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Sci-Fi Channel Looks for LGM in NASA Files
SharkJumper writes "The Sci-Fi channel expects to file a lawsuit within the week against NASA. They are attempting to gain access under the Freedom of Information Act to classified documents concerning a 1965 UFO sighting in Kecksburg, Pennsylvania. The Department of Defense, Army, and Air Force are next on their list. Here's Sci-Fi's account of the story."
Interesting how companies with close ties to the DOD came up with advanced integrated circuits so soon afterwards. When was Intel founded?
I didn't realize that you could sue to get your hands on classified documents under the freedom of information act. Things are classified for a reason.
They have money to blow on stupid shit like this and yet they didn't have enough to keep Farscape going?
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Like others noted, sounds like publicity to me. Remember when the movie Signs came out, and Disney offered a sweepstakes where the winner would be sent to a "real" crop circle to help investigate it? This is pretty transparent, as the Sci-Fi channel aren't exactly in the documentary business, it would be more dramatic for them to say "We tried to get them to tell us, but Big Brother is keeping UFOs a secret." Imagine if, in response, the DoD declassifies and releases the files and they turn out to be REALLY anticlimactic, and only classified because they were using some new radar recievers at the time or something.
Yup...
In any case, the little down is making the most of it. There isn't much else in the down. The only industry when I was there was a Pepsi bottling plant. That shut down and was converted later into an aluminum camper manufacturing plant. The only other thing in the town center is the firehall where they have linedancing on Friday nights. The firehall has a giant acorn shaped UFO replica on the top now. ;-)
It is standard practice that when submitting a request for public or declassified information from state and federal government agencies under the Freedom of Information Act, the angency must reply within 10 days. (The agency might also request a reasonable fee to accomodate researching and sending the information.) Of course, if 10 days expires, what do you do? Of course you "sue" the agency. Not "sue" in financial terms, but "sue" as in "bring this in front of the court to get a court order to release this information." And the government will not have to pay a penny to Sci-Fi, since all the court order will ask for is the release of the information. Simple as that.
Actually, many times agencies are not smart enough to even know about the FIA, and thus can easily use the incompetence excuse or "I never got it" even though you sent your request and have a proof of receipt that they did get it. Geez...
Cover your eyes and click this link!
Sending mental command: Mod up!
You want to know why you are not allowed to know?
Fuck you, that's why.
The government doesn't care that we want to know. There is no REASON for them to tell us. Sure, we elect them and all, but until you get at least 51% to vote to make a law to make the processes of government more open, it will never happen. Most likely, this issue will remain forever closed (or at least withheld) forever from us. It was probably missle testing or something that the public does not "need to know". If you want to find out what was/is inside Area 51 or who really killed JFK, you are better off inventing a time machine and reading about all of this later in the history books. Either that, or run for president and divulge all this information to the public (not likely).
this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
Is it trying to improve ratings by becoming something like the "hoax investigation" channel?
Instead of dumping money into lawyers pockets, why don't they instead go back to exploring Science Fiction history, or trends in current science fiction development on an international level?
Maybe they will try to hire off Geraldo Rivera from Fox News next. Or maybe Rush Limbaugh.
They should put that lawsuit money back into funding good shows, like Farscape (I'm a little biased. Sorry).
Quoting the story:
The results of Sci-Fi's new investigation into the incident will air Friday in a documentary hosted by Bryant Gumbel called "The New Roswell: Kecksburg Exposed."
Gumbel seems to be following the well-worn path of fallen journalists blazed so spectacularly by Geraldo Rivera... kind of sad, really.
The Sci-Fi Channel has disappointed me so much to the point that I've stopped watching it, on principle. They've canceled good sci-fi shows like Babylon 5 and Farscape, only to replace them with pseudoscientific crap that costs pennies to make: Sightings, Jon Edwards, UFO "documentaries", and crop circle "documentaries", amongst others. They've even declared their intention to stop producing science fiction shows and focus more on fantasy shows. WTF?! This is the Sci-Fi Channel!
I'm hoping for a good science fiction channel that won't give in to spreading pseudoscientific bullcrap just because it might get them better ratings. I'm looking for a station with integrity to throw my support behind, and the Sci-Fi Channel is not that station.
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
Imagine if you will ..the leader of the fifth invader force speaking to the commander in chief...
"They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"Meat. They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"There's no doubt about it. We picked several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, probed them all the way through. They're completely meat."
"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars?"
"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."
"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."
"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines."
"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."
"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in the sector and they're made out of meat."
"Maybe they're like the Orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage."
"Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take too long. Do you have any idea the life span of meat?"
"Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the Weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside."
"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads like the Weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through."
"No brain?"
"Oh, there is a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat!"
"So... what does the thinking?"
"You're not understanding, are you? The brain does the thinking. The meat."
"Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"
"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?"
"Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat."
"Finally, Yes. They are indeed made out meat. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."
"So what does the meat have in mind?"
"First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the universe, contact other sentients, swap ideas and information. The usual."
"We're supposed to talk to meat?"
"That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio. 'Hello. Anyone out there? Anyone home?' That sort of thing."
"They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"
"Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat."
"I thought you just told me they used radio."
"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat."
"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?"
"Officially or unofficially?"
"Both."
"Officially, we are required to contact, welcome, and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in the quadrant, without prejudice, fear, or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing."
"I was hoping you would say that."
"It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?"
"I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say?" `Hello, meat. How's it going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?"
"Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can't live on them. And being meat, they only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact."
"So we just pretend there's no one home in the universe."
"That's it."
"Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
And what is that reason, exactly? That's what the plaintiff is asking here. Can the government continue to offer a legitimate reason for keeping decades-old documents classified? If so, they'll stay classified.
Let's face it-- even if those documents contain information about state-of-the-art (at the time) US aircraft, it's somewhat unlikely that there's still a reason to keep them under wraps. If we didn't have mechanisms like FOIA to periodically re-evaluate the need for secrecy on ancient documents, everything would stay classified out of sheer inertia, even when there was clearly no longer a reason for secrecy.
I whole-heartedly support the Sci-Fi channel's efforts. It will finally settle the question, "Are the people obsessed with UFOs a bunch of paranoid pseudoscientific jackasses?"
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
What if they find something? Will they have to change their network name to the SciFact channel? Seems like they're digging their own grave!
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
The odds that anyone can put up a geocities website and make up odds: 1 in 4.
http://www.skeptics.com.au/journal/baloney.htm
And if this interests you, read Sagan's book, A Demon-Haunted World.
Alien invasions, abductions, etc. are great topics for movies, comic books, video games, and other forms of entertainment -- and the domain of the Sci-Fi Channel is, in fact, entertainment. But it saddens me to know that people are going to see stunts like this and begin to confuse fact with fiction -- you know, the "Fi" in Sci-Fi. :-)
People of the world, I beg you: please, please, don't take anything as fact without bothering to examine it rationally and critically.
Um----
If NASA wants to not spend money on a lawsuit, they can simply release the documents.
Why do they have to file a lawsuit? Why exactly is NASA keeping in secret?
How the hell is anything that is US/Russia aerospace research oriented still worth classifying 50 years after the fact?
If the administrators at NASA are willing to go the the wall protecting these secrets, then they damn well are secrets that I want to know about.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Now, I'm guessing the 'like my penis' part is what got this moderated as a troll, but I found it very useful, as I had no freakin' idea what LGM stood for.
I live in the general vicinity of Kecksburg, PA. I can tell you with all certainty that any "UFO" sighting was certainly brought on by a combination of swamp gases, moonshine, and unchecked, rampant coitus among close family members named "Clem" and "Darlita" through several generations...
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
If only people would apply Occam's razor and just THINK about a few of these huge "UFO cover ups", they could relax.
Think about the whole Area 51 and Roswell thing for example. Ok, something weird crashed out of the sky, there were some bodies, and the government covered everything up. But it happened shortly after WWII, during a period where we were employing ex-Nazi rocket scientists to build us more advanced airplanes, didn't it? And, a more reasonable explanation of the Roswell crash would be that an experimental, top secret craft had a malfunction and bit the dust.
Consider that that whole Southwest is used for the testing of advanced aircraft. Groom Lake (in Nevada), another mecca for the tinfoil hat crowd, is an aircraft test facility. The stealth fighter, for example, was developed during the early 1970's, and was tested extensively there. OF COURSE there were lots of UFO sightings. They were testing their planes! Naturally SOMEONE would see them. We can't make 'em invisible (yet).
Now, fast forward to the Pennsylvania crash. SOMETHING crashed, and the government seems to want to keep it quiet. Does this mean there were little green men? Nope. It means that something failed on another one of the government's experimental toys (the operative word being "experimental"), a few unlucky test pilots probably bit the dust crashing it into a forest, and it's unfortunate and sad but NOT a sci-fi mystery.
We'll probably see whatever aircraft it is in twenty years or so when it's declassified and they use it to blow someone up in a future war. We'll go "Holy cow, that's a cool airplane, I wonder when they built that thing!" and check out the TechTV show about it after getting our anime fix...
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
Reality is relatively! I am convinced most UFO sightings are just government "projects" gone wrong. No one travels at the speed of light or faster to visit earth just to crash into the ground. "I can do light-speed but I can't figure out aerodynamic flight!" What a bunch of crap. There are no aliens except for the little brown men that keep crossing our border from Mexico. Get over it.
IF (a big if) there are LGM's visiting us, they obviously have done a good job of hiding it. Sci-Fi is not the paragon of virtue to sniff this one out.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
WHEREAS,
We cancelled the critically acclaimed FARSCAPE.
WHEREAS,
We cancelled the critically acclaimed INVISIBLE MAN.
WHEREAS,
We cancelled the fan-adored THE CHRONICLE
WHEREAS,
We turned STARGATE SG-1 into total crap.
WHEREAS,
We did a crappy, low-budget version of DUNE.
WHEREAS
We replaced these shows with classics like TREMORS: THE SERIES and JOHN EDWARDS
WHEREAS,
We are about to rape the collective memories of classic sci-fi fans with our re-imaginging of BATTLESTAR: GALACTICA.
WE HEREBY
Attempt a really lame publicity stunt to try and appeal to the lowest common denominator of sci-fi fans there are: the UFO nuts.
One of my favorite lines from an old conspiracy show about aliens was a backlit, voice-modified guy saying "Look, it's not aliens; it's military research. The fastest non-rocket-powered vehicle in the air right now that the public knows about is Lockheed-Martin's Blackbird, the SR-71, and that was designed forty years ago. Forty years before that, the fastest thing in the air was a biplane, a Sopwith Camel. Forty years before that, the fastest thing in the air was a balloon."
"That hasn't stopped happening."
Mike Hoye
This finally lends UFO researchers that much-needed air of respectability they've been missing - to be championed by the same people who brought you John Edwards and Cleopatra 2525.
Weaselmancer
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
It's LGP you sexist insensitive clod!
.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
"Why would the military cover up something that would let them double their budget if it was revealed?"
Stefan
Since they cancel shows like Farscape but then pick up John Edwards, I'd say they've got the 'fi' part down but need to work on the 'sci'.
They're not suing for money though, they're suing for the courts to force NASA to release documents.
So long as the government has the authority to keep some things secret, it's well within that authority to keep things secret for fifty, or a hundred, or a thousand years.
You may believe that fifty-year-old secrets are "ridiculous", but you can't justify that belief without knowing exactly what the secret is.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
/quote /endquote
access under the Freedom of Information Act to classified documents concerning a 1965 UFO sighting in Kecksburg, Pennsylvania
uh... it was bad enough that people didn't read the article, now they can't even read the summary
Can anyone say "Taxpayer-funded publicity stunt?"
Look, every dollar NASA spends on lawyers is a dollar it could have spent on space exploration. And it's a dollar a government already trillions in the hole will have to spend. In a word, screw this.
And as another poster pointed out, this could set an interesting precedent: Networks suing the government every time their ratings slip.
This is not my sandwich.
The CNN article states that former Clinton White House chief of staff John Podesta is a party to this lawsuit, and I find that very intriguing. The White House Chief of Staff is one of the most important positions in the executive, effectively a cabinet level position in terms of power wielded - surely this man must have been privy to a lot of information which lead him to believe that there was something to this Kecksburg incident. Now I'm *really* curious...
"The slave who knows his master's will and does not get ready...will be be beaten with many blows."Luke 12:47-48
Is it just me, or does it seem odd to anyone else that the same people who believe that NASA faked the moon landing also believe that NASA is covering up actual evidence of a UFO?
Why do they believe that NASA would tell the truth about UFO's (under FOIA) but that they would lie for years about the space program?
My take is that something DID occur in Kecksburg, but it wasn't alien-based. More likely this was some form of military test vehicle or satellite. There was some suggestion that it might have been a crashed Soviet COSMOS satellite (nuc powered) but there were no such satellites in orbit and over the area at the correct time for an errant crash.
This was what, 1965? Height of the Cold-War, also at the height of the Apollo program. It could have been a NASA test vehicle, complete with simian occupants (to explain the so-called scream/screech some reported after the military arrived).
It would be invalid, as far as I'm concerned, for there to be continued secrecy about ANY vehicles tested by NASA or the military at any point up to at least the 1970s. NOTHING that predates this is worthy of secrecy as any and all technology associated with it is pathetically outdated by now. There may be ethical/public health-related reasons why the military might be interested in keeping a lock on anything like an old black project (radiation leakage/exposure to the general public, etc) but even this is illegitimate, unethical (take your freakin' medicine for endangering citizens), and indefensible.
I hope the Sci-Fi Channel comes out with something for their troubles. It wont be extraterrestrial in origin but it will likely be interesting. And perhaps damning to those who deserve to be damned.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Unless, the documents don't contain information about state of the art US aircraft and the US has no real idea what the hell it was. That would be a damn good reason to keep it locked up - and quite frankly, I'd agree with them.
Ahem.
Am I wrong in my assumption that the government of the USA exists to serve the public in the public interest? (You know, "Government for the people, of the people, and by the people?" Sure, it's bullshit, but it's bullshit worth striving for.)
In that case, the government has no right to hide information from the public, except in the interest of public safety. (For instance, the deployment of US nuclear submarines might not be good public knowledge.) There is no other good reason for the government to hide information from its people.
In fact, I'd go as far as to say that the government has a responsibility to keep the public informed of important events. I would go further: I would say it is the public's responsibility to audit the functioning of the government on a regular, intensive basis.
The FOIA allows this auditing, even if it is 25 years after the fact. The only information that might need to remain classified is some information which has not changed over 25 years.
The FOIA has revealed some very interesting facts, like the funding by President Kennedy of the longest-running terrorist campaign against any nation (Operation Mongoose, against Cuba, which ran for many years; it may continue to this day). To FOIA is there for us to learn about our government; the government does not have the right to select the information we learn about it.
That would be like Microsoft choosing which memos are admitted as evidence during its anti-trust trials.
As far as this UFO thing goes: there has been no plausible evidence or explanaition to support visitation from other planets. Occam's Razor indicates it's nothing more than a fireball, just a regular, crashing-to-earth rock that left a trail of vaporized carbon, ice, and rock.
But, who knows? Maybe there *was* some sort of alien landing.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
It's not legitimate (or legal, though IANAL) to classify something simply because it's embarassing or reveals stupidity. That's one of the reasons that the Freedom of Information Act was passed -- to reveal information that we, the people who pay for and have ultimate authority over the government, can manage it effectively.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
It's only taxpayer-funded if the government (NASA) refuses to cooperate. Since NASA exists on our dime to acquire knowledge for all our benefit the fact that they are not willing to voluntarily give up knowledge they acquired bothers me. Yes, it is a shame that anyone or any organization has to SUE to get information from the government. But if that's what it takes to get the government to be more open with those of us who fund it, I'm all for it.
The government has wasted money on things much less important than freedom of information.
Never read Katz, huh?
if you want "No More Hiroshimas" then I say "You First. No More Pearl Harbors."
It's also possible that NASA concluded their "investigation" was such utter bullshit that the whole file consists of a crayon-written letter from a yokel, and a memo saying "don't waste any time on this crap. We have a space race to win!" and that was the end of it.
So SciFi makes an FIA request; NASA says "that's all there is," mostly because aside from this file that's all there fucking is; then SciFi sues, desperate not to scuttle a project they've already invested $n in, thereby wasting more time and money, but it's all okay because it's not their money, it's ours, and it's not being used on space exploration.
This is not my sandwich.
What good is exploration or knowledge if they aren't going to share it? I agree it's going to cost money (although it will cost less if they don't fight it), but I'd say it's worth it in either case.
instead of helping some entertainment company boost their ratings.
This is one of those situations where corporate greed works in our favor. They get their boost in rating and, hopefully, the public will have access to some information that we are rightfully entitled to.
Other cases of corporate greed working in our favor are, for example, ISPs fighting the RIAA. They aren't doing it out of the goodness of their heart, they're just watching their bottom line--but it happens to work in our favor and is in line with what we believe is right.
If SciFi can boost their ratings and make a buck while at the same time doing something that may benefit all of us, hey, I'm 100% for it! That's capitalism and freedom working hand in hand and everyone coming out ahead.
It's also possible that NASA concluded their "investigation" was such utter bullshit that the whole file consists of a crayon-written letter from a yokel, and a memo saying "don't waste any time on this crap. We have a space race to win!" and that was the end of it.
In which case they're going to look awfully stupid having not released information on the incident over the last 30 years and refusing a FOIA request. If that's all there is, that's all there is. It still should be out there for the public to see.
So SciFi makes an FIA request; NASA says "that's all there is," mostly because aside from this file that's all there fucking is
From what I've read, they haven't responded--they haven't said "that's all there is." They haven't given them anything. Do some surfing to read up on what happened. There are plenty of people wanting more information, not just the SciFi channel.
then SciFi sues, desperate not to scuttle a project they've already invested $n in, thereby wasting more time and money, but it's all okay because it's not their money,
Believe it or not, it's their money in the sense that it isn't zero-cost to sue NASA. It's going to cost them money and will only cost NASA money if they fight it. If they release the information then it will just cost them whatever it costs them to get the information together, but that's their responsibility anyway under the FOIA.
it's ours, and it's not being used on space exploration.
NASA hasn't done a whole lot to explore space since they started flying the Space Shuttle. And if there's a chance that they are sitting on information that is potentially more interesting and useful than what we're going to get flying in circles in LEO then I'd rather they spend some money in getting that information to the public.
On the other hand, if they have their little UFO episode this weekend and then promptly decide not to sue anyone after all then I'll agree it was just corporate greed, looking for ratings, and nothing more and will probably never watch their channel again. But if they follow through and go after the information they're seeking even after this weekend then I'm completely fine with them boosting their ratings in the process.