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Roswell UFO Festival
jmcharry writes "From the Washington Post: 'Attention, all aliens. Come on down. Because, seriously, this is your crowd. About 50,000 of your closest admirers are expected this weekend for the Roswell UFO Festival, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the nearby crash landing of a flying saucer — and, naturally, the ensuing government cover-up.'"
Well, I guess it's a form of socializing and these people get off on it...
Btw, Area 51 has been closed for some time due to hazmat risks, the business is now moved to a more desolate place.
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
If I were an alien, landing in the midst of 50,000 "worshippers" in a town of 45,000 people in SE New Mexico would NOT be my first choice. Actually, that goes for just about everyone, alien to the planet or not. Unless, of course, my menu normally consisted of nutjobs in RVs and on motorcycles.
They've come in under radar... from Mexico
I read on the Internet (so it must be true) that 50% of the Americans believe that there are aliens on the earth, I wonder why so many Americans?
In France, from my informal questions hardly no-one believes in aliens living on the earth, of course on the other hand we have our own myths, for example the Graphological analysis (believing that you can know someone by looking how his writing look) which is very widespread: you almost always have to do one to get a high-paying job..
Seriously - if you're in the general area (as much as THAT can be said in New Mexico), go to Roswell. My wife and I stopped by during the 50th anniversary and had a blast. It's a cute town, and when it's overrun by UFO nuts and X-Files fans, it's just plain silly.
>> "What would the robut do? Frame someone!"
Jerry Pournelle commented on Roswell recently: http://www.jerrypournelle.com/mail/mail473.html#Ro swell.
Pournelle says that because he was involved with the USAF Project 75 technology survey, he would have had access to any information that could have helped with defense planning. He originally suspected that the USAF had dropped a nuke that didn't exploded ("laid an egg" as he puts it) near Roswell.
N/A
Wasn't there a ton of UFO sightings when the USAF was testing the F-117? As top secret that stealth aircraft was, the US Gov. eventually announced it.
And, whenever the US Gov. really wants to keep a secret - they can't - can you say Abu Ghraib or bombing in Cambodia, and wiretapping US citizens and violating the Fourth Amendment?
Sorry, I think between incompetence in Gov. and just decent people in the World (I guess I'm getting soft in my old age), any secrets won't stay secret very long.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
Ok.. Let me, just for a sec, take the conspiracy theory just a tad further...
Let's say the government has something REALLY big to hide.. What could be one of its approach.. Well : Take an insignificant incident and PRETEND it's a cover up (that is, give obviously phony explanations, use wandering and puzzled looks during media conferences, have people sign funny papers, etc..).. For the 60 years to come, people are going to be going CRAZY about *this* particular cover-up (which may incidentally - should the double cover up theory be true - not even be one, but rather an elaborate hoax).
Now *THAT* is conspiracy !
--Ivan
(PS : I'm not actually buying this - and believe it or not, I'm going with the weather balloon gone awry explanation)..
Unfortunately, the Wikipedia article doesn't have what he said about the UFO thing.
To paraphrase from memory, Sagan said that he had the security clearances and access and he saw nothing about the Gov. covering up space aliens.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
I'd say pretty close to the chances that they read the Washington Post. Unless you can think of a reason a non-English speaker would read it.
This my friend, might have something to do with it: 22 out of 400 senior Government, CIA & Military & NASA officials went public admitting UFO's and aliens are real.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vyVe-6YdUk
Also, France & Mexico governments are supposed to be releasing all the info they have on the subject soon, if they haven't already done so.
Adeptus
No trees were killed in the making of this post; however, many trillions of electrons were horribly inconvenienced.
I was in the gym the other day, and the "Discovery Channel" had a show on about Mexican UFO sightings. Apparently, Mexico is the hot new location for "UFOlogists".
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
It often seems as if a non-English speaker writes it.
walter haut, and I'll repeat what I said there : a confession discussed in 2000, made in 2002 for a death in 2005 is a way wee bit exagerated for the term "deathbed". Furthermore There is no way the guy would want to attract glory after his death. No, he was clearly impartial. wait wasn't it the guy with the ufo museum ? And wasn't it the guy which pretended that the US army would be stupid enough to ask casket (kid sized) from a local mortician ? I am surprised that some people give credence to this. Finally I'll deathbed confess that I know where a lot of gold is. Since it will be on my deathbed that will make it automatically true.
Come on, next you will tell me silvia browne conatct the dead, Steorn has got free energy, and geller really bend spoon with his will. What next ? Homeopathy, the way hahneman described it, works perfectly ?
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I've always thought it an interesting coincidence that the Roswell myth dates from about the same time that the Manhattan Project - which was an actual large-scale government cover-up - became public knowledge.
Not only that, but Alamogordo is less than a hundred miles from Roswell.
Here ya go, the real story. Project Mogul was an Air Force project to detect nuclear tests by listening for them in the high atmosphere. It had the highest security classification, and when one of the balloons, along with it's plastic and tinfoil acoustic detectors, crashed near Roswell, the CIA decided that the UFO story provided a good cover.
So, technically, it wasn't a weather balloon. Oh and the egg-shaped saucer? That was a different test version of the acoustic detector. They experimented with a number of different shapes.
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
Roswell is one of the greatest misdirections ever pulled off by the government and no credible Ufologist pays it any attention.
Slashdotters love to pat themselves on the back by pointing out the all the inconsistencies in the Roswell story. Newsflash - ufologists have known about these for years, and Roswell itself is only considered a conspiracy by the New Agers and self-styled Agent Mulders of the world.
Want to poke holes in a REAL ufo mystery? Take a look at Tehran 1976 or Malmstrom AFB.
It's a shame the subject of UFOs is ridiculed instead of taken seriously, and of course that is due in large part to the goofball social community surrounding unexplained phenomena. This Roswell celebration is, sadly, a prime example. If instead we had five million people march on Washington and demand the truth, we might get some real disclosure.
A-Bomb
Easy to say, I am an alien actually reading /. from another galaxy through an ip v256 subspace tunnel (we have a few secret gateways on your planet). I see no mention of travel expenses being reimboursed. I so, I might consider showing up. It just seems to me they want to make money off our poor alien backs so far...
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
Not that I am defending the motives and beliefs of the "True Believers" that gather in Roswell for these kinds of things, but ... anyone familiar with the history of belief in UFO's, Flying Saucers and Alien saviours can tell you that UFO's are certainly not an "American Only" phenomenon.
If you check the data, only the belief in Alien Abductions and the whole "Grey aliens stole my baby" thing can truly be said to have originated in America or to be exclusive to American culture.
UFO *sightings* on the other hand, and the UFO phenomenon in general (regardless of whatever the cause turns out to be), are pretty much uniform over all cultures and take the same general form in each. Often a small amount of local cultural belief is overlaid on the data set, but the data itself is very homogeneous and consistent across cultures.
Well, here is some interesting video of UFO fleets over Peru and Mexico. Mass sighting mid-day. All I can say is they are unidentified, I'm not going to insist they're alien, but some of the vids I've seen before out on the net (rense/google video/youtube/etc) stuff doesn't look terrestrial or military to me.
... May 2007
:-)
UFO Fleet in Lima, Peru
Large Fleet of UFO's in the skies over Mexico City
UFO fleet over Guadalajara Mexico in 2004
Anyways, I dunno what those are. I think balloons is the wrong answer. But I've seen more video of these out there. I find it amusing/entertaining, and there are definitely some very good unexplained mysterious UFO cases out there. And I've have talked to people I trust who say they have been face to face with a real alien/ET/gray type before. So as far as I'm concerned the phenomenon is real. There are ETs here watching, interacting with a small number of humans. And then in the public it's a lot of muddy water, hoaxes, idiots, false sightings, military stuff, etc etc. It's really convoluted. But the truth is out there
UFOs, whatever their origin, are an air safety hazard.
There are literally thousands of credible, documented encounters between Civil/Military Aviation aircraft alone. See http://narcap.org/ headed by a retired NASA scientist who has scientifically categorized various air encounters, EM interferences, and near-collision events.
The recent hovering UFO incident over the busy and restricted airspace of O'Hare airport is yet another example. The airline employees who reported the incident did so because they felt a craft of some sort was in an area that was clearly posing a threat. One of the employees, not comprehending the origin or dynamics of the object fearfully thought it was a terrorist attack.
A MOD report released last year, although skeptical about little green men, acknowledged that UFOs appear to be a real phenomenon, likely natural and not yet understood. And it suggests that all pilots who encounter them stay away from them as they may be dangerous.
Through (effectively) a campaign of ridicule (as expressed here and in other media), a phenomenon deserving of serious scientific inquiry is not being studied because researchers are afraid of being discredited. There really should be a scientific body collecting, and analyzing UFO data.
The incidents of UFOs being reported in aviation is likely much smaller than the actual accounts for similar reasons.
It's unfortunate that the problems and circus around the Roswell story are being used to further discourage trained observers, and first responders from reporting more incidents that would ultimately benefit science and technology.
Anybody else remember when this got out? This video was broadcast live during a classroom discussion that included shuttle astronauts. It made the national news at the time and AFAIK is legit. I think NASA stopped doing live broadcasts of exernal video after this.
I'm pretty sure the panning and zooming were added by the Youtuber, but the actions of the UFO in the picture are exactly as I remember from the news clips.
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