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Former Military Personnel Claim Aliens Are Monitoring Our Nukes
An anonymous reader quotes Reuters "Witness testimony from more than 120 former or retired military personnel points to an ongoing and alarming intervention by unidentified aerial objects at nuclear weapons sites, as recently as 2003. In some cases, several nuclear missiles simultaneously and inexplicably malfunctioned while a disc-shaped object silently hovered nearby. Six former US Air Force officers and one former enlisted man will break their silence about these events at the National Press Club and urge the government to publicly confirm their reality." I won't worry until Gort shows up.
Get the foil out guys, it's gonna be a long night.
I did too, about an hour and a half ago. Damn jalapenos.
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
Captain Salas notes, "The U.S. Air Force is lying about the national security implications of unidentified aerial objects at nuclear bases and we can prove it."
This isn't news until they present their supposed "proof".
I get that we want to think that military officers are supposed to be more reliable than your average Joe Schmuckatellii, but come on.
I don't care who you are, if you can't show proof, I'm not gonna believe you. I mean, I don't believe what the pope says, and he has billions of people who think he's reliable.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
Is there a difference any more?
I am literally 3000 tokens away from the chaotic crossbow --Stephen
Not saying I believe the premise of this submission, as it seems pretty far fetched, but...
Say I want to verify that some anti-nuke weapon system can disable nuclear weapons. Say I've tested it to every extent possible, and now I want to verify its effectiveness against real weapon systems. Do you test it against the enemy and risk an actual nuclear war? Nope, you test it on your own weapons. The US has plenty, so one or two missiles at a time being disabled isn't going to be much of a tactical disadvantage, and it could be well planned in advance such that a real nuclear launch is impossible (by placing "real deal" missiles into silos, while subtracting the fissile material) in the case of malfunction as a result of your anti-nuke weapon system.
Unlikely, sure. But much more likely than the combination of aliens having made contact with Earth, the government having kept it from us, and the aliens having an interest in our nuclear weapon systems, as presumably species which can travel such distances would already have the tech to wipe us away and then some.
Damn, so it DOES need proof to back it up then? ;)
I mean, seriously... who cares who writes things? What matters is whether the arguments are valid, and the evidence they're based on is sound.
Uhhh, which they're clearly not in this case. Just thought I'd tack that on for clarity ;)
This is a PRESS RELEASE at this point. It's not a news article. I don't know Reuter's policy in picking up press releases, but based on the content of this release, I'm guessing they will publish whatever they get. The press release is short on details, but claims that there will be experts, and declassified documents that back up their assertions. And a dead body in a storage freezer, as well, for those of you who like hairy plastic suits draped over carcasses. Enjoy!
Was there a difference in the first place? "He's just selling a book!" "You're just selling a paper" "Well, he doesn't have, um, quite as large a staff as I do?"
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
It's a TLA UAV if it's anything.
Isn't there a chance that, considering almost all were in close contact with nuclear weapons, the radiation was screwing with their head? Or, possibly, whatever they use on nuclear missile bases were?
It's human nature to see things in the shadows - the logic is hardwired into our brains. Exposure to popular culture makes the shadows look like aliens. No need to look for a radiation-based cause.
When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
Newspapers used to have a position called a "fact-checker" and rather than just reprinting corporate and political press releases verbatim, they fact checked them first and would write a story about the release, pointing out any falsehoods. It isn't about book sales versus newspaper sales, it is about journalistic integrity.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
People really want there to be space aliens but the fact is space travel is impossible using current technology and with our current understanding of physics.
There you go. Carry on.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
"The weapons malfunctioned": How? they tried to launch them toward a target and they veered off course and detonated nearby causing a horrible but remarkably suppressed nuclear accident?
"A disc-shaped object silently hovered nearby": Wow, eerie. Oh, wait, that was just a mylar balloon on a string. I think it read "Happy Birthday"
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
"If you were a responsible person in a position of power, perhaps in some covert US task force, or some other friendly but worried power, and saw an idiot like bush in control at the whitehouse... wouldn't you take it upon yourself organise a disarmament too?"
Uh, no. For one thing, despite your pandering, our former president was not an idiot, by definition. Second, he did not show nor was described as showing any inclination to use nuclear weapons that I am aware of, and since he was vilified by the press nonstop for 8 years for every imagined manner of atrocity, negligence, idiocy, and megalomania, this would not have escaped our attention.
Look, he's back at his ranch, out of office. You can let up now. No one cares.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
UFO means unidentified flying object. The article makes no reference to aliens.
You'd think a slashdot summary would recognize such a distinction. This is not the National Inquirer.
If there were bogeys, they were almost certainly terrestrial.
You have your hand up what?
Be gone from my sight or prepare to feel my flaming wraith!
I've been interested in UFOs since I was a kid but have become very incredulous as I have become older. Even when investigating UFO reports for a UFO group I was in demonstrated to me that most people are not very good logical thinkers and also have no idea what they are looking at in the sky and will frame what they see against their own limited experiences. I am currently reading Carl Sagan's Demon Haunted Worlds - long overdue for me and a highly recommended read. Aliens, if indeed they are visiting the bases, have to be the absolute last resort explanation until all other more earthly possibilities are exhausted. I wonder how hard the guys involved in this book have worked at testing and eliminating all the sensible hypothesis they can come up with before arriving at aliens?
Reuters publishes press releases on their site, which is fine. They should, however, do more to differentiate their appearance from the real news.
Airplane Photos, Airline News, Planespotting Guides
journalistic integrity...
You just made that up.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
Maybe my rosy colored memories of a more honest and ethical journalism are simply nostalgia for a good old days that never were.
Now get off my lawn and let me ruminate in peace.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Facts are not viewpoints. When did JFK die, and how? Is that a viewpoint or a fact? When a politician says, "My policies saved over $2,000,000 last year" is that a fact or a viewpoint? If a company says, "We have reduced air pollution at our factories by fifty percent," is that a fact or a viewpoint? Facts can be checked. Statements of fact are either true or false, and I believe that the reason people find news media valuable is that they report the truth.
It sounds like you think that people should have the right to defraud others. I don't think you'll find much support for that idea.
One final question, do you understand what my sig means?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I guarantee that if the legal system makes it easier (or more profitable) to sue a news outlet whenever they print lies^H^H^H misrepresent the truth, then you'll see a strong resurgence on fact checking.
As opposed to being stuck in a submerged steel tube for 3-6 months?
saying there is ethics in Journalism is like saying there is virtue among whores
Why would a newspaper call the submitter of an article to fact check the article? Your phone number should have been considered off limits because it was submitted with the article. That you never got a call does nothing to disprove the existence of fact checkers. If anything it bolsters the argument that there was real fact checking happening.
That sounds incredibly 1984 and I'm glad that the media of today has done away with such a draconian idea. Part of the beauty of a free market in information is that opposing viewpoints don't get smothered by the popular madness of the era...
Since when is making shit up that happens to be false an opposing viewpoint? I hope you realize you're sounding a lot more 1984 than what you're criticizing.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
What you call "sarcasm" I have actually witnessed in a fox news fan.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
If they truly wanted to check whether the facts were correct, they wouldn't have called you. After all, you just sent it out, so of course you'd say it was correct.
If they wanted to check the facts correctly, they'd go to someone else and see if the facts agreed.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Just as ants have no concept of your foot squashing them being signs of an advanced intelligence (you), so would flying saucers be considered a sign of beings from another planet. If they exist, (a far more advanced intelligence on earth than humans) then they would be good at keeping themselves hidden and secret.
Maybe they don't understand how we function any more than we understand how ants function.
Maybe by messing with our nukes they are protecting themselves in the way that we brush away ants at our picnics.
Or more realistically, the people who are in-charge of keeping the Dr. Strangelove characters from burning the earth are creating a collective hallucination of flying saucers and destroying the rogue nukes themselves. Since there has never been any real physical evidence of flying saucers actually existing, this is the most likely scenario.
Anyway, we should thank these guys for protecting us from the psychopaths in the military who want to burn the world and rule the ashes.
Do the Soviets (no I don't accept them as 'Russians'), the Chinese, the French, and the British have the same 'problem' with flying saucers fucking around with the nuclear bombs that we do?
Not quite. You still want to verify the submission: make sure that the submitter stands by their words. If they do, but your checking shows that they lied, you have a double whammy. So GP is half-right.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
I laughed so hard reading your post. Having worked for a newspaper, I can assure you they don't fact check as often as you think. Some journos don't fact check at all.
There's been plenty of hoaxes set up to expose how little fact checking there is.
You don't train unicorns. They train you.
Even in Soviet Russia. That's the power of the unicorn.
The enemies of Democracy are
I'm a scientist. I'd like to know the details of this. What does it take to take a missile system offline? Were they taken offline the same way each time? If not, what were the differences? Was there an object spotted every time this occurred? Who else saw it? What did the object look like? How did it move? Were there any lights on it? If yes, what was the shape of the lights? Did they blink? What was the pattern? These are some of the things I would expect to be documented. But they simply aren't. You can bet your ass that if an unauthorized human being came within a mile of a silo, it would be documented! So why aren't these things?
You might, at the very least, confirm that the fax was sent by the person who's phone number is listed as the sender. That information is pretty easy to spoof.
To assume that all military personnel on the base, including the base commander are someone mistaken or crazy seems irrational.
Anyone who doesn't want to believe that some sort of unidentified flying object is buzzing around interfering with our nuclear missiles should try the alternative on for size: The people who are in control of the nuclear missiles are paranoid schizophrenics having delusional episodes while on duty. Somehow, the alien theory seems to be the more comforting alternative.
Since pretty much *anyone* can send a fax and claim it was from somebody else, then the first step would, in fact, likely be to confirm that the information is actually coming from the claimed source ...
I could send a fax right now with the return # of Obama's press agent and claim that I'm implementing a new 15% sales tax to fund healthcare, and the press would be *fools* if they didn't at least check with the real press agent (or whatever the equivalent position is actually called)
Have people gone stupid? The very first thing you should do is verify that the person claiming to have sent you the fax is who they say they are and not someone pretending.
What the UFOs are and where they came from, who knows
More importantly, where did they go? The current patterns do make it look like a cultural phenomenon.
but there is something to these reports
Totally. The question is: What?
The aliens on Earth theory has an incredible amount of holes and empty spaces once you accept it and look to the details. All its magic is in the base assumption. It's the modern day religion - God or UFOs sounds like an incredible thing to have, but every time someone starts to write down the details, it's a piece of crap literature full of continuity errors and outright nonsense.
I personally think these people are completely honest. Just the same way certain religious people are completely honest when talking about how Jesus talks to them. They really believe what they say. That just doesn't make it true.
But for both cases, psychology, not conspiracy theory, gives the most likely explanations as to why they truly believe what has no outside verification.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
If I wanted to use covert drones to monitor enemies' installations, I think I'd test them out on my own first. And I probably wouldn't tell people first (or even afterwards).