information act documents, best place on the net is theblackvault.com Not sure of his total count, but well over 12,000 docs, something like that, you can spend a long time there. The government sure does redact out a lot of things for a big nothing it appears.

Michael, cut the editorial comments!

[Ignorant Aardvark]

"I wonder if the release of these documents will deter the conspiracy theorists?"

To a hardcore conspiracist, any evidence against a conspiracy is in fact evidence in favor of it. "See, I knew we couldn't trust those government types, they faked the logs!"

Look at what happened with the Moon landing conspiracy. NASA was going to publish a book debunking the conspiracy, but stopped when people told them how stupid it was to waste time addressing the conspiracy. To the conspiracy theorists, this just became more evidence in favor of the conspiracy. "They were going to publish a book debunking us - but they didn't go through with it! We were right!"

Re:Michael, cut the editorial comments!

[YodaToad]

Actually, it was John3 with the editorial comment. Not michael.

"Popular Government PR Group" more like it.

[eclectic4]

This is unbelievable. The "conspiracy theorists" have much more evidence of these realities then do the debunkers of the opposite.

These people, people with families, people with careers, expecting nothing in return other than the usual ridicule say differently. The vast majority of people believe the head on TV which they take as fact because "our government wouldn't lie to us". That's your argument. No real research, nothing. Just "it can't be so". Well, that doesn't cut it, I'm sorry. If the government doesn't want you to know about IT'S GOING TO LIE ABOUT IT. How hard is this to understand? So when they let a file "slip" through stating that there is nothing to this story (first hand testimony from people WITHOUT an agenda get thrown to the wayside) and people eat it up as evidence to the contrary, it makes me laugh, and sad at the same time, to see educated people taken in for nothing less than "it can't be so, and our government wouldn't lie about it". Yikes... Scary. You should NEVER trust one source, especially when the "one" has all the motive in the world to lie to you. And yet, it's what most do, and it's sad to see.

Do the research on your own. The gov has incredible motive for keeping this stuff secret, and yet we take their "word" for it.

Everything in that article has been beaten to death for decades, so it's even MORE sad to see people eating up as the final say so, which is nearly laughable from the position of one that has done extensive research in this area, initially as a hardcore skeptic. This article is a steaming pile of disinfo, and it's scarily obvious to those of us who have done the research.

Good luck.

Speculative Comments in the Article

[Vickybaby]

I read this report 2 weeks ago in PopMech and I wasn't thoroughly impressed with the writer's poor style and abhorrent misdirected speculation. For a guy that was actually allowed to physically enter the archives, and had access to all nine boxes, I would have expected a lot more information. Tell us about the place, the procedures, hell, how about the level of surveillance? What about all that other good stuff that was happening around him? Also, there's mention of an odd miscellany of UFO books stored inside these files, as if they were put there by researchers or backgrounders. The speculative comments that were presented in the article didn't even try to explain such strangeness, nor the possibility of the books being used as bullshit decoys or space fillers for what might have been removed earlier. Funny, but if they're going to speculate on so many things, why not do so about the things we find so obviously odd and out of place from the information we're given. Who the hell cares about the fake doctor and his false reports, nothing new there. The coverup continues.

Re:aliens!

[tetrahedrassface]

You need to learn to spell. I wonder if you arent one of them.

Not intrested

[aerojad]

If they're out there, we certaintly don't intrest them much... unless if they're at the space-age version of 1500 - 1800 Britain, in which case any place with life will do.

The worst they'll do is use us for opium, anyhow.

What I think happened

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it is likely aliens have been to Earth and are here now. I also think that, to these aliens, Earth probably isn't that interesting ... rather like a poor, backwards, Third World country without resources. Any mineral deposits, etc. on Earth can be had from the Asteroid Belt at much less cost and far less danger than would it would take to come down a gravity well and set-up base amongst quarrelsome and suspicious natives.

We all think the aliens who might visit Earth will be the best of their kind, the elite. What if, instead, the aliens who crashed at Roswell were flying the equivalent of a beat up DC-3. What if instead of the "Shining Ones" they were drug dealers, criminals, poachers, etc? With this in mind, it is very possible that the U.S. military in the 1940s shot them down.

Imagine a squadron of "Snoppy" planes with WW1 technology ambushing an unarmed, slow poorly maintained DC-3. Despite the huge technological advantage, the DC-3 would likely be shot down if the ambush was well planned and executed.

The, having shot them down, what would we have? A few bodies, alien sunglasses, bright alien tropical wear, some burnt metal, shards of advanced solid state electronics that would mean nothing to anyone in 1947, maybe some bales of weed or barrels of cocaine, Mayan artifacts, the odd capybara or two and maybe an angry parrot.

The best thing would be to hide the whole thing because if the truth was revealed, the Russians and Chinese would never believe it anyway and maybe feel they'd have to start a war before we could put our advanced technology to work. They would not want to believe we'd shot down the ET equivalent of a plane load of Parrotheads.

URGENT!!!!i know where they live

[tetrahedrassface]

I know where they live. They are everywhere and they (the aliens) suck. If your iq is low enough to allow your intelect (funny) succumb to the thought that one jewish conglomerate runs the world, you'd really like to believe that aliens REALLY are.

1. /.tongue in cheek

Then why are they classified?

[eponymous cohort]

If "nothing unusual" happened, then why were the documents classified for over 50 years?

Will this have....

[Scrab]

a negative impact on the economy of Roswell, NM, if the UFO hunters just...stop coming? Or if the UFO conventions end?

I seem to remember seeing a tv show about Roswell, and the big alien based industry that's based there, which won't be happy about this.

This is old news

[xihr]

The Air Force came clean about their explanation for the incident in 1994. Rest assured, conspiracy theorists won't let things like the facts get in the way of their outrageously stupid claims.

Of course they did...

[stewby18]

It's very convenient, don't you think, that all of these secrets have been leaked? Giving the perfect basis for believing that anything of real importance must likewise have discovered.

Almost as if that's what they want us to believe.

Excuse me, I've just remembered I need to make a bigger foil hat.

We know something unusual happened

[eponymous cohort]

The base issued a press release claiming they captured a downed saucer, and the next day they said, "no, it's a weather balloon". This is fact.

The "Roswell Incident" happened, the question is was it Alien craft or secret balloon?. If these logs don't mention the event, then the logs are worthless, the lack of unusual activity in the logs doesn't prove anything, because the fact is there was something unusual enough to cause the base to put out a press release.

I buy it

[Fryed]

As unofficial head of all the alien conspiracy theorists in America, I must say, I have read the documents, believe everything in them, and admit I was wrong. I fully retract my belief that aliens have contacted Earth and come to Roswell, and will never question the government again.

I urge all of my fellow conspiracy theorists to do the same. There are no conspiracies. These documents prove it. Pack up your bags and go home, folks, there's nothing to see here.

There, Mr. W, I believe I've done my part, so if you could just send the check we discussed earlier to my house, that'd be great...

advanced aliens?

[alizard]

If the UFO crashes are for real, and we can assume that the number of unreported crashes that happened in uninhabited areas that were never reported are in proportion, then we can conclude that the UFO is even more dangerous than the Space Shuttle as a form of transportation.

Perhaps they should start running Linux-based guidance and control software. ;-)

Re:advanced aliens?

[Imperator]

Nah, the problems with UFOs is that they fly at night. At night, it's cold. And thanks to NASA's brilliant management, we've found out twice what happens to spacecraft in the cold.

Damn shame 14 people had to die in the process though. :(

Re:advanced aliens?

[CentrX]

No you can't. You have no idea how many UFO flights there have been that haven't crashed.

What about the clones?

[SuperBanana]

- Everyone invovled dies of old age (Roswell was what, fifty years ago -- another twenty or thirty years and no first-hand witnesses will be around)

Yes, but their clones shall live forever, mwuahahahah!

Right

[Overly Critical Guy]

There is one very important fact that needs to be made clear about the entire Rosewell bru-ha-ha. A lot the publicity for it, namely the theory that an alien spacecraft crashed there, did not come about until well after the incident.

Uh, let's just disregard the front page headline the morning after the incident in which it was declared that a UFO had crashed in Roswell.

A pilot didn't recognize weather balloon debris. Then the military changed their story and we know the rest.

I don't give a crap about the rest of the theories out there that have been added on. My big question mark is what I stated--a pilot who doesn't recognize what is supposed to be a weather balloon, and then it's all covered up with strange actions by the military. UFO? Or perhaps some sort of classified unmanned device that wrecked? We'll never know, will we?

...huh

[Anonymous Coward]

People believe what they want to believe:)

right in the article

[zogger]

Right in the pop sci article, they give refernces to the "released" documents that show the government did some pretty foul experimentation on humqns, without their knowledge. No one ever got busted for it,or went to jail like they should have, and it made little major mainstream press. Yet, it's a big story. Radiological infections, physical mutilation, electro shock experiments,secret drug exposure, some leading to suicides, etc, etc, etc. And despite some of the victims and insiders leaks, the government denied it for years and years,with the same techniques they always use, they always trot out their tame scientists and PR flaks with uniforms on to astroturf or spread FUD. We've been seeing it lately, the UN WMD "proof" powell was spouting, and the kings several whoppers. Sometimes they get press, sometimes they don't, but the default is, there is no credible accountability for the ones who constantly do it. Really, who's gotten busted for the gulf of tonkin "attack" lie, that lead to a huge over decade long war?

Sometimes they outright lie, sometimes they do lies of omission, but I think most of the time they do the propaganda technique which is the most effective, the blend of some lies and some truth that changes the focus of the political effort and agenda.

The "northwoods documents" (easy to find with a search)are very interesting if (anyone) you have never seen them or heard about them.

Pickery of nits.

[DoraLives]

There is a flag on a pole that you can see with a powerful telescope

Yes, we went to the moon.

No, you can't see ANY of the stuff we left there with ANY telescope. Too small. Too far away. Good thing we also left the laser reflectors, huh.

Carry on.

they HAD a press conference

[zogger]

They had a press conference at the national press club, I watched it live. They brought out out quite a few government employees, mostly retired military, who told their stories about various events related to this topic, not roswell, just in general. Mainstream press covered it for a few minutes then it poofed basically. Most likely less than 1% of the population is aware it even happened, let alone watched it. It was on cspan. I'd say all but one of the people sounded most credible, one guy seemed addled by old age and perhaps fear and stage fright maybe, the rest though, all sounded normal, just had some pretty interesting anecdotals to relate.

the press is pretty good at hiding events, anyone remember the multiple million gallon coal slurry spill that wiped out a small river in kentucky during the presidential campaign last? It was almost completely surpressed,although it was a pretty serious ecological disaster, the owners had direct ties leading through some companies to one of the candidates, known sometimes as "Mr. Environment". That story was spiked.

False stories get planted, real ones get suppressed or placed on the back pages,there appears to be a lot of collusion that happens in the so called "free press". I've been a news junkie too long to not have seen it over and over again. Just because something doesn't get national coverage doesn't mean it didn't happen, and conversely, just because something makes wide coverage headlines is absolutely no proof whatsoever that it's actually "real". The spirit of Goebbels is alive and well in our mass market news media, print or electronic.

Re:they HAD a press conference

[Anonymous Coward]

The press conference you speak of can be found at http://www.disclosureproject.com/.

Hidden?

[fishexe]

Considering Clinton was unable to hide his affair and that the F117 was also known well enough about I doubt, very much doubt anything of this magnitude could be hidden. Heck, even the Chinese stole nuclear secrets.

Well, we all know about it, don't we?

One of the characteristics of a conspiracy theory

[Snowspinner]

Is that it is resistant to evidence. Or, rather, that all possible evidence is evidence in favor of the theory.

It's somewhat analagous to Tertullian's observation that anyone who disagreed with him was speaking Satan's words and thus shouldn't be listened to at all.

Sweet sweet circularity.

NASA Isn't collaborating with aliens!

[Anonymous Coward]

At least, according to the news I've read.

I have a simple question for the believers:

[Artifex]

Why haven't any corrupt government officials made money off the technology, yet, if this is true?

Why haven't we seen huge revolutionary leaps in technology beyond what we'd expect with Kondratiev and other cycles, instead of just jumps along an evolutionary scale?

Sure, they could keep it secret for a while, but 60 years later is a long time.

Re:I have a simple question for the believers:

[pacman on prozac]

I'm not really a believer persay, more just interested skeptic.

You wouldn't see the technology because it would pay those people to keep it to themselves and their "elite". It would keep them in power, or extend their power, which would in turn lead to far more money than they would ever see from just selling this technology to any company (or selling their story to any newspaper). Also consider if such a group did exist that they would take extreme steps to prevent publicity leaks and if you were talking about a group of this power it would be easy for them to keep a small amount of technology hidden.

Its a fairly general all round proofless conspiracy though. I'm not saying it is this way, just it could be.

Stanton Friedman, NUCLEAR PHYSICIST

[sharv]

The article quotes Stanton Friedman extensively, as he's written several books on Roswell and the Great UFO Cover-Up. What's telling is how he insists on being identified as a nuclear physicist wherever and whenever possible. Hell, it's even printed that way on the dustcover of the books.

I'm sorry, but this just reeks of insecurity. Friedman knows his claims are frantically outlandish and thinks his nuclear work somehow bestows instant credibility. Okay, great, you did some nuke research at some point in the past and you got an post-graduate degree. Exactly how does that make you an expert on alien civilizations?

I, too, am a reformed UFO 'enthusiast', but now I count Friedman among the long list of frauds in this game for the sole purpose of selling books, newsletters, and getting their photos in the paper.

No one, however, is more egregious than Budd Hopkins, who's made a lucrative career out of analyzing, err, interpreting people's hypnotized utterances as 'proof' of alien abduction. Shameless.

I, for one,...

[Anonymous Coward]

...would like to be the first to welcome our new alien overlords.

Declassification of documents is a joke

[demo9orgon]

I don't care about UFO's, because they don't pass bullshit laws and step on my neck--however, it's really humiliating to have to pay for the priviledge.

It's also humiliating to look at "Declassified" documents and be expected to take them seriously. Face it, if they really wanted us to know what went on, they wouldn't have the gall to black out/omit everything useful. A lie of omission is still a lie. Anyone who thinks the USGOV is going to release anything that doesn't represent exactly what they've been saying all along is obviously not being very realistic.

Government isn't about playing fair.
Releasing unmodified/unmasked, previously classified documentation would be fair.
"Government" is all about limiting competition, fostering concensus, and marginalizing the many to the benefit of the few. They could be talking about the yeast in a baking exercise, and you'd still have to wash your hands after leafing through the "de-classified" recipie because the only thing you'd see would be the date, the form number, and four words between the top and bottom of the sheet. None of the words would be over 4 characters in length.

Reminds me of "Apathy" by 10000 Homo-Dj's, damn that's good jam. Think I'll go "jam" out.
Cheers.

Stanton Friedman

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny this guy is now passed off as a legitimate
authority on anything. Back when I met him, he was telling anyone who would listen that he had seen 200 UFO's in the past year.

Microsoft and the Illuminati

[Anonymous Coward]

After seeing this story, I spent some time looking at conspiracy theory sites, because they are always fun to read. I came across this great story about Microsoft. From the first paragraph:

These days most people have heard of Microsoft Corporation, and its founder Bill Gates. The majority of computers in use today use Microsoft system software, and those that do not often run applications from Microsoft. However, few people know the true story behind the rise of Microsoft and even fewer suspect the terrible cosmic secrets that are concealed beneath the facade of a successful software company.

Obviously this seems very well suited for Slashdot...

You can read the "declassified" docs online

[Anonymous Coward]

At least, they claim to have posted a bunch of them. Not sure if these are the same ones PM used for their article, but I didn't find the article all that informative.

http://www.nsa.gov/docs/efoia/released/ufo.html

Anonymous Coward

Re:One of the characteristics of a conspiracy theo

[psykocrime]

The problem with conspiracies, is that you wind up with some serious "circular logic" going on, when you try to prove or disprove their existence. After all, the nature of a conspiracy, if it exists, is to remain unknown until such a time as it's work (whatever that might be) is complete... and maybe afterwards.

So, if the people who don't believe in the conspiracy insist it doesn't exist because there is no evidence, the conspiracy theorist is going to point out that the people involved are concealing / destroying / hiding / whatever, the evidence... And then the anti-conspiracy people are going to point out that there's no evidence of evidence being destroyed / hidden / concealed / whatever... to which the conspiracy theorist is going to reply that there's no evidence, because it's been concealed / hidden / destroyed, etc.. lather, rinse, repeat.

And then, if evidence which contradicts the conspiracy theory comes to light, the conspiracy theorist will insist that it was trumped up, to make the conspiracy *seem* fake, in order to continue concealing it's existence... Then, when somebody points out that there is no evidence that the evidence is fake, the conspiracy theorist will insist that that evidence has been concealed / hidden / destroyed, etc... see above for how this ends...

It's similar in a sense, to the arguments about proving the existence of God... how do you prove that something *doesn't* exist... Throw in the amazing ability of the human mind to believe what it wants to believe, a few oddballs, some people who stand to profit from the belief in the conspiracy, a few well-intentioned people who happen to believe for some seemingly legitimate reason, and there's no reason why a good conspiracy theory shouldn't keep going pretty much forever...

This is, of course, assuming that there really *isn't* a conspiracy... but... what if there is?

Half-Baked.

[Fantastic Lad]

This guy, (probably through laziness), uses here a technique which masters in the art of counter intelligence and social programming long ago discovered to be highly effective. --That is, drop a few sort-of related factoids, and the minds of the target audience, (which are already eager to believe in the comfy Learning Channel version of reality), will happily assume that there is both causation and effect where none really exists. They then go back to sleep before any glimmer of scary thinking can occur. Witness the +5 moderation of the above post. And stand in awe. And fear. These are the same breed of drooling morons who will turn you over to the Homeland Police someday soon.

Anybody who cares to actually do the research, (as the poster so blithly suggests), will quickly realize that it is quite impossible that plastic army men and one guy with a head injury are accountable for the thousands of grey aliens which have been witnessed around the globe over the last century.

And I love this one; who cares when the term 'weather balloon' was coined? That detail has absolutely no bearing on anything important. --Why even bring it up? Perhaps the author hopes that when it is read quickly along with his other bulleted factoids, it might pass as some sort of evidence which sort of means something. --A technique used by shabby university students trying to pad essays the world over.

As for buddy's final, heart-stopping question. . ,

You say we recovered advanced alien tech. You say we recovered alien bodies. Then tell me: Where the hell is this technology?

This is Jr. Highschool junk philosophy at its finest! Why not also throw up the, "If God exists, how could he let there be War?" argument and be done with it? Grow up.

Only those living in happy TV land believe that the state has any interest whatsoever in the welfare of common humanity. There's a reason you can't buy even the most mundane, human-derived military secret down at the local Radio Shack.

Think about it. Aside from everything else, (and there are more points than I can even begin to count off the top of my head), there is no profit in war if you sell your country and the world on technology which is actually effective.

The real war is one you can't see. --And by my estimate, you've already lost about four fifths of it if you are willing to post garbage like the above. Sheesh.

Good luck. You'll need it.

-FL

Re:Half-Baked.

[Lt.Hawkins]

[quote]Only those living in happy TV land believe that the state has any interest whatsoever in the welfare of common humanity.[/quote]
heh. lets assume a UFO did crash. If you believe that the state has no interest in the welfare of common humanity, then what is there to be gained by keeping anything a secret at all?

please note that National Security is not a valid answer, since that implies an interest in the welfare of the US.

and, if keeping this secret really was only to the benefit of the Illuminati who have taken over the top echelon of the government, then why haven't OTHER governments come forth with their evidence?

[quote]
There's a reason you can't buy even the most mundane, human-derived military secret down at the local Radio Shack.[/quote]

I can buy a GPS, a computer, or a light-weight batteries from Radioshack. I can then go and get an Iridium satalite phone, or a Thuraya phone if I happen to be on that side of the world.

Re:Half-Baked.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is sort of OT, but one after reading the disclosure project website if seems to me that there is a huge incentive to keep alien tech quiet. I'm really rather amazed that the DP people think they're going to get anywhere with what they are doing.

Thye like to bring up the "Big Oil" interests in supressing zero-point or similar devices. Have they considered the potential weapons abuses of such a technology? A bomb the size of a cigarette pack which can take out city, for instance?

Take easy antigravity, for another. The immediate effect of antigravity devices would be to give every nation on Earth instant ICBMs. That includes every nutball with a grudge working late at night in his garage. Then attach the previously indicated cigarette pack, and, well, kaboom.

If any such scenarios approached reality, all I can say is bully for the secret guys. Working out a way to make tech like that safe would be much more important than having the stars Right Now.

Re:Half-Baked.

[Fantastic Lad]

If you believe that the state has no interest in the welfare of common humanity, then what is there to be gained by keeping anything a secret at all?

What is there to be gained? How about, "Power and Security for the Selfish." --When one dips into the right lines of research, one learns that the primary consolidations of human power, including industrial, political and ecconomic remain, as they have for the last couple thousand years or more, with the same few family lines. Rothschilde, being one of the big ones. --Here's a homework project for you; follow the breadcrumbs and find out who has final control of the US Federal Reserve. The answers will make your eyebrows rise an inch or two.

Keeping in mind, of course, that even these human agencies are pawns. But I wouldn't want to dip into the taboo arena of 'conspiracy theory'. --After all, the media has conveniently instructed us that conspiracy theory is 'un-cool', and I certainly wouldn't want to lose the respect of my peers, would I? Having no spine, I just couldn't stand the thought of being called names by all the drones.

And don't be silly. GPS, computers and satellite phones are frustrating bits of stone-age technology. But slap on some shiney packaging and call them 'New and Revolutionary', and the populace will be more than happy.

-FL

Re:Half-Baked.

[BigBadBri]

it is quite impossible that plastic army men and one guy with a head injury are accountable for the thousands of grey aliens which have been witnessed around the globe over the last century.

Nope, but a bit of gullibility and the vast number of humans in the world might just fit the bill...

A good conspriacy theory...

[Kjella]

...is just like being paranoid. Everybody is out to get you, always. Only most of the time they pretend not to, to get you off guard. But they still want to get you.

Facts have no meaning if you can accept nothing as facts. Then it's all just part of the delusion.

one thought

[mpost4]

Is just not possable that alians have never come to earth, even if they exist, which I don't know one way or the other, and don't care.

I just say if they exist more power to them, if they don't oh well no big deal.

If I were to be asked if I belive that they exist I would say, it is posable given the massive size of universe, so why not? But do I think they have come to earth, I would say no, and if they did they would not come just to give some hillbillys anal probs, or draw circles in fields, or turn cows insideout. That would seem to be a waist of time and effort to come to earth for a few pranks. But who knows they might be among us, sorry I could not resist that one.

Does not matter

[Anonymous Coward]

The people (UFO skeptics) believe... There may be nothing you can do about it.

The lack of proof of god does not keep people from going to church on Sunday. It may be part of the innate human condition, an ability to trust or believe in things that cannot be proven.

Lets look at things people believe in; God, faith healing, numerology, tarot cards, psychics, UFO's etc

There is an element of faith in all of these items and you would find a worthy challenge in getting people who truly believe to think about to alternatives.

It Took Them 56 Years to do What?

[Nom du Keyboard]

It took them 56 years to say that nothing happened. Yeah, right.

Sorry, but we know people they threatened there at the time. And believe me, they did an excellent job of scaring the people there over what? A weather balloon? Pleeeeze.

And to those of you who claim it there is no secret because the government couldn't keep such a secret so long -- What Secret?!?! This has been leaking out all over the place for years. Think a little bit, folks.

Re:It Took Them 56 Years to do What?

[Idarubicin]

It took them 56 years to say that nothing happened. Yeah, right.

Ask a Pentagon official about something classified. Go ahead. Try it. The answer you get will be along the lines of "We can neither confirm nor deny..."

If they said, "Well, I guess it won't hurt this time to tell you that nothing really much happened at Roswell, and we classified our investigation because we were embarrassed to waste all that time and money..." What would you think? The next time you ask a question and don't get more information, you can think "Ah hah! They're really hiding something good, now! If there was nothing to this story, they would say so." And so the whole 'neither confirm nor deny' practice goes out the window.

Re:It Took Them 56 Years to do What?

[Nom du Keyboard]

we classified our investigation because we were embarrassed to waste all that time and money..." What would you think?

I'd think cover-up. Whether incompetance, or actually what is alledged, I'd say I'm not getting the straight story.

And as I said before, I do know items were found that have not been explained yet.

Oh, come on!

[Stephen Samuel]

.....and they contain no entries of unusual events or activity. I wonder if the release of these documents will deter the conspiracy theorists?"

I mean, you're not expecting them to declasify the really juicy bits are you???

Real cover-ups

[Animats]

Here are some real events in the US that were covered up:

• DuPont family member sets up secret training camps for paramilitary forces in preparation for a coup against Pres. Roosevelt. (1934)
• US Explorer space satellite program was a cover story for spy satellites. (1960s)
• The "Tonkin Gulf attack" used by Pres. Johnson to justify the Vietnam War never happened. (1964).
• Bush crony involved in massacre of gold miners in Tanzania. (1996)

Re:Real cover-ups

[twaltari]

Bush government made up stories of weapons of mass destruction to justify starting the war with Iraq (2003).

Re:One of the characteristics of a conspiracy theo

[mark-t]

On the existence of God:

The problem isn't so much disproving God doesn't exist, as trying to apply reason and logic to an situation where those rules simply have no premise on which to apply.

Case in point: Our universe did not have any existence before 10^-43 seconds "after" the big bang. Indeed, to discuss anything "before" this point in time is quite meaningless because the laws and principles that we understand to be true in our universe (even the intellectual reasoning that we call logic) didn't even exist yet. If there was a God that created the universe, and therefore effectively predated the big bang, proof of his existence would be tantamount to acquiring an understanding of the laws and principles that existed "before" that 10^-43 seconds, which most respectable scientists concur we cannot ever possibly do.

Probably the best argument for there being a God involves the principle that while change obviously require a cause, the state of being does not except when a state of existence itself changes (that does require a cause because it is a change). God is commonly attributed as being unchanging, and therefore no cause would be needed to justify such a being's existence. If the universe itself were unchanging, one could say that the universe itself would have needed no cause for existence either, but we know that the universe had a beginning some finite amount of time ago, and so therefore a change in its state was introduced and must have had a cause.

This isn't really a proof of the existence of God as much as a philosophically reasoned justification to accept the premise that there could conceivably be a God. But considering that the principles of reason and logic wouldn't have to hold true "before" the big bang anyways, it's entirely possible that the assumption that something predating the universe was necessary to cause the universe to come into being is false to begin with.

Either way, we just have to say we don't know.

ATTENTION.

[Anonymous Coward]

NOBODY CARES.

Thanks.

Re:One of the characteristics of a conspiracy theo

[Snowspinner]

One of the big problems discussing God comes when you try to talk about God's existence in the same way that you talk about, for instance, your computer's existence. To borrow Kantian terminology, the computer is phenomenal, in that it is within the conditions of any possible experience, whereas God is necessarily noumenal, and is thus outside said conditions. You cannot, for example, talk about whether not God is underneath your desk. This is because among the things that God lacks as a noumenal object is an existence within space and time.

That is not to say that God does not exist. Ethics, after all, are also outside of space and time. One does not talk about the location of ethics, or of the theory of relativity. All the same, these things exist. And so the fact that, for God to have existed prior to the big bang, He would have had to exist prior to any phenomenal rules is not much of a problem.

Your claim that He existed before logic is somewhat more substantial, but I have to reject it. Part of this is my belief on the nature of ideas, which is that they are not "property" (being as they are outside the conditions of any possible experience). Our language reflects this somewhat - we do not create or invent ideas, we have them. The point being that ideas such as logic do not depend on any phenomenological basis for their existence.

A more substantial objection can be found in the question of whether or not a phenomenal effect such as the big bang can have a noumenal cause. It happens that this question is related to questions of free will (Kant demonstrates persuasively that our will, should it exist, would have to be noumenal). It is not provable, however, and must be taken on faith.

Incidentally, when dealing with God, and, by extension, with the notion of absolute power, it is questionable at best whether the law of non-contradiction holds for Him. A reasonable response to "Can God make a rock so heavy that He can't lift it" may well be "Yes. And then He can lift it." Absolute power is neat like that.

As If They'd Own-Up To 9/11 Anytime Either.

[Shturmovik]

Not that I'm saying they were behind it or anything (just because it was the most amazingly convenient gift from the Gods for the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice/Ashcroft co-Presidency...), but, just for the sake of argument, if they *were* behind it, they'd never admit it, and neither would any other administration in the near-or-distant future. It'd be like admitting that, say, the Brits grew tired ofthe Americas and giving them up was all their idea; something historically image-tarnishing like that.

Re: GOD DOES EXIST vs THERE IS NO GOD

[bussdriver]

Conspiracy "nuts" are not invalid positions. IT IS A REAL THEORY. You must be that the Theorists themselves are not "real" theorists because their motivational bias is a belief in the theory. If you want to bring in logic, you are not going to get anywhere. There is just as much logic on both sides and a lot of people who don't use logic on BOTH sides. Its something that can't be proven either way unless the government admits it is true. Its the nature of THAT CLASSIC argument. Tough luck, thats logic. Its like the GOD arugments. Not that I'm on a side here, but its not JUST a "belief" system. Its choosing the side of an unproven argument. So it is a belief, but so is the OTHER SIDE, and no less valid. Just because a few times a cover up fails, does not give you even enough to make a statistical prodiction---because its hard to know how many did not fail. Just like aliens, just like GOD, just like government. Since sometimes a side is needed, I choose the wiser/safer position. On this topic, I don't see any good default position. So I don't care, except to see both sides calling names etc.

So What?

[7dragon]

After over 50 years of constant denial they finally "de-classify" some documents that supports 50+ years of denials.

We don't know if they are lying and we probably never will know in our lifetime.

"We're from the government. We're here to HELP you ....Mr. Koresh..."

Re:So What?

[Fantastic Lad]

We don't know if they are lying and we probably never will know in our lifetime.

Some of us already know. You could too if you bothered to go and find out. TV ain't going to give you the answers no matter how many re-runs you sit through waiting for the big expose.

TV will remain a tool of control so long as it lies in the hands of the media giants.

-FL

Why things will never be fully declassified.

[tuxtomas]

Area 51 is a gigantic toxic waste site. It is a place where all the waste products from these test crafts are kept or burned. Every day that this base is kept secret money is saved. If it were to open tomorrow to the public, it would be a superfund site. That's all you'll ever know.

We want our ship back

[Anonymous Coward]

I think if alies crashed in roswell.
Then they might have launched som form of pressure
agins the goverment of US.
Like
- You are hiding technology. Give it back,
or we will invade.....

history channel

[suougibma]

the history channel is also currently showing an hour-long show on these recently declassified files. worth checking out.

Do You Really Think

[GnarlyNome]

that a Government that is as incompentent as Governments seem to be could have kept a secret this long?

Roswell Declassified

[hardburlyboogerman]

The Government have had only 56 years to fake and destroy the orginial documents.I think that the Late Col.Phillip Corso told it all in his book 'The Day After Roswell'.(Yes,my copy is signed,too)Col. Corso had honor and could back up his claims.Also,from my own experiences in the military and black ops,the government is STILL lying after all this time.
I am like most people who does not beleive a word that the Government says,especially with the Hitler act-alike in the White House.
(Yea,the Patriot Act violates EVERY ONE of the Bill of Rights)

It is a conspiracy

[rat7307]

I believe all the saucer crash buffs got together at one point and consipred to fill ugly designed web sites full of auful quality .gif pictures and lots of awful colored text.

Possibly more <blink> tags on these pages than should be allowed.

Kill!

[zonix]

You must kill .... kill, on command.

Ah, it usually works! :-)

z

Why???

[Anonymous Coward]

My question is, if nothing really happened there, why was it classified? I dont necessarily believe aliens landed but if not aliens, then what?

JFK

[zonix]

Are they gonna declassify that they shot JFK (if they did) even 100 years from now? I think not.

If I remember correctly, aren't they supposed to declassify this 75 years after the assasination or something like that? 2038? Of course, they push it back further.

z

Manhattan Project

[sprayNwipe]

The US government sucks at covering up anything of importance.

I'd say that they managed to hide the development and creation of a nuclear weapon, on a project with thousands of staff, pretty well.

The problem with alien life is that there can never be any proof to say it never happened - after all, you can't prove nothing. The only way this would ever be resolved is if the US Government did end up doing something in Roswell, and then admit it sometime in the future.

Re:Manhattan Project

[Idarubicin]

I'd say that they managed to hide the development and creation of a nuclear weapon, on a project with thousands of staff, pretty well.

...for a few years, during wartime, when many civil liberties were suspended, and most people were too busy building airplanes or dying in trenches to worry about conspiracy theories. And even then foreign governments had spies within the Manhattan project. (See Klaus Fuchs, for example.)

Even then, security on the Manhattan project suffered from occasional comical lapses. Richard Feynman's Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman recounts some amusing incidents.

Re:Manhattan Project

[KjetilK]

I'd say that they managed to hide the development and creation of a nuclear weapon, on a project with thousands of staff, pretty well.

Not really. During the war, everybody assumed that everybody else was developing nuclear weapons. I have this from a Joseph Rotblat, who participated in the Manhattan Project himself. It wasn't really secret, it was only the details that were secret.

After the war, it didn't take too long before the Soviets had it too. Allthough it wasn't hard to do, it is quite likely that the Soviets got quite a lot of details from the Manhattan project.

In fact, there were two Norwegian physicist who went to the US a couple of years after the war. They had been on a team that moved into Germany shortly after the troops to secure German high-tech, so you could say they were rather distinguished, but they got a tour on US facilities, and just by the stuff they saw there, they were able to build a nuclear reactor back home. Those secrets were not very carefully guarded.

a few planet size grains of salt..

[ixxologic]

Considering the other 450 BILLION+++ lies we get blasted with by the USA government on a hourly basis.. Its going to take some SERIOUS work to get any real number of people (with actual brains) to actually BELIVE that these are the REAL declassified documents.. Ok so Xfiles is just TV.. but.. they have NSA.. CIA..FBI..the Military and im sure some other lesser known "organizations" I mean who the heck needs that much agentbased bullshit anyway? At least if they want to maintain a belief that anything they ever tell anyone is even remotely close to any truth?.. I guess what Mr.Moore said about FEAR was a lot closer to any truth than I had ever expected. Just a recent example of a slight modification of truth would be the Weapons of Mass Destruction in IRAQ.. so.. I'll take this with a planetsize grain of salt if nobody minds.. Hey Bushy, got any weapons of mass destruction in USA there boy? Wanna be invaded?

calvin & hobbes a level of credabillity..

[ixxologic]

US Government has just lied too much over too long.. its like.. a reflex now..I dont even need to conciously consider anything they say, its just automatically disregarded as bullshit.. they have as much credibillity as a comicstrip of Calvin & Hobbes.. (wich rules.. just like bush thinks he does) I think a credible future is another cold-war type relationship between USA and EU..

Why do we exist?

[Anonymous Coward]

who feel the need to explain life by intervention deus ex machina rather than accept its unpredictability.

Why do we exist? Why does the universe exist? Is life a dream? Want to get out of matrix...

Roswell and Microsoft

[gasrios]

Actually, what most poeple do not know is the real documents and the ship were removed from the base decades ago and lost. Eventually the plans for the ship's ultramodern flight control system software ended up in the hands of Bill Gates, and in due time became the core of Windows.

Which explains why the damn thing keeps crashing.

Re:SOUP NAZI says:

[lowmagnet]

No soup for you!

George W Bush VS The Segway!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the Segway needs more gyros to be G.W.B. compatible?

Maybe he should stick to horses?

Re:George W Bush VS The Segway!

[patanjali]

Prolly doesn't have the necessary BandWidth to RTFM. --yogi

Re:George W Bush VS The Segway!

[Anonymous Coward]

Grow up.

Re:George W Bush VS The Segway!

[Anonymous Coward]

HAHA LOLOL!!11

GOERJE BU$$$H IS TEH STUPID!!! ROFLOL!!11

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Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.

fake release

[lo_fye]

Releasing documents that have no evidence of alien activity could be just another layer of conspiracy/coverup... at least that's what we conspiracy theorists would say ;)

UFO?? No way dude

[EEGeek]

During the late 1940's, a Canadian company called A.V. Roe Canada, was working on a project for the USAF (or the fore-runner to it... the Army Air Force), the project was to create a working flying saucer. They suceeded in what was called the AVRO Car... they were testing it in New Mexico... it shows pictures in the 1950 World Almanac, and how it crashed while testing due to instabilities in the air frame... this is what crashed in Roswell... they said it was a weather balloon, because at the time, it was a classified project...

On another note, A.V. Roe Canada made a supersonic interceptor called the AVRO Arrow, in which its air frame was wind tunnel tested to withstand mach 8 speeds. They never did get the Iroqous engines that they were building into them, but with engines that put out much much less thrust, the Arrow broke mach 2... anyhow, long story short, the Canadian government scrapped the arrow program, and many bright Canadian engineers left for the USA and Great Britain. Noteably Jim Chamberlain left for NASA and worked on the Apollo project... this loss caused the "Brain Drain", in which many bright young engineers and technical people left Canada for better jobs/money elsewhere.

nothing unusual?

[taxman_10m]

As we worked through the Morning Reports line by line, we came to a simple realization: Absolutely nothing extraordinary had happened at Roswell that Fourth of July weekend. There was no indication of an emergency, no mention of a deployment of rescue and firefighting crews, as was the case with other crashes. That was one mystery solved.

So what they are saying is that not even a balloon crashed at Roswell that day? Ok. So the Conspiracy theorists have it wrong and the Army has it wrong?

A top secret balloon falling out of the sky should get a mention in the morning report shouldn't it? Or perhaps top secret things are kept out of the morning report.

Great!

[Cyno]

Slashdot has successfully proven that Roswell was not a cover-up. Now can they do the same for 9/11?

Prove to me that the Bush administration had nothing to do with it.

Prove to me that the US government had nothing to do with it. I'm talking about number 3. I've already looked up the documents in question and they were signed by Jeb Bush on Sep. 7. So...

call me a conspiracy nut, if you can.

Best way to deal with conspiracy theorists ...

[magellan]

Do what Buzz Aldrin did. Just slug 'em.

http://www.csicop.org/articles/20021018-aldrin/buz z-aldrin-punch-video.mpg

Re:Best way to deal with conspiracy theorists ...

[NonSequor]

And that is why he is an American hero.

The spoon is out there

[bj8rn]

Nice arguing, sir. The parent poster used the old technique of dropping unconnected facts (which, incidentally was exactly what he was fighting against - fight fire with fire!), whereas you used the (even older?) rhetoric technique of showing how stupid the other guy is - and if he's stupid, how can he be right? Aside that the parent is stupid, you say nothing. As far as I'm concerned, you both are equally wrong. Not that I am any better than you two - I say that someone's wrong, but won't bother to say anything with a positive meaning. Oh well, everyone should just figure this question out themselves anyway, not rely on what someone on /. says...

Re: GOD DOES EXIST vs THERE IS NO GOD

[PenguiN42]

Not "invalid" as much as "unfalsifiable." An unfalsifiable theory *might* be true, but is basically useless as a theory, as you'll never be able to test it, and as you said, you'll never be able to prove it either way "unless the government admits it is true." But even then, how do you know they're telling the truth? You'll really never know one way or the other, and will end up believing whatever you want with no knowledge of how connected it really is to the truth.

Another reason it's important that a theory be falsifiable is it's really hard to prove that a theory is true -- it's much easier to find a counterexample and show that it's false. All scientific theories have some testable, falsifiable aspect to them. Conspiracy theories do not.

All or nothing

[PenguiN42]

I can't comment about the Egyptians enslaving the Jews, but so far you've been wrong about everything else you wrote about, so it wouldn't surprise me to find that this is historical fact as well.

I see this logic goes both ways now. The bible is correct about *some* things, so therefore it must be correct about *all* things! The poster is incorrect about *some* things, so therefore he must be incorrect about *all* things!

This is such an elementary logical fallacy that I can't believe it's used in any way other than a joke.

Re:All or nothing

[Pinball Wizard]

The poster is incorrect about *some* things, so therefore he must be incorrect about *all* things!

Well, the grandparent's attitude seemed to be that the Bible was incorrect about all things, whereas I merely wanted to point out it's only incorrect about some things. ;)

Encourged UFO Reports to keep secrets?

[MtViewGuy]

I think in many ways the US Government--particularly the CIA--actually encouraged reports of UFO's to keep secret a number of CIA spyplane programs.

Both the Lockheed-built U-2 and the A-12/SR-71 were developed under CIA auspices, and the so-called UFO reports were designed to throw off the trail of Soviet espionage agents so any sightings of the U-2 or A-12 in test flights would be dismissed as UFO sightings. Such reports would have been useful to deflect attention from Lockheed's Have Blue stealth research airplane during the late 1970's, Northrup's Tacit Blue stealth reconnaissance research airplane during the 1980's and the Boeing Bird of Prey stealth research airplane during the 1990's.

of course useless info is declassified

[gelfling]

it serves no purpose otherwise........

Oh yeah

[SargeZT]

I'm sure this will deter conspiracy theorists, just like the release of michael jacksons documentary convinced people he wasn't sexing up the children.

Agreed. But... saucer-aircraft may well exist.

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember that Yankee Magazine (home of the original Yankee Swapper's column) documented how, before the end of WWII, the US government was experimenting with a saucer-shaped aircraft. How the thing flew, I have no idea -- but I suspect that some of it may have been frizbee-like.

Thing was, this aircraft wasn't all that much better than normal aircraft, and jets were a ton better, so it was shelved for lack of worthwhile effort.

Saucers probably do exist. But they'll have been stamped "Made in America".

I Like This Story

[mdielmann]

This is one of the few stories where both the Conspiracy Theorists AND the Sceptics can earn some good karma. Good job spreading the love around, editors.

Hot news item!

[Alsee]

documents [that] contain no entries of unusual events or activity

And tomorrow on slashdot, more hot news:
DOCUMENTS THAT ARE COMPLETELY BLANK!

-

thanks

[zogger]

thanks, I saw the reference further down the thread, just at the time of posting I had one of those brane locks. And that's how I watched it, online. The story about over the ICBM base was very good, IMO.

Not sure about other folks here, but the contacts I have had with some "connected ones" inside uncle sugar paint a completely different story then what is presented in the magazine article. Along with some other issues I have been privy to, is why I am a confirmed default skeptic whenever I hear government spin doctors speaking on most any subject, I always take it in context and with several large handfuls of salt.

You see that "conspiracy theorist" slur works both ways, I tend to dismiss as "conspiracy theorists" anyone who default believes "official" government 100% of the time, or only thinks one of the two major political parties always tells the truth, and the other guys are liars. Those sorts of people I am skeptical of making critical decisions and analysis, because they are always working from flawed data usually, or have entered into a cult like mindset. I think they wear not tin foil hats, but complete opaque blinders and solid rubber ear plugs.

Re:One of the characteristics of a conspiracy theo

[Hornstar]

An interesting question regarding creation and the existence of God. Assuming that the Universe and everything in it was created through the Big Bang a finite amount of time ago, why was that specific moment (the Big Bang) chosen? Assuming that God transcends time, should not the Universe be infinitely old?

Put more plainly, was God just sitting on his porch one day, sipping a mint julep, thinking "Hey, why don't I create the Universe today?". If the answer to that question is just that simple, try a tougher one...

Since God is supposed to know all that ever was and ever will be, it would be safe to assume that God would know about God's own future, which would include creating the Universe. Since God's been around for an infinite amount of time, and knew that the Universe was to be created, why didn't God just go ahead and create it right away (again making the Universe infinitely old)?

I have several hypotheses for these few puzzling questions:

1. God is lazy. God will put off to tomorrow what could be done today
2. The Big Bang did not mark the beginning of time, merely another mark in its progression
3. Everybody's wrong about everything and we should all just forget about religion and science and sit on the porch with mint juleps

I am open to any philisophical discussions on this topic from those with any viewpoint. Write me at billwilliams2002 AT hotmail DOT com

Censuses

[Anonymous Coward]

"Censii" cannot possibly be correct. A good article at perl.com explains why. The declension you must be thinking is -us -> -i. There is no declension that is -us -> -ii.

If you get a large amount of your information

[RLiegh]

from 100megsfree4.com sites, that *might* have something to do with why people treat you less-than-seriously.

Just a thought. ;)

Conspiracy cover-up HOWTO

[Captain Igloo]

Sceptics frequently point out that a conspiracy like the one linked to UFOs, Area 51Âetc. is practically impossible to keep secret because there will always be leaks. This argument is backed by several secret military projects having been discovered before official disclosure and those government scandals that could not be swept under the carpet (Watergate, anyone?).

However, there is a smarter way to cover up a conspiracy and, surprisingly, UFOs are a very good candidate.

The idea is to create a miserable signal/noise ratio concerning the informations circulating about the suspected conspiracy. Flood all media with disinformation. The remaining few leaks that disclose real stuff are simply drowned and will never get sufficient public recognition. Furthermore, the whole topic gets a pretty spooky reputation, resulting in everyone who picks it up being ridiculed immediately.

That's how it could have worked: After a UFO crash/landing and several subsequent events that were hard to cover up, thousands of people were invited (or hired) to submit their UFO encounter story. Then, a committee was set up (Blue Book) to routinely debunk the stories. Those few that slipped through as not explicable with current knowledge were squeezed out of visibility by the huge pile of rubbish.

Oh, yes! We must ALL watch

[Fantastic Lad]

the history channel is also currently showing an hour-long show on these recently declassified files. worth checking out.

Because, as we all know, Television doesn't lie. --I mean, look, they even used the word, 'Documentary', which doesn't just mean 'True', but really, really, really True! --Even True-er than the News!

Nope. The media has never been used to manipulate populations ever before. Especially not these days, when freedom and enlightenment are at the top of every corporate/political agenda!

Puh-lease.

Think about it! The 'History' channel? Who writes the history books? Sheesh! --When all media is owned by corporate entities, it only makes sense that a slanted version of 'History' be pumped at the population on a regular basis in order to unify belief in a candy-coated reality where the Good Americans Of Noble Lineage Vanquish Evil.

It's pretty amazing that people can remain blind to such massive manipulations when it's sitting right in their living rooms!

Goebbels used the same damned technique, for crying out loud! Open your eyes!

-FL

OBL Simpsons [mis]quote...

[ssstraub]

Actually ma'am, these documents are from Area 51B.

I looked up this Roswell stuff too...

[tomzyk]

Wow. I wish I could mod you up higher than 5. Good post.

I got interested in the whole Roswell thing a year or two ago after watching some special on the SciFi channel. No, not the Alient Abduction stuff; it was about this declassification of some documents and old military officers who said they were finally coming forward to tell the truth because their commanding officers basically theatened them if they ever said anything about it....

I found essentially the same results from just doing plenty of websearches (but then again, you can't really believe everything you see on the internet) with a minor exception: I read that the "weather balloons" were for detecting radiation from around the world. They were used to detect Russian radio signals and/or nuclear tests. I never heard about anything on "the effect of cosmic rays on living tissue samples".

Also, there was a testimony from some woman who claimed to be a nurse out in Roswell at the time. She claimed to have helped operate on a small (too small to be human) disfigured, humanoid figure with an enlarged head... I took this to mean that what she actually saw was a bloodied/bruised chimpanzee that was used in the testing of parachutes out there.

And Now, More Cover-ups...

[Bravo_Two_Zero]

+ Roosevelt hid the details of the concentration camps for 18 months in WW2 despite the pleadings of his SecTreas (and close friend)
+ Bush, Part One successfully covered up his drunken car crash prior to his election run (possibly because his mistress was in the car)
+ Bush, Part Two successfully covered the fact that he was AWOL for 17 months in 1970-71
+ The Feds successfully covered from the American people the drug purchasing aspect of the "Iran-Contra" scandal (known around the world as the "Iran-Contra-Drug" scandal)
+ No one knew about Eisenhower's, Roosevelt's or Kenedy's mistresses until after their terms in office.
+ The U.S. government successfully covered the fact that there were no Iraqi troops massing on the border of Saudi Arabia in 1990
+ Anyone hear of The Greenbriar? That took decades to come out.
+ What's that? A cover-up of nuclear fallout tests on U.S. troops and citizens?
+ And another one on syphilis in African-American men being allowed to run its course for the benefit of the study in the 1940s and 1950s?
+ Tacit Blue was a complete unknown
+ The recovery of K-129 was pretty dark
+ How about the Japanese nuclear weapons research facility in Korea during WW2 and how it related to the Korean War?
+ Agent Orange?
+ Gulf War Syndrome?
+ Massive WMD programs in Iraq? Well, this one may not be covered very well ;)

Of course, they aren't secrets anymore, but they were covered for years or decades. It's a fallacy to say the U.S. government is horrible at cover-ups.

That doesn't mean there are little alien corpses in Dayton, OH. It does mean that our vigilance is required to keep as much as possible in the open.

We knew about the F-117 because of amateur avaition enthusiasts sending pics to Aviation Week, but the program had been around for years. Don't underestimate the desire of people in power to keep you in the dark, or bureaucrats to willingly allow it to save a pension.

witness accounts

[Anonymous Coward]

well Im sorry but this sort of thing has been shown to happen before. Not sort of thing actually, but with this particular event it has been released before what "really" happened in July 1947. And they keep sticking to the story that it was a weather balloon. Ignoring the witnesses that saw the bodies; that touched, felt and saw bits and pieces of alien technology from the crashed ufo. The witnesses of it say that these pieces of unknown metal could not be burned or damaged in anyway. The so called metalic paper if folded would unfold leaving no creases in it as if it had never been folded or even if you crunch it up in your hand and drop it on the ground it would undo what you just did leaving no marks on it at all. Also what is amazing is the metal rods that had tiny indeciphrable writing on it. Its time these people fess up and just admit what happened in Roswell of July 1947. It sort of goes like this these days with it. The US Government knows that we know. We know that they know. But pretend that we don't know. And the US Government pretends that they don't know. But knows that we know. Everybody knows. :)

Re: GOD DOES EXIST vs THERE IS NO GOD

[CentrX]

You can't really determine that believing in God is the wiser/safer proposition, and especially not a particular religion's God. There's no way to know if it's the "true" religion with the "true" God, and the real God might be pissed that you believe in the wrong one, you have no idea. Hell, God might be pissed that you're not taking the logically defensible position of not believing in a God, or at least not changing one's actions to accommodate the particular tenets of a God.

Some stuff people are not ready for.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Rosweel "Incident" is the most well documented "UFO event" in history. If you just put aside your skepticism asside for just a little bit and read all of the excellent research done by some prominent private reseacrhers (Dr. Stanton Friendman, Kevin Randle, etc...) it becomes VERY clear that the US Air Force DID recover such a device and quickly started the coverup soon after it know that the wreckage was NOT made by any human.

This is not some conspiracy made up by some UFO buffs because the Goverment papers found in vaious archives and such PROVE IT. Not to mention all the surviving witnesses who have attested to being there in the first place.

I'll never dismiss the fact that some UFO reports are hoaxes, fakes etc.. but the reality is that these things are here and the government doesn't want us to know about it. Some of you may claim that its impossible to keep secrets. That is not true. A lot of stuff is still classified even from WWI. The Manhattan project was kept secret (50,000 people + worked on various parts of that) until they had to tell the world when they dropped them on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Government has been able to keep the UFO secrecy lid on pretty tight by two means: 1. Public ridicule and 2. Forceful silence of military and Goverment personel. When the Goverment forces you to sign you secrecy clearance you sign away your life: No trial, no appeals and 20 years in the Federal slammer. That keeps your mouth shut.

I personally know 2 people who are a commercial airline pilot and a US military person who have stated that there is stuff up there (the skies) that the everage person would never beleive exists. They have seen them with their own eyes.

Re: GOD DOES EXIST vs THERE IS NO GOD

[bussdriver]

The existance of god was simply an example of the point trying to be made. Its a poor example because it insights too much emotion in certain groups.

I did not say I picked the god side as my default position. Actually, I choose the no-god side as my default position.

Also, the existance of GOD itself is the foundation of most the religions out there, reguardless of details. After choosing the god side, there is a whole bunch of choices left.

I choose the no-god side, because it is the wisest default position in my opinion. Its hard enough trying to create a definition of what god is that is abstract enough, let alone deciding that definition may be true.

you did not read inbetween my lines correctly.

Re: GOD DOES EXIST vs THERE IS NO GOD

[bussdriver]

Conspiracy theories can be proven false.
lets get more technical:
theory X.
person Y proves it false.
result theory X is false.

Conspriacy "nut" adds a premise to the theory X making it technically a new version of the theory; therefore, it is NOT the same theory. SO:

Theory Z.
person Y only can proove Theory X is false.
result: conspiracy nut can keep most their theory in tact.

Where the "nut" thing comes in, is when the people of the theory go beyond what is viewed as resonable in their persistant revisioning. Science people do this stuff all the time, but nearly all of them draw the line somewhere and drop a bad theory.

Its like a chess game, where the loser just moves the king around the board refusing to give up. Thats the "Nut". The resonable person "lets it go" and admits defeat and moves on.

What you mean is the "nuts" who don't give up that can't be proven false because they never admit defeat---but they will let you prove the right. (like letting you give up chasing them around the chess board) They are problem, not the theories.

"scientific" theories is not what I'm talking about, and I'm not going to get into how I don't think there is any such thing as a "scientific" theory. Science is a philosophy for evalution of theories. Just because science can't get anywhere on some theories, does not make them "unscientific". Some theories remain unfalsifiable for decades...

Re:Oh, yes! We must ALL watch

[suougibma]

Wow... Nowhere in my original statement did I even mention anything resembling its legitamacy. This is months if not years overdue, but don't shoot the messenger pal.