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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."
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. ;-)
Simple rule of thumb: If I can't understand it, it must have come from aliens.
I'm not so sure about non-dairy creamer. Does that mean it's really aliens that have been dehydrated and ground to dust?
--
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.
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
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
Well, you know what intel stands for, don't you? INTergalactic ELectronics.
Stick Men
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
"Why would the military cover up something that would let them double their budget if it was revealed?"
Stefan
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.
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.
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.
To be fair, Bush actually improved upon Clinton's 1995 executive order on declassification. Ashcroft has encouraged challenging all FOIA requests, and Cheney is still fighting FOIA requests concerning his energy cabinet meetings.